She was about to protest that she’d never kiss anyone’s feet. But something about his broken feet, the idea of her Will marching barefoot through the snow, made her want to do exactly that. At the same time an entirely different part of her mind noted that he was ticklish, because one never knew when such information might prove useful. But then she remembered that this night was all they had.
To cover her jumbled emotions, some of which she didn’t even know how to name, she bent to work over her own shoes and stockings. He watched her, a hungry gleam lighting his eyes, as she hiked her skirts to her knees to untie her garters and peel down her stockings.
“Your feet are beautiful,” he said.
She studied them. They were ordinary, a little bigger than a woman her size should have, with rather knobby toes. “They’re feet.”
“They’re your feet.”
“Yours would be much more elegant than mine if…”
“If I had all my toes?”
“Well, yes.”
“Too bad I never knew what fine feet I had until it was too late,” he said lightly. “Would you like me to help with your dress?” he asked in a much different voice.
She swayed toward him. “Of course.”
He went to work on her buttons. He had helped her dress and undress often enough that it was becoming routine, but this time was different. He felt it too—she could tell by the way his fingers fumbled at their work.
It felt at once profoundly right and painfully awkward to strip to the skin and watch Will do the same. She and Sebastian had never been completely nude in each other’s presence. And it wasn’t even dark—the sun was just now sinking over the horizon, bathing the sky in a ruddy fading light and turning Will’s hair nearer auburn than chestnut.
Naked but not quite without shame, Anna scrambled down the bank into the stream. At its deepest point, the cool water came just above her waist, and she crossed her arms over her bosom. It was one thing to long for Will’s touch on every part of her body, quite another to reveal it to his sight in the remnants of daylight. She couldn’t bring herself to look at him, either, staring instead at the surface of the water. She dug her toes into the sandy bottom and waited.
She heard a small splash, and the water rippled as Will joined her. “My God, Anna,” he said, “you’re beautiful.” His voice was an invisible caress that sent a tremor down her spine and made her most private parts feel heavy and eager for his touch. She uncrossed her arms and turned to look at him, waist-deep in the stream a few feet away.
He was beautiful, too. At least, she’d never seen a more pleasing sight. He was lean, almost thin, but with a wonderful solidity in his broad shoulders and the wiry muscles of his arms. She knew his strength well, knew how good he felt when they embraced, but it was still a revelation to see him, so beautiful and battle-scarred. The saber scar at his collarbone revealed itself to be nearly a foot long, tracing a diagonal path toward his heart. There were three more like it—one on his left forearm, one lower across his ribs, and one over his shoulder.
She beckoned to him. He waded toward her and took her hands in his, but held her at a little distance. She looked up at his face and reveled in the stark awe she saw there, how suddenly dark his eyes were, whisky-brown irises swallowed by the blackness of his pupils.
“I can’t believe…” he began, and shook his head. “I have no right to touch you.”
He couldn’t retreat now. She wouldn’t allow it. She met his eyes, feigning a confidence she didn’t quite feel. “Yes, you do. I give you that right.”
He smiled tenderly but did not move.
“Do I have the right to touch you?” she asked.
His smiled flirted with transformation to a grin. “I am at my lady’s command.”
Daringly she pressed against him, setting the placid waters dancing and rippling around them. She gasped at the feel of his male organ, already erect, pressing against the softness of her belly. Winding her arms around his neck, she bent her head to trace his scar with her tongue from where it began over his left breast to his collarbone. He inhaled sharply, and his hands settled on her hips, drawing her more firmly against him.
Embarrassment fled, leaving only delight. This grove, this stream, these formed her Garden of Eden. She tilted her head back to smile at him. “That scar has been distracting me from the day I met you.”
He half laughed, half growled, and pulled her closer for a rough kiss, his tongue plunging deep into her mouth.
Lightning-fast, his mood turned playful again, though Anna could tell his desire had not diminished. “I left the soap on the bank,” he said. “Wait here.”
She obeyed, watching him wade out to shallower waters to retrieve the rough cake of army-issue soap. His legs and posterior were just as lean and well-made as the rest of him. She was eager and ready; she would’ve lain with him gladly then and there, but clearly he wanted to stretch this out.
He returned to her, eyes so bright with mischief they seemed to glow in the deepening twilight. He worked the soap into a lather as he considered her.
“Where should I begin? Here?” He cupped her breast with his wet, soapy hand, and she closed her eyes and gasped.
“No, not quite there,” he said. He moved to her shoulders with a gentle, thorough caress, then down her arms and back. She took the soap and followed suit, enjoying the solid, male feel of him beneath her lathered hands.
They kissed, and he began to tease her, washing her belly, her buttocks, lifting her out of the water to soap her legs, but avoiding her breasts, never venturing between her thighs.
She half floated against him, her knees gripping his hips, his organ pressed against the curls that guarded her private places, and her breasts crushed slickly against his chest. With one hand wrapped around his neck for balance, she reached down to take his erection in her other hand, marveling at the weight of it, the smoothness of the skin.
