The Irish Warrior (12 page)

“Ye gave him coin?”

At Finian's sharp tone, she looked down from the bird and nodded.

He snorted. “Ye bribed him. That's something ye English like to do.”

She smiled loftily. “And something you Irish like to do is assume you understand the meaning of things. 'Twasn't a bribe. And if you cannot see that, then I am at a loss for words.”

He snorted again. “That'll be a rare day in hell.”

“You snort a lot,” she pointed out.

He stared at her. “Lie down.”

“Pardon?”

“An Irishman in an Irish
curaigh
floating down an Irish river with a sack of skins is unremarkable. Ye, remarkable. Lie down.”

“How am I remarkable?” she asked, already lowering herself.

He just looked at her.

She did insist on disrobing somewhat, rather than lying in wet leather, to be baked like a cod in the sun. He grumbled but she was resolute, and in the end, he relented.

A brief, disagreeable delay ensued, wherein she hitched and yanked at various wet clothes, disrobing down to a thin linen shift. Then she lay down in the bottom of the boat.

The sacks of skins were not down here with her, she realized irritably, although they would have made perfect bedding. But they were perched on one of the benches, sunning themselves. Finian's sword and bow were down here with her, of course, out of sight but within easy reach. They were also poking her.

She shuffled around, trying to fit into the small cramped hull of the boat, which really was not where she wished to be, not even for a moment. She was squished, her arms tight up against her sides. It smelled. It was mucky. It was wet. Wet, as if a small pond held a secret life down in the basin of the curmudgeon's
curaigh
, or whatever Finian had called it.

“Finian.”

“Mmm?” He didn't look down. His powerful arms kept up a powerful paddling. She could almost feel the river skiffing away not an inch below her body.

“I think there's fish down here.”

“Aye. This river has many fish.”

“No. I mean this boat. Swimming around me. Little tiny fish.”

His lips twitched.

“If you laugh, I'm getting up,” she warned.

“Hush.” His voice went low, his lips hardly moved. Senna barely had time to feel a tingle of concern before she heard the shouts of men at the shoreline. The rush of panic came flying for her. Englishmen. Soldiers.

They'd been found.

“Heave to, Irishman,” one of the soldiers called.

Finian shoved the paddle deep into the mud of the riverbed, keeping the boat from sailing any farther, which would have sent the soldiers shouting for whatever others were billeted on the people and patrolling the lands. It also kept the
curaigh
from going any closer to the shore.

“That looks like O'Mallery's nubbin' boat,” one of them said.

“That's so,” agreed Finian easily. “He let me use it.”

“Not bloody likely,” muttered the shorter one. The two stared at each other a moment, then the taller one snapped his fingers.

“O'Mallery don't let his wife use his pecker,” he growled. “Come over here, boy.”

Senna could almost feel Finian rise up in the boat, like a huge wave uncoiling itself close to shore. She grabbed his boot. His steely gaze snapped down. With her free hand and an open palm, she mimed going softly down.
Sit
down,
calm
down.

“For me,” she whispered.

He fired his gaze up again. “There's only two of them,” he said, not moving his lips.

“
Now
there's only two,” she whispered. “You said you enjoy traveling with me. I enjoy traveling with you. Let it go.”

“I've let a lot of things go,” he said in a calm voice. That worried her. He was still squinting toward the shoreline, locked, she supposed, in mortal eye combat with one of the English soldiers.

“I'll make it up to you,” she whispered urgently.

The faintest trace of a smile lifted his lips.

“Boy, git over here.”

It was the whisky that made her do it. She was fairly certain of that. The hot, uninhibiting flush the drink had sent coursing through her limbs simply floated into her brain and melted her wits.

She took a deep breath, gave her tunic a harsh tug so it tore further, exposing an immodest curve of her breasts and the valley between. Then she sat up. Unraveled, really. Or so she hoped.

Finian's jaw dropped, but not so far as the English boys' did on the shore.

