Cherishing the Captain (Men at Arms Book 2) Read online

  “You went to my father?”

  She nodded, fiddling with the cord tying her dressing gown closed. “I reckoned if anyone knew what had become of ye, it would be him.”

  “Oh God,” he groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Please tell me he wasn’t a complete bastard to you.”

  To tell Gideon that would be to lie to him. He knew his father well, and the elder Captain Whitlock was a hard man—one who took much pride in his family lineage.

  “He didnae take kindly to my sudden intrusion. When I told him I was yer wife, he didnae believe me. He thought me a whore who’d latched onto ye before yer departure … one who’d come back to make demands of ye. He asked if I’d borne a bastard from ye, and offered money to make me go away. Ye’d returned from war injured, and didnae need to be bothered with a common Scottish trollop.”

  Gideon pounded one fist against the door with a rough grunt, fury tightening his features, and harsh breaths making his chest heave. “The son of a bitch. He … I had no idea, Sylvia. No one told me you had come—not my father, the servants, no one. Depending on when you arrived, I might have even been in residence. God damnit!”

  Sylvia took pause, reluctant to continue. But there was still so much to say, so she went on.

  “I told him I certainly wasnae a whore, nor had I borne a child—though if I had, it certainly wouldnae have been a bastard. I told him I just wanted to ken where ye were, if ye were all right. He told me … he said …”

  Her husband released a heavy breath filled with scorn and disbelief, and gave a shake of his head. Sylvia choked down tears at the painful memory of standing in the fine Whitlock home while Gideon’s father stared down his aristocratic nose at her.

  “He said ye’d come home from war with a clear head. He said ye’d come to yer senses and realized ye’d made a mistake wedding me. Ye didnae want me anymore, so I should return to wherever I came from. He told me I could still have the money if I wanted. I … I accepted it.”

  Gideon’s throat bobbed, and he grimaced as if swallowing something distasteful. “It was the right thing to do. It had been months since the last time I’d sent you money … you would have needed it.”

  “I didnae want it for myself. I took it for my da, and my brothers. I took very little for my own, telling myself it was what I was owed. My husband had abandoned me, so the least he could do was part wi’ a bit o’ coin.”

  “Sylvia, I’m sorry. I … it is a poor excuse, but I didn’t know you’d met with my father. I didn’t realize he’d been so cruel to you.”

  She shrugged as if it didn’t matter, but at the time the meeting had left her devastated. She’d wept for hours after learning that her husband lived but no longer wanted her.

  “I told myself that I hated ye. I never wanted to see ye again, and wouldnae have ye back if ye begged me.”

  “As is your right.”

  “I thought it wouldnae matter why ye’d changed yer mind about me. Even if I had the chance to demand answers, I wouldnae care. But, that was before last night … before I realized why …”

  “It is for the best,” he protested, seeming to sense what she would say next. “Ask anything else of me, and it is yours. I’ll see you set up with funds to live on for the rest of your days. An annulment might be possible, if that’s what you desire. In all this time, surely you could have met any number of men—”

  “There is no man for me but you, Gideon Whitlock. I havenae the time to be courted by anyone, but even if I did, that wouldnae ever change. It is you I want … my husband.”

  He pressed himself tighter against the door, hands shaking as if he battled the urge to run. But then, she saw the look in his good eye—the hope, desire, and need—and wondered if it weren’t something else. Perhaps the urges he fought weren’t those telling him to run, but to take her into his arms. Her entire body thrummed with anticipation, and desires she’d thought long dead came to the surface in her. She wanted his embrace like she’d never wanted anything in her life.

  “I cannot be the man you deserve.”

  “I dinnae believe that. Ye said ye’d been changed by war, that this thing ye’re fighting within yerself couldnae be separated from ye. But … what if ye didnae have to be free of it? What if all ye need is to learn to live wi’ it?”