“Careful—” Will gasped, “—don’t want to spend too soon.”
She took her hand away, though she continued to rock her hips against him. So wondrous this was, unlike anything she’d felt before, better even than the bliss of last night. “Strange,” she said, grasping at a remnant of coherent thought, “to have a part of your body that can change so much.”
He chuckled wickedly. “It is. But you have some changeable parts of your own.” He set her back on her feet, and she whimpered in frustration. “For instance,” he said, cupping her breasts in both hands, lifting them up, and dipping his head to nibble, “you have your own parts that get harder.”
“Will,” she gasped.
“And,” he added relentlessly, trailing one hand down her belly to the apex of her thighs while he continued to caress her breasts with the other, “this isn’t always quite so—” His words broke off on a groan as he delved into her folds.
“My God, Will, I want you so.”
He kissed her, pressed his forehead against hers, and they stood together, panting. Her heart broke a little at how open and yearning his face was.
“I can’t wait much longer, Anna,” he said.
“Then don’t wait.”
At that he swung her into his arms and strode to the bank. They had no towels, but Anna didn’t care. A light breeze made her shiver as he lowered her to the blanket, but her blood was heated. She reached out to embrace him with arms and legs both, drawing him down to her. At the feel of his bare skin under her hands and against her naked chest, she shivered for a different cause, delighting in the contrast between his smooth skin and the rough wool against her back. His erection rested against her, and she arched her hips to bring it closer to the spot that ached for him.
His hands stole to her hips and held her still. “Sorry,” he gasped. “Can’t wait. Wanted to take it slow.”
She squirmed against him. “Will, please. Now.”
He closed his eyes and shifted her hips slightly. She whimpered as the head of his organ slid along her cleft to her entrance. She clung to h
is shoulders, gasping for breath, as he entered her in one thrust.
Oh, God. So good. To be ready for this, eager for it, his weight on her, his beautiful body above hers, him within her, filling her, stretching her, perfectly fitting her hungry body. She cried out, almost a scream, and dug her fingernails into his back.
Still he stayed motionless within her. He ran his hands through her unbound hair. “Good?” he gasped between rapid breaths.
He needed to ask? She met his eyes, wild and hungry, and yet so anxious he wouldn’t please her.
No wonder she loved him so.
She closed her eyes, overwhelmed by the intensity of her feelings, and wound one hand in his hair to pull him down to her. “Good,” she replied.
A shudder rippled through his entire body. “Good.” He kissed her. “Won’t take long.”
Then he began to thrust, fast and wild. Anna hung on for dear life, lifting her hips to meet his rhythm. Wanton she must be, at least for him.
Without slowing his pace, he shifted, sliding one hand down near the point of their joining to find the spot most sensitive to his touch. He caressed her in time with his thrusts, and the pleasure built and built until she exploded with it.
“Will.” She raked her nails down his back and tried to grip him even harder with legs and hands. Her head flung back, she watched his face as he groaned her name and went rigid with his own release. She arched her body under him, enjoying the echoes of his pleasure, the warmth of his seed pulsing deep within her.
He collapsed over her, covering her face with kisses. She kept her arms and legs wound around him to savor their joining as long as she could.
“Anna,” he breathed. “My lady. My Anna.”
She sighed as he trailed kisses across her face.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured.
“You’re sorry? Why?”
“Sorry I couldn’t make it last longer.”
She was sorry, too, but only because she wished the night could last forever. “But it was perfect,” she said.
“Perfect?” He raised his eyebrows, hopeful yet doubting.
“Perfect.” She kissed him. “I was afraid you were sorry it happened.”
He shook his head. “I’m sure I should be, but I’m not.”
“Don’t ever be. I’ll never regret you.”
She made a wordless sound of protest as he withdrew from her and rolled onto his side, but he gathered her into a close embrace. “I should let you breathe,” he said. “And I won’t regret you, either. How could I?”
“Good.” She traced his scars, his collarbone, the muscles of his chest and arms. “I’ve never felt anything like this.”
He raised one eyebrow. “From everything you’ve told me about your husband, I should imagine not.”
She laughed, realizing that her years with Sebastian were truly over now. Buried, with no power to haunt her. “You’re infinitely his superior. But that’s not what I meant.”
“No?”
“I meant this.” She pressed closer to him. “Skin to skin. I’ve never been completely naked like this with anyone before.”
“Oh.” He ran a hand down her back, shaped her buttocks, then settled at her hip. “Neither have I.”
“Then how did you know to try it?”
He grinned. “Imagination. If everyone always did things exactly the way he always had, where would we all be? There would be no books written, no inventions, no clever stratagems on the battlefield.”
She laughed. “I’m glad you’ve put yours to good use. But you’re incorrigible, Will Atkins.”
“You’re not the first to say so. It’s a failing of mine.”
She stretched, tangling her feet with his ankles. “But it’s one of the things I admire about you.”
“Then from now on I must regard it as a virtue.” He sobered, regarding her gravely in the flickering firelight. “It is wondrous, holding you like this. I’ve never felt anything to compare, either.”
