Chapter Fifteen.

"Thank you, G.o.d," Ellie prayed, "for bringing Mary Ben into our lives. She's a sweet, dear girl, and I promise to love her as if she were my own, for this great joy she has brought to my son."

Ellie sat in the kitchen sewing on the pink and white striped dress she had made for Vanessa several years before. It was hard for her to believe she was remaking it for her son's future wife. She had been proud of Henry earlier that night. He had spoken up like a man. A few weeks before he would have pulled her away from the others and whispered in her ear if he had wanted to tell her something. He was going to be married. Her Henry was taking a wife. One day there could be children, her grandchildren. One of her greatest sorrows had been her belief that her son would never know the fulfillment of loving, as she had loved his father. That was over now. Mary Ben was mature beyond her years and seemed to understand Henry far better than she and Vanessa. There was no doubt in Ellie's mind that the girl loved him. He was such a handsome man, the image of his father. If only Henry could have lived to see their son on his wedding day.

The country had changed Henry, changed all of them. Here she sat in the kitchen thinking it was perfectly respectable for Vanessa to be in Kain's bedroom with the door closed, and Henry and Mary Ben alone in the dark outside. My, my, she thought. What a difference a few weeks could make in a person's life.

She had completely given up the idea of trying to locate Adam Hill. She realized now he was indifferent about the relationship. Otherwise, he would have answered her letters. Should their paths cross, so be it. If not, she and Henry wouldn't miss having a relative they'd never had. Of more importance was Kain. He was an extraordinary man. He had brought them through that rough country to this place. She had the feeling he would have done it even if he hadn't fallen in love with Vanessa. She prayed to G.o.d he was mistaken about his illness. But he seemed so sure.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the happy laughter coming from Kain's room.

"I need to have my bandages changed." Kain stretched out on the bed and grinned up at Vanessa.

"No you don't. I changed them this morning."

"They itch."

"You're lucky. That means they're healing."

"I hurt . . . something terriblea""

"Big baby! You're after sympathy. Eeow!" she screeched, falling heavily beside him when he jerked on her hand. "You idiot! I could have fallen on you and hurt you."

"I made sure you didn't. I want nothing to interfere with my wedding night." He laughed, dragged her close, turned her over on her back and, leaning over her, kissed her hungrily. "I can't keep my hands off you. I want to touch you, look at you, kiss you . . . here and here." His lips moved from her mouth to her eyes, her nose, and down her cheek to her chin.

"Hmmm."

"What does that mean?"

"It means don't stop what you're doing."

His fingers scarcely touched her skin as they played along the line of her chin and then began to caress her throat. He smiled down at her, and it warmed her like sunshine. She arched up in mute appeal for his hand to cup the aching fullness of her breast. She watched his eyes move down as his hand slid from her throat and his fingers slowly stroked back and forth across her aroused nipple, visible through the cloth of her dress.

"Ah, sweet woman," he whispered. "I'm desperate to make love to you. I want to see you, touch you, feel you. I want to come into you and worship you with my body, give you my soul."

She reached for his hand and brought it to her lips. She turned it over and kissed his palm with a tender, lingering caress while still looking into his eyes. His eyes were deep and warm and golden. An instant hotness like a flash of heat skittered along her nerves and a burning ache stabbed her lower body with awful, stunning suddenness.

"Then why don't you, my darling?" She wasn't sure she had even said the words. Her fingers guided his to the b.u.t.tons on her dress. In utter silence they continued to stare at each other with openhearted longing. She moved her hands up over his shoulders to the back of his neck, giving him unrestricted access. His trembling fingers worked at the b.u.t.tons, but not until he released the last one did he fold back the top of her dress and pull on the ribbon that held her chemise.

She felt the throbbing beat of her pulses high in her throat, and the pounding of his heart when first his eyes and then his fingertips touched her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. The gentle, seeking touch of his hands sent delicious quivers through her as he held her warm and naked breast in his palm.

He made a low groaning sound. "My love, my love."

Unable for a moment to do anything but look at her, his warm, loving gaze caressed the coral tips of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, the smooth white skin of her ribs and upper belly.

She watched his eyes follow his fingers as they stroked from one side of her firm globes to the other, across taut and aching nipples. Her breath came in long, deep waves, enjoying the moment, waiting heedlessly for the next. He bent his head and his mouth traced a path from her collarbone to the tip of her breast. He kissed it reverently and took it into his mouth. She felt the roughness of his tongue and her breathing came deeper and faster.

