Page 14 of Sweet Savage Love
14
P op Wilkins was more talkative than usual over the campfire that night. They had made camp late, in the deceptively transparent twilight of the plains, with the hills behind them still appearing to gnash at the sky with serrated teeth.
“Made it through the pass after all!” Pop said jubilantly. “By Golly, I never did think to feel this good about any damn Injuns being around. But them Comanches, they’re fighters, that bunch—only Injuns the ’paches will run from.”
“Don’t be too sure the Apaches are goin’ to keep their distance for too much longer, though—” Paco Davis warned in his soft, Spanish-accented voice. “They bin used to having things pretty much their own way during the war, and there still ain’t enough cavalry in these parts to stop ’em if they get real proddy—not yet, anyhow.”
Pop pulled nervously at his white mustache.
“You tryin’ to say you think they’ll jump us? Seen any sign up ahead?”
“This is ’pache country,” Paco shrugged. “In fact, it’s pretty certain they’re watchin’ us right now, trying to make up their minds, should they leave us go or not.”
“We’ll be ready for them, anyhow,” Pop said stubbornly. “I’d like to kill me a few ’paches. I seen too often what them devils can do…” lowering his voice, he went on talking, and some of the other men joined in.
Occasionally, Paco glanced across the fire at Steve, but tonight, Steve was letting the others do all the talking, and Paco could not help wondering if his partner’s silence had something to do with the Brandon girl. What had happened between them? He hadn’t asked questions, but he knew Steve Morgan. Women liked him—perhaps because he so obviously didn’t give a damn and they were intrigued by the reckless danger they sensed in him. Steve used women—took them when he felt like it and left them, and most of the time the women knew it would happen, he wasn’t cruel enough to leave them with any illusions. But Ginny Brandon was different. She was too civilized, maybe too naive. She looked all woman and she had a mouth that was made for kissing, but she wasn’t Steve’s type at all, she was too damn vulnerable, that was it.
Tonight, she was doing a pretty fair job of pretending she enjoyed having Carl Hoskins sit so possessively beside her at the other, smaller campfire close to her wagon. She had been flirting openly with Carl ever since Steve had appeared—dusty, tired-looking and unsmiling, with hardly a word for any of them, not even for Paco himself.
Paco wished he knew her well enough to warn her. “Losin’ your papa’s gold ain’t goin’ to hurt you, Miss Brandon; not half as much as you’d hurt if you let yourself get tangled with my partner.”
It would have surprised Ginny, and even Paco himself, if they had known what Steve Morgan’s thoughts were, behind his taciturn and almost sullenly withdrawn appearance tonight.
He should have been thinking about those Apaches, who were somewhere out there in the night, waiting. But he kept hearing Ginny Brandon’s soft, teasing laughter as she made up to Hoskins; found himself unwillingly remembering the feel and texture of her flesh under his mouth. Damn Brandon! Why in hell did he have to send his women along to do his dirty work for him? And damn the complications that Ginny could cause if he let her. She didn’t belong out here in the West—she should have stayed in Paris, or in some sophisticated drawing room back east.
Ginny Brandon’s hair shone coppery in the firelight, and she was leaning against Carl Hoskins’ shoulder. Carl would be better for a girl like her anyhow; he’d probably want to marry her right off if he took her virginity, and that way, if he was smart enough, he’d be cutting himself in for a bigger share of the profits in Brandon’s grandiose schemes…one of which, at least, he and Paco were supposed to nip in the bud.
Abruptly, Steve came to his feet. He caught Paco’s quizzical look and yawned ostentatiously.
“Guess I’ll turn in. Figure to be gone before daylight, so you can head ’em out around six, if I’m not back before then.”
He disappeared into the darkness, and Ginny, in spite of her outward preoccupation with Carl, was vividly aware of his going.
So he thought he could ignore her? The memory of the way she had all but thrown herself at him—her own surprising response to the almost brutal intimacy of his caresses that morning, stained her cheeks with blood, and she was glad of the warm orange glow of the fire; glad that no one would notice. From now on, she thought viciously, it would be she who ignored his presence—she would act as if he did not exist, as if the interlude that morning had been merely amusing to her, a scheme to make Carl jealous.
Ginny laughed softly at something Carl had said, aware that his eyes had hardly left her all evening. Carl was nice—he was handsome, and he was civilized, which was more than one could say for Steve Morgan.
