“It’s all right, my love.” She curled her arms around him, anything to assuage his cruel isolation. His muscles tensed as he resisted her. She tightened her embrace. “It’s over. It’s over.”
For a long moment, Gideon stood unresponsive, unmoving. Then she felt him tense. Was he finally going to spurn her? She was astonished he’d endured her touch as long as he had. She was astonished he’d revealed his scars and his suffering. However he treated her now, the bond between them had become unbreakable.
Which wouldn’t ease her hurt if he rebuffed her after all they’d shared in the last half hour.
He made a choked sound deep in his throat. She felt his chest expand as he sucked in a massive breath.
“Oh, dear God in heaven,” he forced out in a cracked groan.
Shaking, he lashed his arms around her and tugged her roughly into his chest. His shoulders heaved convulsively as he buried his face in her neck. She felt the heat of his breath, the bruising power of his arms, the frantic race of his heart.
“I want to give you peace,” she whispered into his thick dark hair. Painful tears welled again. She loved him so much, it was agony.
“You have. You do,” he said urgently, but the hands that clutched her so hard spoke of desperation, not rest.
This wasn’t peace. Perhaps peace and he were such strangers, he no longer recognized it. “Oh, Gideon, I wish that were so,” she said sadly.
He held her so close, he crushed her breasts against his chest. She drew a shallow breath, all his stranglehold allowed her. His head was heavy on her shoulder. His hair tickled her neck the way it had after he’d shared her bed for the first time.
“Whenever I look at my hands, it all comes back.” His voice was thick, hesitant as he spoke into her skin. “The stink. The heat. The cold. The hunger and thirst. The unending pain.”
With a hand that trembled with horror at all he’d suffered, she stroked his disheveled hair. The caress seemed so natural. How curious to think before this morning she couldn’t have made it. Just as only a day ago it would have been unthinkable to cradle him in her arms and infuse his cold loneliness with her love.
So much had changed since they’d left Penrhyn.
“I don’t know how you endured it,” she said softly.
He tautened, and the muscles across his back became as unrelenting as steel. “I didn’t endure. Before they finished with me, I screamed for mercy.”
He was so hard on himself. If only he could spare some of the generosity he’d shown her to stanch his own wounds. “You didn’t betray your comrades or your country,” she said in a quiet but implacable voice. “You stood up to over a year of torture and didn’t break. You’re too brave for your own good.”
“You wouldn’t think that if you’d seen the pathetic fool I made of myself when they started on my hands.” He rubbed his head against her neck in a desultory caress. The unforced gesture sent warmth spiraling through her. She could hardly comprehend he trusted her enough to stay in her arms.
“Oh, my love,” she said in a low voice throbbing with emotion. She ran her hand in comforting trails over his powerful back. Under her hand, his scars created a bumpy tapestry, a map of the intolerable tribute his years in India had claimed. She couldn’t see his ruined hands. She didn’t need to. The sight would haunt her forever.
“You have to forgive yourself, or you’ll go mad. Good Lord, Gideon. You’re covered in scars. You hardly sleep. You flinch if anyone comes within reach.” Her voice softened into persuasion. “You gave all anyone could ask. More. Much more. Everybody in the world sees that but you.”
Charis turned her head and glanced a kiss across his cheek. The poignant tenderness inside her demanded some expression. She felt his breath catch. She suspected acts of uncomplicated affection had been rare in his life.
Because she ached for his solitude, because it was all too easy to picture a clever little boy happier with his books than any companions, she kissed him again. A glance of the lips that caught him on the rim of one ear.
Again the hitch in his breath. Slowly, he straightened and stared at her with a wariness that pierced her heart. Surely by now he must know she wanted only his good. But he’d been so hurt, he shied away from anything that smacked of love. For all the barriers she’d crashed through in the last days, she didn’t fool herself that he was near to accepting he was worthy of her adoration.
The scars of Rangapindhi cut too deep for any simple remedy.
For now, he was with her and showed no signs of wanting to go. She intended to take what advantage she could. Rising on her toes, she kissed one side of his neck, then the other. She still held him, but loosely, easily, without the quaking desperation. He shifted restlessly, and his hands slid to span her waist.
She traced a line of kisses along one sinewy shoulder. Pausing w
hen she reached the top of his arm.
A strangled sound emerged from his throat. She wasn’t sure whether it was encouragement or protest. She dropped another kiss on the ball of his shoulder.
The kisses were quick, soft, playful. Like those she’d give a crying child to coax it from a fit of sullens.
Except she knew to the depths of her soul that Gideon was no child.
He was a full-grown man. Potent. Passionate. Predatory.