Kane, Samantha - Brothers in arms 7 (9 page)

Charles raised his eyebrows at Gideon with a grin. “Her flattery just gets better and better.”

Gideon was disgruntled. “I am only peculiar. You were vastly exaggerated.”

Sarah lifted herself up and slid down again. “Oh, Gideon.”

Oh, indeed. She was so incredibly tight and hot. Gideon had never fucked a woman who felt like Sarah. Smooth as silk inside, smothering his cock. He couldn’t think as she tightened her passage around him. He could only feel.

“Like this, Sarah,” Charles murmured, and suddenly she was moving in a slow, steady rhythm, her movements shallow, a torturous drag on the sensitive tip of Gideon’s cock. “Sarah,” he ground out between clenched teeth, his back bowing off the bed.

“Yes,” Charles whispered. It was decadent, hearing his voice like that at this moment. When he was buried in his tight virgin bride, and she was riding him so sweetly. And then Charles, like the very devil, whispering encouragement in her ear 45

Samantha Kane

and teaching her how to fuck Gideon so rightly. Gideon bucked into Sarah’s downward glide, ramming his cock deeper into her, and Sarah cried out.

Gideon shook his head against the pillow. “I am too rough but I cannot help myself,” he said, then bit his lip to prevent further confessions.

“Is that what you would like, Gideon?” Sarah asked breathlessly. “It was not too rough.” And she moved on him like that, deeper and harder. Gideon’s vision dimmed.

Through a haze of lust he watched Charles direct Sarah up and down on his cock, moving with her. It looked as if they were both fucking themselves on him. Gideon had to close his eyes.
Don’t think about that
, he told himself.
Don’t.
Sarah cried out again, and Gideon’s eyes flew open. Charles’ hand was between her legs. He was rubbing the little knot of sensation there in her slit. The same one he’d played with when Gideon was eating her. He loved that crass expression. Charles had taught him that. Charles had taught him a great deal. And now he was teaching Sarah. Sarah’s legs slid open more, and Gideon’s cock pierced her deeper. Her hands came to rest on his stomach as her head fell back on Charles’ chest in rapture. Gideon had never thought to see a woman look like that again when he was fucking her. But Sarah, God, she was every man’s dream as she rode him.

“Mmm, Sarah, darling, just like that,” Charles murmured, his hand still between her legs. “Are you going to come again, Sarah?”

“W-what?” she stammered. She licked her lips, panting through another retreat and downward thrust onto him. Gideon met her thrust and pressed deep, holding himself there.

“The way you felt when my mouth was on you, Sarah,” he rasped. “That feeling at the end, the bliss. Is it close? Are you close?”

Sarah ground against him. Christ, it was true. Mating was instinctive. The rut was on them and, innocent as she was, Sarah’s body took over, taking what it needed.

“Again?” she asked in breathless wonder. “That will happen this way too?”

Gideon laughed desperately. “Yes, Sarah, yes. But for God’s sake, hurry.”

“Gideon,” she chided breathlessly.

“Hurry, Sarah,” he begged. “I cannot hold out much longer.”

“I don’t understand what you’re saying.” But she moved faster, harder, her body taking over.

“He’s going to come, Sarah,” Charles whispered in her ear. “He’s going to feel like you did earlier, and he’s going to fill you with his seed.”

“His…?” Sarah could hardly speak now. The sound of her desire was fuel on the fire of Gideon’s lust. He thrust wildly into her and she took it, grinding down on him with a moan. Suddenly Gideon felt the tips of Charles fingers on his cock, sliding along Sarah’s folds around him.

“Charles,” he ground out. He meant it to be a warning. It came out a plea.

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“Oh, oh,” Sarah cried out. Then she was driving herself down on him, holding him deep, and he felt the pulsing of her walls squeezing him tight.

“Sarah,” he answered her in a hoarse shout, and then he was coming, filling her, making her his. And all the while Charles’ voice encouraged and soothed them both.

When it was over Sarah collapsed on Gideon’s chest while Charles rubbed her back.

“I am going to like this business of being Mrs. North,” Sarah murmured sleepily.

