Unwanted (11 page)

He needed this moment to collect himself, to examine the turmoil tearing his insides to shreds.
 
This humble home, little more than a stable, had become something of a haven to him.
 
Here, he could be any simple peasant warming his family by means of productive gains.
 
He could be tending to the needs of someone who’d chosen to live with him.
 
A soft, willing woman, who’d let him into her heart, and her bed, for the pleasure of his company.
 
Not for his coin.

In this fantasy, when he turned to her, joy and contentment sparkled in her eyes untainted by violence and loss.
 
She would invite him to her.
 
Seduce him with that husky voice until they joined each other in that alien place where passion and emotion entwined.
 
A place he’d never known existed.

Until tonight.

Finn had never realized how entirely alone he was.
 
Though he resided among other men of his kind, they never accepted him.
 
Only a few Berserker bloodlines existed and they were all represented at the temple of Freya.

Yet no one claimed him as their issue, therefore he had no voice.
 
He had no family with which to dine.
 
No banner to display.
 

As a younger man he figured that if he’d outrun, outmatched, and outfought his brethren, they would clamor to add him to their ranks.
 
Instead, he unwittingly set himself as the default champion, one who had to be overthrown by any means necessary by a Berserker seeking to prove himself.
 

Life until now had been an incessant battle, his only human contact consisting of the impact of combat or the arms of a woman he’d paid for pleasure.

And none of that mattered anymore.

Finn refocused on the lilting melody emanating from the direction of the bed behind him.
 
Rhona
did sound contented, despite the uncertainty with which she treated him before the child had awoken.
 

Just yesterday, he would have yearned for his ill-fated battle, hoping to take one of his opponents into the afterlife with him.
 

But what about the two delicate creatures on the bed?
 
How could he ensure their survival?
 
Why did he even feel like it was somehow his responsibility?
 

Because in another life, it would be.
 
Were he anything but this, he would claim her as his own, and for once, he’d have a family with which to spend the Solstice holiday.

“The fire, it feels—”
Rhona’s
thoughts collided with each other as Finn’s head swiveled toward her from where he crouched, contemplating the blaze.
 
“Incredible,” she finished, lowering her eyes to the child latched at her breast.
 

She understood that if one dared to gaze at the sun, they were eventually struck blind.
 
And yet, the urge often proved overwhelming, such was the alluring beauty of the golden radiance in the sky.
 

Finn’s physical magnificence was equally awe inspiring, but likely held just as grave a risk.

A part of her still denied that anyone so flawless had wanted her.
 
Touched her.
 

Been inside her.
 

Warmth that had nothing to do with the glow of the fire spread through her limbs and she smiled down into the sweet face of the babe.
 
Tiny, feather-fine lashes rested on cheeks that needed to plump.
 
His pulls on her breast dwindled to intermittent as he drifted into slumber, but she couldn’t seem to put him down.
 
Instead, she caressed his unruly patches of downy black hair and savored the bittersweet ache in her womb.
 

“I just can’t believe someone would abandon such a precious bundle to the brutal winter,” she murmured.
 

“How do you know he was left?”

“There’s a convent to the south and east of here on Campbell land.
 
It is well known that Christian women from all over Scotland go there and pay to give birth to unwanted children.”
 
Rhona
shivered.
 
“It is whispered that many of the children meet such a fate, if their parents cannot pay for other arrangements.
 
A babe is left in the snow, as it is mostly painless to freeze to death.”

Finn grunted and spat into the flames.
 

“
’Tis
what I think of the practice as well.”
 
She pulled the lad free and situated the furs around her to cover her nakedness.
 
Leaning over to gingerly rearrange the makeshift cradle on the floor, she wondered what would become of the
bairn
.
 
Would the barbarian take him back with him to the North?
 
Did he expect her to care for him indefinitely?
 
He must know that this was no place to bring up a small child.
 

She looked up again at Finn, who watched her with a new intensity.
 
This time, a bleak desolation marred the sharp, strong angles of his face.
 

There it was.
 
His flaw.
 
An impenetrable casing of ice protecting a yawning abyss of pain.
 
 
Somehow it shone for a moment through a chink in the frigid armor.
 
 

He unfolded to his full height, and even still, her insides trembled, and she had to clench her thighs together.

He was not of this world, certainly.
 
Bestowed by an ancient Deity with a cruel and feral beauty meant to tempt and destroy.
 
Firelight licked his skin, inviting her to do the same.
 
It cast shadows into the deep grooves between his thick, corded muscles.
 
It burnished his flesh and hair with such a pure gold that he seemed to glow with some kind of divine light.