When Sonya suggested that since they were all tired and would have to start out so early in the morning, perhaps it would be best to retire, Ginny smiled at her sweetly and insincerely and begged that she might be allowed to sit a little longer by the fire. She caught Sonya’s small, hurt frown, but preferred to ignore it.
They sat by the fire, she and Carl, until it had burned down into embers, and she needed the shawl he had so thoughtfully brought out for her earlier. Except for the cook, who lay rolled in his blankets by the chuckwagon, they were alone.
Carl’s arm was around her waist—she felt his warm breath against her temples when he kissed her lightly.
If it had been Steve Morgan, he would not have been content with that, she thought angrily. Why didn’t Carl turn her face up to his and kiss her? Everyone else was asleep, why didn’t he do something? I keep forgetting that Carl is a gentleman, she thought, he is hardly the kind of man who would pull a female roughly into his arms and kiss her until she falls breathless; he would not…
As if he had sensed her thoughts he said tentatively, “Ginny? Perhaps it is time I took you back to your wagon now, your stepmother might think…”
She wanted to retort, “do you care so much what everyone else might think? Don’t you want to kiss me, Carl?” but she only gave him a half-drowsy murmur instead, and let him help her to her feet.
In the small, dark space between her wagon and the next, he surprised her by taking her uncertainly into his arms, his mouth finding hers almost by chance.
Her mouth was soft, half-open under his, and made bolder by the fact that she did not attempt to pull away from him, Carl kissed her hard and almost desperately, drawing her body closer to his, wanting to feel the soft swell of her breasts against him. She had only wanted to make him jealous by riding with Morgan this morning, Carl was sure of that now. Maybe her sudden and unexpected flirtation with the man had been merely her woman’s way of telling Carl to move faster—maybe he’d been too respectful, too patient and gentle with her. He had begun to feel, this evening, that under her soft and ladylike exterior there was a streak of wildness in Ginny Brandon. Let her find out that he was a man, as well as a gentleman.
Carl could feel his own breathing come harder, almost ragged. Her body was molded against his now, and desire swelled in him. By God, he thought, By God, she was his—he could take her, and she would not stop him. He forgot who she was and who he was, feeling only the urgency of the male need in him, the softness of her woman’s body. It had been a long time since he’d had a woman—too long. Almost involuntarily, his arms tightened around her, and he heard the soft expulsion of her breath. All this time, she had neither responded nor rejected, merely accepting his kiss, but now, suddenly, he felt her hands come up and push against his chest, her head twisting to escape his lips. What in hell kind of game was she playing? And then the thought—had he frightened her with the ardor of his lovemaking?
“No, Carl, no!” she was whispering, face turned away from his now, small clenched fists still pushing against him.
“Ginny—honey, you’re so beautiful, so—”
“Carl—” her voice stronger now, more urgent, “that’s enough, Carl—you mustn’t—we mustn’t—”
“Oh, God, Ginny! I’d never hurt you, I swear! But you’re enough to set any man crazy, just being near you—”
He let his arms loosen around her, in spite of the blood pounding in his veins that urged him to take her, push her up against the wagon and make her cry out to him with a need as big as his. But she was a Senator’s daughter, and a decent woman—not the kind a man could force or seduce in a night. She’d want to be courted, of course, he had to be careful—
“Carl—I—I really think I ought to go inside now, I—”
“I love you, Ginny,” he said almost desperately, arms still holding her, “I wouldn’t do anything to hurt or upset you, you know that. I want to marry you, if you’ll have me—I’ll speak to your father.”
“No!” she said sharply. “Carl—no!” And then, as if she regretted her sharpness she added hesitatingly, “It’s too soon—I don’t really know you yet. And—and I don’t really know myself!”
He could not help himself—the more he felt her withdraw from him, the more he wanted her. Hating himself for pleading, he could not prevent the words.
“One more kiss then, Ginny—please, honey, just one more. And I won’t push you, I promise, I’ll let you take as much time as you want deciding—Ginny, let me kiss you—”
Because she was trapped, and she had deliberately led him into this impossible situation, Ginny turned her lips up to Carl’s again, closing her eyes against the abject, hungry look in his face. Carl’s mouth attacked hers again, his kisses wet and searching, and she shuddered uncontrollably, a shudder he mistook for desire. Why couldn’t she feel anything when Carl kissed her? Minutes ago she had wanted his kisses, had deliberately led him to this moment, but when he’d put his arms around her she had merely felt stifled; when he’d kissed her she’d found it faintly repulsive. And now, she felt she couldn’t stand the feel of his mouth on hers another instant. Instinct made her push fiercely against him until he released her, and with a mumbled “I’m sorry, Carl!” she picked up her skirts and stumbled away from him, back to the safety of the embered fire and her own wagon. And only the strongest amount of self-control made her wait until she was inside the wagon before she snatched up a damp washrag and dragged it fiercely across her lips, rubbing away the damp feel of his kisses.
