Page 15 of Wild Sweet Wilderness (Missouri #1)

Simon passed through the country with eyes as bleak as Berry’s had been when she passed through it. The only difference was that his eyes searched for signs of her passing. He thanked God for the time he had spent with Light and for all Light had taught him about the wilderness. Unerringly he followed the trail the Indians had taken, guided by a broken branch, a scuff mark on a stone, or the strands of silky black hair left caught on a brush or a low limb. He made his way rapidly through the forest by day, pausing only when darkness came.

It had not taken much wilderness training to read the sign the morning he found Berry’s camp. Two Indians, more than likely renegade Shawnee, had surprised her as she prepared to camp for the night. It was plain that there had been a struggle and that she had been knocked to the ground. She had crawled under a bush, and when she stood, she had been knocked to the ground again. Simon found where she had been tied to a tree; found her discarded grub bag and saddle. The Indians had made no attempt to erase the signs of the abduction. They must have been sure they wouldn’t be followed.

Simon was no longer able to whip up his anger to crowd the heavy worry and dread from his mind. He knew his only hope of finding her alive was to stay on the trail and pray that he caught up with her and her abductors before they caught up with the rest of their party.

At night, while attempting to rest, he relived every minute of the time he’d spent with her. It haunted him now, the way she had returned his kisses and pushed her trusting young body against his. Beset with loneliness, his thoughts turned inward. He thought back to the evening he first saw Berry bending over the cookfire. He felt once again her difference from all other woman—her boundless pride, the stubbornness of her will, and her deep-rooted integrity. There is much more to Berry Warfield than her startling beauty, he decided solemnly.

Simon was not naive enough to believe in love at first sight. He was not even sure he knew what this thing called love was all about. He’d only heard about it. But it was reasonable to believe it could not flower until the seed had been fertilized with understanding and nurtured by acceptance. It seemed that Berry had neither understood nor accepted him, or she would have been waiting for his return.

Did he love her? He felt a strong animal hunger when he was near her, but he didn’t regard that physical urge as a sign of love. He’d had that feeling before. But right from the start he’d felt a need to help Berry. He thought about that fact very carefully; that, and the happiness he felt when he was with her. She made him laugh, made his heart sing.

God, what a fool he’d been to think he wanted her merely as a nucleus around which to build a family. It was torture now to think he had laughed when she had said she wanted love. At last he realized the truth about his feelings for her, and it was a truth that was both frightening and exhilarating. His feeling for her was deep and eternal, and it bound him forever to this girl who had first touched his heart.

“Goddammit!”

he hissed under his breath.

“Why was I such a fool? Why didn’t I just marry her when Fain married Rachel?”

He dozed and his dreams were filled with haunting memories of silky black curls spilling down on snowy-white shoulders, clinging arms, and firm young breasts.

Strange, pleading green eyes looked out of the darkness and begged him to hurry.

At daylight he saddled his horse.

When I find her, he vowed silently, I’ll keep her with me always.

At noon he found traces of a bivouac of the preceding night and knew he was closing the gap.

This time care had been taken to remove the sign.

Wilted leaves on an overhanging branch were evidence that a fire had been built beneath them.

A careful search revealed rabbit hair at a spot beside the spring where the grass was trampled down, and where a knife had stabbed the earth.

Droppings from the mare indicated the direction in which they had gone.

The heat became blistering.

Swarms of gnats, flies, and mosquitoes plagued him.

He paced himself and conserved his strength and that of his horse as he followed the trail of the Shawnee braves and Berry.

As he traveled deeper into the wilderness Simon was quick to note that the braves were becoming increasingly careless again and made no attempt to cover their trail.

Finally Simon surmised that they were traveling at night.

Their haste made Simon uneasy.

He was almost sure they were hurrying to meet a larger party.

At dusk one evening he detected the odor of a wood fire.

He slowed his horse to a cautious walk.

Taking care to make no noise, he glided through the trees, his rifle cocked and ready for instant use.

When he heard the sounds of shouting and raucous laughter in the distance, he dismounted, tied his horse, and crept toward the edge of the woods.

