Unwanted (6 page)

“
Shh
.
 
You’ll wake the baby,” he whispered back, reluctantly setting her wriggling form on the cold floor.
 
He liked the feel of her curves through the furs so much that images of what they would look like bared to him formed in his mind.
 
“Don’t move,” he commanded her.

“I can’t see anything.”
 
She sounded nervous.
 
“What are you doing?
 
Lighting a candle?”

Finn walked to the bed where the baby slumbered in his bindings.
 
His tiny eyelids fluttered with dreams and his nostrils flared with every deep, strong breath.
 
Finn lifted the tiny creature and cradled him in one arm and retrieved his fur cloak with his free hand.
 

“Did you really offer yourself to that man for firewood?” he murmured, staring down into the cherubic little face while he crafted, out of his cloak, a warm bed for the babe between the mattress and the wall and stabilized on each side by his sword and axe.
 

It took her a long time to answer and he worked silently until she did, tucking a flap of the softest snow-hare’s fur over the child.
 

“His last delivery was my final payment for feeding his child.
 
He was late and I went three days without a fire.”
 
Her voice dared him to pass judgment on her, but a small thread of pleading wound through her words.
 
“I was freezing and desperate.
 
You can’t know what it was like.
 
I would have done anything.”

Finn tensed.
 
He did know what it was like.
 
He’d suffered for days and days naked and shivering without hope for any warmth.
 
But he was a Berserker, bred in the frozen north to withstand the cruelest of elements.
 
It was impossible for him to freeze to death.
 

 
She
was a delicate woman.
 
And he should have beaten the woodcutter to death regardless of a thought for his family.
 

Finn stood, satisfied the child was secure and warm.
 
“How desperate are you now?”

“I beg your pardon?”
 
Despite her incensed question, her face told him that she knew exactly what he was asking.
 
Her full lips drew into a tight line, like it was wont to do when she was displeased.
 
Her brow fell, creating two distinct grooves over the bridge of her pert, lightly freckled nose.
 

Finn’s heart started to pound.
 
Much like the moment before swords clashed in battle, a release of excitement surged through his veins.
 
“What if I paid you enough gold to keep your fire lit for a year?”
 
He stalked her in the darkness, watching emotions play across her beautiful face.
 
Her cheeks were more gaunt than he liked, her eyes plagued with dark circles and wariness.
 
Even so, she had somehow become the most desirable woman he’d ever known.
 

“For what?” she breathed.
 

He came to stand in front of her, studying the subtle curves of her features painted in shades of grey by his night vision.
 
“You know for what,” he murmured.
 
“For a night with me.”

She suddenly became very still and Finn knew he was a merciless predator who’d ensnared a soft, tempting rabbit.
 
She was in his clutches and his instinct demanded that he make a meal of her.
 
Blinking rapidly, she took in a few frantic gulps of air.
 

“Why?” she finally asked with a tremulous breath.
 

Her question astounded Finn.
 
“Because I want you.”

A hand fluttered to her chest, then smoothed her riotous curls, and landed in her mouth so she could chew at a nail.
 

“You really don’t,” she informed him, fisting her restless hand in her fur.
 
“If you’re looking for… amusement, you can search out Francesca at the tavern.
 
She’s lithe and exotic.
 
Italian, I believe.
 
I’ve heard she’s very skilled.”

“I don’t want Francesca.”
 
Finn had availed himself of a hundred Francesca’s in his lifetime.
 
He didn’t want lithe and exotic.
 
He wanted curved and freckled.
 

“
Brigid
, then.”
 
She reached for her hair again, twisting a curl around her finger while she shifted from foot to foot.
 
“She’s very young and known for being adventurous.
 
Golden-haired, like you.”
 

“I don’t want
Brigid
.”
 
Resourceful tenacity and gentle warmth appealed to him much more than youth and daring.
 
As for golden-haired, Finn found that he’d lately developed an acute interest in red.
 

“Well, you don’t want
me
,” she backed up a bit, forgetting to whisper.
 

He blinked.
 
“I don’t?”

“No.”
 
Her voice
trembled
the more adamant she became.
 
“You look… well… like you do.”
 
Her arm swatted toward him as though his features were a major fault.
 
“And I look like… I look like I’ve birthed a child.
 
Like I’ve been nursing for a year.
 
It makes no sense.”

She had it right on the last point.
 
The woman wasn’t making any sense.
 
“The woodcutter offered for you,” he countered.
 
“Why deny me?”

