Wild Thunder (24 page)

They embraced and kissed and clung, Hannah's fears returning, for it seemed that Strong Wolf was holding her from sheer desperation. Her heart ached, to know that something was bothering him to this extreme on their wedding day. Surely he didn't doubt her sincere love for him! She had shown him in every way possible just how much she cared!

The celebration lasted all day, then good-byes were said to Hannah's mother and father. Chuck and Clara had also left to see them off at the riverboat. Hannah clung to Strong Wolf as she watched them leave in a buggy, a wagon following close behind carrying the organ.

“Now we are alone,” Strong Wolf said, closing the door with his foot. He held Hannah in his arms and carried her toward the bed. “My wife! Do you hear me, Hannah? I can now call you my wife!”

“I like the sound of ‘my husband' better,” Hannah said, giggling, feeling drunk from the whole day of magic. She had long since forgotten why she had doubted Strong Wolf during the first of the wedding ceremony. Everything had changed so quickly into jubilation; into wonderful laughter, food, and dancing. So euphoric over having finally become Strong Wolf's bride, Hannah felt as though she were floating on air.

“I promise to make you happy,” Hannah whispered, brushing her lips across his mouth.

“You vowed during the ceremony that you would,” Strong Wolf said, placing her on the bed. “I do not doubt you, or your word.”

“My darling husband, I shall tell you time and again my promise to make you happy, for you are now the center of my universe,” Hannah said as he disrobed her.

Then he wasted no time at disrobing himself as Hannah lay there silkenly nude waiting for him.

When Strong Wolf came to her on the bed, his eyes smoke black with passion, Hannah held her arms out for him and welcomed him. As he kissed her, hotly and tenderly in the same breath, she marveled and groaned when, with a silent rush of power, he drove himself into her, swiftly, surely, deeply.

She twined her arms around his neck and clung to him. She wrapped her legs tightly around his waist and rode him as he came to her with his slow, deep thrusts.

“My darling,” she whispered as he slid his lips downward, to kiss the tall, sweet, soft column of her throat.

And then he swept his tongue around one of her breasts, licking, biting, chewing.

She cried out in soft whimpers beneath the erotic caress of his urgent mouth and hands, his strokes in her never losing their rhythm,

Hannah's hands moved seductively over his body, rediscovering the bands of muscles along his shoulders and down his back. They were so rocklike, so much like steel to the touch.

Every nerve within her came alive with a hungry need as she swept her one hand around and managed to touch his manhood when he partially withdrew before plunging even more deeply inside her velvet moistness.

With quick, eager fingers, his hands were in her hair, drawing her mouth against his in a fiery, feverish kiss.

His mouth forced her lips open as his kiss grew more and more uncontrollable, more passionate.

Hannah was shot full of strange, wondrous desires that she had never known before. Each time she made love with him, he taught her more skills, the mysteries of love. She was on fire with the sensations of excitement. Her body yearned to know even more, to be what he wished her to be, to do what he wished her to do.

She moaned throatily when he brushed his lips in feathery kisses down to her breasts, then once again claimed a nipple between his teeth where he sucked until it throbbed from the pure, frantic pleasure.

Her head began to reel when she recognized those familiar feelings that came with her reaching the ultimate of pleasure. She clung to him. With her teeth, she nipped at the corded muscles of his shoulders. Her blood surged in a wild thrill.

Strong Wolf felt the pulsating of his longing in his hot loins. His lips brushed the smooth, glassy skin of Hannah's breasts, his excitement like a deep rumbling of a volcano soon to erupt. He could feel the pleasure spreading in hot splashes throughout him.

Strong Wolf swept his arms around Hannah and drew her closer, sculpting himself to her moist body, molding himself perfectly to the curved hollow of her hips.

He pressed endlessly deeper, feeling the suction of her warm and sweet place, as though warm fingers were inside her, grabbing, sucking, caressing.

