Kane, Samantha - Brothers in arms 7 (23 page)

“Don’t mind me,” Sarah said. She smiled encouragingly at Charles. “I have a feeling this has been coming for a while.”

Well, that answered some questions. Charles saw Gideon smile back at Sarah in a shared exchange and he felt oddly out of place. “I—”

“Be quiet.”

Gideon interrupted him rudely and Charles jerked back, his temper flaring. “I most certainly will not. Do you think I don’t have a few things to say as well?”

“I’m sure you do. But you have done little more than talk at me for almost seven years. For a change why don’t you listen?” He held up a hand, stopping Charles’ retort.

“Yes, I know. I have done very little talking for seven years. Well, isn’t it time? Isn’t this what you’ve been haranguing me about?”

Charles had no response to that. It was true. “I do not harangue,” he told Gideon calmly.

Sarah snorted from the bed.

Gideon slid into a chair that sat by the wall. Charles’ mouth dried up as he remembered sitting there letting Sarah suck his cock while Gideon watched. Gideon was watching him now, knowingly, as if he could read Charles’ mind. “I was not angry when I found you with Sarah the other morning.”

Charles nodded in acknowledgment. Gideon had said as much before and Charles believed him.

“I was jealous.”

Gideon’s calm statement had Charles reeling in shock. “What?”

Gideon nodded. “I can’t fuck Sarah like that. You looked so…strong. So male and forceful and all the things I didn’t think I could be anymore.”

“Of course you can fuck her like that,” Charles shot back roughly.

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“I know I can.” Again, Gideon had Charles confused. He laughed. “I did that same morning. When you walked in I had just fucked her across the floor.”

“Ah,” Charles said. That explained the floor. He shook his head. No, it didn’t.

“I needed to know I could do that. I needed to know that I could still be that forceful. Because that’s what you need.”

Charles looked back at Sarah. She shook her head. “He’s not talking to me.

Although I do like that too.”

Charles slowly turned back to Gideon. Gideon was smiling at him. A smirk, really, that was promising things he’d never thought to have from Gideon.

“Charles and I were intimate during the war.”

At Gideon’s revelation Charles backed up to the wall so he could see both Gideon and Sarah. Sarah looked relatively calm after receiving that rather shocking news.

“I suspected as much,” she surprised them both by saying. “You were too comfortable with each other in our intimacies not to have a history there.” She cocked her head to the side. “What happened?”

Gideon took a deep breath. “I thought he’d been shot. I saw him go down and…”

He stopped for a moment. “I thought I’d lost him.”

Sarah looked like she wanted to cry. “I’m sorry,” she said sincerely. “I’m sorry for all you went through together.”

Gideon looked down at the floor. “When it was over I dragged him off and ravished him.” Sarah did look surprised at that. “What?” Gideon asked with a frown.

Sarah blushed. “I rather thought Charles would have been the one to…” She seemed at a loss for words. Charles finally laughed.

“I was. I’d been throwing myself at him for months. He was only responding to my overtures. And the stress of battle.” He shook his head. “It didn’t mean anything, not really. It happened more often than people think. You do awful things in the heat of battle, and afterwards…you just want to reaffirm that you’re human, I think.”

Gideon was shaking his head. “No. That was the only time it happened for me, and you were the only person it happened with. It was you. I wanted you.”

“Gideon—”

“I’m supposed to be talking. You are listening.” At Gideon’s interruption Charles waved his hand, granting Gideon permission to speak.

“I wanted you desperately. But you were my charge, under my command. It was wrong. I couldn’t let myself touch you. But that day all I could think…well, I told you before. I couldn’t die, or let you die, without having that with you. And my feelings have never changed, never faltered. I still feel the same way about you as I did then.

More, as a matter of fact.”

Charles slid down the wall to sit on the floor. His legs wouldn’t hold him anymore.

“You what?”

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Gideon continued as if Charles hadn’t spoken. “But I didn’t think you were mine for the taking anymore. When we were together, and the times we shared women after that, you were so physical, so commanding. You need a lover who can do that for you. I wasn’t that lover. Not anymore.”

“Not anymore, not anymore,” Charles said angrily. “That’s what I keep hearing from you. What about now? Tell me about now.”