The noise became louder, and soon he saw that a clearing lay beyond the trees and brush.

He crept closer, moving at a snail’s pace.

A bright glow told him that a cookfire was burning.

He crouched behind the trunk of a giant oak.

The first thing he saw was Berry.

The sight of her was both startling and sickening.

Her thick black hair hung in a tangle down her back.

She wore nothing at all except her thin shift.

Her hands were tied behind her back with a thong, and she looked as if she was about to drop in her tracks.

Her captors had doused her with water so that her shift clung to her young body like a second skin, revealing rosy-tipped breasts and the dark patch between her thighs.

Her captors were forcing her to dance around the campfire.

Shouting and leaping, two braves danced in and out of the firelight and around Berry as she was forced to keep pace with them.

Another Indian and two squaws sat cross-legged on the ground.

Although the language was impossible for Simon to understand, he knew they were heaping insults on her.

However, verbal abuse was the least of her torments.

One of the braves, one with the ugliest face Simon had ever seen, reached with both hands for her breasts.

When she jerked away from him and tried to kick him, the other brave wrapped his hand with her hair, forcing her to stand and endure the rough fondling.

When the dancing resumed, a fat squaw lashed at her legs with a makeshift whip of supple vine.

She cried out in anguish and the entire party became still more excited and howled with laughter.

Simon shielded his eyes from the glare of the fire.

Attempting to close his mind to the pain Berry was forced to endure, he made a careful assessment of the camp.

In addition to the two braves who were dancing, a third was sitting quietly beside the fire, and another lay in the grass beside the ragged, ill-kept tepee.

The two squaws, both fairly young, rose to their feet.

One was wearing Berry’s dress, the other her shoes and stiff-brimmed bonnet.

The one in the shoes fell and lay in the grass giggling.

She reached for a bag and squirted some of its contents into her mouth.

They were drinking fermented berry juice! The two squaws and the old Indian beside the fire were drunk.

Simon didn’t know about the one lying in the grass or the two who danced beside the fire.

He was sure the two dancing braves were working themselves into a frenzy and that he’d have to act soon.

He steeled himself to the sound of Berry’s cries as the squaws continued to lash her.

The situation was discouraging.

He had one shot and the knife.

He’d not have a chance to reload before they were on him unless he could take them by surprise and take out at least two of them.

Berry’s sobs increased his sense of helpless frenzy while he tried to form a plan of action.

He had little fear of the squaws, but four braves were more than he could handle at the moment, and he couldn’t stand by and wait for them to tire of their play and bed down.

Thunder rumbled in the distance.

A few spatters of rain fell.

The wind picked up and sent sparks from the fire flying off into the night.

Simon backed off, circled the camp, and came up behind the tepee.

Carefully he cut the leather lacing until the skins were hanging on the poles.

On his hands and knees he crawled to where the brave lay sleeping in the grass.

In one quick, dispassionate movement, he drew his knife across the brave’s throat, stopping his drunken snores.

A crack of thunder sounded and a flash of lightning illuminated the sky.

The storm was moving swiftly, and a strong wind, hot and humid, suddenly sprang up, making the loose skins flap on the poles.

It’s too much to hope the wind will blow the skins toward the fire and cause a diversion, Simon thought.

The Indians seemed indifferent to the approaching storm.

Simon circled the camp again and came as close to Berry as possible.

She lay prostrate on the ground, the women capering around her.

He dropped to his knee and chose his target.

The ugly Indian seemed to be the most dangerous.

Just as more thunder shook the heavens he squeezed off a shot.

The Indian clutched his chest and dropped to his knees, then stretched out in the grass.

Simon waited for the confusion he was sure would follow.

He could scarcely believe his good fortune when he realized that none of the others were aware of what had happened.

Simon’s shot had been lost in the boom of thunder.

He quickly opened his powder bag and prepared to reload.

At that moment the earth shook as a crack of thunder split the sky.

A deluge of rain drenched the entire area.

He grabbed for the bag. Too late! His powder would be too wet to use for many hours. The downpour reduced the fire to a few faint embers, then darkness.

Simon had no opportunity to develop a plan of assault.

