Hunter (18 page)

He leaned back, troubled, the coffee cup still in his lean, dark hand. He watched her intently. “My mother was white, Jennifer,” he said finally.

“Is she still alive?”

He shrugged. “I don't know. She couldn't take life on the reservation, and my father was too Apache to leave it. She left when I was five and I haven't seen her since. My father died a year later. He gave up. Life without her, he said, was no life. I always consider that I lost both my parents when I was five, so I don't qualify the statement. I don't know where my mother is.” His face hardened. “I don't care. Her family put me through school and supported me while I was younger. I didn't find out until I was much older. My grandfather never would have told me, but I found a check stub. He was a proud man.” He looked down at his hands. “Life on the reservation is hard. Unemployment, infant mortality, poverty… It's no one's idea of the American dream. He took the money for my sake, not for his. What he didn't spend on me, he sent back.”

She stretched her hand toward his free one, lying on the table and abruptly stopped. He wouldn't want sympathy, she supposed.

But surprisingly, his own hand slid the remaining distance and enveloped hers, his thumb softly stroking her palm. “White and brown,” he observed, staring at the differences in color. “I'm still Apache, Jenny, despite my white blood. But if I had a child with a white woman, he'd be a lost soul, like me. Caught between two worlds. My own people have a hard time accepting me, even though I look more Apache than white.”

Her eyes adored him. “I can't imagine a more handsome man of either race,” she said quietly.

His face went a ruddy color, and she wondered if it was possible to embarrass him.

She smiled wickedly. “My, my, are you
blushing?
”

He let go of her hand with an outright laugh. “Compliments are difficult for me,” he said gruffly. “Eat your omelet.”

She picked up her fork with a sigh, wincing a little as the movement made her arm uncomfortable. “Can I ask why we aren't having bacon or sausage with our eggs?” she murmured.

“Apaches don't eat pork,” he said. “Or fish. Ever.”

“Why?” she asked, astonished.

“Beats me. We just don't.”

“I thought I knew something about your people. I suppose I don't know much at all.”

He smiled to himself. “You know more than most whites.”

“I guess that operative of yours who's Papago knows more,” she murmured without looking at him. “She's the kind of woman you'll marry one day, isn't she?”

He frowned down at his omelet. “I don't know that I'll marry at all,” he said. He lifted his eyes to her sad face and felt a wave of grief that almost knocked him flat. She was infatuated with him, but she could never endure life here. She was beautiful and sweet and he wanted her until she was all but an obsession. But his mind kept insisting that he couldn't risk having her turn out like his mother. His mother hadn't been able to take living in an Indian world.

She sighed wearily. “I've had the same feeling lately. I'm almost twenty-eight. Despite the fact that women are becoming mothers later and later in life, I don't really like the risk factors after thirty-five.” She smiled at her omelet as she cut it. “Funny. I always thought I might make a pretty good mother.”

“You've had the opportunity to marry,” he said stiffly.

“Oh, of course. Soft, carefree city men who have affairs and look upon marriage as slow death. I had one proposal from a man who was twenty years older than me and wanted to live in Alaska.” She glanced up. “I hate polar bears.”

He smiled. “So do I.”

“My other proposal was from a boy my age when I was eighteen, and he only wanted to marry me to get away from his parents. He was rich and I wasn't—it was a sort of rebellion.” She put down her fork. “I've never been asked to marry anybody because I was loved. Wanted, yes. But that wasn't enough.”

“You're not over the hill,” he reminded her.

“It doesn't matter.” She looked up at him, her eyes wide and soft and gentle. “I'm sorry you stopped that night in Washington,” she said huskily. “I wouldn't have regretted it, ever.”

His jaw tautened. He finished his steak and washed it down with coffee. “It would have hurt like hell.”

She traced the rim of her plate, her heart beating madly at the memory of his arms around her, his body intimately over her own. “It wouldn't have hurt long,” she whispered. “I wanted you too badly to care.”

