Blade Dance (A Cold Iron Novel Book 4) (15 page)

“All of it,” said the woman, “several times.”

“Then you can read the language of the
Tuatha Dé Danann
, and you can guess, I think, what I am.”

She bit her lip. “If you are what you appear to be, you could just take the book, and I wouldn’t be able to stop you,” she said.

He didn’t want to do that. “I will take a
geis
, make an oath, to return to you the book.” And to see her again, which was wrong. His penance did not allow for such things. “Tell me your name and I will swear it.”

“Diana Seater,” she said, looking him in the eye. “Who are you?”

“They call me the Penitent,” he said.

Her eyes opened a fraction wider. “Swear it, then, that you will return the book to me tomorrow or be weakened by it.”

He swore it, with Nieve looking at him sideways. Then they were leaving with the book, and Nieve was muttering an aggrieved litany that continued the whole way to the car.

“She’s a fucking Druid,” said Nieve as soon as they were alone the minivan.

“Not quite,” said Iobáth. “She has Druid blood, but she doesn’t have the voice. She’s untrained. She won’t become a true Druid until she kills.” She was still a puzzle. “Miach must have donated the book to the library for her use. Why not train her himself, if he knows of her existence, as he obviously must?”

Nieve sighed. “Because she’s young and pretty and he can’t keep bringing lovely young Druids home to his new wife.”

“He may have no choice if he wants to keep her and her potential out of the hands of the Prince Consort.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because the Prince Consort followed us.”

Chapter 12

T
he late afternoon sunlight slanting through the windows gave Ann a better view of Finn’s body than she’d had the night before. The scars and tattoos were familiar now and they gave her less pause. The details were easier to see in the sunlight, though, and the musculature of his chest, the startling definition of it, surprised her.

“On the bed, now,” he said. It was an order. She found that it both thrilled her and made her bristle.

“No.” She liked saying it, liked defying him, liked feeling free to engage in conflict without fear of it spiraling out of control. No, that wasn’t quite right. She wanted things to spiral out of control with him. She wanted to start something she couldn’t stop, something that felt as free and unbound as her berserk state, something she could share with this man.

He grinned at her. “Oh, Ann,” he said with obvious relish. “You want everything at once, don’t you? I would be a pig if I gave you everything,” he mused, unbuckling his belt, “but I’ll give you just enough to keep you coming back for more.”

He folded the belt and took a step toward her.

“You’re kidding, right?” she asked, standing her ground.

He laughed and reached for her, grabbing a fistful of her hair and leading her by it to the bed. She went along, knowing she could break free but not really wanting to.

Finn bent her over the foot of the bed, using her hair to control her, to angle her, until her bottom was sticking up in the air. He shoved her sweatpants down her legs, freed one ankle, and kicked her feet apart.

She felt him run the cool leather of his belt up the inside of her thigh, then rap her center with it lightly. She whimpered, and he ran the leather down her other thigh, then back up. Then he slid it between her legs right where she needed it. Back and forth, wetting his belt with her slickness. She started to pant, and she yelped when he yanked the leather away and brought it down on her backside.

It hurt. Sharply at first. Then it burned. Pleasurably. And the belt was back between her legs adding to that pleasure, and she was climbing, spiraling up and up until the belt cracked against her other cheek and she tumbled back down to a place where satisfaction was just out of reach.

He ministered to her with the belt again, back and forth, until she was close again. Then he let go of her hair. She tried to rise, but he pushed her back down. “Stay like that, if you like what I’m doing,” he said.

She did. She liked the pattern he was rubbing against her clit with the belt, back and forth, then left to right, then long, irregular ovals. She liked it when he tapped the belt against her swollen center so smartly it hurt and made her fly apart at the same time. She was so sensitive from the belt that by the time he entered her, she was screaming. She reached a second climax as he pounded her rhythmically, and she felt the heaviness of his balls smacking into her.

She was dazed when he withdrew. She knew he hadn’t come yet, but all she could do when he flipped her over was stare up at him in a haze of half-satisfied lust.

“Your turn to be on top,” he said as he shoved his jeans farther down, then lay back on the bed and held up his cock.

So far he had given her the roughness she craved, so she didn’t have to ask for it, instigate it, or risk embarrassment. Taking what she wanted meant owning up to her desires, to the part of her that wasn’t sweet or ladylike or tame, to the part of her that other men had mocked to their friends. The part of her they had walked out on in disgust.