He was barely able to see.

He knew the two braves were similarly hampered.

Shouting at the top of his lungs, he sprang into the clearing.

“Ye . . . ooo! Run, Berry! For God’s sake, run!”

He reversed his hold on his rifle and, grasping it by the barrel, swung the butt in a vicious arc, gambling that the braves would be unable to discharge their weapons.

He was wrong.

A bullet sang past his ear, but his initial gamble paid off as the butt of his rifle connected with the side of the brave’s head.

The man doubled over.

The wind came howling through the trees, sending the skins from the tepee into the fray, swishing and swirling.

Simon ran to Berry and with a single slash of his knife cut the bonds that held her wrists.

At that instant one of the squaws landed on Simon’s back and sent him sprawling in the mud.

He rolled over in an attempt to shake off the determined woman.

She was biting and kicking and her hands wound in his hair.

He didn’t want to kill her, but he had to get rid of her! He grabbed her hair, pulled her face around, and hit her with all his strength.

She loosened her hold and fell limply to the ground.

The lightning came again, followed by thunder and more lightning.

He saw Berry on her feet.

The wind catapulted her toward him.

He grabbed her arm and together they stumbled back to where he had dropped his rifle when the squaw attacked him.

The rain was coming down so hard that it was impossible to see more than a few feet.

He half-dragged, half-led the dazed girl toward the forest.

“Can you run?”

he shouted.

It had all happened so fast that Berry hadn’t until now realized who had rescued her.

Recognition, combined with her fear of the Indians, galvanized her into action.

She ran far faster than she had ever believed herself capable of.

Several times she stumbled and fell, but Simon hauled her to her feet and they ran on.

The rain continued, making the night so black that it took Simon some time to find his horse.

But at last they found him in a grove of maples, indifferent to the downpour.

Simon climbed into the saddle and pulled Berry up behind him.

Her arms encircled his waist and she pressed her face to his back.

Flash followed flash of lightning and the thunder crashed continuously.

The wind tore at her hair and the icy rain poured over her.

She leaned gratefully against Simon, her breasts pressed tightly to his back and her face buried in his sodden shirt.

He moved the horse recklessly through the dense forest.

Berry didn’t know how he had found her or where they were going. All that mattered to her was that he was here. This was her man. He had come for her!

It seemed like hours had passed and still the rain came down.

Simon kept the big stallion moving at a steady pace.

Then the storm was moving away, the thunder and lightning came less frequently, but the rain continued to fall.

Grayness crept into the forest as daylight struggled to establish itself.

Simon turned the horse, urged him up a rocky incline, and moved in under the overhang of a bluff.

He stopped.

Berry was shivering almost uncontrollably and he had to pull apart her clasped hands so that he could dismount.

He lifted her down and held her close to his side while he led the horse through a narrow opening in the side of the rocky bluff.

They entered a shallow cave, out of the wind and rain.

“I’m sure they won’t follow us while it rains. It’ll give me time to dry my powder.”

He pulled a blanket from his pack and wrapped it around her. Then he wrapped her in his arms, holding her tightly against him.

“I don’t know whether to kiss you or beat you.”

His big hands wiped the rain from her face and wrung the water from her streaming hair.

“I’ve got to tend the horse and get a fire going.”

Berry’s body ached with cold, her feet and legs almost numb, but the glowing warmth inside her and the wonder of the words whispered hoarsely in her ear—if in fact she’d heard them correctly—were too precious to allow the misery in her body to overshadow the moment.

Simon pulled the saddle from the horse and with his hands rubbed the water from his slick coat. The animal moved obediently when Simon pushed him to stand with his rear to the entrance of the cave. In the gloomy light Berry watched as Simon raked up dry leaves that had drifted into the enclosure. He heaped them in a pile along with some small twigs, then struck a spark with his flint, and soon a small blaze appeared.

“I’ll find some wood. Keep it goin’.”

Shivering, and keeping her jaws clenched to keep her teeth from chattering, Berry knelt by the small flame and fed it with the twigs the wind had blown against the stone wall. When Simon returned, she backed away and watched him strip the wet bark from the dead branches he’d brought in. He didn’t look at her or even acknowledge her presence until the fire was blazing steadily and he had rolled a large flat stone up close to the flame.

