Page 79 of Native Hawk
He scowled. Other ladies? What other ladies?
She added, “Then there will be the men’s suits to order.”
“Men’s suits? Now hold on a minute. What men?”
“You, your brother, your father…”
He smirked. Drew’s father hadn’t worn a suit since the day a bunch of white miners had forced him into a shotgun wedding.
“All that sewin’—how much time are we talkin’ about?” he asked her. “A day or two? A week?”
Her laughter would have been charming if it hadn’t jangled his nerves.
“Are you so impatient, my husband?” she chided.
Yes, as a matter of fact, he was.
She tapped her lip as she considered his question. “If I can get a sewing machine, I can order the fabric, design the clothings, and make them in…no more than a month, I would guess.”
“A month!”
He didn’t mean for it to come out like that, so abrupt and outraged. But damn it, he didn’t want to wait that long to make love to her. It was ridiculous.
He loved her. She loved him. Why couldn’t they just speak some words in front of a preacher and be done with it?
But Catalina bristled at his words. She moved her hand away and rolled onto her back. “If you do not think I am worth waiting for…”
“No, it ain’t that, not at all,” he was quick to assure her. “It’s just, well, in Hupa, when a man finds a woman he fancies, he just brings her folks a deer and moves in with her.”
“A deer?”
“Yeah, to prove he can provide for her.”
She smiled at that. “You do not have to bring me a deer.”
“Well, that’s good to know. But honestly, I don’t know if I can stand it…” He ran the back of his finger along her arm, making her shiver. “Sleepin’ next to you every night…” He lifted her hand and kissed the tips of her fingers. “Tempted by all that delicious flesh…” He slipped her thumb into his mouth and gave it a gentle, sensual suck before he released it. “The feel of you…the taste of you…” He moved her hand down until her palm rested against his chest. “Can you feel how my heart beats for you? I can hardly resist you, Cat.”
Her eyes were smoldering. He had her wrapped around his finger now. It was just a matter of getting her to say the word “yes.”
“That is why,” she murmured, “we should not sleep together.”
He blinked. “What?” That wasn’t the “yes” he was expecting.
“Until the wedding, I think it will be best if we do not sleep together.”
“Why not?” He didn’t mean it to come out so much like a petulant whine.
“Because itistoo tempting.”
He couldn’t very well argue with her. He’d just told her that himself. That clever Cat had managed to hang him with his own noose. He muttered a very foul Hupa curse under his breath.
“Besides,” she added softly, “I need to be sure that you are loving me for myself and not just for making the sex.”
“Really?” Now he was getting a mite peeved. He crossed his arms. “That’s interestin’. Because I seem to recall you didn’t care all that much before. I seem to recall you threatenin’ to go downstairs to find a gentleman to ‘make the sex’ with you. I don’t think you were all that interested in a man lovin’ you for yourself.”
She at least had the grace to blush with guilt.
But in the next moment, she looked up at him with her big, brown, irresistible eyes, and he knew he’d already lost the argument. “It is not the same, because you I love with myheart.”She lowered her gaze. “I do not want you to love me and leave me.”