She batted his hand away from his cock and wrapped her own around it. He groaned, arched his back, and put his hands above his head, his perfect body in perfect submission. She climbed on top of him, shoving his hips down into the mattress, impaling herself on his thick cock.

It felt so good. Cold and wet as she slid down it, warm and slick once he was seated inside her. He flexed his hips, and she liked that, but she wanted total control, so she shoved him down again and leaned back. The position changed the angle of his cock inside her and she liked that, too. It also exposed their joining to his greedy eyes, and he clearly liked that.

“I want to touch you,” he said.

She shook her head.

“I want to make you come again. I like feeling you clench around me. I want to see what your face looks like when it happens.”

She shook her head. She was going to be in control of
everything
for a little while.

He smiled, and she wondered if any man had ever understood her so perfectly before.

“Touch yourself then,” he said. “Make yourself come.”

The only time she’d tried it, her boyfriend had removed her hand from between them, twice, and then when she’d tried to explain what she wanted, stormed out of the apartment never to be seen again.

Finn didn’t seem likely to storm out. She ran a tentative hand over her own breasts, grazing her nipples, then sliding down her stomach to the neatly trimmed patch of hair just above her center.

She’d never exposed so much of herself to anyone. Never shared anything so private. Her fingers traced her lips first, the way she always started when she was alone; then she parted herself and circled, spreading the moisture there. The difference was that instead of her aching emptiness, there was Finn’s cock, sliding and in out of her. She ran her fingertips over it and he babbled, “Yes, yes, yes, yes.” That made her feel powerful. Her fingers retreated back to their familiar path and found her swollen clit again, too tender now to touch directly. All the while Finn watched her, his hands obediently held above his head, making her feel wanted. She’d given up trying to keep his hips still.

“I can feel you tightening around me,” he said. “It’s glorious. Push yourself over,” he urged her. “I want to see you fall.”

“When I’m ready,” she said.

“Push yourself over now,” he insisted, “and I promise I’ll reward you for it.”

She hesitated. “What kind of reward?”

“Did you like what I did to you with the belt?”

She was still exquisitely sensitive from it. “Yes.”

“Then take the plunge into the unknown. Make yourself come now, and I’ll have you screaming again in the short time we have left.”

She couldn’t resist what he was offering. She began to finger her nipples with her left hand and to use two fingers between her legs, dipping down to the taut flesh that engulfed his cock.

“That’s it,” he coaxed. “Keep your eyes open. I want to see this.”

She tried to keep her eyes open, but as the waves racked her, she squeezed them shut. She collapsed on top of him shuddering, his cock still hard inside her, his hips still thrusting.

“So good,” he was muttering into her ear. His hands were no longer above his head but stroking her hair, her face, her shoulders. “So lovely,” he praised. “My Ann,” he said, winding one hand into her hair and pulling her head down to his shoulder, holding her there.

She didn’t mind. He was rocking up into her, using the angle of his body to hit that sweet spot inside her every time. “That’s good,” she moaned. “Just like that, so good. I can come like that.”

He chuckled. “I’m sure you can, but that’s not all I’ve got in mind.”

His words barely registered. Everything in her was concentrated on the way his cock was moving inside her. Her knees were drawn as high and wide as she could make them, to bring him as deep inside as she could. His free hand moved over the contours of her back, slick with sweat, all the way down to the globes of her spread ass. His hand traveled over her bottom and his fingers danced in the slippery moisture between them, then traveled up . . .

“What are you doing?”

She knew where his fingers were going, even as she denied wanting them to get there.

“Here,” he said, pressing a slick fingertip to her puckered entrance.

He was in to the first knuckle before she could protest, and she liked it too much to make anything but inarticulate noises.

His own vocalizations were triumphant. “Yes,” he said. “That’s it.” His finger slid the rest of the way in, and she was shrieking and moaning and coming so hard that she started to see stars.

She registered his climax as a burst of warmth inside her, but her head was spinning and all she could hear was the blood rushing in her ears. She was dimly aware of him rolling her onto her side, pulling a blanket up around her, and kissing her sweaty brow. Then he got up, and she could hear water running in the en suite bath. The bed dipped, and she knew he was back, pulling her exhausted body into his arms.

“Did you like that, my little berserker?” he asked, stroking her tangled hair.

