Cates, Kimberly (21 page)

His head jerked sideways, and he caught her in a crushing grip, his features contorting in a way that terrified her. His eyes opened and she saw an agony so great it stopped her heart. For an eternity, he stared at her blindly, his whole body shaking, drenched with sweat. When he saw her, the handsome planes of his face seemed to cave in beneath the weight of the guilt he carried, his features utterly vulnerable, stripped to their very bone. "Rachel." He barely squeezed the word past his lips, his voice cracking beneath the strain. "He didn't... have... a face."

A sob shattered him, unlike anything she'd ever heard. And Rachel took him into her arms, feeling broken herself, horrified at the darkness that had invaded this good man's soul.

Her mind filled with Gavin's images of his father's life—peaceful fields and laughing children, a lifetime to love the lady of his heart—treasures Gavin had lost on his way to a battlefield on which he'd never wanted to set foot.

And she wanted to comfort him, wanted to heal him. Wanted to pluck the memory of Willie from his mind, and fill that same space with magic.

He tried to draw away from her. She could see it, see him fighting against the ugliness of his nightmare, not wanting her to see—see what? the horrors he had witnessed? or that he was afraid?

Coward...
she'd flung that label at him so cruelly, mocking him. But she hadn't understood then. She hadn't understood...

"Gavin," she whispered. "I'm sorry. So sorry."

She drew him tight against her, her hands stroking the bare planes of his shoulders, her lips brushing over his jaw, his eyelids, his cheeks.

"Don't, Rachel," he groaned. "Can't—I can't let you.... I should have left.... God, I didn't want you to see me like this."

"Why? Because I was a selfish, stubborn witch who called you a coward? Because—"

"Because I can't let you... know what—what happened. Only a villain would saddle you with... anything so ugly as... what's inside my soul."

She raised her face, enraged, her heart breaking. "You have the most beautiful soul in all creation, Gavin Carstares! It's not your fault that other men's follies made you hurt and bleed and—and left you with beastly memories that torment you."

"Beasts..." His mouth twisted. "The memories are like a beast inside me, waiting. I've always seen it that way. It's just waiting to break free. Hell, I can even tell now when it's coming for me."

"Tonight, you knew?"

He covered his face with his hand. "I just wanted to... watch you sleep for a little while. I thought maybe you could drive back the nightmares when I couldn't." His gaze found hers, his laugh harsh with shame. "You see, everyone is right. I am a coward."

"Never say that again!" Rachel snapped. "You're the bravest man I've ever met, Gavin Carstares. The most wonderful, giving—"

He pulled away from her and got to his feet. "I know what I am, Rachel," he said, pacing away, "and you can't even begin to understand. I don't have any pretty tales of heroes and courage. The nightmare is real because I'm the one who fashioned it, mistake by mistake, out of my own accursed ignorance. But the worst part was that other men—better men—paid with their lives because of my incompetence."

Rachel stared at him, his back rigid masses of muscle marred by traces of scars. She wanted to comfort him and make him forget. Could a man like Gavin ever forget what he had seen?
Or what he had done?

Rachel swallowed hard. Could she believe that Gavin was capable of doing anything heinous enough to merit the self-loathing in his face? Could she imagine him acting in any way that would purposely harm another?

Other men... paid with their lives because of my incompetence.
His words echoed through her, and she knew that was the sin he would never forgive himself for. She could only try to share his pain.

"Gavin, who was Willie?"

He went rigid. "No one. Nothing."

"Maybe if you tell me, the burden would be easier. If it was shared..."

"Easier?" He wheeled on her, anger flashing in his gaze. "If I watched your face pale in horror? If I knew that the only thing I had left you with when I send you back to your life is a picture so hideous you'll wake up screaming years from now at its horror? I may be every epithet anyone's ever called me, but I'll be damned if I'll sink that low."

He stalked away, his breath rasping in his lungs. His hand shook as he braced it against the wall to steady himself. He frightened her. His pain was too overwhelming to hold, his need so great she could feel it as it pooled around them both.

She crossed to where he stood, her hand tentative as she reached out to touch his shoulder. Her fingers collided with the ridge of the most wicked scar. He flinched as if her fingers were flame.