“When the stone gets warm, I’ll move it out and lay my powder sack on it. I’ve got to dry the powder so we can defend ourselves if the Indians follow us. I don’t think we have anything to worry about as long as it continues to rain, and maybe not even then. It looks like it’s set in to rain all day. I hope so. It will give us a chance to dry out.”

Simon stood, and for the first time Berry saw him clearly. His thick black hair, which hung almost to his shoulders, was dripping wet. His deep-set eyes looked black as night, but she knew they were dark blue, just as she knew his skin was sun-coppered beneath the black beard that shadowed his cheeks.

“Simon . . .”

“We’ve got to get you dry and warm or you might come down with a roaring case of the ague.”

He reached for the blanket and pulled it away from her trembling body.

“Pull off that wet thing and I’ll wrap you up again.”

“But . . .”

“No arguing, Berry. Take it off.”

Berry complied, reluctantly.

He enfolded her in the blanket the instant her wet garment left her body. He wrung the water from the shift and hung it on a branch he had dragged in to burn. Then he pulled off his shirt and spread it out to dry.

Berry stood beside the fire feeling awkward and shy. She heard the rain splashing against the boulder at the entrance of the cave. When Simon pulled her down onto the blanket he had spread on the sandy floor, her knees buckled and she almost fell.

“Simon, I’ve got to say . . . I’m sorry.”

Her jaws shook when she spoke.

As if realizing how chilled she was, he knelt beside her and gathered her in his arms. The heaven of being held close, her face in the warmth of his neck, was too much. Tears spurted and she tried desperately to control them. All the pain and the humiliation she had suffered, and the rescue by Simon when she had despaired of living through the night, flooded her in a backwash of emotion. She cried, with her mouth against his neck.

“Hush. Hush, darlin’,”

he crooned and rocked her gently in his arms.

“Shhh . . . You’ve got to tell me about them so I’ll know what to expect.”

His warm mouth moved over her wet face.

“Ahhh . . . sweet girl, my whiskers will scratch your sweet face.”

Berry’s arm crept out of the blanket and around his neck. Delightful sensations ran through the whole of her being, bringing joy—a consummation of all the yearning dreams she had ever dreamed.

“I don’t care about the whiskers. I don’t care. Kiss me, Simon. . . .”

His lips moved from her cheek, and she knew they were coming to meet hers even before she felt their touch. Slowly, deliberately, his mouth covered hers, pressing gently at first while he slowly sank down onto the blanket and pulled her onto his lap. His kiss deepened and she leaned into it, floating in a sea of sensuality where in a dreamlike state she hovered against his masculine strength. His lips were seeking, and she automatically parted hers in invitation. The touch of his tongue at the corner of her mouth was persuasive rather than demanding, and she gave herself up to the waves of emotion crashing over her.

The soft utterance that came from her throat was a purr of pure pleasure when he expanded the kiss with a pressure that sought deeper satisfaction. The fever of her passion excited him and he tried to meet it with restrained response.

Berry felt her mind whirl and her nerves become acutely sensitized with the almost overwhelming need to melt into him and ease the ache of her aroused body. Caught in the throes of desire, she pressed against him, her arm winding around his neck with surprising strength.

Resisting the pressure around his neck, Simon lifted his head and looked down at her. The face beneath his was pale and beautiful, still and waiting. Her breath came quickly and was cool on his lips, made wet by her kiss.

“Berry, you’re the damnedest woman ever created, and the . . . sweetest,”

he said in a raspy whisper. His hand moved to the nape of her neck and his fingers lifted her wet hair.

“Does that mean you’re not . . . angry with me?”

“No, it doesn’t mean that at all. I’m so mad at you that I want to beat you! But . . . I want to kiss you, too.”

“I said I was sorry,”

she said, trying to collect her scattered senses.

“Being sorry wouldn’t matter, Berry, if we were dead.”

He pulled slightly away, yet she was still in his arms, her head still resting on his shoulder. He was speaking smoothly, reasonably, with no censure in his voice.

