She was lying to herself and she knew it. It hadn’t been anything that pure or intellectual. It had been raw need. Maybe this was simply the female variant of the male’s need for sexual conquest in the face of death. Maybe a female needed to be taken.
She moaned, burying her face in the pillow. She was full of shit. Temporary insanity, brought about by stress. Temporary insanity that was lingering. She was shivering, but her skin felt hot inside her clothes, and she wanted his hands on her. She, who had never really wanted anyone in her life, wanted MacGowan to finish what he started.
It would pass. That was the definition of the disease – it was temporary, and it would be over. In the meantime, seasickness seemed an almost welcome diversion, and she looked forward to it.
Six hours later she’d changed her mind. Six hours later she would have put up with the tender attentions of the real Alcista rather than the dry heaves that were plaguing her. She could hear the rain beating against the porthole, feel the rough seas bounce beneath them, and she stifled the moan that was a far cry from what she’d been feeling earlier. She’d managed to drag herself to and from the bathroom at regular intervals, using the wastebasket as a substitute in between, but she wasn’t sure she could manage the crawl back into the berth. She lay on the floor, panting, hating the ocean, hating MacGowan, hating everything under the sun.
She heard the soft knock at the door, not for the first time, and she ignored it as the ship took a sudden lurch. “Sister Beth,” came Finn’s laid-back voice. “We’re going to have to talk about it.”
“Go away!” She kept her voice steady. At least she’d had the sense to lock the door. MacGowan was not the epitome of sensitivity, and she doubted he’d listen to polite excuses. The locked door would take care of it.
“Now, darlin’,” he said in a deliberately beguiling voice that she didn’t believe for a minute. “You can’t just keep ignoring it. Let me in, we’ll talk about it, and then we never have to think about it again.”
Fat chance, she thought, curling in on herself, her arms clasped to her stomach. Talking would only make it worse. She was perfectly capable of ignoring those moments in the horrible apartment, pretending it never happened. At least she would be once she was on solid land again, once she was able to even contemplate eating something, once she’d gotten away from the ridiculous temptation that was Finn MacGowan.
In the meantime she was going to suffer in private. As long as she could flush the toilet and splash her face and mouth with cold water she’d survive. Seasickness never killed anyone.
“Let me in,” MacGowan said again, his voice no longer so beguiling. She didn’t bother answering. Let him see what it was like to be ignored.
He shook the door knob. “Are you going to open it?”
There was no missing the threat in his voice. “Go fuck yourself,” she said, burying her face against the scrubbed wooden floor.
“Suit yourself,” he said, and she breathed a sigh of relief. One that she choked on, when he proceeded to slam his body against the door, breaking the flimsy lock so that the door was flung open.
“Jesus H. Christ, Beth,” he muttered, kneeling down beside her. He scooped her up in his arms, and the sudden move only made her dizziness worse. Lucky for him her stomach was empty, or she would have proceeded to decorate him with its contents. He sat down on the bed, still holding her, and she was too sick and weary to fight it. She simply sank against him, her bones melting as every last bit of energy left her.
“Why didn’t you say something, you idiot?” he whispered in her ear.
“Wouldn’t do any good,” she muttered. He smelled good. Better than she did, at least, and she breathed in his scent. Sun-warmed skin, clean male sweat, something that was indefinably Finn MacGowan. She felt rather than heard someone else enter the room, and for a moment she stiffened, suddenly back in that filthy apartment, until she heard Dylan’s voice.
“Dude, is she okay?”
“Just seasick. It’ll pass.”
“No, it won’t,” she moaned.
“She’s not gonna die, is she?”
“Yes,” she said.
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“No.” Heartless bastard. “Once we get some food in her she’ll feel a thousand times better.”
“I hate you,” she said weakly.
“Of course you do, baby,” he said with disgusting cheer. “Go see if you can get me some chicken soup, some crackers, and a bottle of whiskey.”
“Should she have whiskey on a bad stomach?”
“The whiskey’s for me, mate.”
She was too tired and sick to fight him. She settled back against him, closing her eyes, as she felt him stroke her hair, her back, murmuring incomprehensible things that somehow managed to soothe her. She even let him pour some soup down her throat, a little bit at a time, followed by dry crackers.
“Enough,” she muttered, and he leaned over, placing the food on the table.
“Now you need sleep, love,” he said.