The Irish Warrior

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.