Steal Me Away

Cerise
DeLand

Fancy Turner knows it isn’t wise to hunger for the touch of
the virile Comanche chief, Bull Elk. But tall, bronze Bull Elk, in is feathers
and buckskin, is so handsome—and forbidden.

When Bull Elk charges onto the ranch one morning and catches
Fancy up in his arms, he knows he risks the anger of his own braves and the
fury of the long knives to have her. He’ll risk everything to twist her golden
hair in his fist, to caress the pale swell of her breast as no man has before
him. He’ll have Fancy as his wife, even if he has to fight his own people to
make it so.

Thrust into a world she doesn’t understand, Fancy expects
Bull Elk to take her. But never in her darkest fantasies does she expect to
enjoy it so much. Bull Elk’s touch is possession, his kiss a brand, and to her
shock, Fancy finds that the only future she wants is the one she imagines in
his arms.

Inside Scoop:
This book contains one intimate scene
with ritual wedding preparation between women, though no explicit f/f occurs.

A
Romantica®
historical erotic romance
from Ellora’s Cave

Fancy blinked at the brilliant spring sunshine blazing
through the window. She had finished her housebound chores and she itched to
get the garden weeded so she could take the afternoon for herself. Hopefully
she could even escape the gimlet eye of her older sister Collette and swim
naked in the clear fresh waters of Duck Creek. Fancy frowned as she waited for
Coll to don her cape. Her sister was turning into a snippy stick-in-the-mud.
Postponing her share of the washing and cooking, Coll did little but brood
about the death of her husband, lost on a bloody field in Georgia during the
Civil War.

“Well, phooey,” Fancy complained to Coll as she grabbed a
straw basket near the front door. “If you’re going to dawdle all day, I’ll go
ahead by myself.”

“I’m coming, Fancy! Don’t be so all fired ready to work.”

Fancy sighed, then headed outside where the winter rains had
nourished an entire hillside covered in bluebonnets. She stepped onto the porch
of their ranch house, swinging her basket and humming. She’d planned ahead for
her secret swim by defying propriety and wearing only a thin shift under her
calico day gown.

Closing her eyes, Fancy lifted her face to the warm velvet
breeze and let the sun’s rays seep down into her bones.

“I am right behind you, Fancy.”

Shoot.
Collette was no fun. To get away from her,
Fancy would have to pretend she was walking over to Harrisons’ farm to visit
Lucy.

“Go get your hat, Fancy,” Collette snapped, bumping into
her, her own vegetable basket in her hand. “You know how your skin burns.”

Fancy stuck her tongue out at her grumpy sister who was
forever commanding her to do this or that. Coll had always been lazy. But after
she got word her husband had died at Chickamauga, she’d become moody to boot.
In the past year since the war had ended and only a few fighting men had come
home to Bravado, Coll had looked over the pickings and called them
unsatisfactory mating material. Then she had become even more of a witch. Not
only was she cantankerous, but bossy, trying to foist her chores on Fancy so
she could loll around the house and complain about her work or their oldest
sister Marguerite’s lack of it entirely.

Fancy—like her father and Marguerite—tried to ignore
Collette’s constant bad humor. But Collette had infected their younger brother
Jeremiah with her selfishness and irritability, making his already quarrelsome
nature nearly intolerable. Fancy hated Coll for encouraging their sibling to
become a bully and a braggart. “I’ll pick a few more flowers and take them up
to the house with me. They’ll look nice on the supper table tonight.”

Coll grumbled as she turned for the vegetable garden. “I say
we are going to too much trouble for Mr. Saxon.”

“Not a bit! Marguerite wants to marry him.”

“He’s not Catholic, like us.”

“That doesn’t matter to Marguerite. She hopes they’ll get
married next time the Methodist minister comes through on his circuit. If
bluebonnets persuade the man to pop the question sooner and make her smile,
then I say I’ll pick every flower from here to San Antonio.”

Coll pouted while she tugged on a few old carrot tops.
“Well, I don’t think he will make a good match for her.”

“No?” Fancy stopped to stare at her sister. “He is pleasant
and he does have money.”

“From gambling.” Collette uttered the last word as if it was
murder.

“That is a rumor, Coll. Maybelle Seward says his money comes
from the sale of his Virginia plantation.”

