You’re here to hurt me. Star Shell. I’d like to believe that you don’t know, that you’re not part of it.
But he just couldn’t.
Black Skull awakened with the suddenness of long familiarity.
Sunrise would come soon. He blinked, aware of the warm presence beside him.
If it’s that crazy fool, I’m going to grab his nose and twist it off his face.
Squinting in the near darkness, Black Skull could make out tumbled black hair. The dim light failed to hide the girl’s full breast or the dark nipple that peeked above the edge of the blanket. Then it all came back.
He remembered the Dancing and the sense of freedom he’d felt—enough so that after his discussions with Shinbone and Tall Fisher, he’d stood and Danced again, sharing smiles with the young girl who’d kept his plate full and brought him water.
In the late hours of the night, the Dancers had begun to drift away in ones and twos. The girl had smiled shyly, leading him here to this quiet end of the long house. She’d deftly laid out the blankets, undressed herself, and drawn him down into her soft arms.
Now he reached out, hugging her to him. She murmured happily and curled against him. The firm warmth of her bottom against his hip stirred a longing he’d rarely felt within his often wounded soul. The incongruity of his blunt, callused fingers against her satin skin surprised him.
“I must get up,” he told her quietly. “It’s morning, girl.” She smiled at him, yawned and stretched, running fingers down his chest and making satisfied sounds.
Only one part of Black Skull’s body rose, and the girl didn’t seem to mind at all. Instead, she slipped her arms around him and pulled him down on top of her; then pleasant sounds came from her throat as they found each other.
After they had spent themselves, Black Skull stared down into her soft brown eyes. “Why did you want me, girl? I’m a horribly ugly man, with an even uglier past.”
She traced slender fingers along his broken face. He started to rise, but she grabbed onto him, holding him tightly as she murmured softly in her own tongue.
“I must get up. Sunrise is coming.” Again he tried to withdraw, and once more she held him, slim legs locked around his hips. She spoke softly, insistence in her voice. Black Skull was on the verge of prying himself free when her undulating hips evoked another response from his body. To this, the girl happily giggled and brought him to yet another delightful release.
This time, she threw back the covers and from a small bag retrieved a ftred-clay ball that she carefully inserted into her vagina.
Black Skull studied her uncertainly, but she gave him that ravishing smile before finding her dress and slipping it on.
“All right, girl. If that is your custom.” He dressed and picked up his club, then walked down by the river. She followed him. He was used to being watched, and she gaped as he began his morning ritual with the club, happy to hear her clap her hands as he Danced. Not for the first time did he wish she could speak his language.
“Very good, Black Skull,” Shinbone called from the path.
The Elder leaned against a maple trunk, his white eye gleaming in the morning light. The girl chattered excitedly, that huge smile on her face.
Shinbone nodded, hugging her, then faced the now perspiring Black Skull as he twirled his club for the last time. “My daughter tells me that you’ve planted a child in her.”
Black Skull almost dropped his club. Sudden unease crept up his spine on chilly feet. “She came to me after the Dance, great chief. I assumed, since she initiated it, that it was among the customs of your people. I hope I have not committed an error.”
Shinbone hugged his daughter again. “Black Skull, you are a great Trader, and a guest among my people. My daughter chose you for your courage and your strength. She also tells me that you were kind and gentle, and she worried about that before making her decision. She tells me now that she chose well.”
“I do not understand.”
“For a father,” Shinbone replied.
Black Skull frowned thoughtfully. “You must know that I have to go with my friends to the Roaring Water. I hadn’t planned on becoming a father.” By the ancestors, I’m not married, am I? Otter, where are you?
Shinbone’s wrinkled face betrayed a subtle amusement. “Let me ask this. You have planted a child. What would you say if I told you that you must now marry my daughter?”
Black Skull took a deep breath and fingered the smoothly worn wood on his club, glancing at the smiling girl. She was comely, with long black hair that gleamed in the morning light.
Any man could fancy the sensation of those warm breasts pressed against his chest. And the thought of that firm bottom against his hip returned to plague him.