Chapter 1
JEFF HUDSON STRETCHED HIS LANKY, BIG-BONED six-foot-three-inch frame in anticipation as he lay there naked under the sheet of the huge bed, watching her take off her clothes. Light from a full, bright moon flooded the second-story room pf the great log cabin and the bed on which he lay was drenched with it. A warm, late-spring breeze wafted through the large double windows beside the bed and drifted across the room to where she stood before a vanity. Seconds earlier she had tiptoed silently into his bedroom for the night, urged upon him by her hulking brother who needed a favor, and without a word, she'd begun undressing.
Susan Crowder was a tall girl with a small-waisted, narrow-hipped, slender-thighed, boyish figure; except for the two plump, ripe breasts which jogged and swayed in mute accompaniment to her movements. Jeff felt the breath catch in his throat as she removed her last garment and tossed it quickly to the chair with the others, the soft moonlight dancing off the gentle planes and curves of her nude body. Her last act of undressing was to pluck the pins from the nut-brown wealth of hair piled loosely atop her head, and when this was done she leaned her head back, shaking the warm abundance down between her shoulders. A second time the breath caught in his throat as she turned toward the bed. Silver light from the moon glistened of the waist-length cascade of her hair and the dark triangle of angel floss at the apex of her long thighs.
"I'll bet you haven't been in bed with a naked school teacher in the township of Franklin before," she laughed softly as she lay down beside him, resting her head on one of his heavily hewed arms.
"Why would you bet that?" he chuckled, raising his leg and kicking the sheet to the foot of the bed. "Because you're the only schoolteacher in the settlement? I haven't been in bed with anyone yet, except right now with you." He turned his head to the side to look into her face, every detail of which he could see in the moonlight.
She had a high, intelligent forehead, deep, amber eyes and a wide mouth which smiled easily. As he lay looking at her, he drew her close and felt her resilient breasts push against his chest, felt the gentle heat of her belly against his, felt the soft brush of the angel floss against his extended, throbbing weapon. Then he lowered his lips to her wide, ripe mouth and she quivered smally in his arms.
"Oh, my!" she gasped, stars in her eyes when their lips parted.
"What if brother Bully should burst in here right this minute and find us like this?" Jeff grinned.
"Poof!" She waved a hand in a gesture of feminine disdain. "I wouldn't care. Were you surprised when I whispered to you at the supper table I was coming to your room tonight?"
"You could have knocked me over with a feather," he told her. "At first I thought I'd misunderstood. Always before, when I'd see you about the settlement, you'd be so prim and proper, like many of the other women here. I had no idea."
"Well, sir," she grinned at him in mock amazement. "In this prim and proper place, what would you have me do? Walk up to you in public and say: 'Dear Mr. Jeffrey Hudson, my name is Miss Susan Mayson Crowder and I have a smoldering wolly-booger. Would you be a kind gentleman and service me?' At this she buried her face against his chest and burst into a fit of girlish giggling. On recovering, she kissed him quickly on the nose. "I'll bet neither Prudence Goodbody and Charity Breeden or any others had to come right out and ask you to make love with them." There was a faint note of pouting in her tone when she said this. "I'll bet no young widows of the settlement ever had to ask you."
"I've never touched a one of them," he said truthfully. "Never. Given the opportunity I might, but they're all so prim and proper, too, that they aren't interesting. Except Prudence Goodbody. She always flirts with her eyes when she's sure no one is looking, but I always figured her for a tease."
"Honestly?" Susan asked, a trace of disbelief in her voice. "You've never-played mama and papa-with any of them?"
"Honestly," he replied. "If you recall, I'm never in the settlement more than a day at a time for supplies. If your brother hadn't hired me this afternoon, then insisted I spend the night here to get an early start in the morning, I'd be on my way back to my cabin now."
"That old cabin!" she said in pretended anger. "Why must you always go back to it? Why can't you stay here in the settlement?"
"Huh-uh," he said. "Too many people here, and people cause problems." Cautiously he began stroking the outside of the shy little cleft, applying just enough pressure to make it felt through the thick shield of angel floss.
"Wha-wha-what kind of problems?" she finally managed to gasp as tiny, tingling thrills of electric shocks shot through her slender body.
"Parson Grubbs had Stubby Cane put in the stocks this afternoon for taking a cup of whiskey," he said quietly. "That kind of problems. A man should be able to eat and drink as he chooses. His stomach is his own private affair and what he puts into it is no one's business but his."
"But Stubby is the settlement drunk," Susan said.
"I know that, and so does everyone else-and that's all the more reason he should be given special consideration, but not punishment."
"I still wish you'd move to the settlement for good," she insisted as he worked the forefinger through the angel floss and into the hot, moist little valley beyond. "Living out there in the wilderness like a savage, with all the Indians and such." She paused when he commenced gently to massage the top of the cleft with his finger. Then she entwined her arms about his neck and pushed against him with her hips. "You keep that up, Jeff Hudson," she gasped feverishly, "and I'll burst into flames. Two years is a long time for a woman to be without a man."
