by Kris Kennedy
She was like some creature from a mythical land, and she did not even realize it, how uncommon she was.
No, he corrected himself. She seemed to know quite well she did not belong anywhere. What she had no idea of, was how perfectly she fit into the echoing, empty spaces of his heart.
Chapter 29
Senna stayed awake long after Finian had fallen asleep. Too much excitement, excitement that ought to be scaring her witless. Instead, she felt…excited. Alive. Reckless.
She rummaged about in her pack and came out with one of the flasks. She took a great draught and glanced at Finian. He was dead to the world. She regarded such peaceful repose glumly, then took another swig. His dark head was resting on the pack, his fingers interlaced over his broad chest. A steady, low rhythm lifted and lowered his hands. One knee was bent and resting against a small sapling.
She took another swallow, then corked it, still looking at Finian.
Devouring him, she admitted, since no one was inside her head to witness the admission.
She did like this whisky.
She was contemplating some rash, risky things just now, but for what reason urge herself to caution? She’d been dying inside for half her life, and Finian was the only thing that had ever made her even want to be renewed. Did one just toss that aside? She’d gone beyond the Pale in every way since coming to Ireland. She was hungry in a way she’d never been before. Sore in a way she’d never been before.
Alive in a way she’d never been before.
She set the flask down and crawled closer. All she wanted was to touch him. Not even to have him touch her. Just to feel his body. Touch. Be touching.
Not be alone.
She knelt beside him, her feet tucked beneath her. Planting a palm on each side of his chest, she leaned low and inhaled.
Finian opened his eyes to find her leaning over him, her hair tickling his arms. The curve of her body was clear as anything, the rise of her breasts just inches from his nose.
“What are ye doing, Senna?” he asked carefully.
She didn’t leap back, as he’d expected. Instead she straightened and knelt, knees tucked under. So prim and proper, her stance. An instinctive seductress, to the tips of her dirty fingernails. And she was smiling. He frowned.
“Ye’re a’right?”
“Finian, I wanted to ask you something.”
She sounded shy. He closed his eyes and said a brief prayer. “Aye?”
“Do you remember what happened? Before?”
“Before, when?” he asked warily.
“Before,” she waved her hand. “Before we hunted, before. After the boat ride, before.” Her words slowed. “Against the tree, before.”
He groaned and wiped his hand over his face, his shaft already hard.
“Do you?”
“Jésu, woman,” he rasped. “Do ye expect me to forget?”
“I was thinking.”
“Stop, then.”
She leaned down a little closer. Her hair tickled against his neck. “I was thinking, that thing that happened to me,” he groaned, “I don’t think that happened to you, too.”
He gave a muffled curse and threw his arms up, over his face, bent at the elbows. “Senna,” he said through gritted teeth.
“Did it?”
“Nay,” he grated. “What’s got into ye, woman? I can’t take this, ye know.”
“I know,” she crooned, then bent to his ear. “’Tis the whisky.”
“Not the whisky,” he said grimly.
“The yarrow, then.” Warm feminine curves pressed onto his inner arms, his cheek. Her breath came into his ear. “Finian, I would like that thing to happen to you. I would like to watch it happen to you. Like you watched me.”
There was absolutely no defense against this. Her lips fluttered over his arms, and he let his elbows drop to the earth. With her hair a curtain around them, she kissed him in the moonlight, slow, light kisses over his cheeks and nose and chin, and finally, his lips.
And although he wanted to descend upon her, grasp the back of her neck and pillage her rampant femininity, he held himself in check, letting her hesitant, testing kisses inflame him to the point of pain. All he did was bend his arm and rest his palm against the curve of her hip, not guiding her, not caressing her, just holding on.
She knelt facing into him and slid her lips down his neck, her mouth leaving soft butterfly kisses behind, then to his collarbone. She glanced up, eyebrows arched in query, and tugged on the edge of his tunic.
“If you’re cold…”
He ripped it off in a quick second, and listened to her slow exhale as her gaze traveled across his body. She bent low and breathed deep, then her tongue slipped out and licked across the smooth side of his rib cage.