Sonya called softly from her bunk, “Ginny? Is anything wrong, love?”
“Nothing—I’m sorry if I woke you—it’s so hot, that’s all!”
Ginny was ashamed of herself the next moment, for having sounded almost harsh. Poor Sonya! And poor Carl too, she thought as she stripped off her petticoats and lay down. What is the matter with me?
Ginny felt as if she had hardly fallen asleep when the camp was aroused the next morning by shouts and the pounding feet of excited men. It was Pop Wilkins who broke the news. One of the guards they had posted had been found dead, with an Apache arrow in him; his body still warm. And there had been an attempt to stampede the herd which had failed, Pop said fiercely, because these cattle weren’t as easily stampeded as longhorns would have been.
“Good thing them cowpunchers was kinda prepared for trouble,” he explained briefly as the mules were being hastily harnessed. “Shot a couple of ’paches, they said, but the devils took their dead away with ’em like they allus do.”
Ginny had to bite back the question that almost leaped to her tongue. Where had the scouts been? She remembered, last night, that Steve Morgan had said he’d be leaving before dawn. Suppose—
Surprising her, Sonya asked the question.
“Mr. Wilkins, one minute, please! Our scouts, are they all right?”
“Morgan, he’s the one found poor Blackie. He took off after the ’paches, an’ sent Davis to warn the men lookin’ after the herd. Guess he got there just in time—they said he had about six Apaches screamin’ after him.” Seeing the expression on the women’s faces, Pop said quickly that they weren’t to be alarmed, they would move ahead very slowly, with armed men riding alongside each wagon.
Ginny insisted on driving the wagon, Sonya beside her with a loaded rifle across her lap. Thank God Sonya knew how to use a gun. And thank God for the reassuring feel of the pistol she had concealed in the pocket of her own dress. It didn’t quite seem real. They had come all these miles without seeing a hostile Indian, and now, the knowledge that somewhere out there were hard-faced brown men in whose breasts burned a hatred for all white men and the desire to kill—well, it did not seem possible!
They camped just before noon, when Steve Morgan rode back to confer with Pop Wilkins; the wagons circling with the ease of long practice. But this, Ginny was soon to discover, was to be no ordinary nooning. They were going to prepare to defend themselves—already the men were working with grim efficiency, driving the mules and horses into a hastily constructed remuda—“sheeting” the wagons with extra thick layers of canvas stretched from wheel to wheel; linking the wagons together with heavy chains.
There was no time now to ask questions. Biting her lip, Ginny had to be content with keeping busy, helping Sonya and Tillie pile boxes, anything heavy against the side of the wagon from which the attack would come, with spaces between for rifles. Later, there would be bullets to make, extra powder and lead to be distributed to the men. Sonya worked silently, with a film of perspiration beading her pale face. Tillie was frankly terrified, her usually nimble fingers all fumbles.
From overhearing the men talk, they knew there was a large band of Apaches concealed somewhere in the bluffs ahead of them. Men who called this vast and forbidding country their home and knew every inch of it. Ginny found it hard to analyze her feelings. She was afraid—and yet the feeling of unreality was still too strong. It didn’t seem possible that she was in the middle of this strange and unfamiliar emptiness, instead of being safely home in her beloved France. California seemed eons away now—would she ever get there, would any of them? And even her father’s great plan, the heavy gold concealed so snugly in the false bottom to their wagon, that too seemed part of a dream.
What would happen? When would they attack? If she closed her eyes for an instant, Ginny could see them in her imagination—a horde of painted warriors, brandishing their weapons, screaming their war cries. She suddenly remembered the way that Steve Morgan had ridden into camp on that evening, his blue eyes bright with devilry, yelling defiantly like a Comanche warrior. And then the forbidden, shameful thought, why do I have to think about him? Why couldn’t it be Carl’s kisses that make me feel weak and helpless?