"You mean-" he began.
"Yes," she nodded, her eyes large in the moonlight. "A young lieutenant from Port Royal. We planned to run away and get married, despite my bull-headed brother, but he was killed by a war party of Indians just before peace was made with them. He was the only one-and now you." She drew his mouth down to hers in a long and famished kiss and when it was over she kept her face close to his, her darting tongue a lance of flame between his lips. "Oh my," she whispered slowly, as her soft hand stole down between them after she had relaxed back against the bed. "Oh my," she repeated, and there was a touch of awe in the words this time as her hand commenced exploring. Then she stared at him in silence several seconds before she continued.
"I can't-you can't-there's no-" She stopped, still staring at him, her large eyes holding his, then the words came in a rush. "Jeff, we can't play mama and papa! You're so-so-too big!" She quickly sat up in bed, looking down as if she could not believe that which her hand had told her. "Mercy!" she gasped, believing now and laying back beside him once more.
"Are you scared?" he whispered, raising to an elbow, then bending over to cap one of her ripe breasts with the heat of his mouth.
"Ggaahh!" The single, explosive sound of rapturous delight burst from her parted lips as her back arched and she grabbed his head between her palms. The sound came again before she relaxed. Then, as he began tugging gently with his lips and vacuuming with his tongue, at the same time tracing his finger back and forth through the hot little valley, her ragged, uncontrollable sobs of pleasure filled the room.
"Are you scared?" he repeated, his mouth an inch from the plump breast.
"I don't know!" she managed after several tries.
"Don't you think we should at least make an attempt?" he asked softly. "We'll never know for sure unless we do." And when she was a long minute in silence he continued, "Shall we?"
"Oh my God yes! "the words poured from her lips as one in a low, quivering moan. "Oh my god yes!"
Then he was above her, his weight suspended on his knees and elbows, and her arms were about his neck, and as she lay there beneath him in the moonlight, her eyes on his, he knew there would be forever imprinted in his memory the vision of her loveliness. After shifting his weight to one elbow, with his free hand down between, he parted the angel floss and centered the end of the shaft at the entrance of the mysterious defile. Very gradually he began applying pressure with his hips:
A short, sharp cry of feminine pain fled her lips as the great, blunt head of the massive invader gained purchase. But with the cry, the pain was no more and she spread wide her burning thighs, raising high her knees as she did so, and wriggled her narrow, boyish hips greedily to afford him smoother, quicker ingress. A thin, half-whispered scream escaped her as the invader worked its way deeper and deeper until the entrance of the defile was fitted tightly about the very base of the shaft and heat lifted from her slender body like steam from an oven.
"Does it hurt now.?" he whispered softly against her ear.
She lay there under him breathing heavily, struggling to gain control of herself, fighting against the sweet agony stealing through her body, and was so long in answering he thought she had not heard his question. He was about to repeat it when she breathed a deep, timerous sigh.
"Don't move," she whispered in quavering tones. "Don't move until I get a little more used to this-or I'll go all to pieces."
"But isn't that the general idea?" he chuckled, reveling over the fact that he was so delightfully encased in her young hotness.
"Huh-uh," she said cautiously, still not sure of her control. "Not till you do."
"And how do you know I wouldn't?"
"Would you?" She rubbed her palms up and down his ribcage, looking up into his face, a glad light in her eyes. Then, before he could answer, ' "Whew! I thought I would pass out just with you-getting started." She rolled her head slowly from side to side, her eyes closed now and tracing her lips against the base of his throat. "How I need this," she murmured gently. "Oh, how I need it." She lowered her heels to the bend of his legs behind his knees and sent one soft, long fingered hand on a journey down between them. "Oh lordy," she snickered after a moment's hesitant exploration. "If anyone had told me this was possible,, what with your size, I think I might have died of fright. What do you call it anyway, Jeff?"
"My weapon," he laughed softly at her naive curiosity. "I use it to fight the battle of the sexes."
"Boy!" she said in mild wonder. "I'll bet you don't lose many battles."
"I don't. Most of the time it's a draw."
"I'd like to see you get hold of that fiesty Prudence Goodbody with your-weapon. I'll bet she'd quit being a big tease then. She got Rafe Hampton so stirred up a while back he swore he'd beat the tar out of her if she ever did it again. She led him right on into thinking she would, then when he tried to visit her cabin one night she threatened him with a gun. What do you think of that?"
"I think Rafe should sneak in on her one of these nights and break her from teasing."
