He caught her face in his hands and kissed her. The first touch was soft, then exploded into urgent need. His lips tore hers. Biting, nipping, pulling, and slanting down with an insatiable possessiveness. She moaned. He invaded with his tongue. He needed her … now.
He picked her up effortlessly and carried her away from the creek, into the woods, deeper and deeper, until he was sure no one would stumble across them. She was clinging to him, her face against his bare chest, her lips moving, caressing his skin, finding a nipple and teasing it with her tongue. With a groan, he sank to his knees, lowering her on a natural bed of pine needles, and with trembling fingers he began to unbutton her blouse.
She strained toward him, catching his face in her hands, kissing him hard, demandingly.
“Damn.” He groaned, rumbling with her buttons while she poured kisses on his mouth and jaw and throat. He pulled away, finally getting the last button open to reveal her white, swollen, blue-veined breasts. With shaking hands he pulled off her shirt, then her chemise, clutching her lush flesh and lifting it up for his intent gaze. “Candice,” he said, “God, Candice.”
She whimpered.
He took a large, darkening nipple in his mouth and tugged with his teeth.
She reached out and deftly untied the loincloth, letting it drop, exposing the swollen length of him. She stared for one long moment, then lifted her eyes to his. When she looked back down it was to reach out one forefinger and touch the quivering tip, removing a drop of semen. She touched it to her lips. Jack groaned.
She lifted her skirt up to her waist, spreading her thighs to reveal glistening pink flesh.
He was breathing too loudly, too raggedly. He rolled onto his back, pulling her up on top of him in one movement. He held her hips immobile as he thrust upward, deeply, while she eased down fully on his length, trembling, the sensation of fullness exquisite. He reached for her breasts.
She moved.
He slipped one hand beneath her skirt, finding her moist, slick flesh, sliding his finger over her clitoris, around it, beneath it, lifting it. She whimpered, and he watched her, knowing she was close, so close … She fell forward with a cry. He surged up into her, letting himself go, exploding harshly, uncontrollably, ecstatically. Then he sank into bliss, with Candice embraced firmly in his arms.
“Oh, Jack,” she said.
He stroked her face. Then he cupped the back of her head with one large hand and pulled her closer, kissing her. When he opened his eyes he saw that hers were closed. He kissed her again. “I love you,” he told her hoarsely, then felt himself go tense with expectation.
She looked at him solemnly. Then she smiled slightly, brushing a lock of his hair from his forehead. “No need to deny ourselves, just because the Apaches do.”
He kept the hurt from showing in his eyes.
But he wanted to know, had she fallen out of love with him? Or had she ever even loved him? They were not thoughts he liked. “We should try,” he said, then pulled her closer and began moving slowly inside her again.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR
After they returned from the woods, Jack disappeared. It was not unusual. The men were always preparing for war. The cleaning, replenishing, and mending of weapons were constant duties. Hunting was even more important. Game was always being supplied to the camp, and what was not consumed was dried and stored. Jack had told Candice that the Apaches had hidden caches of food throughout the Territory in caves, for emergency purposes. But it was even more important that the ranchería be adequately supplied. “The women and children of the Apaches are the future,” he had said.
Jack often kept counsel with Cochise and the other leaders of the Chiricahua. Candice could not believe that all the time he spent with the great chief was in deliberations over war.
Now she carried with her the pleasant aftermath of their exquisite lovemaking. It had been too long. And it was more than that. The intimacy between them had been something that she had missed sorely before. She needed the reassurance of his need for her, even if only expressed in the physical act of union.
She remembered his declaration of love. It had taken her completely by surprise, and had thrilled her. Candice, however, could not forget easily. Jack’s words did not wipe everything out between them and expunge him of the wrongs he had done. But she knew that he had meant it, and his words left a tingling warmth wrapped around her heart.
That night was the first of four nights of ceremonial dances by the masked men who, Candice was told, impersonated thegans.
“Would you like to attend?” Jack asked.
Some or the tension was back, Candice could see it in the cautiously formal manner he used to address her. “I suppose so. Who are thesegansagain?”
“Mountain People, Savage said easily, as they walked toward a huge clearing in the center of the camp, already surrounded with Apaches clad in their best buckskins, which were painted and beaded heavily. “Thegansare very, very powerful. They can move mountains if they wish. Some are more dangerous than others. There are regular gans. But the clown is dangerous, and the Black One very dangerous.”
She gave a snort.
“If you see the Black One tonight, do not touch him or talk to him, Candice. I mean it.”
She laughed. “What will he do—strike me dead?”
“Just obey me,” he muttered in exasperation.
“But these are Apaches impersonating the so-called Mountain People,” Candice objected later. Four men wearing blackened buckskin masks with slits for their eyes, woven floor-length skirts, and elaborate headdresses made of wood slats with pointed ends, some two feet wide and high, were dancing in what to her was a typically Indian fashion. Drums beat, and there was a strange whistling noise.