She had seen Carl that morning and he had smiled at her a trifle shamefacedly, but since their nooning he had been busy with their preparations for defense. Suddenly, some two hours later, she looked up from loading one of their pistols and he was there, his face serious.
“I’m going now with some of the boys to see to the cattle, but I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Mistaking her silence for concern he said reassuringly, “Don’t worry, Ginny, it’s not likely they’ll attack just yet. I was talking to Paco Davis a while back and he says they’re still mourning their dead of this morning. He says it takes them quite a while. But I have to see that the cattle are bedded down someplace safe.”
“Be careful, Carl.”
There was nothing else she could say. He leaned down from his horse and caught her hand, squeezing it a moment longer than necessary.
“I’ll be careful. I’ve got reason to be. You’ll stay in the wagon, won’t you? Anyhow, stay within the clearing.”
Silently, she watched him ride away, aware of Tillie’s sudden presence at her side.
“Sure is a handsome gentleman, that one,” Tillie commented, and Ginny wondered how much the girl really observed.
The cook had a fire going already, and with Zack’s unwilling help was starting to prepare supper. Occasionally, one of the men wandered over and helped himself to a cup of hot coffee.
Sonya was resting, having declared that she knew she wouldn’t sleep a wink all night, and Ginny, who privately agreed with her stepmother, told Tillie that she might as well get some rest too.
“But Lord, Miss Ginny, how’s a body to rest knowin’ any moment them painted devils could come rushin’ out at us?”
“I told you, Tillie, we’ve done everything we can. And we have enough men and guns to hold off a small army. Papa made sure of that before we left San Antonio. They’ll attempt to attack us and we will beat them off. And that will be the end of it.”
Ginny’s words sounded braver in her ears than she actually felt, but having said them, she felt better. The sun beat hotly down on her, its burning heat seeming to seep into her body, and she was young and alive and the possibility of dying was unthinkable.
And yet, she thought a little later, walking with Tillie to the water wagon to refill their water casks, and yet if I’m to die today or tomorrow I’ll be sorry at that moment, because I haven’t really lived yet; there is so much I’ve not experienced, or only half-felt—there’s so much more I want to know before I die.
She was to remember this thought later, when it was night and a quarter moon hung in the sky and after interminable hours of waiting the Indians still had not attacked. They had all eaten early, with little appetite, and the only fire permitted was a very small one, hardly more than a bed of embers in a scooped out depression in the ground. Two large coffee pots stayed warm here, but there had not been the usual talk and laughter over coffee that night.
They had waited all afternoon, keyed up and tense, and nothing had happened. And Paco Davis had said, with a reassuring look at the women, that Apaches seldom attacked at night.
“Look out for the first light, though,” he added in warning to Pop. “They figure that’s the best time to catch a man off-guard, when he’s been up without sleep all night an’ it’s just beginning to catch up with him.”
“Ain’t gonna catch us nappin’ though!” Wilkins said fiercely. His white-bearded face looked bleak and craggy in the dim light. Ginny remembered the story she’d heard about how Pop had come back from town one day to find his cabin burned and his wife and children dead and horribly mutilated. It must be a terrible thought for a man to live with, she thought; eating into him. No wonder he hated Indians so much!
And then there was Steve Morgan, who with his soft, strangely graceful walk was like an Indian himself, and had even lived among them and fought with them. She remembered the Apache scalps at his saddle and shivered. He was a violent man. He’d fight with the Indians and against them—and he’d kill a white man as easily as he would an Indian. For pay. He was no more than a mercenary, and she must keep reminding herself of that, especially when his eyes met hers, as they sometimes did accidentally.
Night was a strange half-light on the restless plains and ridges. The movement of the wind could be the movement of Apaches, creeping on their bellies like snakes, and just as soundless. Men stayed awake, taking turns, while others slept under the wagons.
The small clearing in the center of the circled wagons looked completely deserted when Ginny, the moon and the night-sounds making her restless, pulled aside the canvas flap to peer out. Tonight even Cookie slept inside a wagon, concealed like the rest of the men from eyes that might watch.
Two wagons away, she knew that Steve Morgan slept under the heavily constructed wagon that held their spare guns and ammunition. When Paco, half-joking, had declared that he sure wasn’t going to be the one blown up in smoke by a chance fire arrow, Steve had shrugged laughingly.
“Don’t make any difference to me. I’ll take that one.”
She’d watched him take his blanket roll and spread it under the wagon, only half-aware of the pressure of Carl’s hand on hers.