And holding his wife spent and satiated in his arms, all Gideon could think as he looked at Charles, still fully aroused, was that Charles should have taken her too. But he was too much of a coward to voice the thought.

47

Samantha Kane

Where the hell was Gideon?

Charles ran past the troops crouching behind cover in the dark, waiting for the order to
storm the breaches. Christ, they weren’t even supposed to be here. What the hell was Gideon
thinking? They didn’t have enough battles of their own, they had to borrow someone else’s?

The French fired down on them, safe behind the fortress walls of Badajoz. A bullet slammed
into the dirt just to Charles’ left and he dodged right instinctively, even while thinking that it
was foolish. The next one might very well come down to his right. If there was one thing he knew
after all this time, it was that there was no rhyme or reason to a bullet. Once it left the gun it
made its own decisions.

“Have you seen Captain North?” he hissed to a sergeant who was motioning his troops
down behind him.

“Captain who?” the sergeant asked. “What regiment?”

“He’s with the 14th Light Dragoons.”

The sergeant gave him an odd look. “Didn’t even think they were here.”

“We’re not,” Charles answered grimly.

The sergeant smiled widely at what he thought was a jest. “That’s right. You’re just
dreamin’, lad. Ain’t this what we all dream of?” The soldiers around them laughed quietly in
genuine amusement.

“We were on our way to meet up with the 14th when we got wind of this. Captain North
came to see the commander of the 4th.”

“Well, he’s getting quite a show, then, ain’t he?” The sergeant turned back to business,
dismissing Charles. Charles couldn’t blame him. He had more pressing matters to worry about
than a stupid missing cavalry captain.

“I say, are you looking for Captain North?” a voice whispered to his left. Charles turned and
saw a young lieutenant crouching there, sword drawn as he waited for orders. At Charles’ nod,
he pointed toward the fortress. “He’s there with the 4th, with the Forlorn Hope.”

Charles’ heart stuttered to a stop in his chest. “What?” he croaked in disbelief. Surely
Gideon wouldn’t do something so foolish. Volunteering for the force that led the attack was a
suicide mission. Very few survived. This wasn’t their fight. Surely he wouldn’t. He couldn’t.

The lieutenant nodded enthusiastically. “Oh yes. ’Pon my word, he’s a brave fellow. Heard
he arrived just today and begged the commander to be allowed to lead the Forlorn. Commander
refused, he’d already picked his man. But North attached himself unofficially to the force. He’s
got experience, by God. He may not be on a horse but he’ll beat the odds. Mark my words!”

Before Charles could answer, the shout came. “Now, lads! Forward!” All around him men
surged to their feet screaming and began running toward the trenches. Charles was unable to
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Love’s Fortress

move for a moment. Then he leapt to his feet and ran as if the hounds of hell were after him. He
carried neither gun nor sword, just ran toward the breach, desperate.

“Gideon!” His cry was lost in the screams of the men around him.

The black smoke from the guns and the men falling around him impeded his frantic search.

He coughed and then sucked in a lungful of thick, acrid smoke and coughed more. Twice he
tripped over dead men, falling to his knees. He grabbed a sword lying there, its dead owner no
longer needing it, and he raced on.

He had almost reached the trench when the French blew the mines. The concussion rocked
the ground under him and threw him back several feet. He faltered a moment but sprang up and
raced into the carnage.

When he reached the trench he slid down the slope, falling on top of a pile of dead bodies. He
refused to believe Gideon was among them. Gideon would have reached the top of the breach.

Even as he thought it more bodies fell, and Charles slogged over the pile of bloody, mangled flesh.

Where was he? He couldn’t be too late, he couldn’t! What had Gideon been thinking? It was a
fuck, for Christ’s sake! Nothing, a moment, a mistake, a desperate thing that happened between
desperate men who had just done violent unspeakable things in battle and lived.

Charles fell again and came face-to-face with a dead infantryman. Half his head was
missing. The bone shone whitely through the red and gray gore, and Charles gagged, crawling
backward. He realized the light was brighter than it ought to be and glanced up to see half the
trench was burning out of control. The mines had set the debris lining the bottom of the trench
on fire.