"Kain . . ." She palmed his face with her hands and brought his mouth to hers. Their lips met and parted, then met once again in a deep, clinging kiss, his tongue gently circling the soft, pink flesh of her inner lips.

"I've never known such pleasure or seen such beauty," he whispered, and pressed his mouth to her moist parted lips again. "This means I love you." His mouth trailed to her eyes and his kiss closed them. "This means I love you. And this," his voice faded to no more than a breath of a sound as he pressed his face into the valley between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, "means I love you."

"My sweet and gentle man," she crooned, and caressed his head with her two hands. "I'm yours, now and for always. Show me what to do. I want to give you all of me, and I want all of you."

He raised his eyes to hers, not daring to believe she could want him as much as he wanted her.

"I can waita""

"I don't want to wait, Kain darling. I don't want to waste a minute of my time with you."

With great suddenness he was holding her fiercely. She heard his gasping, almost sobbing breath; felt his quivering, eager mouth against hers. His tenderness thrilled her to the marrow. The rough drag of his cheeks against hers, his masculine odor, the sweet, tender way his fingers held the back of her head as his lips played with hers all sent delicious quivers throughout her melting flesh.

"Do you want me to blow out the lamp?" His voice in her ear seemed only a breath.

"No."

"Thank G.o.d!" he said fervently. "Oh, thank G.o.d you are what you are, my love."

He slipped off the bed and knelt down. He untied her shoes and slipped them off her feet. Slowly he pulled off her black stockings, his hands caressing her knees and calves. He lifted a bare foot and tenderly kissed the red mark on her instep made by the tight shoelaces.

He said her name and reached for her hand. She stood before him and he untied the sash of her dress, smoothing it from her shoulders until it fell around her feet. She stood proudly, her eyes on his face, the chemise that hugged her narrow waist and slim hips her only covering. His fingers were so shaky that he fumbled with the pins in her hair, but as each one slid away he placed it carefully on the table. He could only stare at her when her fiery hair fell in curling wisps over her gleaming white shoulders and pink-tipped b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

As his eyes roved over her, Vanessa's body burned with a joyful and alien longing, new and unknown sensations that had lapped at her senses since she had met him. He pulled her into his arms, buried his face in her drifting hair, and stood quietly holding her as if he were holding something far more precious than life. After what seemed like an enchanted eternity, he released her and stepped away.

His whole body flamed and hardened, his arms and legs began to quake. He quickly pulled his shirt off over his head. Watching her, he worked at the buckle of his belt, unfastened it but then waited, willing himself to contain his almost insupportable eagerness before he released the throbbing, elongated hardness to her innocent gaze. He had to go slow, he cautioned himself. He reached for her again and she came willingly. Her soft b.r.e.a.s.t.s against his flesh set him to trembling and constricted his chest until he thought he would suffocate.

"Tell me what you want. I don't want to frighten you," he muttered thickly.

She gazed up at him, seeing through her desire-misted vision the anxious, tender concern in his eyes. "Nothing about you could ever frighten me."

"I could blow out the light."

"No. I want to look at you."

He released her and stepped back. His heart was drumming so hard he could barely breathe. He was too stunned with his happiness and joy of her to utter a word. He shrugged out of his tight buckskin britches and stood before her. His body was dark against the white bandage on his shoulder and side. His wide shoulders narrowed to a sinewy waist without an ounce of superfluous flesh. He stood on muscular legs, and where they joined she saw the thatch of dark brown curls that enclosed the root of his maleness. The mystery she had expected to fear and shrink from was beautiful. It stood firm and hard against his belly, a monument of his love.

She stared at him with the dull, fixed expression of the hypnotized before her lips parted and the air from her lungs escaped with a pleasurable sound. "Ahh . . ."

With a freedom that surprised even her, she slid the chemise over her hips, and when it fell to the floor she stepped out of it. She stood still, only her glorious hair covering her while his eyes roamed from the top of her head, down over rose-tipped b.r.e.a.s.t.s to her flat belly, on to the soft, red-gold hair that nestled between her thighs, and down long slender legs to the tips of her toes.

She smiled a quivering smile and went to him. Her hands fluttered up and over his smooth, muscled shoulders, and moved down along his ribcage to his narrow flanks. A half choked cry came from him as she stroked the quivering flesh of his belly with her fingertips.

"Once I saw a picture of a statue called David. You're beautiful, like the statue." She looked up into his eyes and her hands slipped from his shoulders down his arms so her fingers could interlace with his. Slowly, she pulled him toward the bed. "I must have done something good sometime, or G.o.d wouldn't have let me be with you like this."

