She was going to be the death of him, Finn thought as he made his way toward the village. He could lie with the best of them; in fact, it was his stock in trade as an undercover operative for the Committee. He never told the truth if he could help it – a lie was always easier to slip out from under, and he never forgot details.
But he never lied to himself. He’d been hoping he’d dazzle her with his newly-shaven glory. Even without a mirror he knew what he looked like – his face was just one of the many weapons in his arsenal, and he knew how to use it.
It had worked, sort of. Beth Pennington had taken one look at him and freaked. He would have preferred a gentle swoon, accompanied by a “take me now” but he’d always known it wouldn’t be that easy. She wouldn’t be that easy. Beth had a wall around her taller and stronger than any of the ones he’d erected around himself. He ought to respect a fellow refugee, leave her in peace.
Dylan was right, of course. He was going to look for a piece of tail to work off his three-year drought, and Sister Beth wasn’t the woman to take care of him. He needed a professional.
It was a ten-minute walk back to the tiny cantina, and all the way he thought about exactly what he would do. Maybe start with a blowjob to take the edge off him, then follow with a more leisurely straightforward fuck, and then they could start getting creative. Problem was, each act he envisioned wasn’t with some raven-haired beauty. It was with a pale blond almost-nun.
By the time he reached the cantina he was disgusted with himself. The place was crowded, and showing himself among so many people wasn’t necessarily the best idea, particularly since he recognized one of Redbeard’s men busy flirting with one of the barmaids. He skirted the building, then moved through the village, silent as a shadow, until he found the right vehicle for their needs.
He wasn’t going to take some farmer’s beat-up truck, or the desperately-needed transportation belonging to some poor family, not if he could help it. But parked a ways back from cantina was an SUV that, while showing wear and tear, was too expensive a vehicle for anyone in this village to afford. The bullet holes in the rear fender clinched the deal. Just to make certain it would be there when he needed it he removed the distributor cap, closing the hood silently again, and then made his way back to the mission.
It was a beautiful night. The moon was half-full, giving his excellent night vision a clear view of the surrounding area, and he sank to the ground at the wall beside the entrance to the mission, his gun across his lap, ready for use, forcing his body to relax. It didn’t matter that he’d rather be pumping away between the thighs of the barmaid that Redbeard’s man would probably end up with. It didn’t matter that even more, he wanted to spend all his pent-up energy and frustration on Beth Pennington’s pale body. He did what he had to do.
Long ago he’d perfected his almost trance-like state, where he could keep watch and still manage to rest his body enough to keep going. He felt his heart rate slow, his breathing drop, and he waited, through the long, silent night, protecting his little chickens.
It felt . . . odd not to have someone watching him. To know he could simply walk away, go wherever he wanted to go, with nothing holding him back but the two helpless children now sound asleep in the old mission.
Except that Beth was neither a child, nor helpless. She didn’t have the skills to survive this place, but she would go down fighting if it came to that. But now, he didn’t want to be thinking about Beth Pennington going down. He was already horny enough.
The night birds kept him company. They’d always avoided the rebel encampments, scared away by the noisy men and their raucous laughter. He’d ended up killing Izzy, and he shouldn’t feel regret. Izzy had raped and murdered a nun, caused her to die in shame and agony. But he’d also been as close a friend to MacGowan as any of them. Hell, he’d learned long ago that things weren’t black and white but shades of gray, and no one was all bad or all good. He did what he had to do at the time, and hoped karma sorted it all out in the end.
What kind of karma had brought him Beth? She wasn’t his type – he liked them busty and enthusiastic, not thin and aristocratic. He kept telling himself it was simply because she was the first woman he’d seen in God knew how long, but he knew that was just an excuse. He could have had fucking Angelina Jolie there and he wouldn’t look at her.
Which meant, of course, that he needed to keep his bloody paws off her.
Easier said than done, mate, he told himself. And he leaned back, lowering his eyelids to mere slits, and kept watch.
He didn’t wait for the sun to rise. The first light was just coming over the trees beyond the mission, and he could picture the blue Atlantic Ocean waiting for them. He’d gone back for the SUV, returning the distributor cap, and driven it back to the mission, filling the back of the vehicle with anything he thought might come in
handy. He woke Dylan up first, sent him to make coffee and get ready to go, and then he moved toward Beth’s room.
Loud knocking would do the job. She’d probably locked the door, maybe even dragged stuff across it if she had any sense. He turned the handle, and it opened far too easily.
The room was warm, and she lay stretched across the twin bed. She was wearing men’s boxers and a tank top, standard sleepwear for women who weren’t interested in seduction, and her silver blonde hair was spread out over the pillow.
He stared for a long moment. He could see her breasts quite clearly through the thin fabric. A B-cup, when he preferred a generous handful. Pale nipples, when he liked them dark. And he would have given ten years off his life to yank up that damned shirt and put his mouth on them.
She stirred, curling up protectively, her hand tucked under her chin, as if she knew he was watching. She had long, gorgeous legs – he had no complaints there. Fuck, who was he kidding? He had no complaints about any part of her. Except the fact that she was so patently out of his league.
She opened her eyes then, startled, looking up at him, and again there was the frisson of shock. He wasn’t sure what caused it, he only knew it couldn’t be good. And the sooner he got to civilization and got righteously laid, the better.
“Time to go, Sister Beth,” he said. “The car’s waiting.”
“Car?” Her voice was soft and raspy with sleep, another fucking turn-on. “You were able to borrow a car?”
“Stole it might be a little closer to the truth. You want to travel like that?”
She flipped the cover over her body, a little too late since he’d already had plenty of time to peruse her. “Just give me a minute.”
“Okay.” He didn’t move.
“Alone.”
He gave her a mock salute. “At your command, Sister Beth.” And he wandered off, leaving the door wide open.
Dylan’s abilities with making coffee equaled his social graces, so MacGowan kicked him out of the kitchen, making it himself, so strong it would strip paint. No milk in the place, but there was a jar of creamer on the shelf, and he shoved enough in the thermos to turn the color a dark brown instead of the deep black. By the time Beth appeared she looked like a different woman. Her blonde hair was braided in a thick braid, and she had a kerchief tying it back, disguising its color. She wore some kind of long, drapey skirt and a loose shirt, and he suspected this was what she normally wore down here. He decided to wait to tell her what she was going to end up in.