“Let me in,” she said, whispering. “Do not force me to fight in the dark while you battle ghosts I cannot see.”
Her words were not delicate. They were not lined with sentiment or saturated in coaxing or patronization. They were truth, struck like flint, and the spark of them seared straight to the hollow he had spent too many years trying to seal shut. Her fingers curled faintly against him. The heat of her touch branded him through the thin barrier of his shirt. Still, he could not move. Not yet.
A harsh, guttural sound broke from his throat. It was not speech. It was not reason. It was the sound of something breaking loose. He reached for her. His hands wrapped around her waist, pulling her against him with a desperation that trembled at the edge of violence. His mouth found hers in the next instant, crushing their lips together in a kiss that was not gentle, not measured. There was nothing of pretense in it. He kissed her like a drowning man might drink air. Like the months of restraint had built pressure that now could no longer be borne.
Her lips parted beneath his, answering without hesitation. Her arms came around his neck, holding tight, not clinging but anchoring. He kissed her harder. Every emotion he had denied, every warning unspoken, and every night spent at a distance, every careful silence poured out with savage intensity. He kissed her with apology, with anguish, with reverence, and with the hunger of a man who had tasted nothing and now knew famine.
She did not shy away from the force of it. She met and matched him, returning every desperate sweep of his mouth with her own, giving as fiercely as he took. His hands roamed her back, pressing her closer, feeling the curve of her spine, the soft give of her body against his. Her name whispered through his mind like prayer, even as his mouth devoured the sweet defiance of hers. He pulled back only when breath demanded it. They stood there, with their foreheads pressed, hearts racing in unison, the world beyond the room irrelevant.
His voice came at last, rough and low.
“I do not know how to be this man,” he said, his thumb brushing along her cheek. “Not for you. Not for anyone.”
Her eyes searched his. There was no mockery in them. Only understanding.
“You already are,” she said.
He closed his eyes. That quiet faith broke him anew. Not because it made things easier, but because it made surrender possible.
Chapter Eighteen
Genevieve had barely drawn breath when his mouth claimed hers again. The kiss deepened with a force that startled her, not in its urgency alone, but in its sheer intensity. There was no gentleness in it, no tentative searching. It was raw, desperate, and consuming hunger. His arms locked around her, as strong as iron, dragging her tightly against him until there was no space left between their bodies, no barrier her mind could construct to withstand the storm he had become.
All control dissolved in the heat of it. The very air seemed to vanish, devoured by the fire now raging between them. She clung to him, fingers tangled in the thick strands of his hair, her heart racing wildly against his chest. She might have gasped, but the sound never made it past their joined mouths. He devoured the breath, silencing her shock with deepening possession.
In one swift motion, he lifted her. Her arms flew to his shoulders in reflex, her cry muffled by his lips as he bore her upward without strain. The world tilted. She felt the powerful shift of his muscles as he moved through the doorway, never pausing, never loosening his hold. The corridor passed in blurred darkness. He carried her as though she weighed nothing, navigating the short distance without effort, driven by something far greater than lust. It was some terrible, beautiful need that had reached its breaking point.
They entered her chamber. She saw only the flicker of moonlight glinting off the polished brass of the door latch before the sound of it closing behind them broke like a warning bell across the quiet. He had shut them in. There was no hesitation in him now. He strode to the great bed, the heavy velvet curtains already drawn, casting deep shadows that veiled the room. Moonlight pierced through in narrow silver bars, striping the space with pale light and revealing more than either could have spoken aloud.
He set her down, hands lingering a moment too long at her waist, as though he feared she might vanish if he let go. Genevieve remained still, breath unsteady, her hands pressed to his chest as she looked up at him. His expression was fierce, shadowed. There was no trace of the polished nobleman there, no trace of the remote commander. His eyes, nearly black in the dim light, burned with an intensity that rooted her to the floor.
He reached up, fingers trembling faintly as they touched her jaw. The callused pad of his thumb brushed the softness of her lower lip, slow and reverent. That single touch unraveled something deep within her. He was shaking. She leaned into his hand, her own tremor echoing his. Desire warred with dread, with memory, with shame and wonder. But beneath it all was longing. A fierce ache to be known, to be chosen not by obligation but by instinct. His hands went to the fastenings of her gown.