“Ginny,” he had whispered, “take care. Try to get some sleep.”
She’d promised she would, and yet now, while Tillie and even Sonya slept heavily, tired out by the waiting and the tension, it was she who could not close her eyes.
It was intolerably hot and stifling under the heavy canvas top of the wagon. No air here, and yet outside the wind stirred tall grass and coyotes howled. I’m afraid, she thought, and then quickly, no, I’m not afraid, I’m just—I don’t know, just restless. It’s the waiting, the stillness, the not knowing. And being alone.
She was half-tempted to make enough noise to wake Sonya, so that they could huddle together and whisper their shared fears.
Ginny opened the flap again, and the faint glow of ashed coals, the black outline of the coffee pot drew her. If she had a cup of hot coffee it might help, although this western coffee was like nothing she had ever tasted before—only bearable when drunk very hot, so that the burning would take away some of the bitterness.
She had undressed for sleeping, wearing only her lightest shift, but now, hardly thinking, she pulled the sweat-damp garment roughly over her head, and put on one of her dark cotton dresses. Strange, and somehow almost sensuous, the feel of the soft material against her bare skin. Why were women forced to wear so much under their clothes?
Stepping very carefully over Tillie’s sleeping form, picking her skirts up high, Ginny lifted the canvas flap and left the wagon.
She could not remember afterwards if she had somehow known or only sensed it would happen. She crouched by the small warmth of the burned-out fire, reaching for the coffee pot, and she felt his hands in her hair. She could not move, did not turn, but she knew who it was, just as if she had been waiting for him.
“You shouldn’t be out here.”
“I know. I couldn’t sleep. Why couldn’t you?”
She hadn’t turned her head yet, but she heard him chuckle softly.
“I’m a light sleeper. And then again—”
His hands moved slowly down the back of her neck, lifting the heavy coil of hair, and she trembled at the light, warmly caressing touch of his lips.
“Nights like this, when even the wind is hot and the coyotes howl at the moon and I know we’ll be in a fight—I don’t usually sleep much. I’d like to be riding, or maybe just running, no place in particular, like the Apaches do.”
She turned around quickly, trying to read his shadowed face.
“But you’re a man. If not tonight, then there can be other nights. You’re free to ride where you please, when you please. It’s so frustrating to be a woman, to have to wait until someone accompanies you. Sometimes I feel that being a woman is worse than being a child—we have the intelligence and the feelings of adults, but we aren’t permitted to show them.”
“Was that why you couldn’t sleep? Because you feel frustrated and restless?”
They were both kneeling, staring into each other’s face. Her fingers plucked nervously at her skirt until he put his hand over hers, stilling its movement.
“I wish—it seems as though every time we meet we are either quarrelling or—or—can’t we talk?”
“This isn’t the time or the place for talking, and I’m in no mood to play the gentleman and flirt with you under the stars, Ginny Brandon,” he said roughly. Before she could answer he had pulled her to her feet, holding both her hands.
“If you know what is good for you,” he continued, still with the same note of suppressed violence in his voice, “you’ll pick up your skirts and go back to bed to dream your safe little virgin dreams. Because if you stay out here I’m going to take you under that wagon with me and make love to you. You know that, don’t you?”
He was too close to her, she thought feverishly. There was no time for thinking, and how could she think clearly when he was already taking her with him?
It was warm and dark under the wagon, like a cave, isolating them both. Her body felt stiff and unyielding as he lay down beside her; like a board, she thought—that would splinter and break if he touched her—and then his arms took her and held her close against him, and after a while, because he did nothing else, she could feel herself beginning to relax.
He held her quietly, his breath warm against her cheek, and as some of the tenseness left her she began to tremble slightly. Bemused as she was, from somewhere she found the strength to whisper, “I—I don’t even know what—what it is I’m supposed to do—what—”
“Hush. There’s nothing you’re supposed to do. I’m going to kiss you, that’s all. Turn your face to me, Ginny.”
Blindly, not daring to open her eyes yet, she moved her face up to his, and he kept kissing her for a long time until some of the warmth of his body and his mouth had penetrated to hers and she began to kiss him back. Gently, gently, while they kissed, she felt him take the pins from her hair, letting the heavy mass of it fall over her back and shoulders.
His lips moved slowly and lingeringly from her mouth to her earlobe and she could feel him, for a moment, bury his face in her hair. She could feel the stirring in him and in her, and she wanted to speak, to tell him that she was afraid, and then his mouth covered hers again and it was too late.