"Gavin, please. Let me help you."

"Help me what? Forget? Forget Willie and God knows how many other poor men who died? Forget that I dragged you out here, into the middle of this madness? You could have been killed today at the village by mistake—cut down by English soldiers— because I brought you here. I wish to God I
could
forget."

Her gaze found his and clung there. "You wish you could forget me? Does it hurt so much?"

"I never knew the meaning of pain until I kissed you." Somewhere, beneath the shadows of the lingering nightmare that darkened his eyes, a piercing ray of yearning shimmered.

Rachel couldn't speak. She went to him, raised her fingertips to his face. Ever so slowly, she stroked his cheek.

"Rachel, stop. You don't know what I'm feeling, how much I need— Damn, I want to lose myself in you, lady. But I can't—"

Her fingers stole down to the full curve of his lower lip, sending spears of awareness stabbing through her. His jaw knotted. His hands clenched into fists. Silver fire filled his eyes, but he stood, rigid, like a soldier under some exquisite torture, not moving, barely breathing. She knew that he would battle the ferocious need he felt for her.

"Do you know what I felt when you kissed me?" she asked, her fingertips trailing down the rigid cords of his throat. "I felt as if I were melting inside. You were right about me. I was a selfish, arrogant, shallow fool. All that time, there was a part of me that wanted so much more. But I was hiding where no one could touch me. Not just my—my body, but my spirit." She grasped Gavin's hand, and carried it up between them. Her lips drifted across his bruised knuckles. "You changed that. Changed me. Please, Gavin," she begged, hardly believing her daring. "Touch me now." She pressed Gavin's hand against her thundering heart.

"I have no right," he said, but she could feel his need pulsing through his hand as if it were a living thing—feral, stalking. And she knew in that moment that this man, with his generous heart, his ancient soul, his mystical kiss, could be not only a man of dreams, but one of passion.

Her fingers caught loose about his wrist, keeping his hand in place. Then she stretched up on her tiptoes to press her mouth against his. The movement shifted his hard palm until it was filled with the fluid weight of her breast. A groan shuddered through him, and she could feel him fighting himself to pull away from her.

In that instant, she shed her fierce pride. Her own whimper of need was captured by his mouth, and she opened gates she'd never opened, abandoned defenses she'd guarded jealously her whole life, allowing Gavin to hear her incoherent plea, to taste the desperation in her own kiss.

If he turned away now, she would die—die of humiliation, fall into the gaping void of need he'd opened up inside her, a void she knew instinctively that no other man could ever fill.

"Gavin, I watched you plunge into that burning house. I saw you battle that soldier when you had no sword. You could have died today—I could have died. I need to feel alive. Please make me feel alive."

It was as if in that moment, something shattered inside him. Gavin's other arm closed about her waist tightly, crushing her body against him. His hand delved into her hair, his mouth fastening on hers with a sweet surrender that exploded through them both.

CHAPTER 13

Hard and hot, Gavin took her mouth with a hunger that consumed her. Her heart burst in a beauty so bright she was blinded by the power of Gavin's loving.

He scooped her into his arms as if she weighed no more than night wind caught in his hands. He carried her to the bed he'd made for her before the glowing fire, and set her on her knees.

He knelt, facing her, his bare shoulders outlined in a halo of crimson and gold, fire and light, his tawny hair a perfect frame for the molten intensity of emotions that moved over his face.

Eager, awe-struck, he moved his hands to the lacings that bound the stiff amber satin of her stomacher to the front of her gown, and Rachel moaned as the calloused tips of his fingers brushed the tops of her breasts. With the bodice pulled apart, her breasts seemed to swell at the merest whisper of Gavin's touch.

Liquid fire crackled along her skin as he freed her from the tight bodice and corset pressed into her shift. He began to bare her of her layers of clothing with the exquisite care of a sculptor unveiling his masterpiece, his gaze glowing with anguished wonder as if he knew in his soul that this creation would be immortal, yet this would be the only time he could feast his eyes on what he had wrought.

