Shawnee Bride Read Online Free PDF

all she could take, all he could give her.
    He groaned as her arms slid around him, locking their bodies together. His hands ranged over her back, skimming the boundaries of her aching breasts, then movingdownward to cup her buttocks, curling her inward against the thick, sweet hardness of his aroused manhood.
    The moon and stars seemed to burst like rockets in Clarissa’s head. Heaven help her, she wanted him! She wanted the unthinkable act her cousin had described to her, wanted his touch in the burning places that had known nothing but her own tentative fingertips, wanted the press of his lean coppery weight upon her and that great swollen hardness filling her with its heat, burning away her innocence, making her, at long last, a woman.
    Her skirt floated around her like the petals of a ragged flower, exposing legs that were bare except for the tattered remnants of her muslin drawers. Wolf Heart groaned, only half in protest, as she slid an exploring knee between his thighs. The satin stroke of flesh against flesh rippled through her, stirring a well of molten heat in the depths of her body. She arched against him, head flung back as his feral, nipping kisses moved down the damp slope of her throat.
    Take me, Wolf Heart. Had she spoken the words or only imagined them? Take me here, now. It’s what I want, all I want…
    She was drifting into a long spiral of ecstasy when she felt him tense against her. He froze, head up, listening, then suddenly pushed her away from him. Clarissa reeled with hurt bewilderment. Then she too heard the sound of voices from the path above the ledge—laughing voices, a man’s and a woman’s. She stood gazing toward the sound, only half-comprehending what it might mean.
    “Blast—it’s Cat Follower!” Wolf Heart whispered, yanking her into the shadows. “This way!”
    “Do you think they saw us?” Clarissa’s cheeks burned as if they’d been painted with fire.
    “I’d wager they weren’t looking all that carefully!”He guided her into the blackness under the mossy lip of a lodge-size boulder. She huddled beside him, teeth chattering, as the voices atop the ledge grew louder, peals of laughter echoing off the cliffs.
    Suddenly, amid resounding whoops, two lean bronze bodies clothed only in moonlight plummeted headfirst from the top of the ledge and splashed together into the pool. Cat Follower surfaced first, flashing his familiar grin. An instant later, a pretty young woman, dark and sinewy, broke into the air with a squeal of delight and flung herself on top of him.
    “Are they in love?” Clarissa whispered as the two wrestled joyously, giggling and grabbing boldly at any part of each other’s bodies they could get their hands on.
    “More likely they’re just having a good time.” Wolf Heart’s wry chuckle sounded forced. “Come on. While they’re busy, we can sneak around behind this rock. The trail goes up to the ledge from there.”
    Clarissa trudged after him, the wind biting through her water-soaked gown. The chill, if nothing else, had shocked her back to full reality. Her raw nerves twitched. Her face smarted with shame as she realized how close she had come to utter ruin.
    Never, she vowed with each ragged breath. Never again.
    Wolf Heart was a renegade savage who could offer her nothing but hardship, privation and danger. To give herself to such a man, as she had so nearly done, would be to abandon any claim to virtue and gentility. True, she might still escape and return to Baltimore, but she would return a tainted woman, an outcast to the end of her days.
    Above her on the winding path, Wolf Heart’s looming silhouette blocked out the moon. Clarissa picked her way along in his shadow, the rocky ground bruising her tenderfeet. He had not spoken since leaving the pool, and the silence that hung between them now was as dark and heavy as the river.
    By the time they neared the top of the long trail, the stars were out. Below the ledges, the lusty whoops and