He truly was an angel.
 
Sent to consecrate her body and redeem her soul from the depths of her own personal hell.
 

Rhona’s
mouth flooded with moisture and she swallowed convulsively.
 
A renewed rush of liquid desire drenched her loins.
 

Finn’s nostrils flared and a growl escaped his clenched teeth, but he remained motionless, eyes filled with a primal need and something else that broke her heart.
 

Rhona
lifted herself to her knees, dropping the furs behind her.
 
She couldn’t tell if it was the warmth from the flames or the heat in his possessive stare that singed her naked skin.
 

Maneuvering to the edge of the bed, she knelt before him, her eyes never wavering from the dangerous, emerald intensity of his gaze.
 
 

“Come to me,” she beckoned.
 
She knew what this moist, needy emptiness was now.
 
And that only he could fill it.
 

He stepped to her, hands clenched into tight fists at his side.

As
Rhona
reached for the hastily strung laces of his
trews
, she vowed that though she’d promised herself to him for the night, this satisfaction belonged to her.
 
She wanted to explore his body as he’d done with hers.
 
To taste him.
 
To watch and feel the effects of the pleasure she was about to give.
 

There was power in this.
 
And she felt it coursing through her as she brushed the hard length of him through the soft animal skin.
 

A pained gasp escaped his lips and
Rhona
smiled, releasing the laces and unleashing his cock.
 

She’d almost forgotten how big it was.
 
How intimidating it could seem, jutting from a wreath of dark bronze hair, and every bit as immense as the rest of him.
 

Casting a glance back up at his face, she captured her bottom lip between her teeth enjoying the thrill of anticipation that coursed through her.
 

“You don’t have to,” he breathed.
 
“
Rhona
…”

She loved it when he said her name.
 
She loved that when she wrapped her hand around the thick base of his shaft, he hissed and every muscle in his body went splendidly rigid.
 

And she loved the slew of harsh, foreign words that ripped from his throat as she enclosed the blunt tip in her mouth.
 

He tasted good.
 
A mixture of salt and musk and something ultimately familiar.
 
Something altogether her very own.
 

Rhona
slowly worked her mouth past the ridge of his head and reached lower, opening her jaw wider to take in as much as would fit.
 
She used the moisture suffusing her mouth to ease her way, leaving as much of it on his velvety flesh as she could when she drew back.
 
 

Finn jerked and groaned, but still didn’t touch her.
 

The second time she used her hand to guide his length past her lips, inch by inch, sucking softly when she drew back.
 

He growled again.
 
This time it sounded like a warning.
 

Rhona
didn’t hurry, exploring his shaft with a rhythmic hand as she used her moist tongue to find sensitive veins beneath the thin skin.
 
Carefully covering her teeth with the fullness of her lips, she sucked him into her mouth and ran her tongue along the thin slit of his head that now welled with something slick and succulent.
 
 

A hand clamped behind her head, threading strong fingers through her unbound hair.
 
A fist closed around the one stroking his cock, gripping with a gentle brutality as he fed her its length.
 

Rhona
sucked it in greedily.
 
Eyes locking with his, she used her free hand to brace against his hip.
 
She set a rhythm of pulling him in deeply and sucking as she drew back.
 
The many inches that her mouth could not take, she stroked with her fist, palmed within his bigger, stronger hand.
 

He panted like a wolf after taking down a fresh kill.
 
He blessed her in his own language,
then
cursed her.
 
He moaned a prayer to his
Gods,
and maybe a few of hers as well.
 
His hand left hers to stroke her face, to touch her mouth where they joined.
To cup her jaw.
 

His expressions quickly varied from heart-rending tenderness, to lusty desperation, to a demanding snarl and back again.
 

When she used her tongue to swirl around his head in rhythm to her strokes he moaned her name.
 

“Stop,” he gasped.
 

Rhona
knew what was coming and she increased her pace.
 
She could feel it building.
 
Feel him growing larger in her mouth.
 
Feel the desperate pull of his muscles as his blood gathered to free him from the frenzy of his need.
 

“If you don’t stop, I—” A raw sound tore from deep within his chest and emerged on a curse.
 
His every muscle bulged and flexed before locking tight.
 
His cock jerked twice before long streams of his release pulsed into her mouth.
 

Rhona
opened to it, swallowing his pleasure.
 
Using it to further ease his way.
 

He’d thrown his head back, the muscles of his neck and jaw obviously battling to keep in a cry of release.
 
 
He was most beautiful this way.
 
A sleek, lethal beast incapacitated by her lips, a prisoner of the pleasure she drained from him.