He cupped the soft weight of her breasts, thumbing the hard peaks, but when her body began to move in a circling grind, Hawk’s head dropped back into the pillows, his lungs dragging air like a man drowning.
He gripped her waist, meaning to slow her, to regain command, but she only pressed him deeper, the ballerina strength in her thighs holding him fast.
“Celeste,” he groaned, the word half prayer, half plea.
She leaned forward, the copper spill of her hair brushing his chest, tickling sweat-slick skin. He reached for her, but she caught his wrists, pressing them hard into the mattress above his head.
Her lips hovered just above his, her eyes blazing with triumph and hunger. “Be brave for me, Alexander.”
The words gutted him. A man who had commanded armies, who had never yielded, found himself helpless beneath her—undone by the strength in her body, the fierceness in her love. He groaned, thrusting upward, giving her all he had, all he was.
Her moan shuddered into his mouth as she kissed him fiercely, riding him with a rhythm that stole his breath. He bucked to meet her, every clash of their bodies a surrender disguised as battle.
Sighing, she clamped around him. He felt it surge through her—the quake starting in her thighs, rising like a charge up the length of her spine, seizing her whole. She flung her head back, hair snapping wild, and came with a cry that cut straight through him.
The force of her release pulled him under. He drove up into her, once, twice—then gave way with a roar. Heat tore from him in waves, unstoppable, burning through muscle and marrow until he thought he might not survive the rapture.
She collapsed onto his chest, laughter spilling into his mouth even as her body still gripped him. He locked his arms around her, buried his face in her hair, his breath warm against her ear.
So this was bravery—laying down every weapon, every wall, and finding life in her victory.
Her voice came softly, drowsily against his ear. “And so the curtain falls on this play, but rises on our new life, my love, an act with no end.”
He kissed her temple, pulling her close, then pinning her cold feet between his calves. “No end,” he vowed.
* * *
April 1814, Mayfair, London
The sheets were a riot around them, a battlefield of linen and lace. Celeste lay sprawled across Hawk’s chest, tracing lazy circles over the faint scars on his shoulder. His breath rumbled against her cheek, and his hand curved around her hip as she caressed his calves with her cold feet.
The play of their love had been thrilling—the general who never surrendered, undone by a girl who danced her way into his fortress heart. A bard would have made a fine romantic comedy of it, complete with moonlight, mistaken identities, and a kiss to bring down the house.
But it was after the curtain fell that their true story began.
Life unfolded quietly, scene by scene, in London drawing rooms and candlelit suppers, in laughter that belonged only to them. Hawk adapted, with gruff resignation, to his new post as War Minister, while Celeste charmed the ton so thoroughly that no one ever guessed her true beginnings. Together they built a life not of battles and ballets, but of mornings and miracles—proof that love’s greatest act was not conquest, but peace..
Hawk caressed her cheek, his thumb tracing the faintest circle. “Why are you smiling like that?”
“I think she’s doing grand jetés in my belly. Look.” Celeste caught his hand and pressed it just below her ribs. Her belly was so large it hardly seemed possible that the child hadn’t yet taken her bow. Let the hour come, Celeste prayed silently. Let the curtain rise and show me my little miracle.
He stilled. Celeste felt his breath catch against her temple, the wonder of it making her tremble. His thumb brushed her skin in slow, reverent passes, as if he feared to startle the small dancer within.
“A ballerina step?” he murmured, voice rough with awe. “Why can’t he be marching about in there like a proper soldier?”
“She doesn’t like to march,” Celeste said, her smile deepening. “It would be too tame for her.”
He laughed and, wonders of wonders, his laughters were sounding more like joy and less like thunder on the horizon.
“God help us both,” he pressed a kiss to her hair. “The world is not ready for another you.”
Celeste leaned into his touch. “Then it’s lucky she’ll have you to steady her when she leaps.”
He caressed her tummy, and then his vision clouded. “You will have to rest more. No riding, no long walks, and absolutely no pirouettes,” Hawk said, in the same tone he used to command battalions.
Celeste nodded solemnly. Turning or leaping was out of the question, given her size, but she could try a smooth waltz—her baby loved when she rocked and hummed. Perhaps it would convince this little being how wonderful the world was and that she could leave the wings at last.
“You will follow the schedule—eat on time, nap at midday, and avoid excitement of any kind,” Hawk said.
