The Soldier's Dark Secret

Only then did he realise that she had hoped. Only then did he realise that it was already too late. He loved her. There was nothing that could be said, and so without access to words Jack did the only thing he could do to tell her, just this once, how he felt. He kissed her.

* * *

Celeste melted into his kiss without a thought of denying him, her lips clinging to his, her arms twining around his neck. It had been there for days, weeks, ever since that night they had made love, that knowledge. It had been growing more insistent throughout this day. This house and its ghosts had stripped her of the last of her armour, leaving her defenceless. Tonight, in the domestic intimacy of the one room not populated by ghosts, by the flickering light of the fire as they ate and talked, it had taken hold of her. She loved him. She was in love with him. She was in love with Jack Trestain.

She kissed him to stop the words babbling out. She was in love. ‘Jack,’ she said, because it was all she could trust herself to say. ‘Jack.’ She loved him. She kissed his eyelids. She loved him. ‘Jack.’ She loved him.

‘Celeste.’ He kissed her again. ‘Celeste.’ His voice was ragged. ‘Oh, God, Celeste, I want you so much.’

He caught her face between his hands and kissed her passionately. Then he groaned. ‘We shouldn’t.’

Panicking, she kissed him again. ‘We can. We must.’

He hesitated for only a second before his mouth claimed hers once more. His kiss was hot and hard and all she had craved since the last kiss, and all she would crave when this became the last kiss. She closed her mind to this and concentrated on remembering. She loved him. The silkiness of his hair. The way he let it grow too long over his collar. She loved him. The hollow in his throat. The peculiar gouge in his shoulder where the musket ball had been cut out.

She pushed him gently back and got to her feet. She loved him. She turned to allow him to unfasten her gown and her corsets. She slid both to the ground, standing before him in her shift and her stockings. She loved him. She slipped her shift from her shoulders. She loved the way his skin tightened when he was aroused. She loved the feel of his hands, gentle on her breasts, and that circling thing he did, and the soft pluck of his lips on her nipples that made her blood tingle.

She undid his waistcoat. She pulled his shirt over his head. She knelt at his feet and took off his boots. She loved him. She leaned over him to kiss him again, grazing her nipples on the rough smattering of hair on his chest.

She loved the way he looked at her. She loved the way his hands were always drawn to cup her bottom the way he did. She undid the fastenings of his breeches and helped him to kick them away. The firelight danced on their skin. She loved him. She kissed him. He tried to pull her on top of him, but she shook her head. She loved him. She knelt between his legs, licking and kissing her way down his chest, his belly. She felt the sharp inhale of his chest as she brushed the tip of his shaft with her mouth.

She looked up, willing all that she felt to be there in her eyes, and then she began to make love to him with her mouth and her tongue and her hands, trusting her instincts to teach her what she had never done before, nor desired to do.

She loved him. His hands were on her shoulders. In her hair. He was saying her name urgently. His chest was heaving. She licked and she kissed and she stroked. Satin skin sheathing hard muscle. He jerked against her. Swore. ‘Not yet,’ he said, ‘not that, Celeste. Delightful—dear God, delightful as it is. Please.’

Please. She let him pull her to her feet. He spread the blanket from the settle on the hearth, pulling her down with him. He kissed her. Firelight danced on her skin. Heat pooled between her legs. He rolled under her, lifting her on to him, and she sank down on to the thick length of him.

She was slick. She was tight. She tilted her body to take him in higher. Jack moaned, his hands on either side of her waist. She circled her hips, pulling him deeper. He shuddered. He cursed. His fingers curled around her breasts. She loved him. Celeste tilted back her head, and began a slow lift and slide, lift and slide, lift and slide, until she could hold back no longer, crying out as her climax shook her, the pulsing of her muscles triggering the same pulsing in his as he lifted her free. ‘Jack,’ Celeste said with a sigh, ‘oh, Jack.’

* * *

Afterwards, they lay entwined in front of the fire, watching the flames turn to embers, the embers to ashes. Celeste dozed fitfully. As dawn broke, she rose, carefully, reluctantly, with aching sadness, disentangling herself from the man she had given her heart to. He was sleeping. She stood for a moment, looking down at his beloved face, his tousled hair, in the grey light of dawn, before quietly gathering up her clothes and creeping up the stairs to her childhood bedchamber to ready herself for a visit to Maman’s and Henri’s graves.