Then it came to him in a sensual shock as the pleasure burst forth inside his brain, as though someone had sent sparkles of moonbeams throughout him. He felt it explode as a great shuddering in his loins matched Hannah's sensual spasms of delight.

He swept his hands down to her buttocks and dug his fingers into her flesh. He lifted her closer as she strained her hips up at him.

He could hear her breath catch and hold, then smiled as she cried out at her own total fulfillment.

Breathing hard, Hannah and Strong Wolf clung to one another when they came down from their height of pleasure. Strong Wolf rolled away from her and lay with his eyes closed as his heartbeats slowed.

Then he turned to Hannah, his hands touching her, turning her, drawing her into the warmth of his body. “I never can get enough of you,” he whispered.

“Nor I you,” Hannah said, closing her eyes with ecstasy as his fingers teased circles around her belly, up to her breasts, just missing the nipples each time so that they strained with added anticipation.

Then he moved away from her, silent for a moment.

He leaned up on an elbow and gazed at her. “Hannah, I've had to make a decision lately that I hope you will understand,” he said.

Hannah's breath caught, praying to herself that this wasn't the time that he would reveal to her things that she knew he had kept from her. She wanted nothing to spoil this night. She only hoped that her fears were not founded—that he had kept something
terrible
from her!

“What is it?” she asked, her voice guarded.

He laughed loosely and drew her over, giving her a soft kiss on the lips. “Don't sound as though you don't trust what I am going to say,” he said softly.

“Then, what
is
it?” Hannah said, her eyes searching his face and eyes for answers.

He leaned away from her again. He grabbed her by the waist and drew her close to his side.

“Hannah, I have had sad news. A messenger from my mother arrived yesterday to tell me my grandfather has passed away. I did not want any sorrow to mar our wedding, but now it is up to me to guide my people. I have decided that it is time for me to return to Wisconsin,” he said. “I must now lead my people to
this
land. I know that no land is perfect, nor are the white people who will be our neighbors. But this is the best I can do for them. It is time for them to be with me, as one heartbeat.”

“I wish to go with you.” Hannah said, relieved to know that
this
might have been what had troubled him during their marriage ceremony. Surely
this,
his concern for his grandfather and people, as a whole, was what had caused him to occasionally get that haunted look in his eyes at
other
times.

Oh, if only it were so! Too often she had feared some dark secret that he was keeping from her!

Sometimes she had even thought that the haunted look was because he had doubts of marrying her!

But now?

Perhaps it had nothing at all to do with secrets, or . . .
her
.

“Hannah, the journey is long,” Strong Wolf said drawing her thoughts back to the present. “I don't want to tire you. You have only recently been overwhelmed by exhaustion after caring for the ill.”

“How can you even think that I would not insist on accompanying you on such a long journey?” Hannah said, her eyes wide. “I would
never
stay behind. I am your wife. I belong with you.”

“But, Hannah . . .”

“Strong Wolf, if you had planned not to share everything with me, then why did you marry me?”

Hannah left the bed and stood over the fire, her pulse racing.

Strong Wolf was stunned by her outburst and knew now that he should have never kept anything from her. He now knew just how she might react when he told her the true facts about himself!

Yet now he knew to guard that secret even more than he ever had!

He could not chance losing her.

Strong Wolf left the bed and went to Hannah. He placed his hands at her waist and turned her around to face him. “Hannah, do you realize that we just had our first argument as man and wife?” he said softly, his eyes imploring her.

“I didn't mean to argue,” Hannah said, her voice breaking.

She crept into his arms. “I'm sorry,” she murmured. “But I just feel so strongly about things, sometimes. I don't want to be left out of any portion of your life. I want to share! Please allow it.”

He unbraided her hair until it lay silken and long down her naked back. “You will go with me,” he agreed. “And you must understand something about me, Hannah. I have never been married before. There will be times when . . .”

Hannah placed a gentle finger to his lips to seal his words behind them. “Shh,” she murmured. “We both have some adjusting to do. Loving each other so much, that shouldn't be so hard to do.”