He pushed away from the dead man and scrambled up the other side of the ditch only to be
met by
chevaux-de-frise
, wooden timbers in which the French had driven sword blades. Men
lay bleeding, impaled on the blades, crying out for help. Charles closed his mind to their pleas
and climbed over them, using them as a gruesome bridge across the treacherous beams.

“Gideon North!” he screamed over and over.

Suddenly a hand grabbed his ankle and Charles fell forward, barely missing a blade. He
kicked, trying to shake off the hand.

“Charles.” The voice was so rough it was almost unrecognizable. Almost. Charles reached
down and grabbed on to the hand desperately, following it to wrist and to arm, and then there he
was. Gideon.

He lay beside a beam. Not impaled, thank God. But Charles’ relief turned to horror when he
saw what was left of him. His coat sleeve was still burning. Charles tore his neckcloth from
around his neck, wrapped his hand in it and grabbed at the smoldering material, ripping the
sleeve off and throwing it away. His face… Gideon’s face. One side was a mass of black, burned
skin.

“Cut it off,” Gideon rasped.

“What?” Charles coughed, choking on bile.

“The…leg,” Gideon whispered harshly. Charles looked down and what he saw made him fall
to his hands and knees and retch violently. Gideon’s leg was broken, mangled and nearly torn
off. It was bent at an impossible angle, the bloody, shattered, exposed bone gleaming in the
firelight.

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“Cut it off,” Gideon said again.

Charles recoiled in horror, incapable of speech, unable to move. Why couldn’t he move? He
had to help Gideon. He had to save Gideon. Why couldn’t he move?

Charles woke, gasping for air, the urge to retch overwhelming. He tumbled off the bed and grabbed the basin, emptying his stomach, his hands trembling and his gut cramping.

The dream had been more accurate today than the last time he’d had it. His mind changed the details routinely. One night he’d be too late and it was Gideon’s sightless eyes accusing him, another night it would be Charles lying broken and bleeding. But he hadn’t had the dream in a very long time. Why last night? Why after leaving Gideon and Sarah…

Of course. He’d forgotten. It had been so long, he’d forgotten that sharing a woman with Gideon as they had Sarah always brought the dream. Because it was the one time he and Gideon had been intimate that had driven Gideon to such a foolhardy act. It was Charles’ fault for always wanting more than Gideon was willing or able to give. Gideon was right to blame him. Both for driving Gideon to such extremes and then for saving his life when all Gideon had wanted was to die.

Charles shook off his melodramatic and damned depressing mood. So he’d had the dream. He’d had it for the last six years, hadn’t he? One more time was not alarming. It wasn’t even unusual. Going to his pitcher of water, he poured some on a cloth and wiped his face clean. A good cleaning with the basin was out now. He sighed. It would be all over the house by breakfast that Mr. Borden had his dreams again. Damn. The maids were up already. There’d be no sneaking out and dumping the evidence quietly.

He smiled grimly. One of the inconveniences of living in each other’s pockets here in the country. The only thing for it was to go on as if everything was normal.

Halfway between the dressing stand and his armoire, Charles lost his resolve and sank down onto the end of the bed. He rubbed his face roughly with both hands and then jammed them into his hair. Dammit, why now? He was trying so hard. He really was. Last night had been… There were no words to describe it. It had been unlike any other bed sport Charles had experienced, with or without Gideon. But definitely different than the other times he’d shared with Gideon. In the short time she’d known him, Sarah was already breaking down barriers that Gideon had kept locked tightly in place for the last six years. Last night with Sarah, Gideon had been more tender, more responsive, more himself than Charles had ever seen him be with a woman. It was the marriage. In Gideon’s mind it made all the difference. She couldn’t reject him now, could she?

Charles finally stopped denying the truth. The dream had come and had been so vivid and so accurate because it was happening again. Charles was on the verge of losing Gideon again. And this time he should let it happen. This time he should walk away. Because Sarah was clearly what Gideon needed and what he wanted. But the 50

Love’s Fortress