Unwanted (3 page)

And demanded more.
 

She shrugged off the fur that protected her from his view and it pooled around her.

Finn forced a swallow around his dry tongue.
 

Apparently confident that she was shrouded from his view by darkness, she reached her free hand up to her shoulder to unlatch the buckle on her threadbare shift and let it fall to her lap.

Any other time, he would have been ferociously aroused by the sight of such full, creamy breasts.
 
In fact the sight of this woman, bared to the waist, ignited warm embers of desire low in his gut.
 
But a fascinated awe superseded the provocation as he watched her position the child at a plump nipple.

“Here you are,
sweeting
,” she murmured.
 
“This will keep you.”

Miraculously, the
bairn’s
angry squalls faded into a series of frantic grunts, an impressive sigh, and then blessed silence.
 

The miracle woman parted her lips on a soundless breath and closed her eyes, as though feeding the babe gave her great relief.
 

Would that he could incite such a response.

 
Finn balled his hands into a fist, feeling like a foul intruder on a soft and intimate moment.
 
But he couldn’t bring himself to look away, so he craned his neck to watch a ritual as old as time, but completely foreign to him.
 

The child had burrowed his hand into the generous flesh above where he took greedy pulls at her breast.
 
A little ring of moisture gathered at the corners of his mouth, as if he took more than he could swallow.
 
Now that the whelp wasn’t splitting his ears, Finn didn’t mind the look of him so much.
 
His eyes were too big for his skinny face.
 
All the babies he’d had chanced to see, which he had to admit hadn’t been many, were fat-cheeked and dimpled.
 

Finn frowned, a cold pit forming in his chest.
 
His nostrils flared and anger simmered to the surface.
 
 
How could someone just discard a helpless life such as this?
 
He wouldn’t let the boy starve.
 
The babe would be sheltered from the gnawing desperation of an empty stomach.
 
He’d never smell the scent of plenty and be denied because of the circumstances of his birth.
 
He wouldn’t have to fight the dogs for the scraps of a meal.

This Finn vowed.

“Where do you
hie
from, stranger?”
 
Her question surprised him.
 
He’d never conversed with a woman before.
 
He did little in the way of talking at all.
 
He had his sword.
 
And his axe.
 
He had the respect and fear of those beneath him and the derision of those above him.
 
What use was conversation in either case?

“North,” was the best he could come up
with.

Her eyes shifted restlessly and she chewed her lip.
 
It seemed as though his answer unsettled her.
 
“What brings you to
Strathlachlan
?
 
 
Are you here for the Solstice or perhaps for Yuletide?
 
Are you visiting someone?”

“I am duty bound,” he responded honestly.
 
To murder your Laird.

“Oh?”
 
A wet, sucking sound came from the bundle and she reached a hand in to make an adjustment.
 
“There are no markets or fishing this time of year.
 
All the animals are scattered to the valleys so you’re
neither trader, fish-monger, herder, nor farmer
.”

“I am none of those things.”
 
I am a death bringer.

She furrowed her brow.
 
“You are a soldier, then.”

“I am a warrior.”
I am a Berserker.
 

 
What was she doing to him? That voice.
 
It soothed him, absorbed him.
 
Piercing the shades of silver and shadow that was his perception of darkness, it wrapped about him like a velvet cloak.
 
It calmed the monster inside of him, stroking over his skin until he wanted to purr like a weak and sated kitten.
 

He was a warrior.
 

But
she
was dangerous.
 

Finn stilled as she lifted her free arm to her other breast.
 
She cupped the full weight gently, testing it with a slight squeeze, then feeling her way around the side, running a finger across the rosy nipple.

The chair’s arm split beneath his grip.
 

She paused, lifting her face blindly in his direction.
 
“Are you all right?”

“Aye,” he forced out.
 
Of course he wasn’t fucking all right.
 
Desire slammed into him with the violence of a war hammer, stealing the breath from his chest.
 
All the blood warming his body collected in his cock until it throbbed along with the desperate pounding of his heart.
 

 
Was this permissible?
 
Did it mean he was depraved?
 
There was a child between them, a helpless creature that she nourished with her body.
 
Why, then, did the sight suddenly inflame him beyond all reason?
 
Of course she had the most beautiful breasts he’d ever laid eyes upon.
 
And, granted, the sight of a woman fondling herself was a most luscious and fantastical thing to behold.
 
