Long Shadow knew he couldn't hold her, couldn't comfort her that way. She was over-sensitized now and would never willingly let a man touch her again. But his non-threatening presence had gone some way to restoring her self-confidence and the herbal creams he'd given her had healed her torn and bruised flesh.
In her own words, she was, 'A toilet. A receptacle for the filth of men's bodies.' The innocent beauty of her genitals — the guava-pink flower Wendee had admired and so playful aroused, no longer existed for Skye. It was dark down there. Dark and dirty and she didn't want anything more to do with it, hated herself for what she’d willingly done out of love.
Long Shadow understood, and it saddened him. Skye was a victim of sexual obsession, just as his Wendee was, and he if he had the opportunity, he would save them both. But realistically, he knew love must come first.
'It's me, Long Shadow,' he said again as he stepped through the opening and closed the door-flap behind him.
Skye knelt by the fire, her stark blonde hair plaited down her back the way his sometimes was, her body — the body she hated — wrapped loosely in a sheet. She looked up. 'Hello,' she said shortly, then went back to tending the simmering pot.
Cooking smells filled his lodge, pleasant meaty aromas. The simple domesticity of the scene calmed the remnants of his earlier agitation. He found he was hungry.
Skye's first attempts at cooking had been less than palatable, but he understood her need to keep busy, felt the need himself. Teaching her had filled a void for both of them and he was proud of the fact that she'd become a creditable cook. Skye was probably proud too, but she'd never admit it.
'Smells delicious,' he commented as he sat across the fire from her.
She glanced up again, a barely-perceptible light of appreciation in her eyes. 'I dug up those plants you showed me. The yellow ones. And I caught a bird. A noisy bird. Koo-koo-koo Kah-kah-kah,' she imitated.
He smiled. 'Kookaburra.' At times Skye made him feel like a new husband with a trainee bride. Except that there would be no consummation between them. Skye would never allow it, and Long Shadow had no desire for anyone but Wendee.
As though picking up his thoughts, Skye asked, 'Any word of Wendee?'
Long Shadow's smile faded. 'Belle said nothing.' He picked up the wooden bowl at his side and began ladling out the thick stew, trying to disguise the unrest that stirred in him, the remnants of her evil that still clung to his body.
'Did DeMartande torture her? Did he give her to the big negro?' Skye was unrepentantly eager. Her lust for vengeance was as strong as his own.
He handed her the filled bowl and picked up another for himself. 'She's dead,' he said, surprised at how devastating that admission was — how much he'd been relying on information from Belle. The crack of the door through which he'd hoped to follow Wendee's trail was closed and despite DeMartande's optimism, they might never find her now.
'Dead?' Skye echoed and Long Shadow was reminded of Wendee's habit of echoing his words.
A mixture of memory-emotions surged inside him — feelings of sadness and longing — he saw clearly a picture of Wendee lying beneath him, her languid eyes making him hard, making him want to love her like no man had loved her before, slowly, expertly, until she begged for his possession. But equally wanting to stab straight into her, jack-hammering that velvet pool until the explosion of sensations lifted the top off his head.
'How did she die?' Skye asked, her voice avid.
Long Shadow put down his bowl and cleared his throat. 'I shot her.' His body was stirring, his chaotic emotions encouraging an erection he knew would only frighten Skye. He must control himself, but the trauma of killing Belle and the memory of Wendee's lovemaking confused him. A thought of what Skye had been through crept in and he pushed it away.
' You killed her?' Skye asked, and her incredulous tone caught his attention. He looked up, but the sight of her large breasts covered only in the thin sheet that had once wrapped Wendee's body confused him more and encouraged his defiant erection. A memory flash came back to him of Nick reminiscing about their 'juicy firmness' and he felt sickened and excited at the same time.
He looked down. Into the fire. 'Yes, I killed her with my gun. I shot her. She's dead. She won't tell us anything now.'
His gaze slid to his hands pressed down on his breech-clout, covering the evidence of his arousal. They were shaking.
'It's all right,' Skye said, misinterpreting the reason for his turmoil. 'I'd have killed her myself if I'd had the chance. She deserved to die. Only I would have done it slowly.'
'She suffered,' Long Shadow said, and shuddered.
'I would have done to her what they did to me. I would have — '
Long Shadow lurched to his feet. 'I have to go. I can't — '
'Oh Lord,' she whispered, and Long Shadow closed his eyes. He knew what she was looking at.
'I can't stay,' he said. 'You know why. I have to go.'
'Will you come back?' she asked, her voice more fearful than he'd ever heard it. 'If you leave me here alone the others will come. I gave it to them once but I can’t do it again.'
Long Shadow shook his head. 'I have to go,' he said again and took a step sideways, towards the door.
Skye grabbed his ankle. 'Don't go. Don't leave me. I'm frightened.' She scrabbled across until she was kneeling in front of him to block his exit, her hand grabbing higher on his leg. 'Did I do this? Should I wear more clothes? I didn't — '
'It's not you,' Long Shadow said, forcing himself to look down at her.
Her pleading azure eyes reminded him of the stone that had been his Grandfather's favourite and he tried to focus on that, but beneath them her breasts had fallen out of their scant covering and swayed invitingly.
'It's dark,' she pleaded. 'I won't be safe if you — '
'You're not safe now,' Long Shadow said, his voice deadly serious. 'Let me go.'
Skye ignored him, looked down at her breasts again, then at the conspicuous lump that lifted the front of his breech-clout.
He wanted to groan. He wanted to push her out of the way and run to the cliff and jump off it. And he wanted to shove her back onto the rug and plunder her softness as violently as any of the other men who had defiled her.
'I'm going,' he said and moved one leg.
In a swift movement, her hand came up and closed over his erection. Mindless pleasure spiralled up into his brain as his penis jumped under her touch. He stood still.
'I can't let you go,' she said as her fingers moved along his throbbing flesh. The burning sensation he'd experienced earlier in the surf came back to him. His eyelids fluttered. Fell. She squeezed and it was all he could do to keep standing.
Wendee! He tried to focus on Wendee, but all he could see behind his closed eyelids were quick-shutter images of them making love. So many times. Then nothing. All that desire, all that passion suppressed.
'No…' he groaned as Skye untied the coverings and released his erection to the warmth of the firelight. It was wrong. It was so wrong to let her do this, but he didn't stop her. He just stood there.
'I know what to do,' she said, and she did. Long Shadow tried not to think of how she'd learnt the techniques she used on him — tried not to think of the instruction that had encouraged her to lick and suck so expertly.
But it was all there, swirling around inside his mind as the pleasure swirled around his loins. The sucking, like a whirlpool drawing him down, drawing the sensations from all over his body to concentrate in the piece of flesh she quickly brought to climax inside her mouth.
' Wendee…' He groaned and bucked against her, the torment pulsing out of his body with the warm fluid she accepted.
But even before the spasm was complete, Skye released him. He swayed slightly, his mind still locked into the rhythm of his orgasm, still following those last rivulets of pleasure back to the source.
Then the skin of his penis, made wet by her mouth, cooled, and his body came back to him. He felt the grit of dried salt on his eyelashes, still-damp hair stuck to his back, and the trembling of his legs.
The euphoria faded and he remembered what he'd allowed. What it must have been like for Skye.