“God, yes, you did,” he said through his teeth. The memories were driving him crazy. “Shaking in my arms, and I'd barely touched you. By the time I put my mouth on yours, you were trembling all over with the need. I never dreamed that women felt it like that.”

“Maybe most women don't feel it like that,” she said uneasily. “Maybe there's, well, something wrong with me….”

“There's nothing wrong with you that a night in my arms wouldn't cure,” he said curtly. His dark eyes caught her blue ones and held them hotly. “But it would only be a night, and we'd have the rest of our lives to regret it.”

Her lips parted as she searched his eyes. “No, we wouldn't,” she whispered. “And you know it. You want me just as much as I want you.”

He nodded slowly, his gaze dropping to her full breasts and back up again to her mouth and her eyes. “You can only give your chastity once.”

“I know that, too,” she replied. “I meant what I said. If it isn't you, it won't be anybody.” Her breath sighed out raggedly. “I love you,” she said achingly.

He let out a long, weary sigh. After a minute he got up and held out his hand. She took it, feeling his lean fingers enfold hers, wrap gently around them.

He led her into his bedroom without speaking and closed the door. “Do you want the light out?” he asked.

She bit her lower lip. She wanted to be sophisticated and worldly, but she was already blushing.

He smiled with bitter irony. “Never mind.” He reached up and turned off the light, leaving the room in almost total darkness, except for the half moon that left its yellow shadow over the patchwork quilt on the bed.

“What do we do now?” she whispered, her voice husky with excitement and faint apprehension.

“What we did in my hotel room that night in Washington,” he murmured as his hands reached for her. “Except that this time I won't pull back when I feel the barrier…”

“Phillip.” She moaned his name into his mouth as it came down on hers, gasping when she felt him pull her hips roughly into the already aroused thrust of his.

“This is how badly I want you,” he whispered, his breathing mingling with hers. “It happens the minute your body touches mine. Magic.”

“Yes.” She pulled his shirt out of his jeans and slid her hands up against his bare back, feeling the taut muscles, the rough silk of his skin. It was cool, and seconds later when her bare breasts melted into the hard wall of his chest, that was cool, too, against the heated warmth of her own skin.

When he had every scrap of material away from their bodies, he lifted her, with his mouth gently moving on her own, and laid her on the quilt. His hand went to the bedside table. He opened a drawer and removed something. Seconds later, he placed it in her hand and taught her how to put it in place. Even that was exciting and sensual in the hot darkness.

“This is so we won't make a baby,” he whispered, his voice deep and slow as he moved over her. His teeth nibbled softly at her upper lip. His lean hands smoothed down her body, lingering on her soft thighs, making her tremble with the pleasure of his touch.

Her body was shivering. He kissed her tenderly, and then his mouth moved down to her breasts and caressed their hard tips until she was writhing under him.

“You like that, don't you?” he whispered. “I like it, too, little one. You taste of satin here, and of desire here,” he breathed against a taut nipple, his lips pulling at it with sensual tenderness.

She clung to his muscular arms, her breath coming in jerks while he kissed and touched and tasted, the darkness like a warm blanket over her fears.

When she was shuddering, he eased her trembling legs apart and levered himself down between them, his mouth poised just above her own, his eyes glittered into hers in the darkness. He probed tenderly and felt her tense.

“When I push down, try not to do that,” he whispered. “If you tense up, it's going to hurt more.”

She shivered with delicious anticipation, her body throbbing with a heat it had never felt before. Her legs moved to admit him even closer and her nails bit into his shoulders. “I'll try,” she breathed.

His chest rose and fell deeply. His hips moved down, and she made a noise deep in her throat as she felt the burning pain. She tensed involuntarily. “I'm…sorry,” she gasped.

“It can't be be helped,” he said quietly. “I'm going to have to hurt you. Cry out if you want to. I'm sorry…!”

She did, because it was worse than she'd imagined it would be. But she didn't fight him or try to push him away even then. She bit her lip and moaned, trying to force her body to relax as it protested the invasion of his.

“Only a little longer,” he whispered. His mouth came closer. “Kiss me. It will help.”

