“I am not skittish when it comes to the female body,” Fargo teased, and kissed her again, harder, and longer. When he drew back she had a dreamy look about her.
“You kiss as good as you ride.” Birds Landing put a hand on his chest and bent to lightly run her tongue along his neck. “And you taste as good as you kiss,” she said with a grin.
“How do you taste?” Fargo asked, and molded his mouth to her throat. He nibbled and licked a path to her ear. She squirmed, breathing heavier, and digging her nails into his forearm.
They separated, and Birds Landing rimmed her mouth with the tip of her tongue. “It is not food I am hungry for now.”
“I was hoping you would say that.” Fargo moved the bundle of pemmican out of their way and eased her down onto her side, facing him. As he reached for her, she clasped his hand.
“I should stop you. Father DeSmet would say this is wrong.”
“I won’t tell if you don’t,” Fargo said, hoping she was not about to change her mind.
“How do they do it?” Birds Landing asked.
“Do what?”
“The priests and the nuns. How do they go their whole lives without? Are they not like the rest of us?”
“You’re asking the wrong person,” Fargo informed her. “I can’t go a week without getting the itch.”
Birds Landing laughed merrily. “We are alike, you and I. But for the sake of the priests, while I was at the mission school I did not lift my dress for men, even those from my own tribe.”
Fargo playfully hiked at the hem of her doeskin. “How about now? Any lifting allowed?”
“Were it any other white man, I would make Father DeSmet proud and refuse,” Birds Landing said. “But I am no longer at the mission, and for you I am willing to do that which he would forbid.”
Fargo kissed her again while running his hand up over her thigh to her flat belly, and from there to her breasts. He cupped one, then the other, and pinched her nipples through the dress.
Cooing softly in her throat, Birds Landing ground her bottom against his hardening manhood. She was not timid when it came to lovemaking, as she demonstrated by reaching down and placing her hand on top of his swelling bulge. “You are a stallion,” she breathed in his ear.
Fargo couldn’t respond, not with the constriction in his throat. He covered her luscious mouth with his and her lips parted to admit his tongue. Hers and his entwined in a silken swirl as her hand commenced to stroke him.
Fargo had to be careful. It would not do to explode before he was ready. He willed himself to ignore her hand and got her dress up around her waist. He caressed each of her thighs in turn, running his fingers from her knees to her nether mound and down again. Her legs were exquisitely smooth to the touch. She arched her back, then pried at his belt to release his member. He nearly gasped when her fingers enfolded him.
Fargo had always been partial to women who liked to do what came naturally to a man and a woman. His appreciation of Birds Landing rose as she cupped him, low down.
Time drifted on a tide of mutual lust. For long minutes there was touching and kissing and the press of hot flesh to hot flesh.
Fargo drowned himself in the feel and the taste of her. When he stroked her slit, she shivered and came up off the blanket as if seeking to take wing. He parted her nether lips, brushed her tiny knob. A few flicks were all it took to drive her into paroxysms of release.
Birds Landing cried out in the Salish tongue. Her fingernails seared his shoulders. Suddenly she clamped her mouth to his neck and bit him so hard, he thought she would draw blood.
“Like it rough, do you?” Fargo said, and plunged the rigid first two fingers of his right hand up into her.
Her mouth parted in a soundless O, and Birds Landing bucked wildly. It was all Fargo could do to keep his fingers inside her. He pumped fast and hard, clear in to the knuckles. Her eyes closed and she clung to him, rhythmically thrusting her bottom to match the tempo of his fingers. It was not long before she crested. Then, spent, she sagged against him.
“It is not over yet,” Fargo whispered in her ear. He parted her legs wide, knelt between them, and aligned his throbbing sword with her moist sheath. Her eyes met his, and he rammed into her.
Once again Fargo lost all sense of time. He was aware of his body, of pulsing with pleasure, of Birds Landing squirming and grinding and lavishing wet kisses on every square inch of him her mouth could reach. She reached the pinnacle yet again, her inner walls contracting.
Fargo could no longer hold back. He impaled her, over and over. Her coos and cries became louder, but not so loud that they could be heard far off.
Afterward, Fargo lay on his back, spent but content, and listened for sign of their enemies. All appeared to be tranquil. He started to drift when the crunch of a twig snapped him awake.
Fargo groped for his Colt. Something was out there, and it was stalking them.
6
As quietly as he could, Fargo put himself together. No sounds came out of the encircling cottonwoods but he could not shake the feeling that unseen eyes were watching them. Fully dressed and lying on his side, he bent toward Birds Landing to warn her.
Suddenly a figure in buckskins glided into view, cat-footing stealthily toward them.
Fargo froze, hoping the man would think he was asleep. Then he saw that the stalker had a bow, and spied what could be the top of a quiver poking above the man’s right shoulder.
It was an Indian, not a white man.
Since they were in Flathead country, odds were the warrior was a Flathead, or Salish, a member of Birds Landing’s tribe. They were on friendly terms with whites but Fargo never took anything for granted. He had his thumb on the Colt’s hammer, ready to snap off a shot the moment the warrior raised the bow to unleash a shaft.
That was when Birds Landing stirred and muttered in her sleep in the Salish language.
The warrior stopped. He appeared to be staring intently at Birds Landing. When she did not stir or sit up, he edged forward.
Waiting until the warrior was almost to his saddle, Fargo sprang. The warrior’s hand flew to the haft of a tomahawk at his waist but before he could wield it, Fargo was on him. Fargo gave him a hard shove while cocking the Colt and declaring, “Don’t move or I will shoot!”
Fargo had no idea if the warrior spoke English. He did not want to kill him, if he could help it. It was bound to stir up trouble, which was the last thing the Flatheads needed, what with the promise of a reservation in the offing.
The warrior fell onto his back and stayed there. He made no attempt to draw the tomahawk or resort to his bow.
Birds Landing sat up with a start. “What is it? What is going on?” Her eyes fastened on the warrior and she exclaimed something in her own language.
The warrior calmly answered.
Rising, Birds Landing said to Fargo, “Do not shoot! He will not harm us.”
“How can you be so sure?” Fargo demanded.
“He is my brother.”
Fargo slowly holstered the Colt but kept his hand on it as the two Salish warmly embraced and addressed one another in their own language. He waited for Birds Landing to explain what her brother was doing there, and when it became apparent she had forgotten about him, he coughed and said, “Remember me? I want to know what your brother is doing here. How did he find us?”
Birds Landing tore herself from her sibling. “Forgive me. His name is Thunder Cloud. He was off hunting when Kutler and Tork came to our village, and when he learned what they had done, he came to Polson to find me. Since he dared not let himself be seen, he watched from a gully.” Birds Landing spoke to Thunder Cloud and he replied. “He says that he saw Indian women going in and out of the Whiskey Mill, and guessed that is where I must be. He was nearby when you rescued me.” She squeezed her brother’s hand. “He followed, and only now caught up.”