He smiled down at her, then swept her into his arms and carried her back to the bed.

They made love again and again.

The air was heavy, the night was hot,
I sat by her side, and forgot—forgot!

—F
RANK
D
ESPREZ

 

 

 

Strong Wolf was now several days into his journey home, to Wisconsin. He had left what he hoped were enough warriors to care for the needs of his village in the Kansas Territory.

Camp was being made for the night. Strong Wolf had seen to it that his entourage to Wisconsin had filled their parfleche bags with food stores for the journey. They had brought dried turnips, thistle stalks, milkweed buds, choke-berry pemmican, and dried deer meat.

Strong Wolf watched some prepare their bedding while others built a large outdoor fire. The fire would ward off the chill of the night, as well as keep away any beasts who might come sniffing around their camp.

Strong Wolf's eyes shifted. Proud Heart was making a comfortable pallet for his wife, Singing Wind.

Hawk and Doe Eyes were embracing down by the river, seemingly never to tire of one another.

No pangs of jealousy entered Strong Wolf's heart over someone else holding Doe Eyes. Although Strong Wolf and Doe Eyes's marriage had been planned since the day of their birth—since they had been born on the same day and at almost the same hour to women who were best friends—he would never forget the moment he realized that Doe Eyes was someone he could never love.

He would also never forget the humiliation he had felt when Doe Eyes had stared at him as though he was a demon, having witnessed him become someone she didn't know. Yes, he was affiicted by an illness that his mother carried in her genes.

He was very grateful that it had happened only that one time to him. He hoped that with time, everyone who
knew
of his affliction then had forgotten.

But
he
lived with the knowledge that it
could
happen, at any given moment, at any given time. And so did Doe Eyes!

“Darling, what are you thinking about so intensely as you stare at Doe Eyes?” Hannah said as she came and stood before him, blocking his view of the beautiful woman.

“What . . . ?” Strong Wolf said, his eyes wide as he was drawn out of his dreaded reverie. “What did you say?”

Hannah looked over her shoulder at Doe Eyes, who was in Hawk's arms, looking adoringly up at him as they talked.

Then Hannah gazed questionably again at Strong Wolf. “Please tell me I don't have any reason to be jealous of that woman,” she pleaded.

When Strong Wolf swept his arms around Hannah and drew her against his hard body, his eyes warm and filled with love for her, she knew that question had been foolish.

Yet there
was
something bothering him. It entered his eyes every time he looked at Doe Eyes! Hannah so wished that he would confide in her about this.

Yet she was never going to be a nagging wife. She wanted to be everything sweet and good for her husband, not someone he dreaded to face every day.

“My woman, how could you ever think that I would look at Doe Eyes with a lusting, when I have
you
?” Strong Wolf said, brushing a soft kiss across her lips. “One day I shall open my heart to you and tell you why I
detest
that woman; not hunger for her.”

“I didn't mean to pry,” Hannah said, laying her cheek against his muscled chest, then became even more aware of his pounding heart as she felt it against her cheek. It was like distant thunder as she listened to it, a heartbeat that was only caused by torment.

It did not seem the same sort of reaction as when he held her, or made love to her.

Yes, she knew now that something terribly wrong had happened between her husband and Doe Eyes. Would she ever know
what
? Something told her she . . . wouldn't. It seemed too horrible a thing for him to confess to!

“Let us make camp down by the river away from everyone else,” Strong Wolf said, picking up his buckskin bags and blankets from the ground. “We are newly married. We should have more privacy, do you not think so, my wife?”

“Yes, I think so,” Hannah said, trying to feel lighthearted again, after becoming filled with such doubts.

She lifted several thick pelts from the ground, on which she and Strong Wolf would soon be making love. She hoped that she could soon forget what had only moments ago troubled her. She loved Strong Wolf too much to have such doubts about him!

