Chapter 38
Pitiful? Hawk stared at her. She stood before him stripped of armor. No flowers. No tulle. No illusions. She had the guts to reveal her love, her heart bared, where his was hidden beneath brass and medals.
He crossed the room in two strides and pulled her into his arms. “You are the strongest, most courageous woman I know,” he whispered into her hair, his voice scraped raw.
“If you believed that, you would grant me a place by your side. I love you. And you are breaking my heart.”
He brushed his cheek against her hair, willing her to understand. “You deserve young love, lighthearted and free—”
“Don’t diminish my feelings.” She drew away, forcing him to meet her eyes.
“My life would be easier if I loved some poet scribbling pretty lines. But I don’t.
Fate gave me you—the man who carries nations on his shoulders.
I love your silences. Your strength. Even that blasted temper.
I love that I can wring laughter out of you when you’d rather be stone. ”
Hawk froze, breath knocked clean from his chest. She couldn’t mean it. Yet she stood before him, unflinching. And she thought herself weak? She had said it aloud. He couldn’t even breathe it. Even knowing it was impossible, hope battered its tired wings inside him.
“And when you touch me… I would trade a lifetime of illusions for one day of truth in your arms, Alexander.”
His eyes closed against the ache of hearing his name on her lips.
“I want real love. The kind that stays when it’s easier to run. If you keep pretending I don’t love you, then it isn’t my heart you’re protecting. It’s your own.”
“You’re damn right.”
Hawk grabbed her waist and held on to her like a drowning man clutching wreckage.
“I’ve fought battles that chewed men to pieces. But when you turned my life into a midsummer’s dream, no armor was thick enough to keep you out.
He passed his hands over her fluttering eyelids. “I only remember I have a heart when you look at me with those promise-colored eyes.”
“Then tonight, love me,” she whispered. “Tonight, surrender.”
He caught her mouth in his, a kiss that claimed and begged and yielded all at once.
To hell with duty.
Tonight, he needed to live in her fantasy. God help them both.
***
Hawk had lived long enough to know the hollowness that followed every triumph. He’d ridden into cities with crowds hailing his name, had victories carved into medals and maps. But the glory never warmed him more than a hay fire.
Come the morrow, he would think of this night. He would feel the weight of her father’s ghost. He might damn himself for taking what was never meant for him. But for once, he wanted a triumph that didn’t rob a piece of his soul.
He swept her against his chest and carried her through the corridors. Her hair brushed his jaw, and the scent of soap and candle smoke clung to her. When he shouldered the door to her chamber, she lifted her head, eyes sparking.
“If you brought me here to leave me in my room, I will—”
He silenced her protest with a kiss. She softened against him, clutching his coat. Once his decision was made, no power in Europe could move him.
He drove her back against the door, and he deepened the kiss, wedging his thigh between hers. Hawk devoured her mouth, drawing breath from her lungs into his own.
She gasped. He was being too rough, too fierce. He tore himself away, chest heaving.
“You mustn’t fear shocking me,” she whispered. “I’ve read The Merchant of Venus. And…other novels.”
The thought of her in candlelight, cheeks flushed as she turned forbidden pages, stoked a dark fire in him.
“Did it make you ache for me?” The words came out as a growl.
He prowled around her, hands tightening on her waist as he pulled her close. The soft curve of her backside met his arousal, and he ground against her.
“Not for the men in the books. Only for you.”
Panting, he lowered his forehead to the curve of her neck. He wanted to consume her whole, but the tenderness clawing through his chest made his hunger ache all the worse.
“What do you think those men wanted to do with their women?”
Her swallow trembled beneath his lips. “To… make love to them.”
He splayed a hand over her belly, the other sliding up until his thumb brushed the underside of her breast.
“I want to devour you. I want to own your body, your sensuality, your soul. Do you think that compares?”
Her answering cry rippled through him, and she arched into his touch.
He tugged the chemise from her shoulders, and the linen slid down until nothing shielded her from him. Fair skin gleamed in the firelight, pale as moonstone. His gaze flicked to the thatch of red curls crowning her mound, the single color left to his ruined eyes. His cock jerked with violent need.