Rachel abandoned the sting of shyness that this was her first time, and reveled instead in the power of the magic she had unleashed in this man. He wore no shirt to strip away. Instead, she stripped away what little control he still possessed, running her fingertips over the bronze of his collarbone, the curve of muscle centered by the dark disk of his nipple. Her palms glided over the webbing of dark-gold hair that spanned his chest and arrowed down to disappear into his breeches.

She could feel the thunder of need in him, the roaring of his blood, the pounding rhythm of his heart. She could see the thousand shattering hues of need and desire, passion and regret, as if he were pouring into this one night of loving every dream he'd lost the day he had taken up his sword.

It terrified her—the depth of emotion, the agonizing journey that was the most beautiful she had ever undertaken. It mesmerized her—the staggering power that could be captured in a single touch, the brush of hot, moist lips against fragile skin.

He left her soul no place to hide.

He slipped her tight sleeves down the columns of her arms, the chill of the drafty room striking bared skin. Her breasts were left barely veiled by the linen of her shift. Her nipples pulsed, stinging points chafed by the thin cloth.

His arm curved around the small of her back, his hand splayed, gripping her waist. He bent her back over the sinewy length of that arm. His lips sought the pulse point beneath one earlobe, the shuddering throb in the hollow of her throat. His tongue slid down the cleft between her breasts, as if she were fashioned of the sweetest nectar.

Nibbling kisses tugged at the ribbon that gathered the neckline of her shift, his teeth tugging it loose. The garment gaped open over trembling mounds, bursting with heat and nameless longing.

Rachel's own fingers pulled the garment down until it caught beneath one breast, releasing the globe from the cloth. Gavin's eyes turned molten silver, a ragged groan reverberating through him as his gaze fixed on the tingling dusky rose crest. "God, Rachel, sweet God, you're so beautiful—too beautiful to be lost in this hell."

For a heartbeat terror overwhelmed her—fear that he would draw away from her in some misguided sense of honor.

She threaded her fingers through the tawny silk of his hair and arched her back, drawing his mouth down to the straining nipple. He gave a raw cry that might have been surrender or triumph. Then his mouth was upon the burning nub, suckling her deeply.

Sensation speared from her nipple to her womb; heat rose in a tide that made her thighs melt, her belly tremble. Gavin tore the shift from her other breast, and she released him, certain that in his hunger, he'd not let her go.

Rachel's hands swept down to the fastenings of his breeches, the straining fabric that covered the thighs of a master horseman, the hard ridge of his masculinity.

Gavin stifled a groan and dragged his mouth from her breast long enough to rip free her petticoats, her shift. They pooled about her, a puddle of cream and crimson, as if he'd somehow melted them with his passion.

Rachel knew an almost savage need to see him as well, in all his primal glory.

Naked to the waist, feeling like the ivory pistil of some exotic lily, she reached for Gavin, her hands urging him to stand. He did as she wished, rising up, golden-skinned, exquisitely beautiful. Scarcely believing her own daring, Rachel hooked her fingers in the waistband of his breeches, sliding the garment down over the hard curves of his buttocks, working the skintight fabric down his sinewy thighs.

His breath rasped like a dying man's as he pulled off his boots and stockings and hurled them away. Rachel drank in the sight of him—broad shoulders, chest gleaming as if an angel had sprinkled it with gilt. His hips were narrow, his legs long and strong, while the mysteries that made him a man were bathed in shadow.

She reached out, running her fingertips up the inside of his knee, where a faint scar trailed into the ghosting of hair along his thigh. Then she grasped his hand and held onto it, hard, drawing him downward. He sank again to his knees and cradled her in his arms, guiding her down onto the heather ticking, his mouth supplicant, inciting madness as he kissed her—her breast, her mouth, her throat, her eyelids.

He followed her down onto the mattress, the naked length of his body brushing hers, the sensation wild and right and bursting with wonder.

"Rachel," he gasped, his hands sculpting the contours of her body, conquering the last vestiges of her pride, her arrogance, her detachment, with his worship-filled touch. "We can't do this—this is wrong, Rachel. God, Rachel, I need—"

"I need, too. I ache. When you kiss me, when you suckle at my breast—I never knew I could feel that way. The touch of your mouth, it opens me, Gavin, deep inside, in a place only you can fill. When you drink me in, I don't care about anything except your lips, your hands, the soft moans of pleasure and pain."