“Senna,” he managed between gritted teeth.
“My turn, so hush,” she whispered. Then she licked his nipple.
He suppressed a growl and ran his palm up the curve of her buttocks. She froze, except for her breath. It came out in a hot rush over everything she’d just licked wet.
“Don’t stop,” he murmured thickly.
She opened her mouth and flicked her tongue. She slid one hand up his bent leg, ankle to knee, then down his thigh, to his groin. Unable to resist, he clamped his hand over hers and held her to his erection. Her slender fingers closed around the length of him, her mouth hot and panting on his nipple. He made her squeeze him tighter. He slid his other hand up and over her bottom. Then he floated his fingers slightly down the seam between.
“Oh,” she exhaled hotly, all over him.
“Off,” he growled, tugging on her leggings.
She was already pulling on the ties, and he was fumbling, too, propped up on an elbow, and then they were free. He slid them down to her knees, so her bottom was exposed, pushing up to the sky as she bent back to him.
She slid her mouth down the center of his belly then, fast and wet, kissing and nipping and licking, until he was so hard he thought he’d explode. He slid his hand across her belly and up between her thighs. She was wet. Slippery, hot. He pushed one finger high, searching for the crest of her.
She threw her head back, gasping. Hot, wet, damaging, good, this angel was everything he’d never hoped for. He folded his finger and slid it forward, over the slippery folds, pushing until he felt the circular bud. Another shocked, gasping whimper shot out of her. He fluttered his finger again, and she dropped her face into his chest, moaning. Hard, hot, churning lust pounded through him. He could barely see straight. He wanted this woman like no other, ever, not even in erotic dreams.
He tipped his wrist and pushed hard with the heel of his palm, pressing against her pulsing wet heat. She threw her head back and exhaled in hot, gasping moans, rocking back and forth on his hand.
She started trying to untie his leggings. Cursing, he did it for her, his one slippery hand still working on her, her rocking becoming more frenzied, her head dropping lower, until she was on her elbows, her face inches from his erection. Together, one hand each, they pushed open the ties of his leggings, just exposing him. Her shadowed face, curtained by windswept hair, turned to him as he was furiously grappling to slide his wet hand back up between her thighs. He was practically light-headed. More heat, more sex, more Senna.
“I don’t know quite what to do,” she whispered, her voice a mingling of panting arousal and blushing embarrassment.
In a heartbeat, he was on his knees, flipping her onto her back. He rested his forearms beside her hips, his face between her thighs.
“Like this, love,” he rasped, and bent his face to everything hot and wet between her legs. He flicked his tongue once, snapping it lightly against her. Her hips instinctively rocked up into him.
“Oh, please,” she cried, tossing her head.
A slow, charging, explosive descent into the pits of passion. Finian could barely hear her, he was so violently aroused. He sent his tongue in another long sweep up. Wet, hot honey.
“Spread yer legs. Fa
rther,” he demanded hoarsely.
She whimpered and did, until her heels were planted in the earth and she had her fingers entwined in his hair, restlessly tugging. He took two fingers and slowly spread her slippery wet folds wide, exposing the hard, slick nub to the cool moonlit night. With his thumb he brushed it, then followed with his tongue, fast and hard.
She gasped and froze, her fingers locked in his hair, her hips pushed up. At once he changed his pace, to slow and languorous, taking long, slow sweeps of her. His head was starting to spin, she tasted so good. So ready, so wet. His thumbs spread her flesh apart and he sunk his tongue deep inside her. One thumb circled her swirled nub lightly, then pressed in hard.
“Oh, no,” she breathed, long-pitched and smoky.
“Oh, aye,” he whispered, and rose to his knees.
She grabbed for him but he caught up her wrists and trapped them on the ground over her head.
Kneeling, his leggings unlaced but still around his waist, he straddled one of her restlessly bobbing legs. He pushed his hand hard up between her legs and without pausing, slid two fingers inside her.