“Jay-sus!” one of them shouted, jumping back as if she were one of the
fey.

She smiled as lustily as she could and draped her arms over Finian's thighs, her face close to his groin, implying she'd only just lifted her mouth away.

“Hello, lads,” she said in a confident, husky tone. Or did it sound like she was sick? She didn't quite know how to sound seductive, and hoped this would do. “Are we disturbing ye?”

She tried to sound as much like Finian as possible, the rocking cadence of his speech, the slow, seductive dropping off of the sharp-pointed ends of words, as if he couldn't be bothered to stab so at a thought.

The soldiers gaped. Finian adapted immediately. He put his palm lightly but possessively around the back of her head, exerting the slightest pressure downward, bringing her lips just slightly closer to what was now, partially, an erection. He was obviously familiar with the move. A fiery rush shot through her body, down to her womb.

The young soldiers turned their gapes to Finian, then burst out laughing, smacking each other on the arms, as if they'd accomplished something great and worthy. All pretense of being on opposing sides fell away in the face of getting a woman to suck their—.

Holding her stiff smile, Senna said through unmoving lips, “You may attack them now.”

Finian didn't remove his gaze either. “Shall I? And yet, we like traveling together.”

“Let's try this, then.” She lifted her voice. “Have a good day, lads,” she sang out, lifting one hand to wave. “I know we will.”

Finian yanked his paddle up and the boat began slipping downstream. One of the soldiers stepped forward, a concerned look on his face. He raised a hand, half roused from his voyeuristic stupor.

Again, it was the whisky that gave her the idea. She was quite certain this time.

She bent her head and brushed her lips over Finian's erection.

The soldiers' jaws dropped, then they exploded into whoops and hollers, jumping up and down like they were standing on a beehive. Nothing about Finian changed, except that his hand tightened almost imperceptibly around the back of her head.

The river sluiced away beneath the boat, but Senna, to her own dim surprise, did not move. The bottom of the boat was hard and wet, with a rib bone-like wooden beam jutting into her as she knelt between Finian's legs. But she didn't feel a thing.

All she was aware of was Finian's hard thighs beneath her arms, the heat of him engulfing her chin and cheeks, the hot sun on the top of her head, and the powerful rising up of his chest. His was looking down, his face shadowed, his dark eyes unreadable but watching her. And his hand was still on the back of her head.

She must never drink whisky again.

“I'm feeling reckless,” she murmured. Reckless indeed. She felt like she was flying.

“That is a very bad idea,” Finian replied tightly.

He took a moment to say it, trying to compose himself, but every moment of looking at her unraveled him further. Her hair was still damp, tangled and drying in small, dangling curls, like a rainstorm of burnished amber gemstones beside her face. Her lips were plump and wet, and her mischievous eyes worried him. He removed his hand.

“A very bad idea,” he said again.

“But there it is,” she replied. Was that a smile underlying her words? Was the clerical virgin from the English Midlands teasing him?

No, he thought gloomily. The sharp-witted goddess who'd freed him from prison was teasing him.

“Don't, Senna,” he said in a warning tone.

“But…why not?”

“Ye're playing with fire.”

“Maybe I want to play with fire.”

“Then ye'll get burned.”

“What if I kissed you?” she asked in that low, sultry voice.

As far as he could tell, Senna was no maven. She did not use her body for much beyond getting her quill-holding fingers from one contract to another. Surely, she did not
negotiate
with it. When she spoke in this husky-throated manner, she was probably just being innocently aroused, and discreet.

It sounded like she was sending him sex on her tongue.

“If ye kissed me, Senna,” he ground out, “I'd lay ye out on the grass and have ye howling to the sky, if all the soldiers in Ireland were riding for us.”

She blinked. Her mouth rounded into an
‘O.'
Then she said it. “Oh.” She sat back at the other end of the boat.

“Are ye still feeling reckless?” he asked with grim satisfaction.

