Dancing Cloud could feel the pulsing of the blood through his body. Lauralee’s answering heat and excitement was wonderful to behold as she strained her hips upward. He buried himself deeply inside her. He kissed her hungrily. There was only the world of feeling, sliding, touching, throbbing.
He cupped her swelling breasts. They pulsed warmly beneath his fingers. His hands moved downward and cupped her buttocks in a sensual ecstasy. He forced her hips in at his, smooth and hard, as he crushed her against him.
He fought to go slowly, but there was a tingling sensation in his toes that worked its way upward. And then a great flood of sensations swept raggedly through him as their bodies jolted and quivered together.
Great waves of pleasure swept through Lauralee. Ecstasy raged and washed over her in great splashes, drenching her with warmth. She clung to Dancing Cloud and rocked and swayed with him.
And then their bodies stilled against each other. Tilting her head up, her fingers locked around his neck, she brought his mouth down hard upon hers. She moaned against his lips, their naked bodies still fused, flesh against flesh in gentle pleasure.
Sighing, Lauralee released her hold on Dancing Cloud. He slid away from her and lay at her side. They lay there for some time with her stroking his neck gently.
And then they turned and smiled at each other.
“Never shall I be afraid again,” she murmured. “You sent my demons away tonight, my darling.”
“I never shall allow them to return,” Dancing Cloud promised. His hands moved over the glossy-textured skin of her breasts, and down over her ribs. He leaned over her and his lips brushed against the nipple of a breast. He kissed the nipple, sucking it.
Lauralee drew in her breath sharply and gave a little cry. A slow breeze of renewed excitement began like the deep rumblings of a volcano before its eruption.
Dancing Cloud stretched out on his back and lifted Lauralee so that she straddled him. When he entered her again, her hair spilled over her shoulders as she held her head back in ecstasy.
Dancing Cloud pressed himself endlessly deeper inside her. Lauralee moved with him, shocked at her intensity of feelings, of her ability to love so openly and so freely after having feared being with a man for so long.
A sudden curling of heat tightened inside her belly when his hands gently cupped her breasts. Everything but now, but him, and the pleasure, was cast from her mind.
* * *
In Mattoon, Illinois, the inside of Brian’s Place Saloon was enveloped in a foggy haze of smoke. A piano tinkled out a jolly tune in a corner. Several men played billiards at a table swathed in green felt in the center of the room, a kerosene lamp hanging low over it.
Clint McCloud sat on a stool at the bar, enjoying a glass of whiskey and a good, fat cigar after a long day’s labor supervising the replacement of tracks along the Illinois Central Railroad.
An unsociable sort, he did not join in the conversation at the bar. But his ears perked up at what was being said about Abner Peterson’s niece arriving to Mattoon soon from St. Louis.
It was not so much the mention of Abner’s niece that caused Clint to lean closer to listen more intently to the conversation. It was the mention of her escort that made Clint’s eyebrows fork.
An Indian was her escort.
And not just any Indian.
A damn rebel Cherokee who had fought against the North during the Civil War.
From what was being said, he now knew that this Indian had fought for the same regiment that Clint had ambushed that day along the road near the Great Smoky Mountains.
He knew this to be true at the mention of Boyd Johnston’s name. Johnston had been the leader of that Cherokee regiment . . . the very ones responsible for Clint’s wooden leg.
An Indian had done the actual maiming. That Indian’s face had been captured inside Clint’s memory for posterity, like a leaf is fossilized into stone. If this was the same Cherokee, Clint would finally get his revenge. It had been obvious that Boyd Johnston and the Indian who had shot Clint were close friends. It only made sense that if this Boyd Johnston asked an Indian to escort Peterson’s niece to Illinois, then it would more than likely be the Indian who had maimed Clint for life!
Grumbling, Clint slammed a coin on the counter of the bar. Limping, he left the saloon and stepped out on the boardwalk on Broadway Avenue. He stood there for a while as his mind swirled with plans.
He would find this Indian.
He would stalk him.
He would kill him at his first opportunity.
Chapter 9
We parted in silence—our cheeks were wet