  He squeezed his eyes shut as if pained, his head falling against the door with a thud. “Sylvia, I can’t—”

  “But ye already have. I’ve seen ye talk and shake hands and charm the other patrons o’ the home. I see the way ye are with Mrs. Davies, lettin’ her embrace ye like ye willnae let me.”

  His eyes snapped opened and his nostrils flared with indignation. “That is entirely different. When Josephine hugs me, I allow it because she doesn’t know the truth of my affliction … because all I feel for her is a brotherly affection, the same as I feel for Max. But you … if you embrace me, I … I could withstand it. I would even like it. I want you to touch me so badly it hurts. But it wouldn’t end with an embrace or a kiss. Walking away from you this morning nearly killed me. If I do it again, I’ll want more. I’ll want to kiss you until your knees grow weak. Until you’re panting and begging me for more. I’d give you more, too. I would undress you and worship your body with my hands and my lips … lay you down and make love to you until the sun rose and I lay exhausted on your breast, then wake and do it again, and again. I knew the night I met you once would never be enough.”

  Exasperation shot through Sylvia, and she approached him, arms spread wide. “Then why won’t ye? Ye make it sound like loving me is dangerous!”

  He raised his hands as if to touch her, but curled his fingers and pulled them back with a frustrated growl. “Because it is. If I let myself think all is well between us and that my love for you is enough, I would be lulled into a false sense of security. The moment I let myself forget what I am capable of is the moment I become a danger to you. Did you know that many nights I suffer night terrors? I’ve been told by my valet that when I am awakened I often forget where I am. I’ve lashed out at him countless times, though he is adept at getting out of arm’s reach long enough for me to gather my wits. But what happens when you’re sleeping in my arms and I lash out? Who will defend you if I wake to find what I think is a stranger in my bed? Do you not realize how easily I could kill you?”

  She sucked in a sharp breath as he held up his hands. She was forced to acknowledge how large they were—how big he was. Even with her voluptuous proportions, she didn’t come close to matching him.

  “These hands have taken lives without hesitation,” he snarled, curling them into fists and showing her the white notching of scars marring his tanned skin. “Whether with rifle, flintlock, dagger, or brute force, I am trained to kill. The thing they didn’t teach me was how to make it stop … how to let myself believe that I don’t have to fight to survive anymore … how to recognize a friendly hand on my shoulder from a threat. I could choke the life out of you without realizing it. Would you really have me do that to you, to myself, to us? Is it your wish to live in fear that the wrong touch, the wrong sound, or my own dreams will be enough to destroy everything?”

  Squaring her shoulders, she met his gaze with a challenging one of her own. She refused to accept that this was how things must be. “I’m not afraid of ye, Gideon.”

  His jaw flexed as he ground his teeth. “You should be.”

  “I’ve seen for myself that ye can endure being touched if ye know it’s coming. And it isnae all touch that disturbs ye, is it? Ye touched me with yer own hands this morning and all was well.”

  He nodded. “It is the damnedest thing, and I cannot explain it. I have no trouble touching others, knowing that I’m the one in control. It is being touched that seems to trigger such responses from me. Most of the time, I can control it—”

  “Then ye can learn to control it with me.”

  He knifed his fingers through his hair with an exasperated cry. “Sylvia, I can’t.”

  Ignoring this, and
still refusing to accept what he’d so readily given into, she reached for the belt of her dressing gown. “We can go slow … start with what ye’re comfortable with. Ye cannae be touched just yet. I understand that. But ye can touch me. We’ll begin with that and work to train ye to think differently about touch. If ye can be trained to kill, then ye can learn to love me like ye used to.”

  His eyes flared wide as she shrugged her dressing gown off her shoulders and let it pool at her feet. Uncontrollable tremors wracked her, and her heart hammered in a wild cadence against her ribs. But, she couldn’t back down when they’d come so far in just one day. She needed to believe all was not lost.

  “Touch me,” she whispered, clenching her fingers around the fabric of her chemise and avoiding his gaze. He was the only man to ever see her undressed, but it had been so long. She’d been innocent the night of their wedding and the resulting consummation, and shyness nearly overtook her as it had that first night. But, she stood strong. “Touch me, Gideon.”

