He realized that she was trying to talk to him, and he came back to himself a little. His name. She was summoning him to her. He drew it from her mouth, swallowed it whole. gave her back her own name, fed it to her with his tongue. Between kisses he untied the thong that held his breech clout and leggings, and then he gathered her up against himself, wanting to feel her, all of her skin against his.

"Elizabeth," he whispered.

She focused on him finally, her eyes cloudy with wanting.

"Richard Todd can't have you, not ever. You have to leave your father's home and come to me. Because once this is done, you are mine to keep and protect, and I am yours. Do you understand?"

"Oh, yes," she whispered, her hands flitting over his shoulders.

"When I'm dying," he said. "When I close my eyes at the last, it'll be your face I see, right at this moment."

* * *

When she could think again, the first coherent thought that came to Elizabeth was that she had lied. To Nathaniel, and to herself. I'm not an idiot, she had told him back in the snowy strawberry field. I know what it is to mate.

But she had been an idiot, to have thought it would be a simple, mechanical act of commitment. It had seemed the logical and the right thing to do there was no clearer pledge she could make, no better way to make him understand that his jealousy of Richard Todd was unfounded.

And, she admitted to herself, she had suspected that she would enjoy it. His kisses had made her curious. But she had underestimated herself, her wanting and its own strength. The depth of her own response was as compelling and surprising as the burning mix of pain and pleasure he had brought to her.

He had pulled pelts over them, and Elizabeth moved tentatively underneath, appreciating the strange indulgence of fur against her bare skin, and the warm, damp trace of him on her thighs. Nathaniel was lying on his side behind her in the same curve, the hard length of his leg following the line of her own in a casual embrace which seemed to Elizabeth almost more intimate than the act that went before it. His breath on her shoulder, he stroked her arm from wrist to elbow and back again.

"What are you thinking?"

She turned to him then, determined not to be timid. "I was thinking that some things don't lend themselves to rational analysis."

He grinned, his teeth flashing white. "Is that good or bad?"

"Good," she said simply, and then dropped her gaze, in spite of all her intentions. She studied the dark blue jagged line which crossed his chest and continued in a loop around his torso, to a destination somewhere on his back. She wondered where exactly it went, but she was too comfortable and too shy to follow it right now.

He raised her chin with his finger. "You're not asking, but I'll tell you anyway what I'm thinking. I'm thinking about how fine it is to have you here like this, next to me." His gaze held her steady, as if daring her to doubt him.

"Oh." Elizabeth could feel a slow warmth seeping through her bones, pooling in her breasts and lower, lower. This is how it starts, she thought. With words. With his voice, so deep that it echoes down inside.

"And I'm wondering if you're regretting this, already."

She watched him swallow, the column of muscles in his throat moving.

"Oh, no," she murmured, pushing her face into the curve of his shoulder. "Quite to the contrary."

He smoothed her hair. "Is that so?"

With a little jolt of satisfaction, Elizabeth realized that Nathaniel was asking her for reassurance. This made her flush with pleasure, and it gave her the courage to say something she might not otherwise have said.

"I wasn't sure that I would, but after a bit, I did like it. This. Being with you."

"So did I," he said solemnly, but Elizabeth could feel him smiling.

She moved closer to him, the feel of his chest against her cheek and the weight of his arm around her shoulders already familiar. The beat of his heart and the rush of the waterfall were hypnotic.

"It's nice here," she said groggily.

He took her head between his hands, forced her to meet his eye. "Elizabeth, we have to talk."

"Of course," she said. "But the questions that come to mind right now aren't .. . seemly."

He laughed then, a comfortable sound. "For instance?"

Elizabeth closed her eyes to gather her thoughts. Did I please you? she wanted to ask, and May I look at you, at all of you? and what is it that you think of while you're holding me? Did you cry out at the end in pain, or pleasure? And Is your child started inside me now? But this last thought was too much; it filled her with anticipation and joy and a bottomless terror. She pushed it away.

He was watching her closely. Elizabeth thought that perhaps he knew all these things that were in her mind, and others that she could not yet put words to. She knew too that there wasn't time for this now.

"Boots?"

"All right, if you must know." She opened her palms on his chest, ran them over his shoulders, thick with muscle. "I was just wondering how often we would do—this."

He laughed again, and cupped her face in his hand, rubbing a thumb across her lower lip before he kissed her. "I would say that we should get married first before we start negotiating that point." There was a scuffle under the pelts as he held off the hand she raised to cuff his ear. "But out of curiosity, Boots, how often would suit you?"

Very much awake now, she beat on his shoulders until he captured both wrists and flipped her to her back, leaning over to pin her arms up and away. His hair fell forward to brush her breasts, his earring glimmering bright silver against his skin. Look, oh, look at you, she thought, struck by the wondrous beauty of him, the long, elegant body arched over her with muscles tensed. She closed her eyes because the sight of him blinded her.