“Did you not hear what I said?” she asked.
 
“I’m accessible to men like James MacLauchlan but not to someone like you.”
 
She pressed her palm to her forehead and let out a beleaguered sigh.
 
Even in the darkness, he could detect the flush in her skin as it glowed brighter.
 

His eyes narrowed as Finn bristled at her rebuff.
 
Crossing his arms over his chest he asked, “And what am I like?”
 

“Like Adonis, that’s what,” she spat.
 
“Like… the most… Well you’re so… bloody
handsome
.”
 
She finished the word with a gesture of exasperation.

A grin spread across his mouth.
 
She thought him handsome, did she?
 
Most women did, seeking to entice him by means he often found humiliating for all involved.
 
But Finn hadn’t thought he’d appealed to
Rhona
.
 
She’d barely even looked at him.
 
She’d gone out of her way to make it clear she didn’t desire him to touch her.

“And?” he prodded, waiting to hear her reason for them not to lie together.
 

“And nothing,” she groaned.
 

That was it?
 
Because he was handsome?
 
Perhaps the woman was a wee bit daft.
 
Beautiful.
 
Adorable when piqued.
 
But maybe a little off.
 
“You find me handsome, so you refuse to lie with me?”

“I didn’t
refuse
.
 
I—”

“So you
will
let me have you.”

“
No
.”
 
She frowned.
 
“Maybe.
 
I don’t…”
 
Two delicate fingers pinched the bridge of her nose.

Were all women this confusing?
 
How could he be so thoroughly aroused by her and completely puzzled by her at the same time?
 
Was this some kind of female game she played?
 
Finn acutely felt every bit of his ignorant upbringing in this moment.
 
Aside from his mother, he’d never even met a woman until his seventeenth year when Olaf had taken him to meet with some whores who would chance to service a Berserker.
 
Sometimes it was dangerous work.

Finn took a steadying breath.
 
Rhona
had just said ‘maybe’, and that meant he had a chance.
 
“You.
 
Don’t.
 
What?” he asked very slowly.

“I don’t want you to make this offer for me out of charity or pity.”
 
She dropped her hand.
 
“I know how wretched I am.”

Aghast, Finn thought she must have been joking, but for the earnest, vulnerable anxiety shimmering through the tears in her eyes.

He reached out and grasped her hand, placing it on his
trews
where his cock strained against its bindings, desperate to be between her legs.
 
Between her fingers.
 
Her lips.
 
Her breasts.
 

“Does
this
feel like pity to you?” he hissed.
 
“Because I’ve been in this way since you opened your door to me.”
 

Rhona
struggled to free herself from his unyielding grasp.
 
The length he pressed against her hand flexed and pulsed, its heat radiating through the thin barrier as though to entice her to accept it.
 
She’d never felt a man so large before and his proposition suddenly frightened her.
 

His groan sounded more like a growl, rumbling from a place so deep that it reverberated in the air around her.
 
Unwittingly, her own body responded with a soft, moist ache that bloomed in her belly.
 

“Does it?” he murmured against her ear.
 
His nearness was overwhelming.
 
Even in the darkness she had a sense of his sheer size and unmitigated power.

“No,” she whispered, going still in his grip.

“What does it feel like?”
 
His voice had changed again.
 
Tinged with something wild and dangerous, it slid along her senses like a bedeviled snake.
 
Tempting and repelling all at once.
 

“Like… need.”

“Let me have you,” he pressed.
 
The growl was deeper now, an inch away from a command.
 
“I vow not to leave you wanting.”

Rhona
didn’t understand what he meant.
 
Was he promising to pay her?
 
She was always wanting.
 
Wanting for shoes.
 
Wanting for warmth or food.
 
Wanting to seek some idle pleasures instead of devoting her every hour to work and survival.

“I—” With the gold he offered she would not want for any of those things.
 
Not for a long while.
 
She knew she could survive the brief and vicious moments of his pleasure.
 
She just couldn’t seem to bring herself to say the words.
 

Finn released her hand and wrapped strong fingers about her shoulders.
 
“I’ll not be a brute to you, not like those fucking soldiers, if that’s what you’re afraid of.”

Rhona
pulled her hand away from his sex.
 

She wasn’t afraid.
 
God help her, she should be.
 
But she’d survived it before.
 
And from what she remembered, before a man took a woman in violence, there was a subtle shift in the air between them.
 
An evil, expectant vibration that should be a warning yet was so easy to ignore.