Deborah Camp (33 page)

The memory of pain floated to her, unbidden, but she had decided this man was worth enduring the torture again. At least with him she wouldn’t feel used and tossed aside as she had with her husband. She knew that when Tucker had achieved his ultimate release, he would still hold her close and in high regard.

She was breathless when his kiss ended and dizzy-headed while he continued to kiss her breasts and stomach. Anticipation filled her. Impossibly, she was the one gripped by impatience. She clutched his shoulders.

“Tucker, please …”

“Please what?” He kissed her navel and then lifted his gaze to hers. “What, sugar?”

She smiled, then laughed at the turning of tables. If nothing else, he’d given her that. “Now. Please now.”

“There’s no hurry.”

“Tucker, please!”

Grinning like a cream-fed cat, he propped himself on his elbows and traced her glistening lips with his tongue before sending it inside to tease and tempt hers. Never had she been kissed with such soul-searching intensity. She felt herself grow damp, then wet as his tongue continued its rapid advance and retreat. A low sound rumbled in her throat. His entrance into her body was slow, honeyed, and completely painless.

“Ahhh!” Copper closed her eyes and arched her
neck, driving her head back into the soft buffalo robes. Satisfaction was hers and it had never felt so good, so right. Having him sheathed within her was as close to heaven as she’d ever been and the view left her starry-eyed. Looking into Tucker’s face, so near hers, so dear to her, she knew in that blindingly rapturous moment that she was deeply in love with him and had never been in love before—perhaps would never fall in love again.

He moved and she held fast, fast, faster, faster still. She raced ahead and burst through to the other side to a world of fiery sensations, drumming pulses, straining muscles, and tingling twitches. Her breath sawed in her throat. She opened her eyes to see him reach his journey’s end with head thrown back, eyes squeezed shut, voice coming out hoarse and aching, her name whispered across his pleasure-giving lips.

She felt his release deep in her core, splashing warmth and imbuing her with renewed faith in mankind. He rained kisses over her face and stroked her hair with gentle hands.

“Copper, sweet, beautiful Copper. You’re wonderful … it was wonderful.” He held her gaze and his brows met in a fretful expression. “Wasn’t it? Are you … did you?”

She kissed him. “Yes,” she whispered, then had to laugh. “Finally! My first time! And, oh, it was so—so—I don’t know. It was just—”

“I understand,” he said, laughing. “There are no words.”

Shifting, he broke their connection, but didn’t leave her side. He rested a hand on her stomach and his eyes memorized her like a sonnet. In the quiet afterglow, Valor whimpered awake. Groaning, Tucker bent his head to Copper’s smooth shoulder.

“I have to see to her,” Copper said, laughing softly with her apology. “She’ll drift back to sleep.”

“No, she won’t.”

“Just watch.” Tucking a blanket around herself, Copper left the makeshift bed and went to the cradle. Deftly, she changed the baby’s napkin, then patted Valor’s back until the baby’s halfhearted cries diminished and then ceased. Copper tiptoed back to the buffalo robes where Tucker lay in naked splendor. “See? All it takes is my touch.”

“I know that from experience now.” He pulled her down beside him and took one of her perky, full breasts in hand. His tongue laved it lavishly, beading the nipple, stirring a little cry of pleasure from Copper.

“I didn’t disappoint you?” she asked, shamelessly searching for kind words.

“You couldn’t do that, darlin’.”

She brushed her fingertips across his striped cheek. “How is it that a man such as you isn’t married? You’re what is known as a good catch.”

“The war,” he said, shrugging. “Some men hurry up and get married before going into battle, but I don’t think that’s fair to the women they leave behind.”

“When you leave me behind, you’ll leave a changed woman and a grateful one.” The words were hard for her to say, but she was glad to say them.

He frowned. “Trying to get rid of me already? And I’m not even finished yet.”

“I’m not trying to get rid of you,” she said, scoffing at him. “And what do you mean, you’re not finished? I felt you inside me. I know you left something in there.”

“But there’s more where that came from, sugar.” He glanced down at himself, drawing her gaze to his bobbing organ. “See for yourself.”

“My, my, I do believe you have a spring in that thing.”

