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

sister and sent them money every quarter and brought them sweets when he came home on furlough. If the money he sent them had come from…this activity, did that make her culpable as well?

But none of that was proven, and she didn’t want to shame her father for things he might have done only a few times, years ago. When she had translated more of the journal…well, then she would decide what she had to do, depending on what she read.

“I don’t know,” she murmured in reply to Alec’s question. “But I have only just begun translating.”

“Perhaps as you move ahead in the book something more useful will come to light.”

“Perhaps.” She gathered up her notes. She knew his suggestion had merit but it was sobering nonetheless. No matter how hard she tried to ignore it, Tom’s voice echoed in her head: That book won’t bring you peace. Cressida had been telling herself she wanted the truth, peaceful or not. Could she keep this terrible a secret about her father, though? And did she want to? Would the knowledge that Papa might have been a blackmailer eat at her inside if she tried to conceal it? She headed toward the door, all her elation gone.

“Cressida.”

She turned. Alec had risen to his feet. The lamplight cast severe shadows on his face, drawing him in sharp angles and hollows. He looked tired. “Good work,” he said with a slight smile. “It looked pure gibberish to me.”

Her cheeks warmed in spite of herself at the compliment. “Oh no. It wasn’t that difficult, but just took time.”

His smile widened ruefully. “For you. I never had the patience to solve puzzles like that. Frederick would sit and work out problems and I…I would be off climbing trees and racing horses.”

She smiled back. How odd it was to hear a man say, with admiration, that she had done something he couldn’t have done—how odd, and how pleasant. “I have always liked a good puzzle.”

“There seems to be no shortage of those.” He sighed and turned back to his desk. Cressida looked at him, standing there so honorably, so decently, and felt something inside her shift. “Here,” he said. “Don’t forget this.”

She blinked and tore her eyes from his. The journal. He was holding out the journal to her, the book she had hoped would answer her questions, and feared would confirm her father a scoundrel. She went back around the desk and reached for it. “Thank you,” she said impulsively. “For everything.”

“I’ve not accomplished what I promised you.”

You have done far more, and I love you for it. The force of that thought shook her a little. “You have been my…friend,” she said softly, hesitating a little over the word. “I appreciate that.”

His eyes flashed her way, hot and focused. Cressida’s heart almost tripped over itself at the naked desire burning in that gaze. “Friend” had been the wrong word, after all.

It rattled her. It exhilarated her. It burned away all her good sense about guarding her heart around him, and completely drove away any thought of going quietly back up to bed. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. All the yearning Cressida felt for someone who understood her, who valued her and admired her, for someone who made her heart leap and made her laugh even in her foulest mood, couldn’t be contained anymore. Slowly she dropped the book back on the desk. With hands that were unnaturally steady, she reached up, turned his face back to her, then went up on her toes and kissed him.

His mouth was firm under hers, but soft at the same time. He returned her kiss, as gently as the day they had walked to the ridge, but never deepened it. His restraint made her feel bold; she wanted more, so she ran her hands up his chest to wrap her arms around his neck. The muscles of his shoulders tensed, and Cressida shivered as she realized how tightly leashed his strength was. How restrained he was.

Too restrained.

She ended the kiss and stared into his azure eyes. The desire she had seen there earlier was undimmed—he wanted her, she was sure of it. But then…

“What are you trying to do?” he whispered. The vein in his temple pulsed, but otherwise he seemed as calm as ever.

She tried to flash a coy smile, but it faltered on her lips. “I’m trying to seduce you.”

He inhaled deeply. “Why?”

The blush burned her face. “Because I want to.”

He raised one hand and touched her cheek, just barely, before his fingers slid around and up the back of her neck, cupping her nape. His grip tightened, drawing her close. Cressida swayed toward him, her eyes drifting closed as he leaned down and pressed his lips to her cheek, right at the corner of her mouth. “You should go to bed,” he murmured against her skin.

She arched her neck, stretching against his hand. “Alone?”

He kissed the other corner of her mouth, his lips lingering over hers. “That would be best.”

“It will be harder to seduce you that way.”

His chest shook with silent laughter. “Don’t you know you already have?”

She opened her eyes. He was smiling at her, a funny little rueful smile, and his thumb stroked her cheek. Cressida’s stomach lurched as she realized how much she craved that smile and that touch. He didn’t smile enough—and she thought she would never get tired of his touch.

“Prove it,” she whispered.

His smile dimmed. “I shouldn’t—”

She pulled on his shirt and kissed him, before he could say that she should go to bed, alone, again. He sucked in his breath and put his hands on her waist, as if to move her aside, but Cressida pressed against the firm wall of his chest and instead his arms went around her. She shuddered as their bodies fit together like two halves of a whole, and finally his control broke.

Up her back his hands went, a firm, sweeping stroke drawing her even closer. He caught the end of her braid and