His hands moved over her breasts and down the length of her body, exploring its curves and hollows through the thin cotton gown. When his fingers began to unfasten the hooks and buttons that held it together she shivered, but could no more move to resist him than he, at this moment, could have stopped himself.
With her mouth still clinging to his and her arms around his neck Ginny forced herself by an effort of will to lie acquiescent under his hands. She had wanted this—with one part of her mind she realized dimly that perhaps she had wanted to lie with him just this way from the very beginning, when he had first seized her and kissed her so brutally. But none of her imaginings had ever been like this reality—“the thing that men and women do together” that she and her friends had discussed in whispers at the convent as something terrible and frightening but inevitable, had surely nothing to do with what was happening now!
Gentle, still kissing her, he was easing her arms from around his neck, and again Ginny shivered as she felt her gown, her last defense, slip from her body. She had not thought that he’d want her completely naked, and it was only by closing her eyes tightly and gritting her teeth together that she could control her own instinctive shyness and the protests that welled up in her throat.
At least, thank God, he seemed to know exactly what to do, exactly how to still her unspoken fears. For all his previous roughness and harshness, he was now only gentle with her, his hands patient with her shrinking flesh.
His own fully clad body half covering hers now, his leg thrown over her to keep her still, his hands resumed their exploring—his fingers brushing like fire against her skin.
She felt his mouth on her breasts, lips and tongue teasing her nipples until she groaned, a muted, strangely incoherent sound, and at the same time, taking her by surprise, his hands moved lower.
“Don’t, love—don’t cross your legs against me. Your body is so beautiful you’ve no need to be ashamed of it…”
He kissed her hair and eyes and face and the pulse that beat in the hollow of her throat and then her breasts again until she was flushed and shaking with a recurrence of the same wild and thoughtless emotions that had swept over her before when he had held her and kissed her the last time, up in the hills.
Suddenly his hands were between her thighs, stroking the soft inner skin very gently, moving upward—she gave an instinctive, incoherent cry as his fingers found her and he muffled it against his mouth.
“Be still, love—I’ll be gentle—just be still now—”
He spoke to her as softly and coaxingly as if she were a mare to be tamed and gentled for her first mounting, and after a while she forgot who she was and who he was and gave in, letting his fingers have their way, her body writhing and straining upward against his, aching for something she couldn’t yet understand or recognize until she found it at last; her arms going upward to hold him closer, closer, her body straining against his until she came floating, shuddering back to reality, her eyes flying open.
She was aware, without actually seeing them, of the blueness of his eyes, the shape and texture of his lips against hers as he kissed her tenderly, caressingly, his arms now holding her cradled against him.
“Oh God,” she started to whisper, “I didn’t know…”
“You don’t know—not yet, my sweet,” he told her softly. “There’s more. You’re going to undress me now.”
“I—I can’t!”
“Yes, you can. There’s nothing to be afraid of, you know that now, don’t you? And you’ve come too far to back off…”
But in the end, because her fingers were shaking and clumsy, he had to help her. Ginny kept her eyes closed until he forced her to look at him.
“A man’s body isn’t half as mysterious as a woman’s is,” he teased her. “You have the advantage, love, of being able to keep your feelings better hidden.”
“Oh!” she said softly, half-afraid, when he put her hand on him; and he laughed.
“Is that all you have to say? You were more vocal a short while ago.”
“Oh, don’t! I—you make me feel—I am embarrassed, I suppose. Is that so strange?”
“All right, honey—I won’t rush you. Let’s start from the top. Touch me—or aren’t you curious any longer?”
Shyly, hesitantly, she reached out with both hands and put them against his chest, under the shirt he still wore, running her fingers along muscles that ridged under them. Her exploration stopped abruptly.
“You—there is a scar, right here—you’ve been wounded?”
“Bullet wound. And if you keep on you’ll find more scars—mostly knives or bullets. You see what a reckless life I lead?”
“You make me feel reckless too.”
She whispered the words and he turned over onto his side and began kissing her again, his fingers moving very lightly over the skin of her back and thighs.
This time, when she had found her breath again, she became bolder, she found herself wanting to touch him, wanting to become as familiar with his hard man’s body as he was with hers. Her hands moved impatiently, pulling the shirt away from him, finding more scars, muscles that moved under her fingers, and then finally, more slowly, over his flat, hard-muscled belly, feeling him stiffen and catch his breath.
