Scythe & Sparrow: BONUS CHAPTER

I roll to a stop in the driveway and cut the engine to my Triumph, sliding my helmet off. I let it rest on the tank and brush the hair from my eyes so I can stare up at the house. Our house. Fionn’s and mine. The first house without wheels that I’ve ever owned. It needs some work, don’t get me wrong. The deck might as well be ripped right off. We’ll start demolishing the kitchen this weekend. Fionn was so eager to get the renovations started that he and Lachlan painted our bedroom and replaced the carpet the day after we moved in. I can even hear the drill upstairs now, its whine floating down to me through the open guest bedroom window. There’s music too. And Fionn’s off-key singing. I smile and swing my leg over the bike. We’ve only been here a week, but it already feels like home.

When I enter the house, it smells like fresh paint and sounds like happiness. Barbara wakes up and stretches, half in and half out of the wooden box Fionn built for her next to the brick fireplace. I set my helmet down and then give her a scratch, lingering for a moment to look at the photos he must have unpacked today to set on the mantle. Some of my circus family. Some of Rowan and Lachlan. One from our first Annual August Showdown almost a year ago, Rowan’s face a sickly shade of green from the poster paint that took a week to fade completely. And then there’s one of my favorite photos, the biggest of the bunch. I pick it up, and smile down at our kiss, frozen in time. It’s a photo from our wedding last month at Covecrest Cottages in Maine, the same place where we reunited. The place where it felt as though a last invisible thread pulled closed around a wound that took months to heal.

I run my finger over the glass that covers our faces. And then I set it back on the mantle. I don’t linger, not when Fionn belts out the lyrics to “Don’t Stop Me Now” by Queen as loud as he can upstairs.

I’m trying to sneak up the stairs, but I don’t know yet which steps creak and which ones don’t. Despite taking it slow, the fourth one is loud enough that somehow it alerts Fionn to my presence. I don’t know how. It’s as though his time with Leander has awoken a sixth sense that’s been dormant for too long. The door to the guest room flies open, and a moment later, Fionn is standing at the top of the stairs with a drill in his hand and a grin on his face.

“Hey,” he says, taking his phone from his pocket just long enough to turn off the music. “Were you trying to sneak up on me?”

“Maybe just a little,” I reply, and his eyes brighten as though he’s proud of himself for stopping me before I even got close. “How the hell did you hear me?”

Fionn shrugs and closes the distance between us, not stopping until he reaches the stair above mine. He leans down to press a kiss to my lips. That sense of home only weaves tighter around me. The scents of sage and paint and mint. His warmth, his touch. His taste. The way his fingers caress my cheek and tangle in my hair. Our first kiss on the stairs. Fionn draws away but keeps me close, pressing a kiss to my forehead.

“I have something for you,” he says, still close enough that I could count every shade of blue in his eyes.

“What is it?”

“A late wedding present.” I tilt my head and he grins. “It’s a show, not tell, kind of thing.”

In a flash of motion, Fionn has picked me up and turned to deposit me on the step above him. In the next breath, his hands are covering my eyes.

“I thought you said show.”

“It’s still a surprise. And not easily wrapped.”

I grab the railing, and with Fionn’s hands still over my eyes, we make it to the landing and turn in the direction of the guest room. “What if I don’t like it?” I tease as we stop at the door.

“Well, it’s not really the kind of thing I can return.” Fionn lifts one hand away just long enough to turn the handle. The hinges creak as he pushes it open with a foot and then guides us over the threshold. “You ready?” I nod. “Three … two … one.”

He lifts his palms away and I blink as I take in the room.

There are no pictures or paintings. No dressers or desks. No bed. There’s only one thing in the room. A single piece of furniture.

The sex swing.

I cackle a laugh and take in the finished project, a black crocheted piece suspended from a painted wood frame bolted into the ceiling. It looks suspiciously like an oversized plant hanger. “That is amazing.”

“All credit to the Suture Sisters. They helped to work out the kinks in the design.”

I snort. “Yeah, I bet Maude led the charge on that one,” I say as I walk closer to inspect the finer details of the stitching. “Did Bernard make the frame?”

“He sure did.”

“It’s epic.” I stare up at the hooks as I tug on the swing. “Think it’ll hold?”

“Only one way to find out.”

Fionn’s arm slides around my waist. His warm breath cascades across my neck between slow and luxurious kisses. “What do you think, Mrs. Kane?”

Goose bumps ripple across my skin. I close my eyes and smile as I raise an arm and run my fingers through the short hair at the nape of his neck. “I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of that.”

“Tired of what? Kisses? I hope not,” he says, pressing another lingering kiss to the juncture between my neck and shoulder.

“No. Of you calling me Mrs. Kane.”

A rumbling hmm vibrates against my flesh. Fionn’s fingers trace the sliver of skin at the edge of my shirt, then land on the button, slowly pulling it undone. “I’ll never get tired of it either,” he says against the shell of my ear. I shiver as he frees the next button. “Mrs. Kane.” He frees another button, letting his touch graze my navel in a slow caress. “You are so beautiful, Mrs. Kane. Your skin is so soft.” His tongue traces a line up the length of my neck. “You taste so sweet. If only you knew the things I plan to do to you, Mrs. Kane. How I plan to devour you.”

My breath shudders. Another button is pulled free. Then another. Another. In moments that seem to pass too quickly and yet not quickly enough, the shirt is sliding off my shoulders, falling to the hardwood floor. My bra is next. My jeans and panties. Then I’m standing naked, the weight of Fionn’s ravenous gaze resting like a veil on my skin. I turn just enough to watch him reach behind his shoulders to pull his shirt off.