“Oh, yes. To Yankees. Carpetbaggers who—”

“You had best not say that to Pop,” Fancy warned. “If you
insult this man and kill this relationship for Marguerite—”

“What will you do to me?” her sister taunted as she scowled
at the scrawny carrots, then threw them on the hardened earth.

Refusing the bait, Fancy grit her teeth and marched over to
pick another handful of bluebonnets.

“Mr. Saxon is not like her old beau George Forbes in any
way.”

Straightening her back, Fancy glared at her quarrelsome
sister.
You will not leave this alone
. “Poor George is dead and
Marguerite mourns mightily for him. What would your dear Edward say if he heard
you being so downright nasty?”

“He’d say that Reg Saxon is not as handsome as George was.”
Pushing a stray curl of her wheat-colored hair beneath her bonnet, Coll
snorted. “I hate to think what their children will look like.”

“Oh, now
that
is not fair.” Fancy hated the way Coll
sniped at Marguerite now that she had a man calling on her again. Marguerite’s
first love George—the man she had adored from age ten—had died with their
oldest brother, Amos, in the Battle of Gettysburg nearly three years ago. At
the news, Marguerite had taken to her bed for weeks. Her grief had affected her
health, making her weak and short of breath. But the appearance of kindly
Reginald Saxon and his polite ways had endeared him not only to Marguerite but
to their short-tempered father. Meanwhile, Coll had become more and more
callous and jealous of any girl in town who caught a man.

“But it’s true, baby girl.” Coll strolled closer, a smug
look on her face. “Marguerite wants a man of her own—and babies. But the way I
see it, she won’t be able to bear them.”

“That’s a terrible thing to say, Coll.”

“She’s too frail. Got no hips. No breasts to please a man.
She’s so mousy, not bright and blonde like you and me. No sir. She is
definitely not pretty.”

Mouth open, Fancy glared at her sister. “You are the most
unkind creature. Every day you become more wicked. How did you get that way?”

“I speak the truth.” Coll sniffed and bent to yank out
bluebonnets by the fistful. “Reg Saxon doesn’t have the dashing looks of a
cavalry officer like my Edward did, but he seems a lusty man. He’s stocky.
Robust. Have you seen how big his hands are?”

“My lord,” Fancy whispered, blinking at the venomous words
escaping her sister’s lips. “You want him for yourself!”

“I can please him. I know how to.” She rolled her shoulders.
“I like sex. It’s supposed to be wild and—”

“Collette, because you had a husband, does not mean you
understand all men.”

“What would you know about all men? You’re eighteen and no
man has fucked you yet. No one has even played with your little cat or sucked
on your nipples, has he?”

Fancy swayed, aghast less at her sister’s erotic words than
at her angry tone. “You go too far.”

“Do I? I’m the one who told you how to rub your kitty and
make yourself happy. I’m the one who taught you what a man does with his cock.
You loved the lessons. Don’t deny it.”

Fancy couldn’t, but she would say something Collette never
could. “I am proud I’ve got my virginity to give to my husband.”
Unlike you.
Who let Richard Wiles get you pregnant, then let Edward Marsden think the baby
was his.
But the poor child died at birth and Edward was killed in
battle before he ever saw him.
“Someday I will.”

“Yeah.” Coll sneered. “But you’re too much of a goody-goody
to ever let your husband know how you like his cock. You’ll lie back and let
him drive inside you without a sound of how much you enjoy it. How happy will
that make him? You’ll be his
thing
. Not his partner.”

Fury flooding her bloodstream, Fancy dropped her flowers to
her basket and grabbed up her skirts. “You are intolerable.”

“Not as much as you will be if you never get to enjoy a man
between your legs.”

If I ever do, I won’t tell you about it.
“I suggest
you wash your mouth out with soap, sister of mine. I’ll even go find some for
you.” Furious, she turned toward the path to the house.

“Fancy, no!”

“To hell with you, Coll!” Fancy kept on walking.

“Francine!” Collette screamed. “Don’t go! Look up at the
hilltop!”

Fancy whirled to her left, one hand up to shield her vision
from the glaring sun—and stood stark still. There on the ridge stood a party of
half-naked mounted Comanche braves. A lot of them. Eight, nine, ten in all. By
their build, Fancy could see a few were her age, maybe younger. All wore tawny
loin cloths of buffalo hides, short boots of the same soft substance, long
white and black hawk feathers in their shoulder-length ebony hair and nothing
on their broad, bronze chests. Their leader, the tallest man among them, wore
red paint across his nose and cheeks. His large hell-dark eyes were ringed in
black paint. Despite his fierce markings, Fancy knew who he was, and she smiled
and waved at him.