The knowledge that she, with her untaught hands, could excite him as much as he’d excited her, made her brave. Her hand slipped lower, hesitated, and then touched, held him.
“Oh, Ginny!” he half-groaned, and then added more lightly, “there—that wasn’t too bad, was it? No—don’t take your hand away, not yet—not until I’ve taught you what to do with it when you have it—”
His hand taught her the motion and he began kissing her again; hard and almost brutally this time.
She felt him nudge her over onto her back and her hands dropped away from him as his tongue started to trace patterns over her flesh, making it tingle. This time, she let him part her thighs without a murmur, and his hands were gentle between them. But when his head moved lower, Ginny felt her body arch with shock—her fingers caught his hair and she could almost have screamed.
“No! Oh, please, Steve, don’t —I don’t think—”
“For God’s sake, Ginny, you’re as beautiful down there as—ah, hell—” he seemed to catch himself, and his body slid, slowly and reluctantly upward over hers, his weight pinning her down helplessly.
“I’m going too fast for you, I guess, but it’s damned hard not to—it’s damned hard to remember you’re—”
She felt the molding of his body against hers, the hardness and impatience of him, and she was suddenly as tired of the waiting as he was.
“I don’t want to be a virgin any longer. I want to know, Steve—”
“All right honey, all right—let’s put an end to your damned virginity then—”
His knees were between her thighs, holding them apart. His hands held hers, and she felt his body rest against hers for a moment before it was lifted, poised, and then, as he began to penetrate her, his mouth stopped her moans.
He was gentle at first, as he’d promised, and very slow—lulling her into an almost-security until that final, terrible thrust like a knife inside her, making her body heave upward in agony, her scream lost and muffled against his encroaching lips. He stayed inside her without moving, embedded in her, his body a part of hers, and then, in another minute he began to move again, inexorably and steadily, ignoring her struggles which gave way, gradually, as the pain lessened and finally disappeared, to a kind of stunned complaisance.
Why had he changed so fast, from gentleness to that final, fierce hurt? Ginny lay under him, panting, her eyes open and staring up into his face until he released her wrists and told her to put her arms around him.
“You—but you hurt me!” she whispered accusingly, even while she was already obeying him, her arms clinging to him.
“It’ll never hurt again, love—it’ll only get better…”
She felt his hand on her breasts—his movements quickened, and then suddenly her body was moving with his, matching his pace and his rhythms, and she was discovering that he was right—there was no more pain; only the urgent, driving motion of his body as he took her with him.
Lying there against him with his arms still around her, holding her closely, she thought, Nothing can ever be the same again—nothing, and then, listening to the sound of his quickened breathing, Now I know what it is, to have a man—this is what it’s like….
It felt strange to remember that only a few weeks ago he had been a cold, hard and rather frightening stranger—a man she had disliked and mistrusted; and tonight, he was her lover. Ginny found herself wondering about all the other women he must have had, might have made love to as tenderly as he had made love to her. Had it been this way with that woman, the one he’d called Frenchy? And then while he still held her cradled in his arms she felt him begin to move within her again, and she did not want to think of anything but the fact that he wanted her, and he had made it wonderful and not at all frightening, and he must love her, he must, or he would not hold her this way, kissing her softly, calling her “love.”
Her hands slipped down his back and felt the tensing and untensing of his muscles—up again to touch the long hair at the back of his neck that curled against her fingers.
Very gradually, Ginny felt the cadence of his breathing and his thrusting into her increase, and by instinct, she matched her movements to his. She felt again the now familiar warmth and pulsing in her loins and her own body’s arching twisting movements as he took her to forgetfulness and fulfillment and back.
And afterwards she was so weak, her limbs so lifeless that she had hardly the strength left to return his kisses or to protest when he took a clean neckerchief, wet it from his canteen and sponged her hot, perspiring body very gently—the cold wetness making her gasp as he drew the damp cloth across her breasts, over her belly, and even between her thighs.
He helped her dress, over her inarticulate murmurings that she did not want to move yet, she was too tired….
“If you stayed here with me, I’d be tempted to make love to you all night,” he said softly, half teasingly. And then, more soberly, “Have you forgotten the Apaches out there? Better go to your wagon and try to get some sleep.”
He took her as far as her wagon, kissing her lightly, and she had to be content with that—that, and the fact that he stood there watching until she had crawled back inside and pulled the flap down behind her.