"He can't now. He's done left these parts. Storming mad he was, too, and Prudy Goodbody laughing fit to split a stitch. There's talk in the settlement that Bonnie O'Brian ran off with him, but I don't believe it. And I don't believe the Indians stole her either, like my brother does." She paused a moment, pressing his rib-cage firmly between her palms. "Hold real still, Jeff," she whispered softly. "Real still, now." Very slowly she lifted her feet high into the air, bringing them up and over his back, then lowered them to their former position, still slowly, moving her hips against the base of the buried shaft. "Lordy but that feels good," she sighed. Then, "Do you think the Indians took Bonnie?"
"Of course not," he told her. "And I don't think she left with Rafe Hampton, either. I think someone here in the settlement is hiding her just to spite that narrow-minded, overbearing brother of yours."
"I'm sure glad Bully hired you to find her," she said against his shoulder. "Otherwise you wouldn't have had supper here and Bully wouldn't have insisted on you spending the night with us and we wouldn't be playing mama and papa right now."
"Your brother has no business wanting to keep Bonnie a bond servant for five years just to repay the passage money he put up for her journey from Ireland. He doesn't need the money. Why does he do it?"
"Bully wants to bed her down, that's why, and as long as she's his bond servant he can keep her close by. He told me once that just the sight of her red hair and green eyes sent him into fits, almost."
"And what does Bonnie say about him bedding her down?" Jeff asked, nipping her ear tenderly with his lips. "If she affects him that way, he can always marry her."
"I don't know what Bonnie thinks, but you know Bully. In his eyes, he'd be lowering himself by marrying a bond servant. Even one as beautiful as her."
"And now Bonnie has disappeared."
"And Bully has hired you to bring her back because he is convinced the Indians have her and you are supposed to be a very good friend of Chief Wild Hawks."
"I am a good friend of Wild Hawk's," Jeff said, "but I have no intention of looking for her among his people until I'm satisfied she isn't being given concealment by someone here in the settlement. And I'm not sure I'll return her to Bully if I do find her. I don't believe in the bond-servant system, or any other system of slavery, for that matter."
"Yet you "took the job of locating her; of returning her!" Susan said.
"Can you think of a better way of getting around a pigheaded brother and reaching his lovely sister-?" Jeff said tenderly.
For a long moment Susan did not answer him. Then when the full meaning of his words dawned upon her, a glad light sprang into her eyes and the corners of her generous mouth lifted in a wondrous smile as she lay looking up into his craggy face. "Jeffrey," she whispered softly, "you didn't. Not because of me."
"You bet I did," he told her. "What do I care about Bully getting his bond servant back? And if you hadn't whispered to me tonight at the supper table you were coming to my bedroom, you'd have had a visitor in yours." The sincerity of his words left no doubt in her mind. .
"Oh Jeff," she sighed happily. "You can't know how glad that makes me feel. Have you wanted to-do this-with me for long?"
"Since I first reached the settlement a couple of years ago," he answered truthfully.
"And to think of the long, lonely nights I've spent wanting you," she said, tears edging her voice.
"Shhh," he whispered against her ear. "Now is no time to cry. Now is the time for this," and he withdrew his hips far to the rear, then drove solidly home.
"Don't stop!" she gasped suddenly, raggedly, desperately. "Oh, God! Don't stop!"
Nor did he. At her words he commenced a steady advance-withdrawal rhythm as they lay there on the big bed, bathed in the silvery light of the moon.
Now it had been two years almost to the day that Susan Crowder's young lieutenant from Port Royal had strolled jauntily off into the May night never to return, and two years can be a long time to a healthy young woman, especially after she has been introduced to the delights of' sweet dalliance. So when she felt the plundering invader begin its gentle churning back and forth amongst her secret places all the aching, yearning, miserable nights of pulsating hunger jumped into focus sharp and clear. For the space of half a dozen of, the advance-withdrawal cycles she remained perfectly motionless, then she moved to match his rhythm with that of her own.
Susan managed to continue this for half a minute; until the tingling, golden glow heralding the approach of the visitation of supreme rapture started seeping all through her slender body; until the soundless, bone-cracking explosion of the heat bomb within her shattered all tensions low in her belly and the golden glow became a raging inferno searing every fiber of her being.
Then the visitation of supreme rapture was with her and her starved young body strove mercilessly to gratify all at once the hunger of its two year fast.
Animal heat lifted in waves from her body like heat from a burning desert and again the thin, half-whispered scream of ecstasy poured from her lips. Her back arched and her tummy flew up to smack solidly against him; her arms jerked to the side and her clutching hands tore at the covers on-which they lay; her long, tapered legs thrashed the air in wild abandon as she bucked her hips against the maddening shaft. Her belly muscles knotted and twitched spasmodically and the whispered scream of ecstasy drifted into a deep-throated purr of feline bliss from the scalding torrents of man-seed gushing forth to soak her thirsty tissues and drench her secret places.
"OhmiGod!" she sobbed weakly as one word. "OhmiGod!"
Jeff did not even bother to answer, but continued his rhythm without pause, wanting her to achieve absolute completion before he stopped. And it was only after she finally ceased to heave and grind her-hips against the shaft that he did stop.