“The only audience we will have tonight will be the moon and stars,” Strong Wolf said, laughing as they walked away from everyone.

“It is good to hear you laughing,” Hannah said, casting him a troubled glance. “Darling, tonight you seem more moody than usual.”

“Yes, and I apologize,” he said quietly. “But I have concerns that I carry with me, over having left my people, along with your sister Clara, back at the village. Too many white people are shrewd and land hungry. While I am gone, should they . . .”

“Darling,” Hannah said, interrupting him. “Colonel Deshong won't allow anything to happen to your people while you are gone.”

She dropped the pelts from her arms when they reached a secret place that was sheltered by thick brush and a heavy stand of birch trees. “Please don't worry about it,” she further encouraged. “You are doing what you were meant to do . . . go for your people in Wisconsin, to lead them to their new home in Kansas.”

Strong Wolf lay the blankets and his travel bags on the ground beside the pelts. He drew Hannah into his arms. “You are so good for me,” he said, his hands caressing her back. “When I feel low, you lift me up. When I worry, you give me reason to hope again. How could I have been so lucky to have found you? You are a woman of much wisdom,
and
heart.”

“
I
am the true lucky one,” Hannah said, framing his face between her hands, bringing his lips to hers. “Kiss me, husband. Please kiss me.”

His lips came to hers gently. He cupped her buttocks through the fabric of her buckskin dress and yanked her against him, where she could feel his tight bulge as he ground it into her.

The feel of him, although only through the fabrics of their clothes, made her grow dizzy with passion.

She reached between them and stroked his manhood through his buckskin breeches, evoking a deep groan from the depths of his throat.

“We . . . must . . . first . . . build a fire,” he whispered huskily against her lips, yet leaned into her hand, so that she could grip him, then stroke him again. “My woman, you are making me mindless.”

“We don't need a fire,” Hannah whispered back. She reached her hand down inside his breeches and sucked in a wild breath of rapture when she felt the true flesh of his shaft, aware that some of his juices had spilled from the tip.

She rubbed the moisture into his flesh, then gripped him and slowly moved her hand on him again. She could feel his body stiffen and his breath quickening. She gazed at him, not surprised to find his eyes closed, and his head held back as he groaned again, again, and again.

Her heart pounding, afraid that she was arousing him too much, so badly wanting to join him in this ecstasy, Hannah eased her hand away and slid it from inside his breeches.

Breathing hard, Strong Wolf yanked her against him. His steel arms enfolded her as he kissed her.

She felt his hunger in the hard, seeking pressure of his lips, and she answered his kiss with a need of her own. It rose up within her, spreading and swelling. She ached almost unmercifully at the juncture of her thighs.

She gasped with pleasure when he bunched up the skirt of her dress with one hand and pushed it up past her thighs, the fingers of his other hand splaying across the heat of her passion.

His hand caressed her, then when he slipped a finger up inside her, she became light-headed with rapture.

Ecstatic waves of pleasure splashed through Hannah. She ground her mouth into his, her tongue flicking as he opened his mouth to receive it.

Their tongues danced.

His finger began thrusting, his thumb caressing the core of her womanhood until she was almost mindless with the pure ecstasy of it.

And then he drew away from her.

With a racing pulse and a heart beating so soundly her knees would hardly hold her up, Hannah watched as Strong Wolf spread blankets and pelts on the grass beside the river.

The moon poured bright from the sky, like silver.

The stars twinkled like jewels on black velvet.

An owl hooted in the forest, and was joined by the eerie call of a loon across the water.

Overcome with a feverish heat of need for Hannah, Strong Wolf went to her and gazed at her as he reached for the hem of her dress and began slowly smoothing it up over her, struck anew by her loveliness. She was, ah, so awesome in her beauty.

When her breasts were revealed to him, her nipples taut, the ache in his loins became more pronounced. He yanked the dress on over her head and tossed it aside, then cupped her breasts within the palms of his hands.