“You and I are going to have to come to an understanding, Berry. I’ll not tolerate your headstrong behavior. You’ll listen to what I say and you’ll act accordingly. It was a miracle I found you when I did. It was a miracle the storm struck and I was able to get you out of that camp. You would’ve been raped before the night was over.”

Now his voice became sharper, more anxious.

“Now I want you to tell me everything, starting at the time you left Fain’s.”

Tears filled Berry’s eyes—the result of nerves strung taut by her ordeal and his onslaught on her senses. She was disappointed by his obvious refusal to accept her apology after they had shared the sweetness of the kiss.

“What do you want to know?”

she asked, stalling for time while she composed herself. She tried to move away from him, but he tightened his arms, forcing her to remain where she was.

“Everything,”

he replied candidly.

“I left Fain’s early. Fish said it was only twenty miles, and I thought I could get there and back in one day, or stay over the night and come back. I couldn’t find . . . my land, and I was on my way back when they . . . took me.”

She despised the tears that flowed onto her cheeks, but was rather proud that she was able to steady her voice as she told how the Indians had pounced on her and taken her gun and horse.

“One of them wanted to kill me. He was the ugliest man I ever saw. The old man wanted me. When we met the others, the braves tried to trade the old man something for me. The squaws were the worst. They . . . pulled off my . . . clothes and hit me with the switches and . . .”

She stopped, her voice choked off.

“And what?” he urged.

“They . . . spread their legs for the men, right there in front of everyone.”

A sob tore from her throat.

“I didn’t know Indians were like that. I hate them! They’re dirt! Filth!”

“Hold on,”

Simon said firmly.

“All Indians are not the same, just as all white men are not the same. I figure the ones who took you are castoffs. They were cast out of their tribe for some reason or the other. How many horses did they have?”

“I saw only one, besides my mare.”

“I killed two of them, so that means there’s a mount for each of the braves.”

He was silent for a moment.

“I don’t think they’ll come after us.”

“The ugly one will. He hated me!”

“I killed him,”

Simon said simply.

“I had one sure shot and I figured he was the more dangerous one.”

He lifted her off his lap and moved over to add more fuel to the small fire. He raked the rock away from the blaze with a stick and tested the heat by holding his hand near it. Satisfied that it was warm but not too hot, he pulled the rock farther from the fire and set his open leather powder bag on it. He turned her shift and his shirt, then went to the mouth of the cave to look out.

“The sky is heavy with rain clouds. It’ll be a while before it lets up,”

he commented. He came back, sat down, pulled off his knee-high moccasins, and set them close to the fire.

Berry huddled in the blanket and wondered how he could stand the chill of his wet buckskin breeches.

“Where’s your hat?”

she asked.

Simon turned and looked at the enormous green eyes staring at him out of her white face. He couldn’t speak for a moment. She looked so small, so vulnerable, but he knew she was tougher than she appeared. He grinned at her and reached out a hand to cup her cheek.

“I lost it when the squaw jumped on my back. She’s probably wearing it now.”

In spite of her fatigue, Berry laughed.

“One in your hat, the other in my bonnet. They’ll be a sight.”

Warmth spread through her chilled body at last. She loosened the blanket from around her neck and let it slip to her shoulders. Her eyes searched his face. She didn’t dare lie down and fall asleep . . . not yet. Not without making her peace with Simon. Her eyes burned, and she had to open them wide to keep them from closing.

“Go to sleep,”

he said, and gently pushed her down and pulled the blanket up over her shoulders.

“You don’t have to be afraid. I’ll be watching.”

He held out his hand, and without hesitation she pressed her palm to his. His fingers entwined with hers.

“Are you still . . . mad?”

“Not too mad to kiss you again.”

His lips skimmed her cheek.

“You’re a spunky woman. Life with you will never be dull. I may want to beat you, but I’ll want to kiss you, too.”

She clutched his hand, smiled contentedly, and drifted off to sleep.

