Alyssa gasped.
“That was all that was left of him.” Griffin’s voice shook. “He was hit by a twenty-four-pound shell and all that remained of my friend Hughey was his arm and part of his trunk. His head—” He broke off, pulled Alyssa closer. He buried his head against her shoulder and when he spoke, his words were muffled. “De
ar God. I tried to put him together. I tried to reach him, but I was trapped beneath the horse and Hughey’s head had rolled too far away.” Griff squeezed his eyes shut in a vain attempt to blot out the image. “His eyes were open and he was smiling at me. I was holding his arm and half of his chest and Hughey’s head lay several yards away smiling at me…” Griffin choked on his words as his sobs caught in his throat.
Alyssa pressed a kiss against the crown of his head.
Griffin looked up at her, his blue eyes swimming with tears, and she was lost. Alyssa kissed him again and although her kiss was meant to console, it became more. Much more.
She placed her hand over his heart and felt the steady beat of it before she slid her fingers through the thick mat of hair on his chest, tracing the pattern as it narrowed into a thin line over the hard contours of his abdomen.
Griffin caught hold of her hand to stop its progress before he kissed her back with a year’s worth of pent-up passion.
Breaking the kiss, Alyssa took a deep breath, then untied the sash at her waist. She shrugged out of her wrapper, then reached up and loosed the ribbons at her neck of her gown and pushed her nightgown off her shoulders.
It slipped down her arms and settled at her waist, baring her breasts.
Griffin fought to maintain control. He narrowed his gaze until he was practically scowling. But Alyssa wasn’t put off by his frown or the pulsing muscle in his jaw.
She scooted closer, lifted her arms overhead, and offered him her breasts.
Griffin gave up all thought of maintaining control. He ran his hands up her ribs before filling them with the weight of her breasts. He bent his head and then trailed a line of kisses across the tops of her breasts, dipping his tongue into the crevice between them before covering the rosy tip of the first one with his mouth.
Alyssa gasped as he suckled her, teasing the first breast before moving to taste the other.
She slid her fingers through his thick dark hair and pressed him closer.
He leaned into her, pressing the lower part of his body against the cradle of hers, and Alyssa parted her legs to grant him access.
“Turn around.” He reached behind her and cupped her buttocks, urging her closer as he slipped his hand between her thighs and caressed the tiny kernel of pleasure hidden beneath the silky curls of her woman’s triangle.
Alyssa turned.
Griffin held her close with his uninjured arm and carefully probed her entrance. He pressed his lips against the curve of her neck as he slipped deep inside her, sheathing himself to the hilt.
She was warm and wet and welcoming, and he was rock hard and consumed with wanting. Theirs was a perfect fit, and Griffin stroked her with a consuming urgency that bespoke his great need of her. She met him stroke for stroke, answering him in kind, taking as much as she gave.
They made sweet, passionate love throughout the morning, moving from the floor to the chaise longue.
They made love with a bittersweet sense of desperation, and when at last he collapsed on the pillow beside her and closed his eyes, Griffin knew that he was forever changed by her touch. She had left her mark on him, branded his heart and soul with her essence.
He knew with unshakable certainty that even should he live to be a thousand years old, he would never love anyone or anything as much as he loved Alyssa, but he was a Free Fellow and sworn never to love his wife.
So he kissed the top of her head, fanning her hair with his breath, and tried to convince himself that she deserved so much better. That the best thing he could do for Alyssa was to let her go. And he would, he swore. Just as soon as he found the strength.
* * *
“I lay on the battlefield, buried beneath what was left of Hughey and the horse I borrowed, for seventeen hours,” Griffin said softly when he and Alyssa lay on the chaise in the quiet aftermath of their lovemaking.
She knew he had been bayoneted twice, in the left leg and through the right shoulder, but she hadn’t known how long the horror lasted or that he had been left for dead, left to rot unless a burial detail was dispatched to retrieve him. And as he lay in the darkness, unable to move, Griffin had suffered the fate of every casualty left to die on the battlefield.
“I was plundered by three different armies: the French, a group of German Hussars, and our Spanish and Portuguese allies. And when the armies had finished with me, the native villagers plundered the battlefield. My clothing and boots were stolen first and then my sword.” He met her gaze. His admission surprised him. But it felt good to talk to her. “My Saint George medallion saved my life. There was a dent in it where a ball hit it. I saw it when the French soldier who bayoneted me ripped it from around my neck. My gold watch was taken with my waistcoat. I was stripped naked and about to have a precious part of my anatomy removed by a group of old women as a keepsake and my throat cut when Eastman found me.”
He didn’t tell her the worst of it, but Alyssa knew. She knew in her heart that what he didn’t tell her was far worse than what he did. And she knew from the nature of his wounds and from his nightmares that Griffin had suffered far more than he could relate. She understood the horrors and the indignities he had endured. She also understood that she would have to help him come to terms with them.
Alyssa scored her hand through his body hair. Lower and lower until she was able to wrap her fingers around him.
Griffin froze.