“Not your face. Not your hair. But the first time I saw you…I saw her.” He rubbed a finger beneath his eye. “I can’t explain it. It’s the eyes. Dark as coal.”
Her chest tightened, the breath freezing in her lungs. He no longer seemed to see her as he talked. No longer seemed to be with her at all. His gaze drifted over her head.
“Her eyes were so dark. You could see your reflection in them.” His eyes snapped back to her then. “The same as yours. Haunted. Sad.”
“Who?” She asked again, needing to hear, even as she feared his answer.
He shrugged. “I don’t know who she was. A laundress. A prostitute. There were a few women there. Amid the blood and gore.”
“And you killed her?”
“I didn’t save her,” he countered, eyes flashing.
“Another soldier killed her, then,” she surmised. “You can hardly blame yourself for that.”
His eyes locked on hers. “Can’t I? I was there. A party to it all. We won the day. There was no need to keep on killing…to kill her. A woman…” His voice faded to a whisper, but she felt that whisper deep in her own soul. Knew the echo of it, ceaseless, merciless, flaying your heart to ribbons, rendering you useless, worthless for yourself or anyone else.
“My father never looked at me the same way after that.”
“Was he there, too?”
“No, but he heard the stories.” He laughed then, the sound hoarse. “And I told him about her. I shouldn’t have, but I was drunk.”
“I’m sorry, Griffin.”
“You see,” he murmured, his face strangely unmoved as he looked at her, as though he fought to keep emotion at bay. A practice she well knew. “Your sin’s not so great.”
She opened her mouth to tell him neither was his. That he couldn’t blame himself for the actions of other soldiers, that war was ugly for all involved…but something in his eyes stopped her, trapped the words in her throat. Nothing she said could alter his thoughts on the matter. Just as nothing he said could change her.
She slid down against the saddle. Folding her arms over her chest, she turned her face to the side, away from him, and closed her eyes.
Chapter 18
Her eyes flung wide open on the wind of a gasp. She drew another gulp of air deeply in to her lungs, starved, desperate for breath as she blinked against the cold night. Moonlight filtered through the treetops. Wind whistled through the rustling leaves.
“Astrid?”
Griffin’s shadow rose beside her. Instantly, she knew him. His touch, his heat, his smell. She knew. She remembered. And she craved more. Again.
His hard arms surrounded her. Wide-palmed hands flexed over her flesh, long-fingered and strong, expertly running along her body, drawing soothing circles on her back and making her breath come quicker.
The nightmare was familiar. Rocks. One after another they came, pressing down on her, pushing the air from her chest. Faces loomed above her, each one adding a rock to the ever-growing mound atop her. Her father. Portia. Bertram.
“Only a bad dream.” Griffin’s deep drawl slid through her, chasing the chill, purging the terror of moments ago, liquefying her bones, imbuing her with a languid warmth, almost as though she had imbibed one too many glasses of sherry.
“I’ve dreamed my share,” he confided, his voice rumbling from his chest and vibrating against her body.
“Yes.” Her fingers tightened their grip on his shirt, pulling him closer. “I imagine you have.”
His breath ruffled her hair.
Her gaze lifted to his. Blue ice glittered down at her, hooded beneath a fringe of ink-dark lashes.
Her breath snagged in her throat. He brushed a tendril of hair off her cheek, the rasp of a callused thumb dragging across her skin.
“You said the first time you saw me…you saw her.”
He tensed against her.
The notion of him seeing death—seeing all he believed himself to have failed at in his life—
when he looked at her filled her with a gnawing ache. She did not want to inspire ghosts or ill memories.
She wanted to inspire him.
Her fingers flexed against him. “Do you still?”
He spoke, his words rough and deep, feathering against her cheek. “I see you.”
His words sent a small thrill up her spine, igniting a tiny flame of feminine power within her. She nuzzled the cold tip of her nose into the warm skin of his neck with a small sigh, inhaling his manly scent.
“Cold,” he hissed on a strangled chuckle.
Warm me, she thought, pressing herself against the length of him with a shiver that had nothing to do with the cold.
He shifted, hands falling firmly on her arms, distancing her from him.
The fire had burned low, the burnt wood mere embers. Shadows sheltered them, the only light that of the moon and the gleam in his blue eyes.
“Don’t,” he breathed, the single word final, inflexible, for all she barely heard it.
She held his gaze, understanding what he was telling her with that single word…but too aroused from the feel of him, the smell, the look to care that she was going against the very rules she had set forth.
She snuggled against him, dipping her face into the crook of his neck, parting her mouth so that her breath fanned the swiftly thudding pulse at his throat.
“Astrid,” he warned, his voice a dry whisper, his throat vibrating beneath her lips. “I’m only a man.”
She slid her hands between them, flattening her palms over his shoulders. “That’s all I want you to be.”
With a stinging curse he rolled her onto her back, the full weight of him coming over her, a wall of humming heat pressing her into the tarp as his lips crushed hers.
His hands dropped between them, hiking up her skirts and sliding her drawers down in a rough, anxious move.
Her breath hitched, his eagerness heightening her own desire.
“Are you cold?”
With him? Never. She shook her head fiercely in response.