He moaned and murmured, "I've never truly thanked G.o.d for anything before. I do now. I thank Him for bringing you into my life."

They sank down on the bed, arms holding each other, lips touching, releasing and touching again. If he had hoped for or expected anything, it had not been this swift honesty with which she had offered herself to him. He had had no experience at all with a good woman, only a succession of the other kind. He had not expected this sweet willingness, the astounding pa.s.sion that lay slumbering beneath her patient innocence.

Her mouth was trembling and eager against his as his hand traveled down her back to the fullness of her hips and pressed her to him. The silky down between her thighs teased his hardened flesh. In a frenzy his heated blood raced to it, swelled it even more, and pulsed there. An inarticulate sound escaped him. He gently turned her onto her back and raised himself on quivering arms to hover over her. His thumb caressed her lips before he kissed her, gently, wonderingly, the touch filled with praise and promise.

"I love you, Vanessa Cavanaugh." The words were wrung from him, accompanied by a soft moan.

Her murmured reply was lost in his kiss.

Borne beyond constraint, he lifted himself above her and positioned himself between her thighs with firm but gentle insistence.

Almost believing this was a dream and she would awaken alone in her bed, she opened her legs to welcome him when she felt the first firm touch of his hardened flesh probing the moist opening in her body. In the sweet freedom of letting go, she was wholly caught up in the sensations trembling from that secret place. She instinctively lifted her hips to the indriving shaft of pleasure that stole into the enchanted grotto, and her body perceived a gradual, gentle filling where before there had been emptiness.

In a haze of ethereal delight she was conscious of only a slight, swift tinge of pain. Then she was rocking, rocking, borne on a floating rhythm of a mighty wave. Seeking more of the delicious feeling, she thrust upward to envelop his entire length, and her hands slid around his waist, down to his taut b.u.t.tocks, gripped hard, and pulled him to her, helpless to suppress the unending moan of pleasure that rose in her throat with every surge of his magnificent prodding flesh. She writhed in her search for gratification, and when it came she found she was no longer herself and whole, but a body of many fragments, alive with vibrant sensations. The explosion sent her rising, gasping, upward and onward until all that held her together was the glorious spear that pierced her to her very soul.

Knowing the time had at long last come when there was no need for hesitation, he drowned his burning, bursting body in the writhing sweetness he had entered. Kain felt himself enveloped in a sheet of flame that ignited his every nerve and tissue. He was enclosed in sweet softness, pillowed in a warm and silken place. There was no more thinking, only feeling and a quick, ecstatic, irreversible tempo building toward the consuming release. Then, with only the warm sheath to hold him, he was floating free above the earth, flying and drowning all at once. He felt the heated flow of his life giving fluid spurt from his body in a great flood, filling her. And then he was beyond himself.

His body and mind came gradually back together with his gasping breath. He roused and lifted himself on his elbows, looking down into her magnificent blue eyes. Beholding her perfection and feeling her physical warmth that still enclosed him convinced him that it had not been just a dream. With grat.i.tude he saw that she was smiling at him with worship in her eyes. For a long moment he had courage for no more than silence.

"I think I died and was born again," he said when he was finally able to speak. The words were whispered against her lips before he kissed them as if he had never kissed them before. "You've given me the greatest treasure I've ever had." She could feel his deep voice vibrate against her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. "Thank you."

She pressed her hands against his back when he would have moved from her.

"Not yet," she whispered. "Please stay."

He looked into her eyes for a long moment, and when he chuckled a low, loving sound, she felt the tip of him touch her womb. She gave a gasp of pleasure and flexed her hips upward, trying to bury him more deeply.

"Did you like it, my love?" He was amazed and pleased to discover he was fully distended inside her, despite the violent completeness of the act they had just finished.

"It was heaven. I'd heard it was something a woman had to endure." She laughed softly at the absurdity and wiggled her hand down between them. "You are all the way inside me," she said with wonderment.

"You'll be sore tomorrow. I should leave you."

"Do you want to?"

"G.o.d no!" He advanced his pelvis, deliberately letting her feel the hardness of his erection.

"I hope to have callouses . . . there," she whispered, moving her hands down to his b.u.t.tocks and kneading gently.

