Chapter 19
“You’re sure you don’t mind posing while I draw you?” Genevieve asked as she opened the large pad of paper and set it up on the table easel.
“I dinna ken why ye wish to draw me, lass. But ye’ve more than earned the right, since ye’ve fed and housed me these past weeks.”
“You’ve brought me fish twice this week, and those mushrooms you harvested were perfect in the salad we ate tonight.”
Finn looked up, and she caught the slight wrinkle of his nose.
“Man cannot live by meat and potatoes alone, Finn. And don’t say you aren’t a man because, you’re ninety percent man and ten percent stubborn. When you become human again, you’ll have to start eating healthier, otherwise you’ll have a heart attack before you’re forty.”
She pointed the stub of charcoal at him. “And don’t say you’re already older than that.” She glanced at him, studying the line of his jaw. “How old were you when you were…changed?”
“A score and eight years. An old man for my time.”
“Twenty-eight is young today. I’ll be twenty-seven my birthday.”
“Ye would have been thought left on the bush if ye were rich. Comin’ from a landed family, yer husband would have been chosen for you and you would have been breeding within the year at seven and ten. Had ye had no resources, ye would have been thought a prize because ye have a skill, and the lads would have been hangin’ about ye, tryin’ to woo ye to the altar for what ye could bring to the marriage and the marriage bed.”
“Seventeen, huh?” She felt a wave of outrage for those poor girls, forced into marriage with strangers while little more than children.
His accent always thickened when he spoke of his home. “Aye. Sometimes older, if their athair was not in need of a political ally or some other binding situation.”
“Why didn’t you want to settle down with one of the landed ladies? I’m sure your cousin could have found you one.”
“Aye, he did, a widow, but she died of consumption before the banns were posted.”
He spoke with such dispassion, she looked up. “I’m sorry, Finn.”
“Life was harder then, and there were no medicines to fight disease as there are now. I would have been a better man then, had she lived, and I took responsibility for her property and the needs of her clansmen.”
“You’re always so hard on yourself, Finn. You patrol my property to make certain I’m safe. You bring me freshly caught fish, mushrooms, wild greens. You make me feel… cared for.”
“I am always at your service.” He raised his yellow-green gaze to her face. The look in his eyes had heat flaring in her face and an empty ache erupting between her thighs.
“I need to concentrate on this. After you’ve been stationary all day, I don’t want you to have to remain so any longer than necessary. I’ve been working from photographs, but this will finish off my ideas.”
He inclined his head, but continued to gaze at her for several moments.
She focused on the paper before her as though it were the most important thing on earth. After half an hour, she said, “You can get up and move around now if you like.” He rose and stretched. The wide, muscular depth of his chest captured her attention, and her mouth dried. He turned to look over his shoulder at her, almost as if he knew what she was feeling, and she dragged her attention back to the drawing. She finished it and tore it off the pad, set it aside, then turned her attention to the portrait beneath.
She had to learn to suppress these feelings. For several days, things had been awkward between them. She was wary of standing too close, for fear of giving away, yet again, how she felt when he was near. Every look seemed awkward.
“Will ye show the drawing to me when ye’re finished?” he asked.
“Yes. Of course. Will you mind if I use it for my next sculpture?”
His brows shot up. “A sculptural copy of me like this?”
“No. It isn’t. It’s as I see you. As you really are.” She put several finishing touches to the portrait, got up, and moved back to view it from a distance.
“I would like to see it before I say aye or nay.”
“All right.” She turned the full-length drawing of him so he could see it. It was of a man fighting his way free from an invisible force. The plan was to add the polymer clay to it as she had Mai’s. Mai’s was about looking to the future. Finn’s would be about fighting against an internal prison and overcoming it. The clay would bond one arm to the base, and the other would reach upward, with tatters hanging from it.
She glanced up to find him studying the drawing. “Ye have left the face blank, lass.”
She tore the portrait she’d done off the pad and placed it carefully atop the other drawing.
He stared at the portrait and his throat worked as he swallowed. “’Tis a face I was once familiar with. How can ye see what was in the past?”
“I know human anatomy and bone structure. Yours is camouflaged, but it’s there.”
“Is it the man you see in the picture ye care about, or the monster before ye, Genevieve?”
“You are one and the same, Finn.”
“Nay. The monster is inside me as well as my shell. I have instincts I work to suppress that no human should have to fight. The urge to hunt, the need to pursue.”
He limped closer. She had filed on the second nail from his big toe, and she should never have done it. He wasn’t healing as he had always done before, because she interfered with the magic.
Why did his yellow irises so often appear green in the glare of the patio lights? Were his eyes changing color?
“The need to take.”
The way he said it brought visions of him coming inside her, and triggered an immediate, visceral reaction.
His hands closed over her arms, and he brought her up against him, the hard heat of his erection pressed against her. He bent his head and nibbled at her throat, using careful pressure while his tongue feathered her skin.
Genevieve moaned his name aloud. She ran her hands up his back to the joint of his wings. Finn shuddered and dragged in a breath. He thrust against her. “If I bite you, if I make love with ye, the magic may pass to ye. I winna let that happen.”
He dragged himself out of her arms and took two stumbling steps back, then turned and raced across the yard, his wings spread. He rose into the sky.
Genevieve bent at the waist and braced her hands on her knees. She couldn’t drag in enough air. Every muscle in her body jerked and shook with frustrated need. Her empathic abilities seemed to be growing stronger. She read his need, and it blended with hers as soon as she touched him. She bit her lip and forced herself to stand.
As her passion cooled, the urge to weep overwhelmed her. Crying wouldn’t help, but now they’d opened this box, there’d be no way to close it.
Miranda and Juliet had to help them.
* * *
Finn circled the house until he was sure Genevieve was inside where she would be safe. Seeing her drawings had only brought back what had been and what might never be again. They were trapped in an impossible situation. He wanted her with an ache that never eased. But he was afraid of losing control with her. The monster wanted to nip her. The man wanted to kiss her senseless. It was too much for him.
And now his blood was cooling, the impossibility of their situation continued to torment him. To have her so close and not be able to woo her like a normal man… And knowing how she saw him now made it more difficult.
If he had the power, he would leave for a time, stay away until they had their emotions under control. But leaving was not an option. He was tied to the blasted base, which called him home every morn. To destroy it might be the answer, but to do so might unleash things neither of them could control. He could not take the chance.
And even if he could…he would not have the strength to leave her. She had captured him as thoroughly as the magic that surrounded him.