Hawk brushed his lips over the freckles scattered on her chest, then closed his mouth over her breast, sucking until her nipple hardened against his tongue. Her gasp shot through him like fire.
He reached for the pins in her hair. The curls tumbled down her back, down her breasts. He caught fistfuls of it, rubbed his face into the mass, breathing in all her colors.
“You, standing like this, cloaked in your hair… It will haunt me to my grave.”
“It’s only red hair. Nothing to it.”
He caught her wrists, kissed her palms. “It is the only color I see.” The words blurted out of him. If he voiced them, it had to be because she made herself so vulnerable to him, he wanted to bare himself as well.
Her brow furrowed, lips parting in confusion.
“Talavera. An explosion. Since that day…” His voice roughened. “The world’s been ash and shadow. Gray. All of it. The sky, the land, the faces of my men. But your hair—”
His hand closed around the fiery strands. “You. It’s the only color left.”
He had never spoken of the weakness aloud, not even to Graves. Now she would pity him.
Her eyes glimmered. Without a word, she slipped from his arms, crossed to the dresser, and snatched the scissors. His chest seized—he had driven her off.
But then she turned, copper flame curling in her fist. She had cut a lock of her hair. In deft movements, she braided it and wound it around his wrist.
“So you’ll never be without color,” she whispered. “You’ll carry me with you. Always.”
He would carry her regardless. She was already inside of him.
But Hawk needed more than the ghost of her memory or a braid around his arm.
He scooped her up and spun her, bare limbs clinging to him, her hair flying loose.
Her laughter broke free, breathless, bright, the sweetest sound he had ever coaxed from her.
He turned again just to hear it once more, her head thrown back, her breasts brushing his chest with every twirl.
When he slowed at last, she was flushed and smiling, her breath quick against his throat. He carried her across the chamber and laid her down upon the bed. Hawk stood above her for a moment, drinking in the sight—bare, laughing, radiant. A vision to sustain him in every darkness.
He stripped off the last of his clothes, boots thudding to the floor, linen falling away until nothing separated them. No uniform, no rank, no shield.
He climbed in after her, wanting every inch of her marked, every inch of her known.
Slowly, he kissed everywhere—the hollow of her throat, her inner arm, the arch of her foot—tasting her salt, her soap, her laughter.
She quivered beneath his mouth, crying out when his teeth found the tender flesh inside her thigh.
He climbed atop her, bracing on his forearms. Their eyes locked, and the feeling that surged through him was too vast to contain, an ocean flooding his chest. He needed to be inside her. He slid his cock along her entrance, coaxing her wetter, until her hips lifted, pleading without words.
She was ready. He could not hold back.
He felt the first give of her body, and withdrew an inch, her heat clutching tight around him, refusing to let him go. The sensation nearly undid him, but he pushed a fraction deeper. She muffled her cry against his shoulder, her breath hot against his skin.
“Be brave for me, Celeste,” he rasped, his mouth at her ear, breath ragged. “Let not a single line mar your face. I cannot bear to hurt you.”
He pressed forward, met resistance, and froze, shuddering with the effort not to plunge. What the hell was he doing? He was no better than a thief, taking what was never his to claim.
“This is wrong, I shouldn’t–”
“There isn’t a single place inside of me that does not belong to you.”
She was giving herself to him. All of her.
Not a battlefield seized by force, but a gift—unthinkable, undeserved.
The ache in his chest was worse than any wound he had ever taken.
His body rebelled against restraint, hips driving forward.
He felt the sharp give of her maidenhead, the tight ring of resistance giving way, and the sound she made undid him completely.
He clutched her as if he could anchor her to him forever, shuddering as he sank deep into the place she swore was his.
He stilled, buried to the hilt. Heat wrapped him, searing, wet, alive.
He could feel her heartbeat and every tremor of her breath.
Her thighs trembled around his hips, her fingers clutching his shoulders.
The shock of being inside her, so tight, impossibly soft, blazed through him until it was no longer pain or pleasure but both, fused together, consuming.
In her, time dissolved. The years of command, the battles, the gray—all stripped away until he was young again, seeing only her, those promise-bright eyes. Inside her, the world was no longer ash. Color bled back into him, unbearable in its beauty.