“Turn around, Mrs. Kane,” he says, his voice husky with lust. I do as he asks, turning to face him. He doesn’t come closer as his eyes trail the length of my body. They drag down my chest, past my navel, slowing over the narrow patch of hair at the apex of my thighs. I feel his need in every inch of skin his gaze consumes. Only once his attention has returned to my face does he step any closer. “I’ve been waiting to try this swing for so long.”

“How long?” I ask as he lifts me with one arm, positioning the swing with his free hand.

Fionn chuckles as he sets me on the suspended yarn, and with just a little adjustment and a pause to ensure it’s safe, he takes a step back. “Since you first brought it up.”

A theatrical gasp passes from my lips, but Fionn hardly notices. Half of his focus is on my ankle as he slides it into a crocheted cuff, the other half on my pussy. “You were thinking about me in the sex swing at the Suture Sisters meeting? You scoundrel.” Though we both smile, the amusement between us doesn’t linger in the air, burning away in the heat of desire.

“From the moment you said it, I couldn’t get it out of my head.” Fionn slips my other ankle into the second cuff, and then I’m bared to him, my legs spread wide. His eyes stay locked to mine as his warm palm slides up my calf, skimming over the scar from the night we met before pausing there. He kneels between my thighs. My breaths come in pants. He blows a thin stream of air across my folds and I shiver, my fingers tightening around fistfuls of soft yarn. “I imagined you just like this.” A slow lick passes over my center. “Spread open for me.” Another caress of his tongue. “At my mercy.” A lingering kiss. “Ready to be tasted.”

I open my mouth, about to beg for more, when he seals his lips over my clit. My words dissolve into a moan. His tongue teases and circles. He kisses and sucks. He grips my thighs, imprinting his touch on my flesh. He feasts on me.

When I tilt my head back and close my eyes, Fionn growls against my pussy, nipping my clit with a gentle bite that’s soothed with a kiss when my attention snaps back to him. As soon as it does, he smiles with approval, never breaking his gaze from mine. It’s wicked. It’s decadent. It’s perfection. And when he slides two fingers into my pussy and pumps them in a building, quickening rhythm, it’s an unraveling. My fingers tangle in the yarn. I whimper and beg. I come apart, suspended in a moment of ecstasy that seems like it will never end. He draws out my pleasure, savoring it. I feel like a delicacy in his hands, and he doesn’t stop until I’m a mess of unsteady breaths and surging heartbeats.

“I like the swing,” is all I can manage when I feel confident that I can make words a few moments later.

Fionn huffs a breath of a laugh, swiping his palm across the arousal glistening on his face. “I think we should still continue some testing. Best to be sure,” he says as he stands, slipping the cuffs from my ankles. With his eyes fused to mine and a rakish grin lifting one corner of his lips, he unbuttons his jeans and tugs them over his hips with his briefs, freeing his erection.

“You’re probably right. We should be sure to fully quality control the prototype before we make version two.”

“Version two?” Fionn asks, and I give him a sage nod in reply as he lifts me from the swing just long enough to flip me over. My sweat-slicked belly and chest lie on the black yarn, my ass facing Fionn, my legs dangling off the edge.

“I figured we could try making a few,” I reply as his palms caress the backs of my thighs and the globes of my ass. “Maybe start a collection.”

“I love the way you think, Mrs. Kane.” Fionn glides the crown of his cock over my folds before notching it at my entrance. I look up as he tangles his fingers into the crocheted yarn, gripping it in tight fists. With a swift tug, he brings the swing toward him, sheathing his cock with my pussy. I gasp. He rumbles a growl. For a breath, we don’t move. “And I fucking love the way you feel,” he grits out.

And then he fucks me.

His hips slap my ass with every deep thrust. I swing forward and back. Forward and back. Over and over. Pleasure is already coiling deep in my core with every stroke that glides over my inner walls, my body still sensitive from his touch yet ready for more. And he gives me everything. He slows when he knows I’m coming close to unraveling. He quickens his pace when the orgasm seems like it might slip from my grasp. He teases me with shallow motion and lavishes me with rocking thrusts. And when I’m nearly mindless with need, I slide a hand beneath the bottom of the swing and swirl my fingers over my clit.

“Please,” I beg, desperation filling that single word.

His words are a strained and gravelly whisper when he says, “If you want me to fill your pussy, Mrs. Kane, you’re going to have to come on my cock first.”

As soon as those words leave his lips, I fall apart. Moaning. Begging. Clenching around him. Blinded by stars. Every muscle winding tighter and tighter until it feels like I dissolve.

With a roar, Fionn slams into me as deep as my body will take him. His strokes become unsteady as he empties into me, but he doesn’t pull away, not until he’s sure every last drop of cum is spent inside me. And we stay that way for a long moment. It’s not until my skin starts to cool beneath a sheen of sweat that he steps back and slides free of my pussy.

“Goddamn, Rose,” he says, lifting me from the swing to set me on my unsteady feet. “The swing was better than I imagined. What did you think?”

“I think …”

I trail off as we both look down at my body. My skin is imprinted with a beautiful pattern of stitches that we’ve both had a hand in making. It’s a web of memory. A map of our history in my flesh.

When I look up and meet Fionn’s eyes, I smile. And then I take a step back toward the swing, gripping onto the ropes of yarn to hop back onto the seat.

“I think we should keep testing it out,” I say with feigned innocence as I spread my legs. “Just to be sure.”

Fionn’s grin grows wicked, his eyes dark. He rests his hands on my knees, spreading them wider. His palms slide up my thighs, painting them with the arousal that coats my skin. He steps closer, leaning down until his lips are only a thread’s width from mine.

“Whatever you say, Mrs. Kane,” he whispers.

He kisses me. He doesn’t stop. The minutes and hours fall away. But each moment etches a map deep beneath my skin.