He laughed, kissing her between rowdy chuckles.
“Oh, Copper. You are a rare gem. A rare and most beautifully perfect gem.”

She sighed wistfully. “Not perfect.” Thinking of how she must look to his keen eyes, she bit her lower lip in a moment of apprehension. “Tucker, the … the marks on my back. My husband took the lash to me. The marks are ugly, I know. I should have warned you about them so that you’d be prepared for—”

“What marks?” he interrupted her, sliding a leg between her as he covered her pale, soft body with his. “There are no scars on you, Copper. They’ve all faded … all vanished.”

She smiled through a sheen of tears. He was the sweetest liar she’d ever known. “Oh, yes?” She glanced at his hand resting on her stomach and the stretch marks there. “What do you call those?”

He kissed them, one by one. “Life lines,” he said, grinning. “Any woman worth her salt has them.”

“Tucker Jones, what am I going to do with you?” A single tear of joy slipped down her cheek. Tucker caught it on the tip of his tongue before it could fall from her chin.

“Take me to the stars again, sugar. I so love being up there with you.”

Once again, she was all aglow. Starlit.

C
opper staked out the grizzly hide and was scraping it when Tucker entered the stables. She looked up into his smile and her heart tripped over itself. His smile was different than it had been before last night. It was special, fashioned just for her.

“What will you make out of that?” he asked, indicating the hide.

“A winter coat for you.”

He ran his hands down his buffalo coat. “I have this one.”

“But it wasn’t made especially for you. It’s a little too tight and I’ve let it out as much as I can. Still, you pop the seams when you chop firewood or haul water. I’ll tailor this to fit you. It’ll make a fine garment. Besides, this is your first grizzly kill, so you should honor the bear by wearing its hide. I’ve said a prayer of thanks over it and that will keep you safe inside it.”

“Is that so? Kind of like a coat of armor, huh?”

Copper had placed Valor in her swing and hung it from the rafters. Tucker tapped the strings of beads and wooden snowflakes and leaves he had carved. Valor laughed and reached for the swinging, clattering playthings. From his back pocket he pulled out a walnut shell he’d filled with pebbles and secured to one end of a hardwood stick. He rattled it and Valor’s bright-eyed gaze locked on
the new pretty. Tucker laughed and rattled the toy again. Valor reached for it.

“Here you go, sweetcheeks. All yours.” He gave it to the baby and she waved it robustly, her eyes wide with wonder at the new sound she was able to make. “I do believe she likes it.” He laughed again. “Look at that. Naturally, it goes right into her mouth.”

“Everything she gets her hands on goes into her mouth. You made that for her?”

“Yeah, I thought she needed a rattler. Don’t worry. I dipped it in scalding water and honed it all smooth, so she can gum it all she wants without getting germs or splinters.”

The thoughtful gift made her love him more. “Thanks, Tucker. You certainly know the way to this mother’s heart.”

“Why, sure. Any ladies’ man knows you have to win over the baby before you can court the mother with any success. However, I want you to pay heed that I made that rattler
after
I’d already sampled your storehouse of goods.”

“Yes, so I noticed.” She sat back on her haunches, dropped the fleshing tool, and flexed her cramped hands. Tucker reached for one and brought it to his lips. “Tucker, my hands are dirty!”

“I love them,” he said, paying no notice to her protest. “Healing hands.” He sighed and kissed her palm. “They certainly have worked miracles on me.” He noticed her wistful smile. “What are you thinking about?”

“About the first time I cleaned you up and saw that you were a handsome man. Right then and there I decided you were worthy of my medicine. I’ve never been so determined to see someone through. I guess my heart knew before my head did that I was meant to find you and heal you. Nothing in this world is an accident. The spirits move through us, over us, around us. They guide
us all the time. Sometimes we become prideful and think we’re making things happen. That’s when tragedy befalls us. It’s the spirits reminding us that we’re specks on the landscape and no more important than a gnat in the scheme of things.” She realized he was staring intently at her and she laughed under her breath. “I sound like a holy one teaching the uneducated, but you know all of this already.”

“Well, I’ve heard it in a different form,” he admitted. “But your version is interesting. It’s the Crow teaching, I gather.”

She nodded. “How is your faith different?”

“In my faith we lump all the spirits together into one supreme being.”

