Light on the Water Read online

  “No!” She kicked desperately forward, horrified. Blood spewed into the water, drifting in rolling clouds of ruby tendrils. She kicked faster. “No, no, no!”

  And then he was there, meeting her in a clash, kissing her fiercely. Yes. She kissed him back, seeking reassurance. His teeth were still sharp, nipping at her lips, his skin still grey and thick. But now legs were entwining with hers, and a penis, nestled in fluff, drifted across her upper thighs.

  It didn’t drift for long. It thickened, hardened, lengthened. When he wrapped her up tight in his arms, her breasts singed against his chest, and his penis burned against her belly.

  “That hurt you!” she gasped, as his lips travelled up her cheek, across her brow.

  “For you, to have you, that was the most beautiful pain of my life.”

  He leaned in and kissed her, so gently, lips brushing and mouthing. She hung on the currents, tipping, swaying with him. Warm, and wet. Safe, and sexy. Lips curving in a smile, she kissed him back, swirling her hips against him. Tilting her shoulders so that her breasts rubbed him, her hands traced him from crown to shoulder.

  Following his arms down to his hands, she gently pulled on his wrists, lifting them from her waist, and set his hands back on her chest. He floated his palm just over the tips of her aching nubs, the heat of his palms sending spirals into her gut. Sighing with relief, she pressed one more kiss to his lips, his chin, licked the angle of his smooth, salty jaw.

  “Jand, remember how you asked my forgiveness?”

  He licked her lower lip, nodded, licked it again. “I’ll be gentle. I can be gentle.”

  Her hands went down his stomach, and folded over his erection. She softly danced her fingertips over the blazing heat of him. The veins, the fur at the very base, the hard ring of muscle at the top.

  “Well, the thing is…”

  She closed her left hand hard around the thickest girth at the base, putting her palm against him. The fingers of her other hand gently patted over the taut crown. She watched his eyes flutter shut.

  “You don’t really need forgiveness.” She rotated her wrist, chafing him, torquing him a little bit.

  His head jerked back on a neck gorgeous with strands of muscle.

  Her pinkie settled into his tip, probed, pressed, wriggled at his hole. “I liked it a lot. The most beautiful pain of my life.” Giving his words back to him, her nipples throbbed, breasts suspended in the water, waiting for his webbed and taloned hands to return.

  She spun her lower wrist the other way, squeezed hard. Her right hand pinched his tip, her fingertips closing in a coordinated group, echoing his touch. A guttural moan ripped from his throat. Even through her assault, his palms gently floated over her nipples.

  “Jand, I want more. I want all of you, and all you have to give.”

  His head snapped forward and his mouth closed around her throat. She felt the drag of his pointed teeth, the lash of his tongue, the soft heat of his lips along her collarbone. His hands closed hard on her breasts, fingers sinking deep into her softness. She flattened her hand on his crown, rubbing the tip of him with her cupped palm as her lower hand went even lower. Reaching below his soft globes, she grasped them, rolling them firmly.

  Her fingers had just brushed the gap behind his balls when his fingers found her nipples. His hips jerked wildly under her hands, his teeth stung the column of muscle under her ear. But her nipples had finally caught the fire he’d been throwing at her since the storm. His mouth captured her ear, tongue thrusting deep, while his fingers flexed, twisted, jerked her tits hard. Burn, baby, burn. So good. One hand clamped on his thick cock like a vice while the other anchored on his rock-hard ass.

  His hands grabbed at hers, wrestling them behind her back. One hand clamped hard on both wrists, while the other directed his penis into her folds.

  “Ahhhh!”

  The shock of such an intimate touch was the lighting of the match. Her fuse was going, and she wasn’t stopping. She threw her legs up and around him. Feeling how much narrower his body had become, she could really cinch her legs tight. He got his tip set to her hole, and pulled on her arms, on her hip where he held her with his other hand. Her back bowed.

  The head of him pushed into her. “Yes! Jand!”“Sid.” With that one word he folded his body and shoved himself deep.

  “Hunh!” The shock of his presence matched the stunning knowledge that she was finally complete. No other man had ever been such a perfect fit. He was so hot, and water was not a lubricant. That first drive had a lot of friction. The burn of it sang right to her clit, which met his stomach hard. Suspended from his hips, hanging in the water, bowed back by his grip on her hands, she writhed.

  “Too much?” he gasped. His thumb swept the edge of her ass.

  “Again!”

  “Yes!”

  Hearing her own word from his throat clenched her belly so that she ground down around him, clamping hard.

  He didn’t stop again. He churned so fast in her that froth bubbled up around them. His hand left her wrists to grab both her hips, his cock wild and furious inside. Her slick coating sank down from inside her, smoothing his way. Pure, singing pleasure.

  Every slap of his body drove the breath from her. “Hunh!”

  Her nipples drove into his chest. “Hunh!” Her grunt sounded softly into the enclosed pocket of air around them.

  Her toes ached from holding her feet clenched tight. “Hunh!”

  His ass was incredible, flexing beneath her fingers. “Hunh!”

  His mouth closed over her throat again. She felt his teeth set in her skin. “Hunh!”

  His breath was warm, his tongue pressed firmly against the beat of her pulse.“Hunh!”

  On every retreat, she swore she could feel his crown dragging out through her flesh.“Hunh!”

  His stomach was so hard, her clit mashed into him with every strike. “Hunh!”

  The light kept changing on her view of his shoulder, shimmering, darkening. “Hunh!”

  So sweet, to be filled, so hard, so deep. Surrounded by wet. “Hunh!”

  He adjusted his grip and the pull of his hands opened the cheeks of her ass. “Hunh!”

  The water was just slightly cooler there, enough to notice. “Hunh!”