  His breaths were the only sound in the room for several seconds, harsh and grating as his gaze swept over her from head to toe. She realized that her location in the room allowed the firelight to illuminate her from behind. No doubt, he could see straight through the thin fabric. He was looking at her as he had on their wedding night—with lust and love and such a potent longing that her belly clenched from the power of it.

  “Sylvia,” he rasped, his gaze locked on her breasts, caged within the white cambric. “Don’t.”

  Raising her chin, she brought one hand up to her shoulder, fingers slipping into the neckline of her undergarment. His breath hitched as he watched her every move with rapt fascination, lips parting as if he anticipated the moment she would stand bare before him. Giving herself over to a sudden surge of boldness, she pushed the material off her shoulder. He made a sound low in his throat at the appearance of her bare skin, and it spurred her on. She rolled her shoulder to encourage the garment lower, revealing the top of one breast. He gritted his teeth, but said nothing, his gaze fixed on where her other hand had moved to repeat the motion on the other side.

  The chemise whispered down her breasts to hang at her waist, then she began pushing it down her hips. Stepping out of her slippers, she stood tall and let him look his fill, her heart in her throat and her pulse thrumming fast. She felt his gaze on her as if he touched her with his hands, longing for him to close the distance between them.

  “My God,” he whispered, his feet carrying him toward her as if he were pulled by some unseen force. “I’d nearly forgotten …”

  “What?”

  Their gazes met, and in his eye she saw that he’d lost this battle. Swirling amid the doubt and fear, there was defeat. Surrender.

  “I’d nearly forgotten how beautiful you are … how you managed to make all other women cease to exist for me. Christ …”

  His touched skimmed her belly, featherlight and tickling toward her navel. She drew in a breath, closing her eyes and reveling in even so soft a touch. Her skin tingled in response, her nipples tightening and a yearning need opening between her legs. If he denied her now, Sylvia thought she might collapse at his feet and die.

  “I’ll keep my hands to myself,” she promised him. “Tie them with the belt of my robe if ye wish—if it makes ye feel secure. But just … touch me, Gideon. Please, touch me. Give me hope we arenae damaged beyond repair.”

  Sylvia called upon every ounce of her will to keep her hands at her sides as his lips crashed over hers. She wanted to thread her fingers in his hair, trace the lines and planes of his body—so different than she remembered him. She didn’t need to touch him to note the changes; Sylvia could see them well enough with her own eyes. He was still broad and tall, but some of his bulk had been shaved down, making him leaner and more svelte. There was a hardness to him now, a sharpness, as if he’d been honed like the sharp point of a blade.

  She wanted to explore the ridges of his torso, run her fingers through the golden hairs on his chest, take the hard length of him into her palm.

  But, she would hold fast to her promise and do nothing to destroy this moment of oneness.

  When he lifted her off her feet and carried her to the bed, Sylvia let her arms hang limp. As he laid her down and came over her, brandishing the belt of her robe as a makeshift rope, she gave herself over to him without an ounce of reservation.

  Chapter 8

  Gideon fought to regain control of his hands as he tied the belt of Sylvia’s robe into an efficient knot. Tremors wracked him from head to toe, making it difficult to accomplish the task with the swiftness his desire demanded. His trousers had become painfully tight, and the erection he’d been fighting since their kiss that morning surged fully to life. His head spun from the shock of his need, which overwhelmed him with its stunning urgency. Gideon had thought that part of him dead—the part that hungered for connection and human touch, lust and a joining of the flesh. However, as Sylvia lay docile beneath him, breasts thrust upward by the stretch of her arms over her head, he realized how wrong he had been.

  His desires hadn’t died; they had simply lain dormant all this time, waiting for this moment, this reunion, this woman. Slipping a finger under his improvised tether to ensure it wasn’t too tight, he nodded his satisfaction and then sat back on his haunches. His legs were spread, braced on either side of Sylvia’s waist. She made an alluring sight from this angle, splayed beneath him, arms trapped overhead and loose tendrils of sable hair framing her face. Her lips were parted and soft pink in the firelight, her eyes the color of dark pewter, her skin taking on a luminous peaches-and-cream glow.