She stared out at the shoreline, at the passing trees and meadows. She shook her head.

“No. Yes. I mean, yes. I'm feeling highly reckless, but recklessness has not served me well.” He held his silence, thinking she'd probably never acted reckless in her entire life. “It doesn't seem the best of plans, does it, to go about being reckless?”

He disagreed. He thought it a fine, fine idea, perhaps the best in years. But all he said was, “Then see ye don't toy with me, Senna. I'm not a boy.”

“I didn't think I was toying.”

He started paddling. “Now ye know.”

“Now I know.”

The autumn sun was feisty, hot and bright. It was like a golden stage. It shone behind her so brightly it was as if she were floating in gold,
was
gold. She turned to him and he felt desire pulsing off her, onto him.

“And yet, Finian, I feel
quite
reckless.”

He set down his paddle very deliberately. How was a man to fight this knowing innocence?

“Really?” he ground out. Her face flushed. His heart slowed into a hot-rushing, sluggish beat. “I wonder.”

“What?” Her voice was unsteady, but her eyes were locked in his: she wanted what he had.

He went hard like he hadn't in a dozen years. It was the waiting. The torment of wanting her all this time and not being able to have her. (
It hasn't been fully three days
some dim recess of his mind pointed out.) There was nothing special about her or the arousal she conjured, he assured himself. Just a woman with a staggering mind, a blade-sharp wit, and a body men would lick dirt to touch.

“If I asked ye to do something,” he said in a low voice, “would ye do it?”

“Aye,” she exhaled.

“Run yer hand up yer leg.”

A hot whimper trailed out of her. She looked down at the hand she had draped over one knee. So did he. Her fingers fluttered, then she trailed them up her inner thigh so slowly he could count to ten. It was the only way to avoid complete embarrassment, counting was. One of her feet slipped forward, and she braced it against the rib bone of the hull. He felt himself slipping into the churning vortex of lust.

She stopped her lazy travel north just below the juncture of her legs. Her slim fingers hung there, knuckles slightly bent, in what he knew would be hot space, high and tight between her thighs.

He raked his gaze up her body, which was now slouched back against the prow of the
curaigh,
her forearm draped over her belly, her lips parted, her eyes waiting for him.

“Now what?” she asked breathlessly.

A taunt, a test, a true question? And if he answered, then what? Take her virginity and break her heart? Because that is all he had in him. He was capable of nothing more.

He smashed his fingers through his hair and almost dropped the paddle. He grabbed it just before it fell in the water.

“Now, naught, Senna.”

She struggled to sit straight. “What?”

He started paddling. “Sit back. Note the view.”

“But—”

“And put them on.”

“What?” Confusion marked her voice. “Put what on?”

“Every stitch of clothing you've got. And possibly a few of mine as well,” he added in what he hoped was a firm, no-negotiation tone. But with Senna, he was discovering, one did not necessarily get what one demanded with one's tone.

“Oh, but Finian,” she protested, plucking at the damp, bedraggled rags barely reaching to midthigh. A feminine, curving midthigh he wanted to run his hand up, then his tongue. “Everything's wet, and—”

“Put them on, or I'm not going any farther.” He also wasn't looking at her. How long could he do that, avoid making any sort of perusal of his companion's burning, curving, pink-tinged body? A minute? Three?

They had
days
ahead of them. He groaned.

With poor grace, she flung her leather tunic and leggings on, grumbling. “Is that better?” she demanded when she was done.

How would he know? He wasn't looking at her.

“'Tis just fine,” he replied shortly.

She sat back in the boat and glared.

Senna's glare, set and determined though it was, did nothing to provide a solution to a single problem in her life.

She did not want to be in this boat, with Finian, not being touched. And that was madness. But something burning and insistent had been awakened inside her. She wanted him to touch her, was practically desperate for him to. That was ridiculous, and perhaps a sign of impending madness.

