She couldn't help herself. Resisting his call seemed to be impossible. She had to go to him. How she knew the way, she couldn't tell. The room faded from view, and there in the distance was the campfire burning with blue flames. Sparks from it lit the night sky, blending with the stars as they rose.

Compelled, she followed a well-worn trail to the clearing where he crouched by the fire. Her gaze caught and held on his muscular thighs, contracted, stretching the sandy-colored leather of his pants. The sight brought back memories of many nights before when she visited him here, where he pleasured her with all parts of his body--his hands, his mouth, his manhood. Her lips parted in anticipation.

She stopped a few feet from the fire to watch him. His eyes were closed, his hands outstretched to the heat, his lips moving with soft words. Tawni didn't know the language, but her body and soul obeyed the pull every time she dreamed this deeply.

Suddenly, he spoke in English. "Tawni, my wife, come to me." His urgent plea touched her. Heartbreak and loneliness were apparent in the tone, and Tawni wondered if that was why she had first come to him, to soothe away his pain.

"Lakota," she whispered.

He opened his eyes. She expected the smirk to break out at any second on the familiar face, but in this dream world, her lover was different. He had another personality entirely. Still self-assured but not from his silky black hair or the way his big brown eyes made women weep to be his, but in something less superficial, something deeper that extended from his very soul.

"Tawni, my heart." He stood and held out his arms. She hurried to him, lifting her gaze as she drew nearer. Lakota's wide shoulders seemed to block out half the sky, but she didn't mind. All she longed to do was have him make love to her.

Now that they were together, no words were necessary. He caught hold of her chin, lifting it higher. His mouth came down on hers, a mouth she had tasted time and again in the real world, but never had it set her aflame like it did now.

He groaned against her mouth, pushed his tongue between her lips and gripped her waist to squeeze her tighter against his hard body. She surrendered herself to his love, to his need. In seconds, he had her nestled in the bearskin blankets on the ground, her clothes and his discarded at their sides.

"I tell myself every time I call for you that this is the last time," he told her as he smoothed her unruly dark curls from her forehead. "But the blackness that steals over me being separated from you becomes too much. Just once more, I declare. I will lay with my wife in a dream just once more, and then everything will be fine."

She didn't know why he called her his wife when she dreamed this way, or why he was so vastly different, but she wasn't complaining. What woman in her right mind would turn away a sexy Native American lover who was all that she could ever imagine? Only in her dreams, she supposed.

With a fingertip, she traced the half moon scar just above his left eyebrow. A tingle slid over her skin at the contact. "And I tell myself I will stop dreaming of you, Lakota. You like this, I mean." She gestured to the surroundings, the campfire and the trees, the whole area that didn't look familiar to her. "You look so hot in these native clothes. I wish I could see you like this in real life."

When she said things like that, he always frowned with confusion, like she had said something wrong or not quite right. The look reminded her of the first time he had called to her, a year ago. She had learned very quickly not to use her swear words, which flowed from her lips like water when he ticked her off in real life.

But no, this dream Lakota liked a gentler side to her, more ladylike, so she had curbed her tongue, and nothing outside had spoiled their time together since.

"Come, my heart," he encouraged her. "Let us enjoy one another for the time is never long enough."

"Yes, Lakota. Make love to me now. You're right. The night ends too soon for me too."

He lowered his mouth to hers while sliding a hand along her bare thigh. Tawni trembled, knowing her lover's skill and aching to enjoy it all night long.