  She was just as he remembered her, all soft and supple curves—breasts that would overflow in his hands, wide hips that would cradle him perfectly when he was inside her. Shifting backward, he drank her in with his gaze, lingering on the soft stretch of her belly and the dip of her navel, the plump flare of her thighs, the soft thatch of dark brown shielding her femininity.

  There was no time to think or wrestle with his conscience. In the far reaches of his mind, logic did its best to encroach upon his thoughts, but primal instinct had taken over. Here he was with a nude woman in his bed, her body soft and pliant and offered up to his delight.

  No, not just any woman. His woman. His Sylvia.

  There was nothing else to think about. He’d lost the last shred of his control, and now that he knew her hands couldn’t reach him, he was free to take what she offered.

  “Gideon,” she panted, when he merely sat there staring at her.

  Her back arched, and she squirmed, biting her lip and staring at him with wide, pleading eyes.

  Gideon wasted no time stripping off his shirt and tossing it aside. Then, he was reaching for her, filling his hands with her naked flesh. She released a shocked breath when he gripped her waist, running his hands upward until he cupped her breasts. Something unmistakably electric flared between them, as if he were touching her for the first time—and in a way, he was. The part of him that recalled the feel of her collided with the part that had forgotten what this was like, and he was like a man starved of all sensation, experiencing everything as if it were new. Her breasts were soft and heavy in his palms, her nipples stiffening against the pads of his thumbs. The wings of her collarbones were delicate and feminine under his skimming fingers, and the skin over her shoulders was like spun silk.

  He explored the dips and hollows of her sumptuous body by touch, his eye burning and stinging with the urge to blink. But, he kept his gaze fixed on her, determined not to miss a revelation. He’d forgotten that she was ticklish over her ribs, and smirked when his fingers stroked her there and produced a spurt of giggles. He’d forgotten the sounds she made in response to pleasure—soft little gasps and whimpers in reaction to every caress.

  After this night, Gideon doubted he’d ever forget any of it ever again. He realized he ought to put a stop to this, and remind her they shouldn’t be together this way for one night if they couldn’t have it fo
rever. But, what he desired and what was right were two very different things, and his wants won out over his rationale.

  He let his palms trace the contours of her thighs, then raised her knees, stroking over the sensitive little dips behind them. She closed her eyes when he pulled her legs apart, and the limbs trembled in his hold—a telltale sign of her own anxiety.

  “I dreamed of you,” he murmured as he lowered himself between her legs, his lips moving against the soft inner flesh of one thigh. “When I was freezing and starving on that Godforsaken island, I would close my eyes and remember you lying with me like this … so beautiful and perfect. Mine.”

  Her only response was a desperate groan, which he took as encouragement as he kissed his way toward her core. He trailed his first finger down the slick seam leading to the opening of her body, then delved inside, finding himself gripped in warm, satiny wetness. He glanced up to find her lost to her pleasure, eyes squeezed shut and head tipped back as he slowly worked in and out, his thumb circling to seek out the sensitive hidden bud at her center.

  “Sometimes I merely dreamed of holding you and laying in your arms. But, other times, there was more. There was the taste of you, the scent of you, the feel of you on my fingers. No matter how much time passed, I could never forget.”

  Her lips parted on a gasp when he joined his first finger with his second, filling and stretching her, plunging slow and deep. She was coming undone with very little provocation, reminding him that it had been as long for her as it had for him—that she was wound taut and ready to snap at the slightest touch.

  “There is no man for me but you, Gideon Whitlock.”

  The truth of those words made themselves apparent now, as she writhed and fought against her bonds, her back bowing off the bed and her hips raising to meet his thrusting fingers. Her breasts heaved with each of her shuddering breaths, and he could see the thunderous beat of her pulse at the base of her throat.