“Nothing to fear from him, Coll. That is
Patuwa kum
.
Chief Bull Elk.” She continued to walk toward the party, refusing to comfort
her insolent sister any more than necessary.

“Wait, Fancy. How do you know that savage?”

“He came to a powwow with Ranger MacRae and Herr Mannfried
last month in Fredericksburg.” That day, Bull Elk had worn his ceremonial
headdress for the meeting and long buckskin trousers. No shirt then either.
The
better to show off that magnificent muscular chest.
She quivered recalling
how attractive she had thought him then. How his gaze made her want his large
hands around her waist. How she imagined him kissing her lips. Her breasts. And
even,
oh god
, her pussy. She cleared her throat, trying to rid her mind
of her forbidden lust for the Comanche. “Ranger MacRae introduced me when I
served them all food and lemonade.”

“That doesn’t make him civilized, Fancy. You’d better not go
near him.”

“Don’t be a ninny, Coll. He’s fine. He speaks English too. I
heard him.” She continued her way up to the ridge and stopped in front of the
handsome Comanche who some said would lead his people to white folks’ ways.
“Hello, Chief. How are you today?”

Though she smiled at him in greeting, he narrowed those
large umber eyes at her as if he were seeing her for the first time. “Fancee.
Tur. Ner.”

“Yes.” She nodded. “Nice. You remember my name.”

One of his braves spoke up, gesturing to her and shaking his
head as he pointed toward Collette.

“
Patuwa kum
,” Fancy tried for some polite
conversation, “do you…perhaps…go to Fredericksburg today?”

Two other braves murmured to their leader and Fancy could
make out that they spoke his name the way she had. From the amused looks on
their faces, they were making fun of her pronunciation.

So much for trying to be neighborly.
Not eager to be
an object of their ridicule, she bid them good day. She turned her back and
trod along the stony path toward her family’s ranch house.

“Fancy,” Collette called, “don’t you dare leave me here
alone with these beasts.”

Fancy didn’t bother to turn. Her sister didn’t deserve her
consideration after the way she had spoken to her today. “Maybe they can teach
you some manners, Coll. As for me, I am going home. Come, if you wish, or stay
and reconsider your ways.”

“You little bitch!”

At the insult, Fancy halted in her tracks.

At once, the air was filled with war whoops and Fancy felt
the earth vibrate with the pounding of horses’ hooves.

“No! Noooo!” Collette cried out.

Fancy whirled to see Bull Elk and his nine braves charging
toward
her
. Her fingers went numb. Her basket of flowers fell.

Bull Elk rode straight at her. Her body frozen, her fears of
being trampled by his horse turning her blood to ice, she cringed. Then she
hiked up her skirts and ran. She didn’t get but two steps away.

The Comanche chief yelled a heinous cry as he came upon her
and scooped her up across his lap, hanging her over his horse’s back, facedown.
Air slammed from her lungs. Her head spun. She tried to scream and no sound
came out.

Bull Elk’s braves galloped beside him, chanting
ear-splitting cries. He echoed their sounds as they raced across the hills.

Still Collette’s cries rang in her ears. “Noooo! Oh, god,
no. Bring her back! Fancy! Fan-ceeee!”

The chief pinned Fancy down, his massive hand to her spine.
Her fingers scraped tall grasses as Bull Elk rode like the wind across the
rough terrain. She winced, curling her fingers to her palms. His companions
rode nearer and nearer to them so that dirt and stones cast up from their
horses’ hooves hit her in the face. Clamping her eyes shut, she heard Bull Elk
call to them, curt commands she took to mean,
Hurry. Others follow.
Their
wails frightened her so that she feared she’d die of it. Breathless, her lungs
straining for air, her ribs bruised from the galloping of the horse across the
barren plain, Fancy feared all hope was lost for rescue when Collette’s shrill
demands died in the distance.

She writhed but Bull Elk hooked his arm around her, bent
over her to keep her firmly across his saddle and rode on. And on. And on.

And she wished he would never stop. For when he did, Fancy
understood from tales of so many others who had been captured by the Comanche,
he would strip her, scalp her and maybe even skin her. She fervently prayed
before that happened, she would die.