“Now, because of Sarah, I know I can.”

Gideon seemed to expect something of Charles then. But all Charles had was anger.

“And that’s it? I’m supposed to be happy that now you think you can fuck me the way I need to be fucked so we can be together? Because obviously that’s all I care about.” He looked at Sarah. “Is that what you think as well?”

Sarah shook her head. “No. But Gideon is an idiot.”

“I beg your pardon?” Gideon responded icily.

“You are an idiot,” Charles agreed. He came to his feet. “Yes, I’ve stayed here all these years because I was waiting and hoping for the day when you could fuck me like a man again. You have it exactly right.” He rubbed his hands together and looked around. “All right, then. How do you want me? Shall I strip? Or would you just like me to bend over the bed with my breeches down?”

“Watch yourself,” Gideon growled.

“Or what?” Charles asked challengingly. “You’ll turn away from me again? You’ll deny my feelings for you, and yours for me? Too late.” He turned to face the wall.

“You’ll make me love you, then you’ll make me love your wife and you’ll make me feel like the lowliest bastard for it? Fit for nothing but fucking?”

Soft arms slid around his waist and he felt Sarah against his back. “Don’t,” she whispered. “Don’t run away because you’re afraid. We’re all afraid. I’m afraid. Do you want to know of what?” He tried to turn to her but she held him tightly and he stayed where he was. “I’m afraid that with your feelings out in the open, I will fade into the background. I am the one who will not be needed anymore.”

“Never,” Gideon told her. Charles held her hands where they rested on his stomach. She was trembling. He heard Gideon rise and the thump of his crutches across the floor. “Know this, Sarah, until you arrived I
had
cut Charles out of my life.” This time Sarah let Charles turn as she dropped her arms and also turned to face Gideon. “I had resolved that he should leave here. That he should make a real life for himself, a normal life. I considered myself less than a man.

“I wouldn’t marry any of the others because I couldn’t stand the pity in their eyes. I couldn’t stand the expectations in Charles’. But you, Sarah, you had hope and defiance in your eyes. You actually thought you were the unworthy one. And right then I became more than I had been.”

“I showed you every day that you were still a man to me,” Charles protested.

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Gideon shook his head. “No. What you showed me every day was that you were the strong one. You were the one I had to rely on. You pushed me to be more, it’s true.

But Charles, that only made me feel less.”

Charles felt as if he’d been shot. He actually rubbed his chest at the pain. “I never meant…” he whispered. “That isn’t what I felt. I didn’t mean to make you feel that way.

I just wanted you to be…” He stopped and closed his eyes in shame. He’d wanted Gideon to be the way he was before.

“Exactly.” Gideon spoke softly with no recrimination in his voice. “You’ve treated me differently since Sarah has been here. I think you’ve realized I’m not the man I was, and I can never be again.”

Charles opened his eyes then and took a step toward Gideon. He had never seen Gideon look so vulnerable. “You’re right.” Gideon looked surprised at Charles’

agreement. “Sarah has made me see you differently. Before she came I treated you as if you might break. I thought I was the key to your happiness, your future. But I’m not and I never was. You had more to give than I would let you. I wanted to be the one to give, because I thought you could only take.” He shook his head. “I’m not making sense. What I’m trying to say is that you have always been the same man to me, but what that man was capable of changed, or at least I thought it had. And I’m trying to say I’m sorry. I’ve been blinded by my own selfishness. I stifled you with my feelings and my desires. When Sarah came I couldn’t do that anymore. She needed you to be more, and you wanted that for her as well.”

“I wanted it for you too.” Gideon took a hesitant step toward him. “But I didn’t know what you needed me to be. You wanted the old Gideon, but you also seemed to need to take care of this Gideon.” He waved a hand down in front of himself.

Charles smiled. “I still want to take care of you. The same way I’ve always wanted to.” He took that last step that brought them together, cupped Gideon’s face and kissed him. It was awkward—Gideon was too shocked to respond and Charles wasn’t sure how to proceed. But as chaste as it was, it was still one of the most satisfying kisses of his life. He broke the kiss and let a small fraction of the frustration he’d felt over the last few years show. “Can I touch now? Is it allowed?”