“I guess we’re not all that different from each other.”

He kissed her palm again and closed her fingers over it. “Differences are nice. They add pepper to the pot.” His grin became feral. “I sure like the breakfast you gave me this morning.”

“We didn’t have any—” She gave him a chiding look, realizing he was referring to their earlier lovemaking. “Oh, you!” She pulled her hand from his and popped his shoulder with her fist.

“We didn’t have any food, true. You know what that means?”

“What?”

“I’m going to be ravenous come suppertime.” He released a sexy growl and bit her shoulder.

She squeaked and fell back into a haystack. He followed with another tiger’s growl. His fire-tipped kisses sparked her own passion and she pulled his wool shirt free of his waistband and pushed her hands up under it to stroke his muscled back.

“It appears you’re ravenous right now,” she noted between rapid, lusting kisses.

“I am. I’m starving for you, darlin’.” He hiked
her skirt up to her hips and his lips traveled from her knees to her inner thighs.

“Oh, Tucker,” she said, sighing his name and grabbing handfuls of hay as his lips moved up. His mouth osculated against her dewy mound and she sucked in a shocked breath, but her embarrassment was vanquished by a rapier of sheer rapture. All her being shrank to that place beneath his magical mouth. She froze for one splendid moment and then was drawn into a volute of sensual delights.

She was so self-absorbed that she didn’t even know he’d entered her until he began moving in and out in that wonderfully surging way of his, as if he were a tide of pleasure washing in and out of her. She chanted his name and her glazed gaze wandered aimlessly from the stamping horses to Valor, waving her new rattler like a flag. Tucker climaxed seconds before she did again. Their rasping sounds of release made the horses uneasy. Ranger bucked. Hauler hee-hawed. Courage and Brave whinnied.

Tucker’s breath was warm on the side of her neck. When he lifted his head and smiled, she felt blissful.

“That was a nice midday meal. I can hardly wait for supper.”

“Oh, no. We can’t live on love alone.”

“We can try.”

She shook her head and glanced sideways at the swinging baby. Tucker followed her eyesight.

“Does it make you uncomfortable to make love in front of her?”

“No. Goose Down Woman and Much Smoke made love in front of me all the time.”

“What? You’re joshing me!”

“No. They were covered up, but I knew what they were doing by the sounds they made.”

“Seems like they’d want privacy.”

She raised her head to kiss his delicious mouth.
“There is none of that in a Crow lodge. They couldn’t ask their children to sleep in the cold while they loved each other, could they?”

He shrugged. “If Valor was of a knowing age, I wouldn’t feel right doing this in front of her.”

“Of course not. You’re white.”

“So are you.”

“What I mean is that you were brought up white.”

He nodded. “Then say what you mean, woman. It bothers me when you talk as if you’re Indian.”

She sat up and flipped down her skirt. “And what if I was an Indian?” Her gaze strayed to her baby again. “Like my child. She’s half Absaroka. Some would say the best half.”

“I’d love you no less if you were Crow. Please don’t mistake me for Micah McCall.”

“You’re angry at me,” she said, taking due note of the frostiness in his voice.

“Not angry, annoyed.”

“Most whites think they’re superior to us—to any Blood,” she said, correcting herself before he could.

“Not me. I was fighting a war because of such backward thinking.” He fastened his pants and stood up to cross over to Valor. He swung her and she gurgled happily. “As for this one, she could be full-blood Crow and I’d feel no different toward her. She’ll always be special because I had a part in bringing her into this world.”

Copper appreciated his broad back and tapered hips. The light changed and tipped his hair gold.

“Wonder why McCall took up with an Indian woman if he doesn’t like them all that much?”

“He admires their way of life, and like most white men, he approves of the role women have in the Blood society. But he thinks they’re savages, all the same.”

“So he found the best of both worlds in you,” Tucker observed. “You were brought up in the traditions
he admires and your skin is the right shade.”

His words stung her more than she cared to admit. “Perhaps you’re right. I hope he changes his outlook and becomes a good husband to Rides In A Circle.”

“I hope he loves the baby.”

“He’d never be unkind to it.”

“No, but children are sensitive. If McCall has any contempt for the child’s mixed blood …” He shook his head. “How will you school Valor when the time comes?”