He realized she did it for practical purposes, safe in the assumption that she was hidden from his view.
 
She meant not to tempt or tantalize him, but here he was, tortured beyond his physical capacity.
 

The child let out a disgruntled squeak as she pulled him from her breast and readjusted him to the other side.
 

“Don’t you fret, wee one,” she murmured.
 
“There’s plenty to fill you.”

And I’ve plenty with which to fill you
, he thought, and ground his teeth together hard enough to make his jaw pop.
 

“What is your name?” she asked, turning her attention back to him.

“
Fionngall
.
 
Finn.”
His throat felt tight as he watched her eyes in the shadows.
 
He remembered their color in the candlelight, the same as the shifting northern lights of his homeland.
 
Prismatic and iridescent blues, greens, and
golds
accompanied by surprising hues spanning the entire spectrum.

A man could lose his soul in those eyes.
 

Her generous mouth lifted with amusement.
 
“That makes sense, I suppose.”

“How?”
 

“The meaning of your name.”

Finn’s brows drew together.
 
“I was not aware my name had meaning.”

“Of course it does, especially to me.
 
It means ‘fair-haired stranger,’ which you are.”
 
 
She smiled in the darkness, as though it was directed somewhere close to his shoulder.
 
“Every name means something.
 
Mine’s
Rhona
McEwan
, for instance.
 
Rhona
means ‘wise’ or ‘ruler’ though, sadly I am neither.”
 
She gave a wry laugh.

Finn’s mother had told Finn once that he’d been named by his father, before he discarded her to fend for herself.
 
His mother had hair the color of cedar barrels.
 
Finn knew all too well that he resembled his father.
 
She told him that through her tears while dragging him through the winter snows toward the temple of Freya.
 
His features had been the reason she’d abandoned him to his fate.
 
But a Gaelic name, one with
meaning
?

“
Rhona
.”
 
He forced the memory from his mind and tested her name on his tongue.
 
It tasted sweet and guttural.
 
Like mead and sex.
 
 
 

“Yes.”
 
Her voice sounded warmer than before.
 
Huskier.
 

“You have a man… a child?”
 
If she did, he didn’t provide her with much.
 
Finn frowned with disapproval.
 
And, where else would he be on a night like this if he could be wrapped in her soft embrace and nuzzled against those generous breasts?
 

He could smell the dramatic shift in her emotions before she spoke, and knew he’d made a grave mistake in the asking.
 
 
 

***

Rhona’s
stomach gave a jolt of unease that spread through her bones.
 
She had nothing.
 
No one.
 
But how did she say so without leaving herself utterly vulnerable?
 
Of course, she was naked to the waist and completely at the mercy of the warrior.
 
If he wanted to hurt her at any time, she would be powerless to stop him.
 
Even if
Eoghan
still lived, she doubted that he would have been much of an obstacle to whatever this giant of a man took into his head to do to her.
 

Swallowing her apprehension, she decided that she’d sealed her fate one way or the other by opening her door to him.
 
She had a job to do and he had gold.
 
If he paid her, she could survive a little longer.
 
For whatever that was worth.

“I have no husband or child,” she told the darkness, squeezing the wee babe closer to her bosom.
 
“I mean, I-I did, but I don’t anymore.”

“Why?”
 
His cold voice held no trace of sympathy
nor
cruelty.
 
In fact, the inflection rarely changed.
 
It unsettled
Rhona
, who was used to passionate, raucous Highlanders with booming, melodious brogues.
 
This man, Finn, was stoic and cold, leaving no hint to his emotions, or that he even possessed any.
 
He seemed as arctic as the far-north from whence he traveled.
 
And just as lethal.

“They were… taken from me,” she answered carefully.
 

“When?”

“A year or so past.”

“How?”
 
His voice sharpened with something akin to interest.

Rhona
blinked, shocked at his audacity.
 
Did he want to rip open the scars of wounds too freshly healed?
 
Was he truly so pitiless, or just ignorant?
 
 

“What bold questions you ask.”
 
She threw as much censure into her voice as she could muster.
 

He was silent a moment.
 
When he answered he sounded truly puzzled.
 
“It takes boldness to defeat your enemy or challenge your leader.
 
It takes no boldness to ask a woman a simple question.”

So it was ignorance, then.
 
Did he ever have a lot to
learn.
 

“In any case,”
Rhona
continued sharply.
 
“It’s not a story you want to be hearing.”