“Do you really need to ask?” she croaked, her voice hoarse from screaming.

“And that is only a taste of what we can have, Ann.”

She liked the way he said her name, the way he said “we” as though they had a future together. For a moment she forgot what she was planning, forgot that there was very little chance she would live out the night, and she enjoyed just being close to him.

She turned to face him, and he kissed her. It was gentler than anything that had gone before, and somehow more intimate than the sex, amazing as that had been.

“I liked what we did,” she said, tentatively.

“I could tell. If the windows weren’t double glazed, the tourists climbing the monument would know, too.”

“You weren’t exactly silent yourself,” she teased.

“That’s because you are thrilling to be with, Ann Phillips, even to a jaded old man like me.”

“How jaded are you?” she asked, coming nearer to the subject she wanted to broach.

“What are you asking, Ann? Whether I can push you further than we went today, or whether that’s the only kind of sex I enjoy?”

“Both,” she said, afraid of his answer.

He kissed her again. “That,” he said, “is the joy of taking a compatible lover.” His hands slid down her body and lifted one knee to rest on his hip, opening her to his fingers. He slid one inside her, where she was still wet and pliant—and shocked her by rousing her again, finding the spot that made her crazy and applying calculated pressure. “Today,” he continued, “I can show you the pleasures to be had from rough handling and the kiss of my belt.” The pressure turned into a firm massage. Her suspended leg began to tremble, and she started to pant. “Tomorrow,” he said, “we can lie in bed all morning and go slow and gentle. Unless you’d like to learn what it would feel like to have your nipples clamped.” He pinched one sharply. “Or to be truly filled here.” His thumb slid from her center to her other opening, slick with moisture, and stimulated the nerves there once more. “There’s no end to what we can try together, Ann, and we don’t have to do anything you don’t like.”

If she’d been capable of articulate speech, she would have said there was nothing she wouldn’t like with him, but his finger and his thumb were working together to push her over the edge and the only sounds that came from her mouth were choked sobs.

For a few minutes afterward she basked in the pleasant fantasy he had spun for her, but the clock beside the bed told her that time was passing and soon their interlude together would be over.

“Do you think there’s any real chance the Prince will bring Davin back?” Ann asked.

“I don’t know,” said Finn. “It’s possible that he is sincere. The Prince
is
Sean’s brother, and Sean was part of the Prince’s circle before the fall, one of the artists he cultivated. But that was two thousand years ago.”

“But he answered Sean’s call for help.”

“For his own reasons. Have no doubt of that. The Prince has invested decades in resurrecting the Druids. He wants to use them to rediscover their arts and bring down the wall between worlds. He may rescue the boy, but more likely, if we don’t follow close on his heels, he’ll kill or capture the Druid and abandon the child where we’ll never find him. Or he may want the boy for the same reasons the Druid did. Whatever that might be. He might kill the Druid and take the boy, and if he makes enough jumps, far enough ahead of us, we’ll never find either of them.”

Ann couldn’t let that happen.

Nancy McTeer had been wrong about Finn MacUmhaill. He wasn’t emotionally unavailable. He was a man under siege who wouldn’t reveal himself to a woman who couldn’t accept what he was. They were so much alike in that way. She wished they had more time now, but they didn’t.

Then there was a knock at the door and a voice on the other side.

“Miach’s ready,” called Garrett through the door. “And Nieve called. They’re almost here with the knives.”

“We’ll be down,” said Finn, not bothering to hide that she was with him.

“Damn,” she said, shaking out her discarded pants and putting her plan in motion. “I can’t find my cell phone. It’s got to be in here somewhere. Can I call it from yours?”

“Of course.” He tapped out the password and tossed her his sleek little phone on his way into the bathroom. While he was in there, she found and downloaded the app she needed, called her own phone so she would have Finn’s number, and wrote the text she would send him when the time came.

He emerged from the bathroom ten minutes later, showered and smelling like pine soap. Ann was struck once again by his striking combination of otherworldly beauty and human practicality. It was impossible not be attracted to his looks: the sun-shot chestnut hair that fell in soft waves around his face, the wide cheekbones and sharp chin, the broad shoulders and muscular arms. He would have been unapproachable if he dressed like the Prince or wore his hair long like Iobáth, but the faded tees and flannel shirts he favored humanized him, made it possible for Ann to think of him as a man first and a Fae war leader second.