Berry was astride a great white horse. Her arms were locked around the bronzed body of the man in front of her. Her laughter rang out as he urged the beast to greater speed until it seemed to fly over the short green turf. Soundless words came drifting back to her as they floated up and down with the movements of the horse. She pressed her cheek to the muscled back before trailing kisses from his shoulder blade to where the dark hair grew at the nape of his neck. She arched her back and laughed. The man turned. His eye sockets were empty, and there was no flesh on his face; she knew it was the ugly Indian.

An agonized cry tore from her throat and she was instantly awake. Simon’s face was close to hers. She clutched at him, thinking he would vanish.

“Shhh . . . You’re all right. You were having a bad dream.”

With a soft, welcoming cry, she reached for him and wrapped her arms around his neck.

“Oh, Simon! Don’t go! Don’t leave me again.”

“Is there room for me under that blanket, love?”

She lifted the edge in invitation. He slid in beside her and gathered her in his arms. Warm gladness welled in her heart and flooded her body, and her arms encircled him as she gloried in the feel of his hard warmth.

He curled his arm beneath her, while his other hand caressed down along her spine to pull her hips closer to his. He was as naked as she, and it seemed natural and right.

“I wanted to wake you,”

he whispered before finding her parted lips with his, moving them slowly and touching them with his tongue.

“I’ve been watching you, wanting to hold you, but I know how tired you are.”

“Your skin is so smooth,”

she whispered, breathing against his lips.

“I didn’t know you’d feel like this . . . so solid and warm.”

Her head was spinning helplessly from the torrent of her churning desires. She moved her body so that her breast rubbed against the rough hair on his chest.

“Your heart is beating so fast!”

The uneven rhythm of her breathing was making speech difficult, but that didn’t stop her from expressing her thoughts.

“Does it always beat like this, or is it because you’re as excited as I am?”

A growl of laughter broke from his lips and he placed light kisses on her face.

“Only when I have a pretty girl in my arms and I want to love her . . . in every way there is. . . .”

“Are we going to do what we didn’t do the other night?”

“I’ll die if we don’t. . . .”

“I want to! Oh, Simon, I want to do it all! I thought about it while I was with the Indians. You said you’d make it long and sweet and I’d have no regrets. Even if you don’t, and if you don’t love me like I want you to, I’ll have no regrets.”

“Ahhh . . . sweetheart . . .”

His mouth moved over hers with warm urgency. His tongue caressed her lips, sought entrance, and found warm welcome. Instinctively she moved closer, grinding her pelvis into his masculine hardness. Stirred by an incredible arousal, she met his passion with intimate sensuousness and glided the tip of her tongue across the edge of his teeth before she pulled away, her deep-rooted curiosity taking over.

“Do married people do this every night?”

“Some of them.”

“Does the man always make it long and sweet, or does he just jump on like a stallion?”

“For God’s sake, Berry!”

He groaned.

“Not all men are like that!”

he added patiently.

“Does it hurt you when it’s hard like this?”

Her hand wriggled down between them, and her touch caused a jolt to pass through his body.

“Yes!”

he said gratingly between clenched teeth.

“You’re the talkin’est woman!”

He tried to shut her mouth with his, but she evaded his lips.

“How’ll I know things if I don’t ask? I couldn’t ask any other man.”

His head jerked back and he glared down at her even as his arms tightened so that she could scarcely breathe.

“You’ll not get a chance to ask another man! If I hear of you talkin’ like this to another man, I’ll beat you within an inch of your life! This man . . . this body, is all you’re goin’ to know about!”

His anger pleased her and she laughed. The musical sound rang in his ears and caused a wave of tenderness to well up in him. He pressed his face into the curve of her neck.

“What else do you want to know, sweet, sassy brat?”

“Do you plan to put that whole thing . . . inside me?”

she whispered huskily and moved her hips against him in instinctive invitation.

His head jerked up again as if he had been grabbed by the hair.

“Yes, by God, I do!”

There was laughter, love, and teasing in the sparkling eyes that met his.

“Then you’d better get on with it. The rain’s about to stop.”

“Oh, Berry! Oh, darlin’ girl . . .”

