.…They floated off, the old man watch­ing them, until the tall grasses swal­lowed him up and the only thing to be seen was the blue bowl of sky over­head and the long, stretched-out wings of a dark, silent cor­morant that flew overhead.

“Ye gave him coin, Senna?”

At Finian’s sharp tone, she looked down from the bird and nodded.

He snorted. “Ye bribed him.  That’s some­thing ye Eng­lish like to do.”

She smiled loftily.  “And some­thing you Irish like to do is assume you under­stand the mean­ing of things.  ‘Twasn’t a bribe.  And if you can­not see that, then I am at a loss for words.”

He snorted again.  “That’ll be a rare day in hell.”

“You snort a lot,” she pointed out.

He stared at her a moment. “Lay down.”

“Par­don?”

“An Irish­man in an Irish cur­ragh float­ing down an Irish river with some sacks of skins is unre­mark­able. You, remark­able.  Lay down.”

“How am I remark­able?” she asked, already low­er­ing herself.

He just looked at her.

She did insist on dis­rob­ing some­what, rather than lying in wet leather, to be baked like a cod in the sun.  He grum­bled but she was res­olute, and in the end, he relented.

A brief, dis­agree­able delay ensured while she hitched and yanked at var­i­ous wet clothes, dis­rob­ing down to a thin linen shift.  Then she lay down in the bot­tom of the boat.

The sacks of skins were not down here with her, she real­ized irri­ta­bly, although they would have made per­fect bed­ding.  But they were perched on one of the benches, sun­ning them­selves.  Finian’s sword and their bows were down here with her, of course, out of sight but within easy reach.  They were also pok­ing her.

She shuf­fled around, try­ing to fit into the small cramped hull of the boat, which really was not where she wished to be, not even for a moment.  She was squished, her arms tight up against her sides.  It smelled.  It was mucky.  It was wet.  Wet, as if a small pond held a secret life down in the basin of the curmudgeon’s cur­ragh, or what­ever Fin­ian had called it.

“Fin­ian.”

“Mmm?”  He didn’t look down. His pow­er­ful arms kept up a pow­er­ful pad­dling. She could almost feel the river skiff­ing away not an inch below her body.

“I think there’s fish down here.”

“Aye.  This river has many fish.“

“No.  I mean this boat.  Swim­ming around me.  Lit­tle tiny fish.”

His lips twitched.

“If you laugh, I’m get­ting up,” she warned.

“Hush.”

His voice went low, his lips hardly moved.  Senna barely had time to feel a tin­gle of con­cern before she heard the shouts of men at the shore­line.  The rush of panic came fly­ing for her.  Eng­lish men.  Eng­lish soldiers.

They’d been found.

“Heave to, Irish­man,” one of them called out.

He shoved the pad­dle deep into the mud of the riverbed and let the side of the boat run up against it, which halted the boat from sail­ing any fur­ther down the river.  That would have send the sol­diers shout­ing for what­ever oth­ers were bil­leted the peo­ple and patrolling the lands.  It also kept the cur­ragh from going any closer to the shore.

“That looks like O’Mallery’s nub­bing boat,” one of them said.

“That’s so,” agreed Fin­ian eas­ily.  “He let me use it.”

“Not bloody likely,” mut­tered the shorter one.  They two stared at each other a moment, then the taller one snapped his fingers.

“O’Mallery don’t let his wife use his pecker,” he snarled.  “Come over here, boy.”

Senna could almost feel Fin­ian rise up in the boat, like a huge wave uncoil­ing itself close to shore.   She grabbed his boot.   His steely gaze snapped down.  With her free hand and an open palm, she mimed going softly down.  Sit down. Calm down.

“For me,” she whispered.

He fired his gaze up again.  “There’s only two of them,” he said, not mov­ing his lips.

“Now there’s only two.  You said you enjoyed trav­el­ing with me.  I enjoy trav­el­ing with you, too.  Let it be.”

“I’ve let a lot of things be,” he said in a calm voice.   That wor­ried her.  He was still squint­ing towards the shore­line, locked, she sup­posed, in mor­tal eye com­bat with one of the Eng­lish soldiers.

“I’ll make it up to you,” she whis­pered urgently.

The faintest trace of a smile lifted his lips.

“Boy, git over here.”

It was the whisky that made her do it.  She was fairly cer­tain of that.  The hot, unin­hibit­ing flush the drink sent cours­ing through her limbs had floated into her brain and melted her wits.  She took a deep breath, gave her tunic a harsh tug so it tore fur­ther, expos­ing an immod­est curve of her breasts and the val­ley between.  Then she sat up.  Unrav­eled, really.  Or so she hoped.

Finian’s jaw dropped, but not so far as the Eng­lish boys’ did on the shore.

“Jay-sus,” one of them shouted, jump­ing back like she was one of the fey.

She smiled as lustily as she could and draped her arms over Finian’s thighs, her face close to his groin, imply­ing she’d only just lifted her mouth away.

