When the curtain of darkness parts, she has returned to herself, feeling the pleasant weight of Kirsten’s fingers still tangled in her hair. Kirsten’s body, sheened with sweat, still quakes, minute tremors that flow from the center and back again. Her breathing, though labored, is settling slowly, along with the beat of heart.
Pressing a kiss to the belly she rests her head upon, Koda gently disentangles herself from Kirsten’s limbs and stretches her length along her lover’s side, her head propped up in one large hand.
“What a fool I’ve been,” she murmurs, gently wiping the tears that sparkle like fire-kissed diamonds upon Kirsten’s thick lashes, “to think my heart my own when I’d already given it up to you the moment our eyes first met.” Kirsten’s smile is radiance itself, and in that moment, her sheer beauty far surpasses anything that Dakota has ever known. “You shine so brightly, wiyo winan.” My heart. My soul. My joy.
The image before her doubles, then trebles, fracturing into multi-hued prisms by the spark of her own sudden, stinging tears. She feels more than sees her hand taken into Kirsten’s, feels the cool touch of her lips on her fingers, each kiss a benediction. When a tongue traces the lines of her roughened palm, she moans and allows herself to be turned onto her back by Kirsten’s gentle strength.
Kirsten moves with her, draping over the left side of her body like a living blanket. Lips descend again, brushing against her cheek, past the heavy fall of sweat-soaked hair at her temple, suckling briefly the sensitive lobe of her ear. Her lover’s voice, when it sounds, is husky and low. “Let me love you.”
She can only groan out her acceptance as Kirsten’s lips leave her ear and a toned thigh slips between her own, seating itself against her with a whisper of silken flesh. Her hips surge and Kirsten cries out as the molten heat of Dakota’s passion paints itself against her skin.
“Oh…sweetheart,” Kirsten whispers breathlessly. “So beautiful….”
Lips mesh and tangle, tongues battle sweetly for dominance, bodies writhe, snake-like, on a sheen of sweat. Kirsten’s hand trails down to cup the weight of a small firm breast, dragging her palm across a nipple so hot and tight that it seems to cut into her flesh.
Dakota’s moans are constant things, fractured with short gasps and snatches of words Kirsten can barely decipher. Her large hands bear the heat of the sun as they trail over shoulders and back, down past the sweet curve of Kirsten’s hip, and settle, pressing her deep and close and tight.
With a labored grunt, Kirsten lifts her head, knowing she cannot bear this incendiary touch much longer without succumbing fully to its whispered promises.
“Slow,” she gasps out, looking down into eyes as black as a moonless night. “Slow….”
“Hiya,” Koda groans. “Hiya, iyokipi. Please.”
With regret, Kirsten slides away from temptation and gentles Koda with firm strokes to her belly and ribs. “Slow,” she whispers. “Let me love you.”
Her head lowers slowly and she nuzzles Koda’s breast, drawing her cheek and nose over the silken skin, taking in her lover’s, musky, exotic scent. Koda’s hips surge again as a warm, wet mouth engulfs her and a cool, darting tongue teases the flames licking at her soul. Her eyes close tightly as the world within fractures and spins, filling her with the heat and the power of a thousand suns.
Her cries are loud as bold fingers comb through the bone-straight hair at her center, then dip lower, bathing themselves in the evidence of her great need. She is so full and swollen with passion that the first touch is pain entwined with pleasure, and when those fingers tease her entrance, she gives them no chance for retreat. Her hips thrust hard and she shouts in triumph as she is suddenly, blessedly, filled.
Kirsten smiles around the breast at her lips, then moans with pleasure as she is gripped and held in slick, velvet heat. Deliberately keeping her fingers still, she draws her body away and up, pressing a deep, heady kiss to Koda’s swollen lips, then soothing her way down to her lover’s flushed ear. “You feel so good, lover,” she breathes, feeling Dakota’s body respond to her murmured endearments. She’s not sure where these words are coming from. She’s not a very experienced lover, and certainly not a vocal one, but here, and now, and with this magnificent woman beneath her, they seem right, and needed, and very much desired.
“So smooth. So open. So ready for my touch.” She begins to gently thrust in rhythm to her phrases, using the very tips of her fingers to stroke the velvet lining as she advances and retreats with slowly building speed.
Koda’s head is tipped back, lips parted and glistening, hair fanned around her like the corona of a jet black star. Her hands grip and release the quilt and her chest heaves as she takes in giant gulps of air. Her body is as tight as a drum, skin flushed and shining rose and gold and shadow by the light of the fire.
“Iyokipi. Lila waste. Mahe tuya. Iyokipi. Hau!”
Pressing down with the heel of her palm, Kirsten rubs against the engorged flesh as her fingers increase the force and speed of each thrust, enraptured by the feel of the slippery heat against her fingers and beneath her palm. The quilt pulls taut as Koda grinds desperately against it. “Now, my love,” she whispers, tasting the sweat of desire on Koda’s skin. “Let go. I love you. Come to me. I love you, Dakota.”
And she feels the incredible strength in the body beneath her as it surges up around her. Arms pin her tight and hold her close against a body that thrums like a live wire. Wetness, molten hot, floods her hand and drains between her fingers.
The grip around her finally loosens and falls away as Koda lays back, limp and motionless except for her ribs, which expand and contract with the force of her panting breaths.
With a tenderness she never knew she possessed, Kirsten eases out of Dakota’s spent and trembling body, gently cupping her lover’s mound she shifts slightly into a more comfortable position. Her free hand comes up and strokes the sweaty bangs from Koda’s forehead.
After a moment, Dakota’s eyes flutter open. They are a peaceful, sleepy blue, and the love that shines forth from them is brighter than any star. Kirsten can feel that look upon her skin, settling over her like a warm, soft blanket, and she closes her eyes for a moment, reveling in the sensation. They open again as she feels long fingers trace down the center of her chest. Dakota is smiling at her.
“Lie with me, cante mitawa. Let us walk the dreaming paths together.”
With a smile, Kirsten curls her body into her lover’s. Murmuring, Dakota gathers her within the warm folds of the quilt. She sinks into sleep with Kirsten’s head on her shoulder, Kirsten’s arm over her body. On the edge of sleep comes Kirsten’s soft voice, “Wastelake. Ohinni.”
And darkness takes her.
CHAPTER THIRTY ONE
THE SHAPE EMERGES slowly under her hands. A chip here, a shaving there, a deeper cut with the tip of the knife to define the hollow of an ear, the pupil of an eye. Dakota’s profession has made her precise with a blade, and the rounded end of the fallen oak branch grows steadily into the recognizable likeness of a wolf.
The quiet of the morning deepens around her as she works, finding its way into the sure movements of her hands and the stillness of her mind. The early light slants down through the sycamore leaves to dapple the stream with flecks of gold, rippling and twining with the swift movement of the water over the rocks beneath. The wet earth at the verge bears the heart-shaped marks of deer hooves and the flat-footed prints of skunk; further down, where she found the branch she is now carving into a spirit-keeping stick for Wa Uspewikakiyape, Koda had seen the blunt, rounded marks of a large bobcat. This will be a good place to release Igmú when the time comes. She is almost ready for her freedom, the fur grown back over her injured paw except for the thin line of a scar; almost ready, too for a mate.