The Irish Warrior (22 page)

The reality of this, imagining just for a second how he must look, on his elbows, face to her, sent her diving into a shattering, explosive climax. She threw her head back, crying out, and didn't remember anything except the total ecstasy of the sensations he'd mapped out through her body.

When she came back to sensibility, she was cradled in his arms, sitting sideways on his lap, her leggings tossed aside. He had his back to the tree again. She was still shuddering, but he seemed totally still. Rock hard, composed, self-contained, masculine power, his arm around her shoulder.

“Well, I know I did,” she said in a whisper. “But, did you?”

“Don't ye recall?” Amusement tinged his words.

“Not exactly.”

“No one had a better view than yerself.” His arm tightened around her shoulder.

She almost choked. “I'll have to pay better attention,” was all she could say.

“I'll have to impress myself upon ye more.”

She leaned the top of her head against the V formed by his collarbones and mumbled into his chest, “I think you've impressed me quite enough.”

Finian gave a weary chuckle.

The air had a soft coolness to it; it had been a mild autumn. The harvest had been good. The cows would be
booleyed
down from the upper pastures where they summered. The piles of square peat bricks would be stacked under wooden lean-tos and eaves, waiting to serve as fuel to warm cold winter nights. And the smell of the sea would come pouring like a wave over the land.

He never knew why it came so strongly in the fall. Perhaps the leaves falling from the trees opened pathways for the salty, wild scent.

It would quicken his blood, and as everyone was closing in for winter, Finian would find himself restless. Discontent to repair harnesses or tell stories around the fire. Discontent to listen to the traveling
Seanchuich
weave their poetry and tell their histories and sing their laudatory tales to whichever king could pay them the most. The simple, quiet joys of the winter held no allure for him.

Then again, every season brought the racing, churning blood, the desire to be on the go, to move, to see and touch and do.

And every year, for the last half decade or more, it had been a wearying thing. Not the exhilaration of finding and experiencing. Not the thrill of the new, just a disillusioned realization that this was no way to live a life. At some point, he'd be skimming the surface of it all, no matter what others said. The tales of Finian's exploits, on the battlefield, in adventurous, dramatic ways, were almost legend. The next crop of boys—young men, he supposed—looked at him with something bordering on awe.

It simply made him tired.

The way Senna looked at him, though, made him feel wide awake. Alive. Engaged. Met and seen.

She did, indeed, fit so well into every hidden corner of his heart. Even the ones he hadn't known were there.

She moved against him then, her rounded bottom cool as it slid across the top of his thighs. She swung a leg over his, straddling him.

His hand tightened around her hips. “I thought ye were sore.”

“I am. But more, I am this.” She shifted her hips and with him not guiding at all, she maneuvered just right for the tip of him to slip into her waiting heat.

“I am
this
as well,” he murmured. She smiled and kissed his forehead. He kissed her chin. She kissed his nose. He nuzzled her neck.

For a few moments they moved together, holding each other, slow. He cupped her breast, kissing, slow again and more slow. It was a loving slow, languid and attentive, one hand on her curving spine, one on her breast, then tangled in her hair, his gaze intent on her face, her eyes half-closed, all in him and open to him, and it was beyond good.

Then she leaned down to kiss him and opened her eyes fully. Her face washed white.

That's when he heard them.

Soldiers. Marching. An army.

 

Her legs tensed, but otherwise they were motionless. A rider shouted to another. Someone was coming into the clearing.

“Scouts,” Finian whispered into her hair, which was shivering, because her body was trembling. Minute vibrations of terror. He knotted handfuls of her hair in his fist and pulled her close to his face. Their lips brushed.

“Silence.”

The riders trotted into the clearing. The only sound was their horses' hooves on the loamy ground. It sounded like hammer blows on old, rotting wood. An occasional clink of metal on metal, and the ever-present groan of leather. Saddles, pouch ties, armor, everything creaked like old doors.

“Nope, 'tis better down in the valley,” one said. “There's water close, and a few village houses we can commandeer.”

His companions reined around. “This ridge has a better vantage point.”