He moved. It was hard to draw back when every nerve clamored to press closer, to bury himself in her until there was no Hawk left, only this. She laced her arms around his neck, her long ballerina legs binding his flanks. She touched him gently where he was rough, yielding where he was demanding.
Then her hands rose, trembling, to cradle his face. Her palms framed him with a tenderness that pierced deeper than any blade.
It was a summons to surrender. Not only his body, but everything—his defenses, his pride, the armor he had worn all his life. To be hers, not for a night, not for a season, but forever.
He wanted it. God, he wanted it. His heart hammered against his ribs, straining to leap into her keeping. He kissed her hard, almost desperate, as though he could smother her plea with his mouth—then tore free of her arms before the tenderness could finish him.
Panting, he rolled her onto her stomach. Her hair spilled across the pillows, her back arched in a trust that seared hotter than any entreaty.
She turned her head toward him. “Alexander?”
“I can’t—” His voice cracked as he positioned himself behind her. “I need you like this.”
He thrust again, sliding into her heat, deeper from this angle.
Feverishly, he bent over her, one hand tangled in her hair, the other guiding her hips back to meet his.
Her sobs of pleasure shredded what remained of his restraint.
He guided her harder, faster, until sweat ran down his spine and his lungs burned.
He expected to feel shame, debasement—taking her like this, raw, from behind.
Instead, he felt reverence, as if worship lived here too, in the ferocity of their joining.
But it was not enough. Never enough.
With a groan, he shifted, hauling her upright into the saddle of his hips, her thighs spread wide across his, his cock still buried deep inside her. The new angle squeezed him tight, and his vision went dark at the edges.
Her hair whipped against his jaw, wild and damp with sweat.
Her hands clawed for purchase, found his forearms where they banded around her belly.
He locked her there, held her impaled on him, every shudder of her body rippling straight through his bones.
Hawk bit down on her shoulder as he surged into her, relentless.
She let her head fall against his neck. She was submitting to him, as if he had the right to conquer her like this.
A savage need ripped through him—to take more, to claim more. He slid his hand lower, cupping her mound, fingers spreading to feel the slick heat that pulsed around him. He stroked her clit until she writhed helplessly in his arms.
Whimpering, she twisted in his arms. “I love you.”
“I love you, too, Little Tulle. So much.”
“Then lay down your arms, and love me fully.”
His breath faltered. His fingers flexed on her thighs, the old instinct rising to hold the line, hold the ground, don’t give an inch.
He pushed them away. He had promised her tonight. Tonight, he was hers.
He eased her down onto her side, keeping her wrapped in his arms, never leaving her body. He curled behind her, spooning her close, his face buried in her hair as he began to move again, each thrust a slow vow.
He hooked her leg over his, drawing deeper.
The slide of her body against his was heat and silk and pulse.
Each shift pressed her hips more firmly to his, and he felt the catch of her breath with every stroke.
Her hair clung damply to his face. He rolled his hips, feeling her tighten and flutter around him, the rhythm a tide they rode together.
There was no edge between them now, only the glide of skin and the soft sounds she made, fragile and devastating.
She guided his hand to her breast, arching into his touch.
The curve filled his palm, and when he brushed his thumb across her nipple, she made a small sound that vibrated straight into his bones.
Her back arched, pressing her closer, her heartbeat fluttering against his fingers like a trapped bird desperate for release.
Murmuring praises, he kissed the salt at her throat and nipped her shoulder.
Pleasure coiled low in his spine until every thrust felt like it might tear him apart. The world narrowed to the slick heat around him, the rhythm they made together.
He held her tighter, rocked deeper, letting his release build with hers. Not conquering but joined. Not command but communion.
Her climax rippled through her, clutching him in pulses. Her spasms carried him with her, shouting her name as he thrust deep once more and pulled free with a shudder, spilling on the sheets.
Hawk collapsed against her, chest heaving, his face buried in the curve of her neck.
He had conquered cities. Breached fortresses.
Led cavalry through blood and ruin. But this—her love—was the only conquest that had ever brought him peace instead of shame, the only one that did not hollow him, but filled every broken place, until at last he felt complete.