Five days since Christian had held his countess against his naked chest, tasted her sweet kisses, and felt her hands moving over his body with desire. He could hardly credit the memory. Helene had never touched him like that, not when he was whole and hale and his mind free of shadows and memories. Not when he was blessed with a younger man’s exuberant erotic responses, not when he was newly wed and honestly trying to forge some sort of friendship with his duchess. Before his marriage, there had been women, of course there had been, and he’d enjoyed them and regarded it as his most enjoyable obligation to see that they enjoyed him as well. But those had been professionals or bored wives who’d long since met any marital obligations, experienced ladies of the world. They’d liked bedding a lusty young duke, liked being seen on his arm, liked dancing the supper waltz with him. He’d been a…sexual trophy, just as for Girard, he’d been a trophy of war.