Crying out, she arched her shoulders into the air, her pelvis down low, so Finian had to reach down to keep his fingers inside her, to keep prodding her, which drove him mad, to be so stretched out over her body, one hand trapping her wrists high above her head, the other plunged deep inside her. Her knee came up between his legs in a restless motion, and he rocked his hips, sliding his erection along her thigh. She pushed back, hips up, a rippling, undulating curve of flesh in the moonlight, heedless and reckless, whimpering and tossing her head, making her hair spill out all around her head so it looked like she was floating underwater.
He drove her hard, his fingers confident and sure, his thumb hot amid her folds. She pushed against him, feminine curves thrumming with the pounding sexual rhythm he was playing on her body.
“Do ye like this, Senna?” he whispered roughly.
“Oh,” she exhaled, pushing up on her elbows, trying to kiss him.
“Do ye like what I’m doing to ye?”
“Aye, aye. I want more.”
He bent to her ear. “What more, Senna?”
“You,” she panted, lifting her hips in a wild, bucking motion. “I want you. Inside me.”
His head was spinning. “No,” he rasped, shaking his head. “I’ll not take yer maidenhood.”
She gave a shaky explosion of laughter. “Oh, Finian. I’m not a virgin.”
He lay low over her body and rasped in her ear, “What?”
“I’m not an innocent. And I cannot have children. Finian, please.”
That was all he needed. Another time for the mind. Now was all about the need.
“I’ll devour ye, angel,” he growled in a ragged whisper, bending his mouth to her skin. “Ye’ll never know what’s run through ye.”
Senna’s blood throbbed, molten iron churning through her veins. He covered her with his body in one simple movement. The curling hair of his thigh scratched against her inner thighs. She could feel his bunched muscles nudging her apart for him. Invading her. She lifted one leg and hooked it around his hip.
“Now,” she panted, her hands sliding over his back, gentle against the scars but still feeling every vertebra, every curve of muscle sliding beneath his warm skin. She slid farther under him, the ground solid and cool beneath, Finian demanding above, solid and hot.
Dark hair fell around the planes of his face, fixed in determination as he reached down to position himself. She felt the edge of his hand, hard and hot, brushing against her wetness as he grasped his erection and slid it to her. The rounded wide tip of him pushed in. She closed her eyes, her hands clasped at the back of his neck, an ankle at the small of his back.
Holding himself on one knee, Finian thrust himself into her waiting heat, feeling her hot passage constrict around him, yielding, slippery, tight. He sank in a little deeper, his gaze locked on their union, watching himself disappear inside her. He wrenched his eyes away, determined to hold himself in check, and looked up. Senna’s eyes were open, watching him.
“Ye’re a’right, lass?”
“’Tis good,” she said, half laugh, half cry, her words shaky.
Using every fragment of self-control he’d ever possessed, he stopped his long, slow penetration. With soft whispers, he kissed her nose, her chin, each flushed cheek and her forehead, until she was soft and sighing again.
“Did Rardove…?”
“Nay,” she whispered. “He never even tried. I think I scared him.”
“Ye terrify me,” he murmured and moved inside her again, holding back, filling her in long, slow strokes so she could grow used to the feel of him. It was exquisite torture. Wet and tight, her flesh was hot, swelling, sweet womanly depths. The muscles of his back and legs were taut with restraint. Her small heel pressed into the flesh beside his spine, almost hurting, and he wouldn’t have asked her to move it if it meant an extra dozen years of life.
He pushed his hips forward again. She sighed, a breathy, wanton thing. The small, aching whimper pounded lust through his blood. He growled and shifted his hips, nudging in farther.
“Oh, that feels good.” Her voice came up like a sigh, and she lifted her hips, widening his entryway.
She was a hot, swelling cradle of tight perfection and he could do nothing but throw his head back and roar as he plunged into her again and again. The earth started to spin beneath his knees and palms, his breath coming in short, raspy breaths.
Senna lifted her hips in howling, bucking thrusts, and Finian’s penetration grew more firm and long, each time filling her more fully, sheathing himself deeper in her hot, shuddering wetness. He dropped his head onto her neck, his palms splayed on the earth beside her, his hair swaying beside his face as his hips moved in an ancient, throbbing rhythm.
