"Believe me, I'm tempted." Limbs still trembling with reaction, she rolled over and propped her head on one hand so she could see his face. "How serious are you about marriage?"
"Completely," he said, his eyes lambent with passion.
She closed her eyes for a moment to marshal her thoughts before speaking. She wanted to say that she loved him, but didn't dare, not after his painful doubts about his ability to love. Neither did she want to give him a new source of guilt if the morning light made him change his mind about his proposal.
Was marriage to Robin why she had been unable to sense her future course? She thought about London, and immediately veered away, shaken by that horrible, black anxiety. But the fleeting contact reinforced her belief that her anxiety had nothing to do with Robin; it was more like a wall of fire that she must pass through in order to have a future.
Trying to suppress an involuntary shiver, she said, "You are right that this is not the time to make decisions. I must learn what happened to my father, and you have a great deal of sorting out to do."
He leaned forward and pressed a light kiss on her forehead. "I'll sort as fast as I can. In the meantime, at least you aren't saying no." He twined a lock of her dark hair around his forefinger. "I may be acting like the next thing to a lunatic, but I don't think I've ever felt happier in my life than these last days with you. I've been wishing this journey would never end. Now, since there will be no final answers until it does, I want to get to London as soon as possible. It's just that…"
She waited patiently for him to continue.
His eyes slid away and his hand stilled. "I don't know if it is wise to marry a woman because I need her so much. I think that might not be good for either of us."
She studied his expression. The detachment that he had worn like a cloak was gone, and she savored the feeling of closeness. But it was difficult to think clearly when her blood was drumming in her veins. On a deeper level, she still felt the majestic, pulsing energies of passion and creation, the belief that together they would find a measure of wholeness.
With sudden dismay, she realized that she had been behaving like her demure Collins cousins. Since meeting Robin, she had been defending her virtue, worrying about the future instead of living in the present, protecting her heart from possible hurt.
But acting like a respectable Englishwoman would not save her from pain; it would only deny her the deepest desire of her heart. It was time to dispense with European reason in favor of Iroquois wisdom. She wanted Robin. She wanted to give and receive, to be the kind of whole, wise, passionate woman her mother had been, even if it was only for an hour. She wanted to live in this moment as freely as the wind and the rain. And in her bones, she knew that doing so was right.
She gave him a smile filled with love. "Your problem, Lord Robert, is that you think too much."
Then she leaned forward and kissed him.
Chapter 24
He could not resist her, yet for one crazed moment, as he thought of all of the people he had damaged, he tried. "Are you sure this is what you want?"
She smiled and raised herself above him, bracing herself with one arm. "Perfectly sure."
Waves of ebony hair framed the exotic features that had entranced him from the moment they had met. She was Kanawiosta, daughter of another land and another race. With her hair spilling over her shiftclad breasts, she looked like a pagan earth goddess, too mysterious for mortal man to know or possess, with a feminine power that could sear him to cinders.
But when she bent to him again, her lips were warm and real, her small, capable hands generous in their caresses. Surrendering, he opened his mouth to her drugging kiss.
He wanted to inhale her inside of himself so that she could mend the holes in his frayed spirit. He wanted to bury himself inside her and find shelter from the storm that had been raging in his head for a lifetime.
As the kiss intensified, she skimmed her hands over his shoulders and chest, the warmth of her touch glowing through his skin and reaching deep inside him to melt ancient aches. Finally she interrupted their embrace and pushed herself up with one arm, her eyes black with desire and her chest heaving under the translucent shift. "I'm glad you changed your mind."
"You changed it for me." He circled her breasts with his hands, using his thumbs to caress her nipples. They hardened, thrusting against the thin fabric. She closed her eyes and smiled, making a sound like a pleased cat.
He pushed her shift from her shoulders and down to her waist so that he could admire the sweet curve of her breasts. They were exactly right-not too large, not too small, deliciously crowned with circles the texture of sheared velvet. Huskily he said, "You belong in the Garden of Eden, where clothing was unknown."
"Eden was in a warmer climate than England," she said practically. Her smile turned wicked as she looked at his drawers. Even through the loose linen, his response to her was blindingly obvious.
"If we're going to pretend this is Eden, these must go." She tugged at the drawstring, then caught hold of his drawers and began pulling them off. It would have only taken a moment to remove them if she hadn't helped. Instead, her wandering, teasing hands made the process take much longer, and almost reduced him to incoherence.
When they were both as bare as Adam and Eve, he drew her forward so that she was lying on top of him. Her breasts crushed against his chest, the nipples a distinct, teasing pressure.
He could not get enough of the heated depths of her mouth. His hands glided down her back to linger on the ripe curves of her buttocks. Lost in yearning, he kneaded the firm muscles that lay beneath her satiny skin.
She sucked in her breath, and her lower body rocked against his. Her legs parted a little and his heated shaft slid between her thighs, rubbing against her with an intimacy just short of intercourse. She made a tiny mewling sound and her teeth nipped his collarbone when his hips thrust upward once, then again.
He wanted this to be slow and perfect, as she deserved, but she was making a shambles of his control. Struggling against the white heat that threatened to consume him, he caught her in his arms and rolled so that their positions reversed and he was above.
"Not so swiftly, Kanawiosta." He caught her wrists and pinned them to the mattress on both sides of her head. "In interests of justice, I deserve a chance to drive you mad."
"I'm a great believer in justice," she said with a ravishingly feminine smile.
Taking his time, he grazed her breasts with his chin, the hidden whiskers delicately abrading the silky, lavender scented skin until her body thrummed with desire. He bent his head and took the tawny tip of one nipple into his mouth, sucking and tugging until it was so rigid it grooved his tongue. Then he turned to her other breast.
When she exhaled feverishly and twisted against him, he trailed his mouth downward, over the arc of her ribs and the taper of her narrow waist. He paused to swirl his tongue around her navel, then nibbled the flat arc of her belly.
She strained against his pinioning hands, panting, "You've gotten your wish. In another five seconds, I'll be raving."
"Excellent." He straightened up and claimed her mouth again in a lushly sensual kiss. Abandoning all pretense of being in control, he released her wrists and wrapped one arm around her. His other hand glided downward, following the path of his earlier kisses until his fingers became tangled in feathery black curls.
She quivered when he first touched the hidden folds of female flesh. They were slick and swollen with moist heat.
He probed deeper until he found the exquisitely sensitive nub he sought. The gentle friction of his finger caused her to writhe frantically.