The three of them lined their horses up and stared at the lands below. Almost right under the tree. They were off to the side enough so that Finian could see them. So that they could see Finian, should they glance up.

For the first time, he felt regretful that Senna's hair was so dazzling.

Muscles frozen, lungs barely expanding, they sat and waited. Finian's thigh muscles began to ache as he held them, knees half bent, Senna sitting astride him. He could feel her inner thighs, trembling ever so slightly against his. Her knees were pressed onto the wood, holding her in a half-risen position. Their faces were close together, lips almost touching, Finian's hand still fisted in her hair.

“My knife,” she whispered against his lips, “is just by your right hand.”

Their eyes, inches apart, met. He nodded slightly.

For another few minutes, all was motionless. Even the soldiers. Then their horses shifted, pawing, pulling their necks to get at the grass under their hooves, but otherwise moonlight was the loudest thing about.

“C'mon,” muttered one suddenly. “The river is better, sheltered.”

The others agreed, and they attempted to convince the sole holdout, the one with the chestnut mount who seemed skeptical and must be their leader.

“I dunno. 'Tis a rare view, up here,” he said reluctantly.

“Whadda we need a view for?” one of the others scoffed. “Think you're gonna spot bleeding O'Melaghlin on the horizon?”

They busted up at that.

“And his whore.”

Finian didn't even realize his body had stiffened until Senna pressed her hips down, dampening his unconscious movement.

“Whore, traitor, I do not care,” snapped their leader. “Rardove wants to pay twenty French
livres
to anyone who brings them in before battle? I bring them in.”

Finian heard the word
battle,
but he didn't need words at all to understand what he was seeing. This was not a scouting party, not a group of loosely aligned riders on a treasure hunt for outlaws. This was the contingent of an army on the muster, and there was only one man powerful enough to summon it: Rardove.

He was also fairly certain Senna would not be unaware of any of this.

The riders reined their horses away. The sounds of a small army were louder now, bootheels and muttering. The scouts met up with someone halfway down the hill.

“The river,” Senna chanted against his mouth, willing them to choose away.

“Here in the clearing,” the chestnut rider called out.

“Mother Mary,” she exhaled.

Within fifteen minutes, the small army had tromped up the hill and encamped themselves on a meadowlike clearing just outside the treeline, eighty feet from where Senna and Finian sat frozen, mid-coitus.

She pulled back an inch and stared into his eyes. Hers were terrified.

“They'll be gone with the dawn, Senna,” he said quietly, “and never even think to look up. We're safe up here.”

“I know,” she replied, and the sadness in her voice came from the kind of deep reservoir only very old women should have had the time to dig. “Up here, I am safe.”

He tightened his hold on the knot of hair in his fist. “With me, ye are safe.”

Her thighs were trembling. “With you, I am safe.”

He dipped his head. Their foreheads touched. Just outside the line of trees, the army camped, coarse voices and weapons everywhere, like a foul river murmuring. The moon rose.

She finally moved, lowering her body, which of course she had to do. She could not hold herself up all night.

She slid her hips forward and back, rocking on him. That, she did not have to do.

His fingers tightened on her hips to stop her. “Senna—”

“I'm afraid.” Her voice was so low it was almost breath.

“I know,” he whispered back, running his hands over her cheeks, cupping her face.

“I do not like being afraid.”

Her hips rocked again and slowly, Finian became aware tears were slipping over his fingers, down her cheeks.

“Shite,” he rasped, and pulled her to him.

Slow and almost motionless, they rocked together, very slow. For a long time she just rested her forehead on his, and he kept his hands on her spine, and they moved, not wanting anything more than to just hold and be held.

But as the length of him was deep inside her, sliding over slippery, sensitive flesh, she started pressing down in harder thrusts, pushing for more. She didn't move faster—they dare not—just harder, more desperately, pushing with more force. She spread her legs as far as she could, pressed down as hard as she could, and it was not enough.

He lifted his hips ever so slightly, trying to meet her obvious, desperate need, but they couldn‘t risk any more movement than that.

“More,” she whimpered.

He gave a ragged, whispered laugh. “Jésu, Senna, my hands are tied here.” A tiny but vicious pump of his hip only made her writhe more.

