Free Tender savage by Phoebe Conn Page A

desire.
    "This is wrong," Erica's conscience whispered faintly,

    barely heard above her wildly beating heart. They were standing at the river's edge, in plain view of anyone going by in a boat, but the danger discovery presented failed to faze her. She was so lost in the Indian's delicious kiss that she ceased to care about anything save pleasing him. When he pulled her down into the soft grass at their feet the wantonness of her behavior still failed to shock her back to her senses.
    She kissed the affectionate brave again and again, holding him so close she felt him shudder with the effort to keep his passions in check. Her hands moved down his back then over the soft buckskins that covered his narrow hips. In her mind's eye she recalled the perfection of his lean yet muscular build in such explicit detail it brought a bright blush to her cheeks. She felt his fingertips brush lightly over her breasts, burning her flesh with a possessive caress that seared right through the thin fabric of her pale green gown, making her long to feel her cool bare skin next to the fiery warmth of his. With irresistible affection he lured her to the very brink of rapture, before Erica recalled she could not even pronounce his name.
    Viper held the blond beauty cradled in his arms as he lay stretched out by her side. His kisses grew increasingly insistent, but seemingly able to read the half-formed doubts that had suddenly filled Erica's mind, he sensed her reluctance to give their passions free rein and drew back.
    "Tell me what is wrong," he encouraged with light kisses that teased her ear lobes before sli£ng down the elegant curve of her throat. "Tell me."
    Erica waited until his gaze again met hers before she tried to explain her misgivings tactfully. "I don't really understand why I came here today. I know nothing about you. You are very handsome, of course, and wonderfully affectionate, but—" she lost the thread of her complaint then as the gray of his eyes took on a hypnotic silver gleam. He seemed to see clear through her, past the glowing curls and soft silk gown, past the pretense fine manners required, past all subterfuge to the desolate depths of her heart. "I don't even know you," she whispered in a voice filled with wonder, for while she felt she knew nothing whatsoever about the Indian, somehow their souls had already touched, and each had found the joy of recognition in the other.

    "Does it frighten you so that I am Indian?" When she did not respond he made a confession of his own. "It merely surprises me that you are white."
    That was such an odd thing for the man to say, that Erica recalled something her uncle had mentioned and asked him about it. "My uncle says you must have white blood to have such light eyes. Is that true?"
    "No/* Viper replied with a teasing grin. "My blood is as red as yours."
    Erica was certain he was only pretending not to understand her. "You know what I mean. Viper. Someone in your family must be white."
    "Would that please you?" the Indian whispered as he continued to lazily nibble her earlobes.
    Everything about the man pleased her, but she could not admit that, since it implied an invitation she could not give. Instead, she told him what no one else in New Ulm knew. "It would make no difference," Erica suddenly blurted out in a breathless rush. "I've already promised to marry another man."
    "What!" It was Viper who was shocked then. He sat up quickly, and placing his hands upon Erica's shoulders he yanked her up into a sitting pwDsition facing him. "Is it that farmer? Is he the one you've promised to marry?"
    "No, it's not he," Erica assured him with a shudder, for she would never a^ee to wed Ernst Schramberger.
    Since he had no interest in playing guessing ^mes, the Indian turned his ar^ment in another direction. "You are lyingl If you were m love with another man you would not be here with mel"
    "Yes, I know that should be true," Erica agreed, as confused as he by the contradiction between