For Your Arms Only by Linden, Caroline (best fiction books to read .TXT) 📗

horrible. Whatever secrets he kept were his own terrible burden.

“Wait,” he whispered again. His lips were at the back of her neck, stirring the wisps of hair that had pulled free of the braid. “Please…wait.”

Cressida waited. She waited to see what he would do, now that he held her, and she waited to see what she would do in response. She would have waited a year, here in his arms. He held her not as a captive but as a man might hold something dear, a treasure he had been searching desperately for and finally found. No more could she tell herself she was being foolish or silly—or rather, she might very well be both, but she couldn’t deny the reason any longer. She was falling for Alec Hayes.

He touched the back of her neck, his fingers tangling in her hair. Cressida swallowed a moan of pleasure, letting her head drop forward until her temple pressed against the wood of the door. His palm flattened against her skin and swept up her spine, and his mouth pressed hard and hot against her neck. Cressida stopped breathing, then sucked in a long, shivering breath that was almost a sob of want. He murmured against her flesh, his lips moving to the tender spot behind her ear.

Her fingers flexed, trying to dig into the wood as he kissed her there, a lingering gentle kiss that pulled at her soul and poured heat into her body. Her nipples tightened and her knees softened. She wanted his arms around her, his mouth on her everywhere. She wanted to turn around and touch him and kiss his skin. She wanted him to know she wanted him.

“Alec,” she whispered as he nuzzled the soft skin at the curve of her shoulder, his hair brushing her cheek. “Alec…”

He stilled, and abruptly released her. Cressida swayed on her feet as she turned, her body still melting from his touch. Anything he wanted of her was his, and she was almost shaking with eagerness. But as she faced him, ready to surrender her heart and body, he cursed and took another step back. The flame-bright desire burning in his eyes faded into bleakness that made her almost ill to see.

For a moment they faced each other, both breathing hard. Just as she was about to reach for him he drew back a step. “I’m sorry,” he muttered. “Very sorry.” He hung his head and cursed again under his breath. “Forgive me.”

Cressida watched in astonishment as he turned and strode away, snatching up his shirt from the floor. She just glimpsed what appeared to be dozens of small marks on his back before he yanked the shirt over his head. Without stopping or looking back, he walked straight out of the room, pulling the door shut behind him with a boom that echoed in the still library.

Slowly she crossed the room. His coat, waistcoat, and cravat were scattered across the rug, as if he had ripped them off and flung them every which way. Perhaps he had. She picked up the coat and folded it, laying it neatly across the sofa. She wondered what tormented him, and how he managed to keep it bottled inside him so tightly. She held up the waistcoat. It was new and made of very fine—and expensive—cloth, but he had undone the buttons so forcefully one had been ripped right off. She looked around and found it on the carpet some feet away. Soberly she tucked it into a pocket of the waistcoat and laid it on top of his coat. A bit of handkerchief peeked from the pocket, and she found herself staring at it as she folded the cravat. Before she could think better of it, she whisked it from the pocket and tucked it into her sleeve, then hurried from the room before anyone could discover her.

In her room she took out her stolen prize. It, too, was new, freshly laundered. “ABH” was embroidered in one corner. When she held it to her face, it smelled only of soap and the slightly toasted scent of pressed linen. It might have been anyone’s. Cressida laid it against her cheek.

Who was he, really? The hellion, the officer, the traitor, the prodigal son, the man who looked at her with desire and despair in his eyes and wore a cloak of scars. She rubbed her cheek against the smooth linen. Perhaps he was all that, and more. But she was falling in love with him just the same.

Chapter 17

26 June 1815

Forest of the Soignes, Belgium

Do you hear me?” The voice sounded strange, guttural and foreign. He wondered who it was, and why he could hear that voice as he floated in a vast sea of darkness.

“Eh, soldier. You’d better wake up one of these days.”

One of these days. Alec let that thought roll around in his brain for a while. Wake up. Soldier. Now that she mentioned it, he realized it did feel as though he had been asleep for a while. Soldier. Wake up. Soldier. Ah…

He flinched, as if a French artillery shell had gone off nearby. But no; there was no rain of fragments and debris, no screams of wounded men, and he realized it was memory that had startled him. The French had shelled his dragoons horribly, decimating the unit. Men were cut down in mid-word, falling with the shock fixed on their faces. The French lancers came out of nowhere, the sun gleaming on their long, deadly lances, and sent half the men fleeing in a dead panic. Alec had gone after them, trying to rally them back into position, but they seemed to scatter on the wind.

You’d better wake up one of these days…

He forced open his eyes, just a little. “Why?” he croaked.

The old woman looked up from her knitting. Her face was like a dried apple, with shiny little