Each perfect move he made sent a fresh wave of pleasure shuddering through Senna. Her skin was humming, her blood roiling. Her hands were greedy in their touches, wanting to be everywhere, wrapped around his shoulders, sliding down the muscles of his back, brushing aside his hair so she could watch as passion closed his eyes and made him throw back his head.
His hand suddenly swept down to the small of her back and fitted her rocking hips tightly against his. Bolts of thudding, intense pleasure skidded across her belly and somehow her legs were wrapped around his hips and no part of her touched the ground. It was all masterful touches and the hot, sweaty, sculpted body of Finian.
With a muffled curse, he clamped his arm around her waist and hoisted her up, swinging them over so she sat astride him, his torso supported on a sharp rise of grassy earth. He looped cords of her hair around his palm and pulled her face down to his.
“Spread yer legs,” he said in her ear, his free hand spread possessively across her back. She did as he bid and he sank in farther, pushing hard. “I’ve only got so much more,” he said hoarsely.
“Getting tired?” she asked, her voice just as ragged as his, but laced with laughter.
“No. Getting close to coming inside ye. Ye’ll like it.”
She dropped her head back, rocking her hips in rhythm on top of him. When he spoke so, she felt like her body could do all the things he promised from the pleasure of his words alone.
Plunge, thrust, retreat, plunge. Her head spun and her body sang. Senna gripped his shoulders and leaned into him, her chin by his forehead, her knees digging into the earth. Their passion hammered to a violent crescendo.
Her eyes flew open. “Oh,” she whispered, startled. Another thrust of Finian’s hips, another perfect, thick penetration. She threw her head back and moved her body in unbridled lunges, her lower lip locked between her teeth.
“Don’t stop,” she whispered. A wickedly carnal undulation of pleasure vibrated through her pulsing body. Up along her back, down her legs, along her neck rippled the Finian magic. Another…quite something…stretching…quiver. Her body lurched to a halt, yanked to the edge. Her face contorted.
He grinned crookedly.
“What is it?” came her wild whisper.
“Let it be,” he coaxed, holding her hips into the rocking rhythm.
“Oh, please, oh please, don’t stop.”
“Never. I will never stop,” came his ragged reply.
She tipped toward some inevitable precipice. Hesitating at the edge, he surged into her again and touched some mad, spiraling pleasure point deep inside her. A wave of shuddering wetness crashed through her body, flaming white heat and long, undulating quivers. She leapt off the cliff and flew, throbbing and shuddering and now alive.
Finian felt her release ripple along him and his hands flexed around her hips as he plunged into her one last time, exploding into his own quaking, rocking fulfillment. He held her shuddering in his arms—copper hair, parted lips, and burning spirit—and felt his heart shift.
The moment lasted forever. She mewed his name in helpless repetition, each whimpering cry accented by a shudder of warm flesh along his quivering length. He held himself deep inside her, spent, satisfied, and shocked.
Chapter 30
“Shocked?”
Pentony, seated at the table, nodded.
Rardove groaned. His eyes were red rimmed, and the small beard he usually kept so carefully trimmed was rough edged and uneven. “That’s what he says?” he asked Pentony, who was reading from the scrolled missive which had just arrived, pressed with red wax in the image of a sword-wielding, helmed horseman that marked King Edward’s seal. “Shocked?”
“And displeased,” Pentony added.
“Displeased.”
Pentony nodded without looking over again. No need to witness the deterioration with every sense. Hearing it was quite enough for now.
Rardove cursed and reached for the jug of wine and poured. Just what was required: more drink.
All the nights since Senna left had been filled with sleeplessness, fury, and flagons of wine, evidenced by the roars that exploded from Rardove’s bedchamber and sent maidservants scurrying. This morning had not brought much different, except that his rage seemed muted by a monstrous hangover. Even now, by candlelight, his eyeballs were obviously swollen and red rimmed, his nose mottled with little red spots, his cheeks ruddy red. He was a study in crimson.