Anna’s eyes welled with tears that there would never be another night like this. Blinking hard, she tried to choke them back.
He caught her tears on his fingertips. “Regrets?”
She shook her head and forced a brave smile. “The only regret I have is that this is the only night we’ll have.”
“I knew it would be like this. That’s why I tried to fight it.”
“Was I wrong to ask for it?” Honesty forced her to amend, though she blushed for her brazen nature. “Beg you for it?”
He shook his head. “We seduced each other, Anna. Besides, I thought you wanted no regrets.”
“I only wish it didn’t have to stop.”
He ran his hand through her hair. “So do I. But we can’t change what we are.”
For a moment, Anna imagined that they could. She could purchase a commission for Will and marry him, an officer’s widow taking another officer for her second husband. What could be more unexceptionable?
Except that it was far from that simple, and she knew it. Officers who came from the ranks led difficult lives. Their brother officers treated them like bastard relations, and the men they commanded often resented that one of their own kind had crossed a barrier that for most would remain forever impregnable.
That was the fate of men awarded commissions for conspicuous valor in battle. How much worse it would be for a man promoted because a rich woman had taken a fancy to him! She would turn him from a well-respected soldier, valued by officers and men alike, into a laughingstock, ridiculed as a lady’s plaything. She couldn’t. If she asked, she knew he would refuse, and he would be right. She loved him too much to attempt to buy him.
“Would that we could,” she said at last.
Deftly he flipped the ends of the blanket over them to wrap them in a woolen cocoon. “Are you warm enough?” he asked. “We could dress, but I’d like to stay like this, so long as you won’t freeze.”
The fire flickered on the rock above them, spreading its warmth across her face and onto her shoulders. While the blanket was damp because they’d come to it dripping wet, the wool lent ample warmth. And above all, she had the heat of Will’s skin pressed to hers, no barriers between them. “I’m warm,” she said.
“I’m glad. And I’m sleepy, though I wish I wasn’t.”
“So am I,” she confessed. “My body is more at ease than my mind.”
“Mine, too.” He cupped her face between his hands and kissed her. “Good night, my lady.”
“Good night, my knight.”
“Knight?”
Now she held his face in her hands, feeling the strong lines of jaw and cheekbone and the hollows between, the skin scratchy with several days’ growth of beard. “You’ve been slaying dragons for me since the day we met.”
Will did not reply with words, but he kissed her once more before shifting until they lay curled together spoon-fashion.
He slept before she did. No matter what might trouble a man, for a soldier, sleep was too rare and precious to waste. Anna wasn’t quite so hardened, so she lay awake into the night.
She no longer doubted that she loved Will. She thought she would always love him, but she hoped it would someday become a love cherished in memory rather than an open wound. Because she had embraced this love and the desire that accompanied it, she would carry the scar as long as she lived. But she welcomed the scar. She had no regrets.
***
Will awoke before dawn. Their campfire had died down to embers, and his head and shoulders were chilled. Anna slept peacefully, her breathing easy, her body relaxed and molded to his. He buried his face in her hair, and she sighed and shifted slightly.
Today they would return to the army and resume their lives. Anna would be taken in by her own kind to await the next chance to travel home. Though he had promised her no regrets, he knew that he would both regret and rejoice in the night they had shared for the rest of his life. He loved Anna, he had wanted to please her, and he had found depths of passion he hadn’t suspected ex
isted.
He hoped it had been the same for her. She’d called it perfect, but her previous experience had been dreadful. Will knew he’d been too fast, frantic and rough in his haste. She deserved more tenderness than he had offered—maybe more than he knew how to offer. It wasn’t as if he could claim vast knowledge of pleasing women. Before Anna, his experiences had been straightforward and uncomplicated.
Will considered the sky. It was beginning to lighten, but true daylight was nearly an hour away. When the sun rose, they would belong to the army again. But for now they still belonged to each other. And he was imagining something that Anna, after all she had endured, might find pleasing indeed.
He shook her lightly, kissing her forehead. “Good morning, Anna.”
She blinked and stretched. Will recognized the moment she noticed his cock—it had grown hard at her nearness and the direction of his thoughts. After a moment’s surprised stillness she wriggled against him.
“But it’s not quite morning yet, is it?” she said.
“It isn’t.”
She turned to face him. “Good.”
They kissed, and he rolled onto his back, pulling her with him until she lay sprawled across his chest. “It’s your turn now,” he said.
“My turn for what?”
He caressed her face as he sought words to explain what he offered. “Last night I took you. Now I want you to take me.”
She gaped at him. “Take you? How?”
“However you’d like.” If he meant to surrender, just as well to make it total.
Her eyebrows drew together. “A woman can be on top?”
He drew her over him until she straddled him, his cock wedged between their bellies. “Why not? Everything fits together the same.”
Comprehension dawned on her face. “I didn’t know.”
“Now you do.” He smiled crookedly up at her, admiring her wide green eyes and her tumbled hair spilling over her shoulders and brushing his chest. “Take me, Anna. If you will.”
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