LeClerc 01 - Autumn Ecstasy by Pamela K Forrest

pulled her hand free and filled a cup with water. She lifted his head with one hand and held the cup to his mouth.
    The water felt cool in his mouth, and his heated body cried for the moisture. Still held by the delirium, Bear tried to swallow and choked, knocking the cup from her hand and spilling the water over his chest. He began to shake violently as the icy liquid touched his skin.
    Linsey backed away, growing terrified as the choking grew worse. When she began to think he’d never breathe again, he stopped coughing, falling helplessly back onto the bed.
    She saw the stain darkening the buckskin shirt and knew she would have to get it off of him. He was already so sick. He could not be allowed to stay in the wet shirt.
    “Bear, you have to help me,” she explained as her shaking hands unlaced the thong that closed the front of the shirt.
    She tried pulling the shirt up, but his weight held it firmly in place. “Bear, sit up!” she ordered in a gruff voice that she hoped would penetrate his daze.
    “Snow?”
    “Sit up!” If he wouldn’t, or couldn’t, cooperate, there was no way she could do it by herself short of cutting it from him.
    “Grouchy Snow,” he whispered in a teasing voice. “Always in a hurry to get my clothes off!”
    “So Snow is a woman,” Linsey muttered as she pulled and tugged, hoping to get him upright. “I sure don’t know why she’d be in a hurry to undress you.”
    After she got him sitting up, his fumblings to help her were more of a hindrance. Finally, in spite of his aid, Linsey managed to awkwardly pull the shirt over his head.
    “Konah, my wife,” he sighed, wrapping a massive arm around Linsey’s waist and resting his head against her breasts.
    “Wife?” Linsey’s movements stopped abruptly. “Snow is your wife?”
    He nuzzled against her breasts, his hand dropping down her back to caress rounded slopes. Linsey tried to push his head away from her breasts with one hand and stop his gentle touches with the other.
    “How many hands do you have, anyway?” she questioned when she was unsuccessful in her attempt to catch his wandering hand.
    “So long since we’ve loved,” he mumbled, the delirium teasing his mind with long-ago memories. His hand slipped to the bare skin of her leg and began slowly creeping upward.
    “Bear, stop!” Linsey gave up trying to move his head and reached for the hand nearing the apex of her thighs. “I’m not your Snow!”
    “So long … “ His voice trailed off into indistinct murmurs that Linsey realized must be Shawnee. He held her firmly but gently. A tender steel trap.
    A startled squeal left her lips when his hand reached its goal. At the same time his lips found the bud of her breast. Even through the dress, Linsey felt her nipple harden to the unfamiliar, exciting tug of his lips.
    “So warm.”
    “Stop!”
    Linsey tried to squirm within his grasp, hoping to dislodge his hand … or mouth … or both. She was astonished by her body’s response to his touch.
    “No, Bear, you must stop.”
    “Come to bed, my wife.”
    “I’m not your wife!”
    His caresses were awakening her body to exciting sensations she never knew existed. A warmth filled her, coursing like liquid fire through her veins, wanting to burst free.
    Bear’s mouth left her breast, nuzzling its way down to her stomach. “The babe,” he whispered reverently. “Our babe.”
    “Baby?” Linsey ceased struggling, her heart hammering an unnatural beat. “A baby?”
    A gentle smile crossed his face as he laid his scarred cheek against her flat stomach. “We will raise enough little warriors to make their grandfathers proud. Our children will know the best of both worlds, my Snow: the dignity and pride of their mother’s people, the elegance and knowledge of their father’s. Deeply loved by their parents, could any child ask for more?”
    Taking advantage of her sudden lack of resistance, Bear’s hand slipped between her thighs to caress her rounded bottom.