Gideon looked at Sarah. She nodded. “I may not completely understand what is happening, but I do know that it’s got to involve touching.” She smiled wryly. “I’m a fast learner, you see.”

Gideon chuckled, a barely there burst of breath and noise that brought Charles’

attention back to him. Charles traced Gideon’s lower lip with his thumb, following the downward curve, loving the permanent scowl. He couldn’t imagine Gideon without it now. But he wouldn’t let him hide behind it anymore. Sarah had taught him that.

Gideon might be stuck with it, but it wasn’t whom he was inside.

“Yes,” Gideon whispered. “Touch me.”

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In a very deliberate move Charles slid his arms around Gideon’s chest, under his arms. Gideon was forced to lift his crutches from the ground, and after a moment’s hesitation he let them fall to the floor. He wrapped his arms around Charles’ neck tightly. “I’m not sure—”Charles didn’t let him finish. He leaned in and kissed Gideon again, harder this time. When Gideon didn’t respond he traced the seam of his lips with his tongue. Gideon inhaled sharply and then to Charles’ utter gratification he opened his mouth and let him inside.

Charles didn’t know whether to shout for joy or cry as Gideon filled his senses. To finally be able to touch, to taste, to hold him as he’d been wanting to for so long. He smelled like Gideon, of course, that French scent by Pinaud and horse. With a sense of wonder Charles realized something was missing. Sarah’s scent of lavender, which normally clung to Gideon. He missed it.

Charles was tempted to devour Gideon, to shove him down and take all he could before Gideon pushed him away. But he forced himself to go slow, to savor this moment. He pressed his tongue into Gideon’s willing mouth and swept it through the warm, wet cavern. He tasted so good, so unique. Charles knew that he would never be able to describe it in words but he would never forget it and always crave the flavor of Gideon. He turned his head slightly and the rough scratch of Gideon’s cheek against his caused a shiver of awareness to skitter down his spine. All those years ago they had not kissed. He had never kissed a man, never felt that rough caress.

Gideon moaned and slid a hand into the hair on the back of Charles’ head, gripping him and holding him tightly against his seeking, hungry mouth as Gideon’s tongue tangled with his. Charles lost his restraint. The kiss turned hard and desperate, as if they both sought to make up for lost time. It became a delicious battle for control that Charles wasn’t sure he wanted to win. But the contest itself was glorious. He had never been kissed in such an almost violent, thorough fashion. Holding Gideon so tightly he wasn’t sure where he stopped and the other man started, Charles tried to take a step toward the bed. Gideon stumbled and suddenly they were falling. Charles caught them both with a hand on the edge of the bed, Gideon clinging to him.

They were both breathing hard, and the look in Gideon’s eyes was hot and challenging. It sent a thrill straight to Charles’ cock.

“What now?” Gideon rasped. The challenge was there in his voice too.

“More touching,” Charles told him as he dropped Gideon on the mattress. Gideon caught himself this time and pulled himself up until he was sitting on the edge of the bed. “And tasting.” At that Gideon’s head snapped up and he grinned in response to the look Charles was giving him.

Charles shoved Gideon onto his back and proceeded to take his boot off. At the same time Gideon eagerly began to undo the fall of his trousers. He had barely finished before Charles was yanking them down and off. He threw them aside as he gave an admiring look to Gideon’s cock. It was heavy and full, the tip wet. He wanted to taste that.

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Charles dropped to his knees between Gideon’s legs and Gideon sat up. Charles gazed at his mangled leg. And it was mangled. Gideon had hardly let him see it in the last few years. He’d forgotten how bad it was. Burn scars much worse than those on his face covered half his thigh, and the end was rough and uneven. Charles felt a stab of regret at his hasty amputation. He hadn’t been thinking about how it would look when he’d done it. He hadn’t really been thinking at all. His breathing hitched and his eyes blurred as he ruthlessly tamped down the memories. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. He ran his hand along Gideon’s thigh and kissed the rough skin there.

“No.” Gideon put his fist beneath Charles’ chin and raised his face to meet his eyes.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry you had to do that. I’m sorry I put you in that position. I wish it had not been you. I would not have you remember that.”

“I think we have all said I’m sorry enough.” Sarah’s voice was crisp, a definite contrast to the whispered conversation of the two men. “No more talking. Get on with the touching and tasting.”