They laughed together and rolled, their arms and legs entwined. Berry could feel the happiness in him and longed to look into his face and see love and laughter there, but he was kissing her, loving her with his hands.

“Are you happy, Simon? Are you glad you met me?”

“Glad? If you don’t hush talkin’ I’ll . . .”

His words melted on her lips.

Their mouths met and were no longer gentle.

They kissed deeply, hungrily.

His hand moved down her spine, found her taut buttocks, and pressed hard.

Her arousal was evident in her rock-hard nipples pressed to his chest and the moistness between her thighs when he touched her there.

The stinging welts made by the switch, the soreness in her buttocks and back, and the growling of her empty stomach were all forgotten as she gave herself up to the sweet abandonment he was urging upon her.

His fingers stroked her breasts before moving down over her stomach to toy with soft curls.

She welcomed his gentle touch with parted thighs and an urgency that incited him to lift his mouth from hers and whisper hoarsely in her ear.

“Now, darlin’? I can’t wait!”

He slid smoothly over her body, seeking entrance while she waited in rapt and arching anguish.

Everything he did felt so good, so right, that she was caught up in an overpowering desire and need for physical release.

He moved between her legs and pressed into her tightness.

He stayed there, gulping air into his lungs, feeling for the first time the touch of his rigid maleness against the membrane guarding her virginity.

He waited, savoring the wondrous moment.

Then his hips made a jerking motion, paused, and he lifted himself almost out of her.

At the moment of their union, Berry felt a sharp stab of pain.

But it was not agonizing pain.

It seemed a mere discomfort compared to the other, all-encompassing pain that cried out to be eased.

The pain-pleasure of their joining would forever be imprinted in her memory.

She was part of him, he was her world, her universe, and she vibrated with all the love she had to give to him.

He lifted her to undreamed-of sensual heights.

She no longer wanted him to be gentle and let her hips move in unison with his, slowly at first, then more and more frantically until her body moved with untamed urgency beneath him.

Sensation after sensation rushed through her, causing her flesh to quiver, her muscles to contract.

She was only vaguely aware of the sharp, powerful contractions of the body locked with hers.

She felt her own body sweeping toward some great height that would release her from this sweet torment.

At the crest there was a burst of exquisite sensation and she seemed to float out of herself.

They came out of the clouds together and exchanged soft, moaning kisses, their bodies welded together in the aftermath of heated sensation.

Simon raised his head, his dark, fathomless eyes searching her passion-clouded ones.

He felt himself still fully extended inside her, for all the violent completeness of the act just accomplished.

Berry reached up and ran her fingers through the dense mass of dark hair over his temples.

Her lips spread in a dreamy, sweet smile.

“This is the real Simon,”

she murmured softly.

“Sweet ’n’ warm way down deep. You only wear that serious face so folks won’t know how sweet ’n’ lovin’ you are. You won’t be able to hide it from me now. You’re the dream I’ve held on to for so long.”

He flexed his hips, implanting himself more deeply.

“I’m only a man,”

he said, his voice raspy with emotion.

“My man?”

“If you’ll have me.”

Her laugh was warm and moist against his mouth. Again he flexed his hips, and she tensed briefly against her soreness, but soon her discomfort was forgotten. His mouth found hers, sending tendrils of flame and desire through her once again. Her hands slid around his waist and gripped hard, and they were locked together in a straining embrace. She moved with him, timing her actions with instinctive precision. Then the climax seized them; she cried out, and he let the flood pour out of him with a violence that rendered him dazed and spent.

* * *

Berry struggled up from languor and stirred in Simon’s arms. She leaned her elbows on his chest, her nose just inches from his. Her eyes were green, shining pools of pure happiness. In her newfound freedom to touch and love him she gloried in running her lips over his face, nipping the skin on his neck, and wriggling the tip of her tongue between his lips.

“I warn you, Simon,”

she murmured between kisses.

“When we’re wed you’ve got to do this every night!”

“Oh, Lord!”

She felt the laughter in his body before it burst from his mouth. She pressed her palms against his cheeks, her fingers tugging at his ears.

“What’s so funny?”

“You, darlin’. I didn’t know there was anyone in the world like you!”