Her brilliantly alive eyes laughed up at him. Her face was damp and flushed and covered with a happy smile. He began to caress her mouth gently but firmly. A little noise came from his throat, and he moved his hips in small circles as gentility gave way to greed. His need was a tumultuous pressure in his groin. His mouth nuzzled her rigid nipples, and she held him, clutching fiercely and stroking the back of his head, loving his weight, his warmth, the throbbing pressure that nudged at her womb.

His movements became frenzied. The pull of his lips on her nipples was both pain and pleasure. He left them to cover her mouth with his. She opened to him in wild abandon, giving her love with a wild recklessness, wanting to make him need her as much as she needed him. She drew him deeper and deeper into her as if she could hold him to her forever, chaining him to her with bonds of warm flesh.

Suddenly and violently her own body began to splinter and fall apart. During her shuddering convulsions he lay rigidly still inside her, giving her maximum pleasure, letting her feel the full impact as each trembling wave washed over her. She keened a quiet, soft cry of rapture as he brought her to an ecstasy far beyond the one of moments before. Finally he could no longer hold himself back, and poured his stream of life into her, his heart pulsing violently. In that final moment he experienced fulfillment, contentment and blazing pa.s.sion beyond anything he'd ever imagined.

She held him to her with all her strength while violent shudders rocked his powerful body. For an undetermined time she was aware of nothing but his fullness inside her and his weight on her body. Then she floated back to consciousness and found her hands moving across his back, feeling the smooth shifting pattern of his muscles as he moved, feeling his breath on her cheeks. Then she heard the hoa.r.s.ely whispered, shakily spoken words in her ear.

"You are more, far more than I ever dreamed a woman could be. I feel as if I had come home after a long lonely voyage." Slowly he pulled himself out of her and slid down her body to lay his dark head on her breast.

He lay quietly and she stroked his hair. Love for him filled her heart. Now that she knew of this pleasure she could give him, and he her, she would banish the hungry look from his golden eyes.

"Am I too heavy for you?"

"I want to keep you here forever."

"I'm so sleepy."

"Rest, darling, I'll hold you."

She reached for a bedcover, pulled it over them, and brought it up to cover his back. She delighted in the sensation of his warm body on top of hers. The cover closed them in their own private world. Never, never had she felt so safe and so complete. And never had she been more determined that nothing or no one would take him away from her.

When Vanessa woke Kain was sitting propped against the headboard, studying her with an ineffably tender expression, his fingers entwined in her flaming tresses spread out on the pillow. He reached over and smoothed the tight curls from her forehead, and trailed his fingertips down her cheeks, rosy from the roughness of his face.

"Morning, sweetheart." He put out his arm, inviting her to move up beside him. She did so, leaning her head on his shoulder. "I'll have to be more careful. My whiskers have sc.r.a.ped your soft skin." He kissed the top of her head and his hand moved beneath the cover and spread over her soft belly. "Are you sore?"

"I don't know. I haven't moved enough to find out." Aware that she was naked, she pulled the cover up and over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

"There's no need to close the barn door after the horse is gone, sweetheart." He laughed and his arms tightened.

"You're right, of course." She let the cover fall to her waist and grinned at him.

"Brazen hussy!" he chided with rough tenderness. "We can ride in to the preacher today, sweetheart. We don't need to wait until Sunday."

"There's no need. Standing in front of a stranger so he can say the words won't make me your wife any more than I am now. We'll be married on Sunday. Aunt Ellie is looking forward to it."

"And you?"

She turned her head and pressed kisses along the smooth warm skin of his chest. "I'm looking forward to every night between now and then."

"I was hoping you'd say that." He lifted her face and kissed her parted mouth. "Thank you for making me happier than any man has a right to be." His smile fired her with new tenderness. She slid upward in his hold and kissed the corner of his mouth.

"Thank you . . . for showing me that mating with the one you love can be the most precious gift G.o.d gave to us humans."

"I brought warm water from the kitchen for you to wash in. I'll fix us some breakfast while you get dressed. It will be a while before everyone comes in."

"Kiss me first. It will have to last for at least ten minutes."

The hours of the day disappeared as if by magic. An air of gaiety permeated the house and all its occupants. Clay went to town to get a steer to barbecue. Jeb and John began clearing the weeds around the house and repairing the gates. Ellie made list after list of things to do, things to buy, things not to do, and things not to forget to do at the last moment. She set Henry and Mary Ben to unpacking the good dishes they had brought from Springfield, and when that was done they took down the heavy, velvet draperies in the parlor and hung them on the line so the wind could whip the dust away.

Before John left the kitchen after breakfast he motioned Ellie to follow him outside. He pressed several gold pieces into her hand.