Page 89 of Red Hawk's Woman

But Effie had become accustomed to the trail, to the wild, and had found that the late evenings, instead of frightening her, endowed her with a feeling of independence, to say nothing of allowing her privacy.

Besides, something in the air tonight pulled at her, encouraging her to let go, to come to the water.

Drawing in a breath of the warm night, she stepped toward the great Missouri River, heading to a particular pool that was caught off in a nook. One that was surrounded by willows and pine. In her youth she had used it often, it being the same place where she had first met Red Hawk.

The grasses were dew covered, wet and cool against her slippers, and she fretted that the bottom of her dress would pay the price for her tête-à-tête with the river. But she wasn’t about to let a little dew stop her.

At last she arrived. As she bent down to test the water with her fingers, a deep voice behind her said, “I thought you were never going to come. Because I saw you working, I decided not to disturb you, but I have waited here the evening through.”

She gasped and jumped, but she wasn’t frightened, if only because she was well aware of exactly who had spoken to her. She turned, and, as she drank in the sight of him, she said, “I wonder if I shall ever get used to your sneaking up on me.”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he opened his arms wide.

As though one were the magnet for the other, they fell into each other’s embrace. While he rained kisses over her face and cheeks, he ran his hands up, down and over her back, her hips, her neck, her hair.

“I have missed you,” he said.

“And I, you,” she responded. “I had begun to worry that you had forgotten about me.”

“Forgotten? Could a mountain forget her streams and forests? A lake her fish and currents? You are as much a part of me now as these are to a mountain or a lake. How could I ever forget you?”

She sighed. “You have been gone so long.”

“Fourteen or fifteen suns. That is all.”

They sank to their knees.

“It is a long time for me,” she said. “Have you finished visiting your relatives?”

“I have.”

His lips then captured hers. She welcomed his taste, his touch, his tongue.

Her shawl had long since hit the ground, and his fingers fumbled with the buttons on the back of her dress. He murmured against her lips, “Again, you wear many clothes.”

“As do you.” She indicated his shirt, his buffalo robe, breastplate and leggings.

“The robe is to cushion you against the harshness of the ground.”

“Oh.” Her insides were throbbing with need, and her stomach seemed to be performing somersaults and handsprings.

He whispered, “I intend to make love to you, my wife.”

The endearment sent her pulse soaring. “Please do. Please make love to me, Red Hawk. Now.”

They should have finished undressing. Goodness knew their clothes would be mussed by their activity, but need drove them both.

After throwing his buffalo robe over the ground, he lowered her onto it, kissed her and raised her skirts. “I am glad to see that you have given up wearing leggings beneath all these clothes, but are you certain you do not need them because of these things tied to your waist?”

“It has been hot.”

He grinned at her. “For this I am grateful. Are you ready?”

She nodded.

He joined himself with her, without preamble. They wanted each other. It was enough.

His movements against her were deep and were exactly what she needed, although she found herself responding as though, even skin to skin, body to body, it wasn’t sufficient. She yearned for more. She moved with him, against him, straining, for the pleasure was too good, too splendid to stop.