The Savage

He settled his body over hers carefully, poising above her. She saw the anticipation in him, and it went beyond uncomplicated lust. She saw determination and desire and fierce longing.

He entered her slowly, with as much care as if she were still his virgin bride—and yet she felt the hardness of his sweat-slick body contract against her, as if the effort at control was almost too much for him. When finally Lance lay sheathed tightly inside her, her breath shallowed to a sigh. The feeling was so sweet, so satisfying, that she never wanted it to end. Except that it did end, and she was glad. When he withdrew in a slow, lingering stroke, he rekindled the passion fire that had only been smoldering in her.

She whimpered his name pleadingly as he came into her again. His tenderness was too gentle for her, too tame, too unsatisfying. Wanting, needing, to draw him deeper, Summer moved her clutching fingers down his sinewed back, over his narrow hips, till she could hold him closer. She felt his masculine buttocks harden in her hands as he thrust faster, deeper, with more gratifying fierceness.

“Summer…” Her name was a hoarse plea as he fought for control.

“Please…” Her reply was just as rasping as she responded to his passion, urging him on.

With a low, primitive growl of need and dominance, his control broke. His hot, hungry mouth found hers as he drove into her relentlessly.

Sobbing, Summer clung to him. She didn’t care about his violence, his crushing weight, the pounding force of his assault. She was too wrapped up in the drugging heat and man-smell of his body, too overwhelmed by the sensations exploding through her to feel anything but need.

They came at the same moment, their bodies contracting and shuddering together, his hoarse shout mingling with her gasping sobs.

Lance came to his senses first, to find himself collapsed heedlessly on Summer. Still panting for breath, his flesh wounds burning, he rolled partially onto his uninjured side, still joined to her, not letting her go. He buried his face in her hair, wondering if the urgency would ever lessen, if his need would ever diminish. He had practically raped her again, when what he really wanted was to safeguard and pleasure and worship her with his body.

Contritely he pressed his lips against the smooth, damp skin of her temple, and cursed himself silently. He didn’t have much practice caring for someone, but he knew a lot about control, about keeping his feelings under tight rein. He sure as hell didn’t know himself when he was near Summer, though. He acted like a damned rutting stallion around her. She was his wife, for Crisssakes, not some whore he could take roughly any time he felt like it. He ought to treat her more gently, but every time he got close to her, he exploded like a sex-starved kid.

He had to get control of himself. Summer was his now. He had won her fairly. There was always the chance that she would renege on their bargain, but he hoped to God he didn’t have to fear such betrayal from her. He had upheld his end, and she would do the same with hers. Summer might not love him, but she would honor her word.

And maybe, in time, she might come to feel something for him, some fraction of the gut-deep, heartsick longing that had tied him up in knots ever since he was a kid.

“Kamakuna.” He spoke softly in Comanche, but he didn’t realize what he’d said until he felt her stir in his arms.

“What did you say?” Summer murmured, her voice sleepy, replete.

Lance remained silent, regretting that he had let the endearment slip out.

“You said something…just now…I didn’t understand.”

“Nothing, it wasn’t important.”

He wasn’t willing to answer with the truth, that he had called her his love. He couldn’t admit his weakness to Summer. A Comanche warrior was supposed to be strong, invincible, unafraid. He wouldn’t divulge his terror of earning her scorn.

His private thoughts would stay secret—unless he voiced them in Comanche. In Indian language he could reveal all the things he felt for Summer. He could tell her how beautiful she was, how much he wanted her, needed her. How glad he was to have her for his wife. He could bare his love-sick soul…

As long as she couldn’t understand what he was saying.

Chapter 15

The immediate danger was over, but the struggle to save her sister was more difficult than Summer ever expected. Amelia lay in a stupor of exhaustion, unable or unwilling to come out of her trance. Summer began to fear for her sanity. More than anything she wanted to take Amelia home to Sky Valley, where she could be safe, but at Lance’s insistence, they remained at the Comanche camp for nearly a week to give Amelia time to recover for the long journey ahead.

Summer never left her bedside, hour after hour speaking softly to her, stroking her hair, holding her if she wanted to be held, washing and anointing her wounds, but it was two full days before the ill woman even recognized Summer as her sister. And then she lay listlessly beneath a blanket, docile and quiet except for frequent trembling fits of terror. She started at the slightest sound, and awoke with nightmares.

All the Comanches terrified her, even gentle, round-faced Short Dress, whose native language, Spanish, Amelia understood fairly well. She couldn’t stand the sight of any male at all, even her brother-in-law, who was half-white and had rescued her from a life of degradation and terror. When Lance entered the tepee merely to speak to Summer, Amelia cringed and started whimpering, burying her face against her sister’s shoulder.

Summer held her soothingly while she wept silently inside. “Melly, it’s only Lance. You’ve known him most of your life. He would never hurt you.”

“He…he’s one of them.”

Summer glanced at him apologetically. Lance’s face had gone stiff with the expressionless mask she was coming to recognize as his defensive shield. “No, Melly. He’s the man who rescued you.”

Shaking now, Amelia shook her head violently. “He touched me, he put his filthy hands on me.”

“Only to dress your wounds. You needed his help, Melly.”

Amelia started crying then, piteously, with short, wrenching sobs. Summer looked helplessly at Lance, who turned on his heel without a word and left the lodge. She wanted to go after him, to ask his forgiveness, but just then her sister needed her more.