She saw the clumsy movement of his fingers, felt the pull and fumble of fabric, and understood. This was not the practiced seduction of a rake, nor the detached duty of a husband performing an obligation. This was real, urgent, and unsteady. She reached for him with hands that trembled almost as much as his, brushing his knuckles as she tried to help. Between them, they managed the ties. The silk whispered down her arms, cool against overheated skin, pooling at her feet in a soft heap.
She stood before him in her chemise and petticoats, her heart hammering wildly. His gaze swept over her in silence. It was not idle admiration. He studied her the way a starving man studies a feast laid bare. The sweep of her breasts, the indent of her waist, and the curve of her hips were all devoured each in turn by his eyes. Heat crawled up her neck, flooding her face. She could not move. She could barely breathe. He groaned low and deep, reverberating in the space between them.
“Genevieve,” he said softly, her name scarcely more than a breath. Then he claimed her mouth again, this kiss darker than the last, not a question but a declaration.
His fingers grew bolder. They slipped over her shoulders, then down the bodice of her chemise, finding the ribbons that bound the fabric closed. She felt the tug as they came undone. Cool air rushed over exposed skin as the material slipped aside, baring her to the night. His palms followed, cupping her breasts with a possessiveness that startled her even as it lit a fire in her belly. His thumbs grazed the points of her bosom with slow deliberation.
She gasped. Her hands flew to his arms, not to push away, but to remain anchored in the face of this storm he unleashed. She trembled. Her skin felt too tight, her breath too shallow. Every nerve in her body pulsed with sensation. It was an awakening she had not known to expect. She never could have imagined it might feel like this.
She reached for him, driven by a need she could no longer deny. Her fingers fumbled with the buttons of his waistcoat, struggling against trembling hands and unfamiliar fastenings. He broke the kiss long enough to shrug the garment off his shoulders, letting it fall unheeded to the floor. She moved to his shirt, her touch bolder now. Button by button, she revealed the hard planes of his chest, traced by moonlight and scars. Old wounds, some faint, others vivid. She did not flinch.
Her hands smoothed over him with reverence. The feel of his heat and strength drew her closer. He watched her the entire time, his breathing ragged, jaw clenched as though her touch undid him more than anything he had endured on the battlefield. She leaned forward, brushing her lips across the scar along his collarbone.
His breath hitched. His hands sank into her hair. And then there was nothing but heat, and motion, and the sound of their hearts pounding in tandem. Tonight, there would be no walls or ghosts. There would be no pretenses or masks. There would only be this.
***
Her fingers pressed to his chest, tentative at first. The warmth of her touch stole through his skin, a delicate heat that struck deeper than it ought. She drew a breath, audible and sharp, as though the sensation startled her, as though something about him had taken her unawares. He froze, every muscle pulled taut as a bowstring, expecting her to retreat, to turn away, to show the hesitation he had seen in other eyes before. Instead, her hands lingered. As did her eyes. And she did not look at him with repulsion, but like she had just discovered a rare new beauty that she could not stop observing.
The pads of her fingers traced a slow, searching path across his skin. He felt the movement as she explored the breadth of his chest, navigating the ridges of muscle and the curling hair above his heart. Her touch was reverent, but it lacked hesitation. She explored him as though determined to teach him by feel alone, to memorize the shape of the man he was without asking permission. He was in awe of the strength, even in her innocence. It was all he could do to merely tremble beneath her sweet, learning touch and not take her right then.
Then she found them. Her fingertips brushed over the first scar just beneath his collarbone. She paused. He saw her brow knit, the flicker of her lashes as she registered the roughened skin. She did not pull away. Her hand moved higher, trailing to the slash across his left shoulder, then upward still, to the brutal scar running from the edge of his temple to the curve of his jaw. His breath caught in his throat as her fingers brushed it. He had never permitted a woman to look closely at it, let alone touch it. Still, she did not flinch.
Her fingers moved with slow deliberation, drawing a line along the jagged path as if her acceptance alone could undo years of shame. There was still no revulsion in her expression. There was no pity. Only wonder, and something raw and intimate and altogether undoing. He could scarcely draw breath.