“More.” She bent to his ear and begged, “I need more.”

His wide palm suddenly pushed her back a few inches. Dark and moonlit, his face looked dangerous as he met her eyes, his gaze predatory and appraising. He grabbed both her wrists and pulled them behind her back, held them locked in his grip.

The other hand he closed around her throat very gently but very powerfully, exerting just enough pressure for her to feel his restraint. Dangerous and erotic. Then he leaned forward and sucked her breast into his hot mouth.

She dropped her head back and moaned silently. Her hips slid on him, and with another small, violent shove up, he jammed himself farther up inside.

It was like he knew her body from the inside out, because the changed angle increased the feel of him, touching her high inside. He was pushing against shuddering, trembling flesh, a slow, torturous slide. Each small plunge tightened some silken cord that ran from her womb to her breasts, down the back of her legs and up her spine. It connected her to his pleasure.

He tightened his hold on her wrists and on her throat, his eyes never looking away, pressuring her, pushing her. Hot, flat jolts of energy shot though her. She whimpered and arched her back. He closed his teeth around her nipple and flicked his tongue, hard touches just shy of pain.

She leapt in his arms, quivering.

“Is this good to ye?” he growled.

“Aye,” she whispered. “More.”

“How much more?” he rasped.

“Don't stop. Much more.”

She heard a low growl, as if he'd turned animal, then, releasing her wrists, he sat up a little straighter and slid his hand down the sweaty curve of her back, over her bottom. Every movement was slow, torture slow, painful slow, safe, undetectable movements. He slipped his hand between her thighs, between his, to where they were joined. His fingertips circled through the slippery wetness, then he trailed them back and nestled them between the seam of her buttocks. Slow, never-stopping.

She whimpered, her forehead rolling on his shoulder. He nuzzled the tip of a finger between her smooth rounded cheeks and pressed up.

“Oh, sweet Lord,”
she exhaled in a hot rush, so he did it again, slid his finger up a little farther.

“Ohh,” she whispered in a choked voice, and Finian didn't know if it was pain or pleasure, or both.

“More, Senna?” he grated, and he almost didn't recognize his own voice, it was so clouded with violent passion. “Do ye want more?”

Her breath exploded out of her and her teeth closed on his shoulder as her hips slammed against him very, very slowly. His head was spinning now.

She leapt in his arms, quivering. Her knees pushed out, so she was sprawled against his chest. Her buttocks, soft and yielding, gripped his finger tightly as her body trembled and rocked.

“Do ye like this?” he growled.

She was sobbing against his shoulder, biting him, quivering, tiny, frantic shoves of her hips, opening her to him.

“Feel all of me inside ye,” he rasped.

His finger, slippery with her juices, pressed up a little farther and held there as she threw her head back in a silent scream. He pressed and released, steady, ever-more pressure on the sensitive opening of her, until his finger was inside her and he could feel the orgasm begin in her womb with his finger and his cock.

He locked his mouth over hers as they erupted together, her explosive orgasm clenching him in hard, rhythmic pulses as he released deep inside her, utterly silent but for her sobs, which he swallowed, and the words she was crying into his mouth,
“I love you.”

Later, when he could, when she was cradled in his arms, limp and sweaty, he lowered them by degrees to the floor of the deer blind and tugged her into the curve of his body. The army was almost silent now. Only a few small fires burned. A guard or two sat around them, desultorily on watch. No one else was awake but Senna and Finian, and an owl perched on the longest branch of their tree, blinking bright green eyes, waiting for unwary creatures to show themselves and become prey.

Some time later, she pushed up slightly and peered over her shoulder at him. Damp tendrils of hair curled beside her face, and her eyes were heavy lidded with passion. She looked exhausted and sated and magnificent.

“You heard, did you not?” she whispered. “What I said.”

He pulled her back down, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. He wrapped an arm around her belly and pulled her back into his chest. “Sleep if ye can. I'll keep watch. Tomorrow, we find a horse. We'll be at The O'Fáil's by nightfall.”

As if that would solve a single problem.