He bent low and flicked his tongue over one nipple, and then the other, then he covered one with his mouth, sucking, licking, nipping.

Hannah's heart was pounding even harder as she closed her eyes and enjoyed the euphoria that filled her entire being. Her breasts throbbed with his kisses. Her passion was so intense, his mouth was so hot and sweet, she was finding it hard to bring her breathing under control.

Shaken with desire, she reached her hands inside his shirt and swept them over his powerful, sleek chest. And as he kissed her breasts, holding their weight in his hands, she placed her thumbs and forefingers at the waist of his breeches and slowly lowered them.

She did not have to look at him to know that he was totally aroused. As his breeches fell away from him, she reached a hand to his throbbing shaft and circled her fingers around it.

She heard his quick intake of breath, knowing now, by experience, that he became so sensitive there before making love to her. She was careful not to go too fast with her caresses, or hold him too tightly with her fingers. She wanted him all to herself; the ecstasy shared.

Strong Wolf, hardly able to bear the wild ripples of desire that were licking through him in heated flames, reached down and grabbed Hannah's hand. He took it away from his aching heat, then enfolded her within his arms and led her down onto the blanket.

He knelt down over her. He lowered his mouth to her lips as once again one of his hands found her warm and secret place and began his slow caresses.

Wanting more, hungering for the feel of him inside her, she gently shoved his hand away and placed her hands around his manhood and led it to her throbbing center.

“Love me,” she whispered against his parted lips. She flicked her tongue across his lips. “Take me to paradise. Oh, my darling, how I need you. I need you
now
.”

A tremor went through her body when he shoved himself into her. It felt as though he was reaching much farther than usual, touching places inside her that she didn't know existed.

As his pelvis moved rhythmically against her, his thrusts became maddeningly fast. He sank deeper and plunged over and over within her.

Hannah threw her head back and sighed as the incredible sweetness swept through her.

Strong Wolf buried his face in the valley of her breasts, smothering his repeated groans as he felt the passion rising, spreading, turning to a liquid fire within him,

Having never felt as alive, so desired, Hannah opened herself wider to him, and her hips responded in a rhythmic movement all their own as she clung and rocked with him.

The pulsing crest of Strong Wolf's passion was near. His mouth closed hard upon hers as he kissed her, his hands stroking her softly pliant limbs, caressing her skin feverishly with his fingertips. His hands searched all of her pleasure points until she shuddered with desire,

Then he held her in a torrid embrace when he felt the storm building within.

Her hands clung to his sinewed shoulders when she felt the pleasure building, climbing, spreading.

And then that sudden onslaught of passion overwhelmed them both. Hannah clung to him as his body became rocked with spasms, and he sent his seed deeply within her.

Her own silent explosion of need sent her senses reeling. She gave herself up to the rapture as her fingers clamped onto his muscular male buttocks, feeling them tightening each time he plunged into her.

Then it was over, their ecstasy sought and found. Their bodies were pearled with sweat. Their hearts were pounding. Their breathing was raspy.

Strong Wolf leaned low over Hannah and pressed his lips to her throat. “I love you so,” he whispered against her flesh.

Legs entwined, their bodies straining together as they turned on their sides to face one another, Hannah reverently breathed his name against his cheek. “Strong Wolf, my husband, my wonderful, sweet husband,” she said. “Life was nothing before I met you. You have made me realize what it truly feels to be a woman. I have proven that I am more than a tomboy, haven't I?”

He leaned away from her, his eyes dancing. “Much more,” he said, then kissed her softly. “You are all woman, and you are
mine
.”

“I wish to have your child,” Hannah said before she even realized that she had been thinking about it. “Darling, let us have a child soon. I so badly want that.”

Something she said seemed to seize hold of Strong Wolf as though a dark, dank wind had blown between them. He rose quickly to his feet, dressed, and started gathering wood for a fire, leaving Hannah on the blankets and pelts, staring, disbelievingly at him.