Love's Fortress Read online

  “Gideon,” Sarah said. She pressed on his hands gripping her hips. Gripping them too tightly, he realized. He started to apologize, but Sarah cut him off. “Don’t say it.” There was laughter in her voice. He was sure at some point she would stop continually amazing him, but now was not that time. He tried to remove his hands, but she wouldn’t let him. “Hold me. Just not so tightly.” It was then he realized that her hand was covering his. Touching his scarred hand. Then she did the most extraordinary thing. She rubbed his scarred hand on her hip and wiggled against the caress. “I like the way that feels.” She was nearly purring like a cat. “So rough.”

  Gideon had no response. He was stunned and let her continue to caress herself with his hand. Charles was looking at him with a smug smile that said more clearly than words, I told you so. Gideon both loved and hated that look too. Sarah wiggled against his hand again, rising slightly and then coming down on his cock again, and she caught her breath.

  “Like that too, now, do you?” Charles asked with a chuckle. “That’s more.”

  “More,” Sarah said with wonder. “I had almost forgotten that you were inside me, Gideon. I couldn’t really feel you until now.”

  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 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.

  “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.

  Chapter Seven

  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 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.

  “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 way she’d accepted Charles too… He couldn’t stop thinking about it. About the way she’d made him feel, about the way he and Gideon had worked together to make the experience pleasurable for her. The way she’d responded to them had been thrilling.

  Charles let his hands fall to his lap and stared at them as they lay there. They were covered with calluses and tiny scars, the hands of a laborer, a farmer. Not the hands of a gentleman. He didn’t belong with them. He slowly closed his hands into tight fists. But he had always fought for Gideon, hadn’t he? Fought by his side in the war, fought for scraps of his affection, fought for his life and his forgiveness. He was a stubborn fool. Because he couldn’t seem to accept that the fight was over. But his fight was different now. Now he fought to keep a place in Gideon’s life and to make one for himself in Sarah’s.

  ———

  “Good morning, Charles.”

  He paused in the doorway, keeping his face blank as he met Gideon’s stare. Charles blinked first and Gideon smiled triumphantly. Well, that morning ritual was apparently unchanged today. He peered around the room. Sarah was nowhere in sight.

  “My wife has not risen yet.” Gideon seemed to almost preen as he said the words, and Charles hid a smile. Charles was sure Gideon would not be amused were he to comment on his smug attitude.

  “No? She struck me as an early riser.” Charles walked over to the sidebar and accepted a plate from Anders. He began to fill it with the hearty breakfast fare laid out for them. He wasn’t hungry, which wasn’t all that odd. Normally after the dream he skipped breakfast and went straight to the barn to work off his agitation. But he’d felt that an appearance at breakfast was required of him this morning.

  “I’m sure we
will learn her habits in due time,” Gideon said nonchalantly. Charles was delighted at his casual inclusion in Gideon’s observation, although he did not show it.

  “Yes, quite,” was all he said.

  They ate their breakfast in a silence that was typical of them. A few years at war made a man appreciate a hot, hearty breakfast and the silence to eat it. There was no awkwardness, just a mutual enjoyment of the quiet and the fare.

  Suddenly Sarah appeared in the doorway. Charles hadn’t even heard her footsteps on the stairs. Either he was preoccupied or she was stealthier than she looked. Both he and Gideon rose from their chairs as she entered, Gideon reaching for his crutches.

  “Good morning, Mr. North, Mr. Borden,” she said crisply. She waved them back down. “Please do not interrupt your meal on my account.” She walked over to Anders and accepted a plate with a smile and a murmured thank-you.

  “Good morning, Sarah,” Gideon said, his voice rather formal though the greeting was not. Sarah glanced over her shoulder at him in surprise and then with a blush her gaze cut to Anders, who was busy removing the covers so Sarah could see what was available.

  “Good morning, Mrs. North,” Charles offered jovially, and he could see her shoulders relax, as if she’d been waiting for an inappropriately intimate greeting from him. She merely nodded at him politely.

  When she had all she wanted, Sarah turned to the table and stopped, indecision written on her face. The table was set with far too many places. Charles had wondered at it, but he now realized the staff wasn’t sure where she would choose to sit and so had made up all the settings. He stood and walked over to pull out the chair to Gideon’s left. “Join us, please,” he asked politely.

  “Yes, thank you,” she replied. When she was seated Charles walked back over to his own place at Gideon’s right, directly across from Sarah.

  It was painful. What had been a relaxed and quiet breakfast was suddenly fraught with silent tension. Sarah ate quietly, looking at neither Charles nor Gideon. Gideon’s jaw was tense, and he set his fork down beside his half-full plate with a precision usually reserved for holy objects and explosive devices. Several times he looked at Sarah as if he would say something but then thought better of it. He finished his tea with a loud swallow and was startled when Anders immediately appeared to refill his cup. The butler looked as tense as the three of them.