“Hello lads,” she said in a con­fi­dent, husky tone.  Or did it sound like she was sick?  She didn’t quite know how to sound seduc­tive, and hoped this would do.  “Are we dis­turb­ing ye?”

She tried to sound as much like Fin­ian as pos­si­ble, the rock­ing cadence of his speech, the slow, seduc­tive drop­ping off of the sharp-pointed ends of words, as if he couldn’t be both­ered to stab so at a thought.

The sol­ders gaped.  Fin­ian adapted imme­di­ately.  He put his palm lightly but pos­ses­sively around her back of her head, exert­ing the slight­est pres­sure down­ward toward what was now, par­tially, male hard­ness.  He was obvi­ously famil­iar with the move.   A firey rush shot through her womb.

The young sol­diers turned their gapes to Fin­ian, then burst out laugh­ing, smack­ing each other on the arms, as if they’d accom­plished some­thing great and wor­thy.  All pre­tense of being on oppos­ing sides fell away in the face of get­ting a woman to suck their—.

Hold­ing her stiff smile, Senna said through unmov­ing lips, “You may attack them now.”

Fin­ian didn’t remove his gaze from them either.  “Shall I?  And yet, we like trav­el­ing together.”

“Let’s try this, then.”  She lifted her voice.  “Have a good day, boys,” she sang out, lift­ing one hand to wave.  “I know we will.”

Fin­ian yanked his pad­dle up and the boat began slip­ping down­stream.  One of the sol­diers stepped for­ward, a con­cerned look on his face.  He raised a hand, half roused from his voyeuris­tic stupor.

Again, it was the whisky that gave her the idea.   She was quite cer­tain this time.  She bent her head and brushed her lips over Finian’s groin.

The sol­diers’ jaws dropped, then they exploded into whoops and hollers, jump­ing up and down like they were stand­ing on a bee­hive.  Noth­ing about Fin­ian changed, except that his hand tight­ened almost imper­cep­ti­bly around the back of her head.

The river sluiced away beneath the boat, but Senna, to her own dim sur­prise, did not move.  The bot­tom of the boat was hard and wet, with a rib bone-like wooden beam jut­ting into her as she knelt between Finian’s legs.  But she didn’t feel a thing.

All she was aware of was Finian’s hard thighs beneath her arms, the heat of him engulf­ing her chin and cheeks, the hot sun on her top of her head, and the pow­er­ful ris­ing up of his chest.  His was look­ing down, his face shad­owed, his dark eyes unread­able but watch­ing her.  And his hand was still on the back of her head.

She must never drink whisky again.

 

What Peo­ple Are Saying …

 

“An unusual set­ting and a plot that comes out  of the mists of leg­ends, Kris Kennedy has penned a rare, steamy, and adven­tur­ous love story with a wild Irish war­rior and a strong woman of sub­stance … Sexy and adven­tur­ous, intrigu­ing and ten­der, The Irish War­rior is a page-turner full of high drama and hot, steamy romance!”

~Jill Bar­nett, New York Times Best­selling Author

 

“Medieval romance fans rejoice–Kris Kennedy cap­tures the essence of old Ire­land in this engag­ing, sexy adven­ture!  The rich and imag­i­na­tive story pulled me in from the start, and an irre­sistible hero kept me riv­eted till the end.”

~Veron­ica Wolff, National Read­ers Choice Award Winner

 

“A sexy, taut medieval that’ll leave you breath­less and want­ing more. Kris Kennedy has penned the per­fect roman­tic adven­ture, over­flow­ing with gor­geous imagery, rich char­ac­ter­i­za­tion, and an unfor­get­table voice.  Pas­sion­ate char­ac­ters caught in a page-turning adven­ture … I devoured every deli­cious word.”

~Rox­anne St. Claire, NYT best­selling author of the roman­tic sus­pense ‘Bul­let Catcher’ series

 

 

the story

Inhib­ited, accountant-minded Senna de Valery comes to Ire­land to final­ize a deal that will save her fal­ter­ing wool busi­ness. What she gets instead is a cun­ning Eng­lish lord with dan­ger­ous ulte­rior motives.

 

Forced to rely on her wits, not her ledgers, Senna frees an Irish war­rior chained in the pris­ons, and together they flee across the war-torn land of medieval Ire­land.  But Fin­ian O’Melaghlin is much more than a charm­ing, rogu­ish war­rior.  He is coun­cilor to his king, on a grave mis­sion to recover mil­i­tary secrets, and has a dan­ger­ous agenda of his own.

 

Nei­ther is pre­pared for the pow­er­ful forces arrayed against them …

 

Nei­ther can resist the fiery pas­sion ignit­ing between them …

 

Nei­ther can imag­ine the sac­ri­fices they will face, nor the choices they will be forced to make …

 

King and out­laws, weapons and war: Can love indeed tri­umph over all?