She let him take her mouth, opened it to admit the slow, deep penetration of his tongue that imitated what his body was doing to hers. It was so erotic that it tricked her taut muscles into relaxing, and suddenly what had been almost impossible was easy and smooth.

He heard her intake of breath and lifted his head, smiling down at her through his own fierce excitement. The act of possession was almost enough to trigger his fulfillment. He had to stop and breathe himself to keep control.

“Phillip,” she whispered achingly. Her eyes sought his, and she could barely believe it was happening, at last.

“How does it feel?” he whispered at her lips.

“Incredible,” she managed, her voice shaking.

“And we haven't begun,” he breathed as his mouth began to open on hers. His hips lifted and moved and she shivered, because the surge of pleasure she felt shocked her.

The sound of the car roaring up outside was an interruption that froze them both in incredulous shock.

“My God,” he ground out. “No!”

But the car was stopping. Worse, there were lights flashing, so it had to be a police car.

He lifted himself away from her, shuddering as he fell onto his back and arched. He groaned and stiffened, while Jennifer tried to weather the frustration and anger she felt.

There were footsteps on the porch and a loud, heavy knock at the door.

“Just a minute!” Hunter shouted. He got up, pulling on his jeans with hands that shook. “God almighty, I'll kill someone for this!” he muttered. He leaned over Jennifer's shivering body and bent to kiss her with rough hunger. “Get dressed, quickly.”

He left the room and she turned on the light, hurrying to get back into her clothes and make some kind of order in the room. She brushed her hair with his hairbrush and, satisfied that she looked as presentable as possible, she opened the bedroom door.

Hunter was talking to another man. They had to be speaking Apache, because Jennifer couldn't understand a word.

“This is Choya,” Hunter introduced the shorter man. “He's chief of the reservation police. I've been telling him what happened. Since the incident occurred on Apache land, he'll be responsible for the investigation and any arrests.”

“In other words, I get all the headaches,” the newcomer grinned, perfect white teeth flashing. “My God, Hunter, I go home to a wife with buckteeth and you have her.” He shook his head. “I need to change medicine men.”

Hunter chuckled. “You know Maria's the prettiest woman around, so shut up. Is there anything else you need to know?”

“Not tonight,” Choya said, and exchanged a knowing glance with Hunter. “Sorry about my timing. I'll get back on the road now. Good night.”

“Good night,” Jennifer said, blushing all over.

Hunter closed the door behind him and turned to Jennifer. He didn't move until the car drove away, his dark eyes sliding over her, his dark, bare chest lifting and falling slowly.

“Come here,” he said curtly.

She went to him without hesitation. He lifted her, but instead of carrying her back into the bedroom, he carried her to the rocking chair and sat down with her across his lap.

“Thanks to Choya, we can't finish what we started,” he said, smiling into her heated face. “I was prepared, but only for one time.” He bent and drew his mouth slowly over hers. “Still burning?” he breathed.

His hand was on the buttons of her blouse, which she put on without her bra, and now he knew it. She arched, letting him look, letting him touch.

Her fingers tangled in his dark hair and pulled, tugging his face toward her bare breasts.

“All right,” he whispered. “Is this what you want?”

It was. Oh, it was, she thought in sweet anguish, loving the touch of his mouth on her velvety skin. She lay in his arms and made no protest when he stripped off her jeans and underwear. His hand found her and moved, and his mouth reached up for hers. He rocked the chair and touched her rhythmically, and the combined force of the sensual movements very quickly brought an explosive culmination in her taut body.

She cried out and shivered and was still. He gathered her close beside him, her breasts brushing his bare chest, his cheek against her hair.

“It isn't enough,” he whispered. “But it's safe. One day, so help me, I'll put you under me in bed and fill you until you scream.”

She bit his shoulder in anguished need, and he shuddered and brought her even closer. “What about you?” she asked huskily.

“Don't worry about me,” he said, ignoring his own need. He could handle it. He'd have to, he couldn't take the risk.