He paused, taking care to cocoon them beneath the blanket. She felt sheltered, safe, cherished.
He braced one arm beside her head. His other hand delved between them to free himself from his trousers. Without a word, she parted her thighs, allowing him to settle between her legs. She tilted her hips, eager and ready for him.
The long heat of him slid inside her in one slick motion. Her breath escaped in a hiss. Her neck arched, coming off the ground.
He held himself still, the fullness of him lodged deeply inside her, pulsing in rhythm with her heart.
She dropped her head back down, rolling her neck side to side, mindless and moaning as he began to move, his rocking thrusts slow and deep, stoking her, building the fire, tormenting her, drawing out her pleasure until she thought she would die if it did not come swifter, harder.
She dug her nails into his taut buttocks, bringing him harder against her, trying to increase his tempo, but he continued his torment, easing out of her in slow drags of heated flesh.
“Griffin,” she wept, lifting her head.
“Say it,” he growled.
“What?” she gasped, senseless, mad with need.
“That you want it. You want me. That you always will.” His tongue swept the curve of her ear in a hot brush.
She moaned again. It was the height of manipulation for him to inveigle such a promise from her when she was lost with need. When she had to have him or die from wanting.
And yet she couldn’t say such a thing. Because the day would arrive when she couldn’t have him…when she had to give him up. And pretending that she didn’t want him, pretending they weren’t the same, two sides of the same coin, might be the only way to survive such a loss.
Then it dawned on her that he wasn’t the only one capable of manipulation.
She tilted her hips, taking him deeper, hugging him tighter inside her. Instead of answering, she raked her nails through his too long dark hair, gently scouring his scalp. Pulling his head down, she claimed his mouth in a deep, tongue-tangling kiss.
He groaned into her mouth, angling his head, deepening the kiss in turn. A wave of moisture rushed between her legs and she exploded in a burst of blinding heat, crying out against his mouth.
Singed by fire, the cold Scottish wood around them became a very distant, very insignificant thing, dimming altogether as wave after wave of sensation shuddered through her, sizzling through her nerves as Griffin continued his sinuous thrusts, his breath a harsh rasp in her ear until he stilled, pouring his heat into her.
The deep panting of their breaths mingled, frothy white clouds on the air, their chests rising and falling against each other in rhythmic unison. Almost as though they were one being. She chased off the fanciful thought.
And yet the awe, the euphoria lingered. Now she understood the blushes and whispers behind lace fans. Before, she had never imagined what was so scintillating about the subject of sex.
At best, her experiences had always been…unmemorable. At worst, painful and undignified, leaving her mortified long after Bertram left her bed.
But now she knew. Now she understood what made sane people behave without good sense.
Perhaps she even understood what drove her mother to run away with Mr. Welles.
Astrid feathered her fingers against his chest, wondering at the warmth suffusing her…and waiting for it to wane, to depart as it must and make room for the cold.
He rolled his weight off her and tucked her close to his side. Long moments passed and she thought he slept until his rich voice murmured in her ear. “No more bad dreams now,” he ordered, pausing to release a contented sigh.
The command made her smile. As if he could simply rid her of nightmares with his simple avowal. Strangely enough, she was beginning to suspect this man could do anything.
“No?” she breathed.
“No,” he affirmed. “You have me.”
The smile slipped from her face. She had him. But she could not keep him.
Astrid swung her cloak about her shoulders and inhaled biting cold air. A soft smile curved her lips as she gathered their bedding from the ground.
The irony was not lost on her. Lady Astrid, Duchess of Derring, daughter of the late Marquess of Fremont, preferred the hard earth over a down-filled mattress and sheets of Giza cotton. And even more shocking, she preferred sleeping on the hard earth with an unrefined brute of a man.
Her lips twisted with wicked pleasure. Not that they slept a great deal.
Her gaze moved along the tall ash trees surrounding their camp. A slate blue sky peeked though the treetops, making it difficult to determine the time of day. She could only guess it to be midmorning.
“Ready?” he asked, coming up beside her.
She nodded, suddenly shy. Heat burned her cheeks. Illogical, she knew.
Accepting his hand, she allowed him to lead her to her mount, the feel of his hand warm and strong.
“We should reach Edinburgh tonight, maybe tomorrow.”
She nodded, his words cooling some of the heat in her cheeks. Reaching Edinburgh meant an end to this. To them. He would deposit her and continue on to Balfurin.
He helped her mount before moving away. Her eyes followed him as he strode off, devouring the movements of his strong body as he swung himself atop his stallion. He nudged his horse with his boot heels. She followed suit, falling in beside him.
They moved only a few paces before Griffin pulled on his reins, halting their progress. A sound like distant thunder filled the air. The earth began to shake beneath them.
Griffin circled his stallion, scanning the surrounding woods.
“What is it?” Astrid asked, glanced wildly around them, dread forming a knot in the pit of her belly. Alarm hammered in her chest.
“Riders,” he answered a moment before dozens of Highlanders broke from the trees, raining upon them like an invading army.
Griffin positioned himself before her, but she had no difficulty assessing the assemblage of men, instantly recognizing that they were not Gallagher’s men.