Rather than worrying about Rardove and his fury, or how she was going to salvage the business, or how she would ever get home again, and if she had a home to go to in any event, all her attention was focused on how to get this Irishman to touch her.

Damn the whisky.

All ensuing conversation that afternoon was desultory at best. It was getting toward late afternoon, and Senna was dying of heat. And boredom. The boat slipped effortlessly down the small river. Whenever a village appeared in the distance, Finian made her lie down flat again. Otherwise, nothing happened. Little talking, no touching.

And the heat.

“Can we pull to the side?” she suddenly asked.

He looked at her like she was mad. “Are ye mad?”

“No,” she said very slowly, as if he might not understand. “I am mucky. I stink.”

He sniffed. “Ye do not.”

“
You
are mad. I've been lying in muck.”

“We're not stopping.”

Dour silence ensued.

“Just the tunic,” she said a few moments later.

The look he shot her was murderous. “Don't.”

She threw him an equally warning glance. “I'm hot.”

And it was hot. At this moment, probably the hottest it would be all day.

“Don't.”

“I'm dying of the heat.” She panted plaintively, to demonstrate. He looked away.

“If any of yer clothes come off, Senna, I'll roll ye into the river.”

She gasped. “Just the—”

“Splash,” he said ominously. She drew back. “Have ye learned to swim yet, in the last hour or so?”

“Of course not.”

“Then sit back.”

“I am sitting back,” she retorted sourly.

“We'll be there soon.”

“Not soon enough.”

He snorted.

“You really do snort a lot.”

“Ye complain a lot.” He nailed her with a look. “Why don't ye take a rest? Lie on the packs, close yer eyes?”

And my mouth,
she thought crossly.

In the end, they came to an unpleasant compromise, wherein Senna perched over the side and washed her face and armpits and everything she could reach by pulling things aside but not actually disrobing, while Finian sat backward in his seat and stared the other way up the river.

“I'm all done,” she sang out.

He turned in stony silence and started paddling again.

An hour later she was about to go mad. No conversation, all heat and boredom, and the only reason her belly wasn't heaving dried bread and cheese over the side was because the tributary they traveled was shallow. The boat didn't rock much, and rarely shot forward with any purpose. But still, it was
not
comfortable.

She shifted for perhaps the hundredth time, levering herself to her knees, which creaked. She groaned and put a hand to her spine. “I think my back is broken.” Her leg suddenly cramped. She grabbed it and tried to pound it out.

“Do ye know much about boats, Senna?” he asked sharply.

She eyed him. The cramp was fading. “Some.”

“Then ye likely know ye don't want to fling yourself about like you're in a mad carol. Or you'll tumble over the side.”

“Is that so?” she said derisively.

A cool Irish gaze sailed over her. “Keep jostling and ye'll find out.”

She looked at the shoreline, sliding away. “I can help, you know.”

He barely glanced at her.

“With paddling. I can take a turn.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because we're almost there.”

In her excitement at the news, she tried to turn and kneel on the small wooden bench. The boat eddied around a little cove just then and hit a rock, unseen beneath the water. The boat lurched, Senna slid off the bench, her foot hit the bottom of the old boat hard, in just the right way, and went straight through into the water below.

She stared in shock at her left foot, now ankle deep in the river. Water began burbling up through the hole. She turned and looked despairingly at Finian.

He had risen, paddle in hand, staring if possible with even more shock than she at the damage done. The small craft was starting to take on a significant amount of water.

“Finian,” she said helplessly.

He sighed and, dropping the paddle, gently extracted her foot from between the shards of wood. The water was filling up the craft as high as their ankles. Finian bent and lifted her into his arms, which sent a
whoosh
through her belly. Then he swung her over the side.

“No!” she cried out, grabbing for his shoulders.

“It's not so high as yer knees,” he said gently enough. “And the shore is not ten feet away.”

She let go, and that's how she came to be standing in two feet of water, a pack on her back and a sack of otter hides clutched in her hands, when the English soldiers appeared at the edge of the forest.