  He moaned, and the rumble went into her throat from his mouth, to her breasts crushed between them, to her straining clit. “Hunh!”

  He came, seizing her in a full sweep of his arms, clutching her tight. His teeth spiked into her skin, his mouth sucking hard, and his hips convulsed in the cradle of her thighs, chafing her clit, grinding it. The rigid man in her arms was a miracle to her body and soul.

  “Jaaaaaaaaannd!”

  He threw back his head and roared. The water-muffled sound sent her into another orgasm and she writhed, clutching him tight in the small of his back, her feet twined around his thighs.

  When the pleasure settled, her legs unwound, her arms fell away. His hips flexed into hers, as he continued to pulse. She floated, in utter peace. The silence was complete, and the water warm, comforting. Yes. She’d found him. Nothing would ever be more perfect than floating with Jand coming in her arms.

  That’s when the bubble disappeared. The water was on her face, and she hadn’t taken a breath. She jerked, the salt stinging her eyes. He pulled out of her, another shock. She spun desperately, trying to identify the surface. Jand’s arm tightened around her waist and he began to stroke, kicking, pulling one handed. She kicked with him, disoriented, thinking he wasn’t swimming up, but trusting him. The light shimmered, and suddenly her lungs seized. She wasn’t going to make it. She slapped a hand over her mouth, clenched her teeth, kicked furiously. This wasn’t happening. She’d just found him. She’d had the most perfect loving of her life.

  Jand let her go, pushing her forward. She looked wildly at his retreat, thrashing harder. She choked, and her eyes desperately sought the transparency of surface water. She coughed, opened her mouth—brain screaming NO!—powerless to prevent her body
from trying to breathe.

  Lips covered hers, hands clamping her nose, head angled roughly to create a seal. Her hands grabbed him, and he breathed. She struggled but he held her pinned, giving her air she struggled to swallow. Calming, she closed her stinging eyes, and let her lungs expand to their fullest. Relax.

  On the third breath, she became aware of their speed. His body was undulating, her legs flowing in a powerful current. This was much, much faster than when he’d carried her from the storm. They breached the water in a glorious arc, spiralling into the air a good ten feet above the surface. The sky had never been such a happy blue, and the sun was a ball of celebration. Her mouth stayed fused to his until the height of the leap. At that moment of stillness, when she thought they might fly as his next feat of magic, she looked at him, dazed, dazzled. His black eyes caught hers, his skin shining sleek in the sun.

  And he said, “I love you.”

  She landed in the water with a shriek, laughing, clutching him so tight around the neck she knew it mustn’t be comfortable. He hugged her tight, dipping only once to get her in a swimmer’s hold, his arm between her breasts, hand splayed on her chest. He began to swim, awkwardly, at the top of the water. He’d reverted to his fluked form. That must have been when he’d pulled away from her. The waves were low, but still, the pull of his speed caused splashing that made her cough.

  “What happened to the bubble?”

  His only answer was to tighten his grip, adjust her higher against his shoulder, put his face in the water, and power forward. She tried to anticipate the waves and close her eyes and mouth, turn her face away. They hadn’t gone but a few minutes, when she lifted her head and saw it. A beach. With beautiful pink sand. A cabana, and a palm tree. She coughed, his hand slid away from her, and she was treading water. She spun. No Jand. She dove. No Jand.

  She slapped the top of the water angrily. “Jand!”

  No Jand. She stayed there until she grew dangerously tired. Dangerously terrified. She side stroked into the breaker zone, rode a wave into shore. Her knees burned when they dragged on the corrosive sand. Kneeling on all fours, her head hanging weakly, she got her breath back. Then she flopped on her butt and sat staring out at the sullen sea in disbelief.

  When Sid was twenty-two, a summer storm took her. And a merman brought her back.

  Chapter Two

  Three Months Later

  The boat was a sweetie. A stripped down, slightly battered Sea Ray Sundancer, it had the necessities—sleeping cabin, Bimini canopy, and splash deck. Just a rental, of course, but she enjoyed it. The low, sleek, white boat rumbled underneath her. She missed sailing, but that was for people focused on their ships, and mastering the balance of elements.

  What she was concerned with was beneath the water. She’d never told a soul. She never would. It wasn’t a lonely secret. It was delicious. Even when she was still pissed off, three months later. She left the marina as soon as it opened, waving to Mac, the grizzled old sea goat she rented from. He thought she was treasure hunting. She was in a way. Hunting a magical, silver dolphin-man.

  The map, even though it was laminated, bore creases that had fuzzed to tatters. She’d systematically gone over every extrapolated area that fateful sailing trip could possibly have crossed in the storm. Calculating the speed of a dolphin, the length of time she was gone, she’d widened her area. This had been a scientific recovery operation.

  But she had long since covered all the possible quadrants. Now she was crisscrossing the most likely again. She wasn’t ever going to give up, even if she had to hire a college student to lower her hundred-year-old body into the sea.

  After her miraculous return, she’d cut all ties to her past life. There was nothing meaningful in it. She’d lived for her vacations where she expanded her late father’s bequeathed love of the ocean. She’d done it all—diving, snorkelling, sailing, fishing. Now she gave up all pretence of a normal existence. Responding to the island media’s astonishment at her survival and return with a simple, anticlimactic “I don’t remember,” her privacy had soon returned. Eccentric obsession was not a pretty news story.

  She’d rented a boat, rented a slip, and cried enough tears to fill a lake. The hunt for the only future she really wanted had stretched past the first angry weeks, past the sadder dozen weeks, and into several months of honed determination. Yes, it was all very sad, the bartender told the ever-shifting tourists in the marina bar. The trauma of being swept overboard and the miracle of her survival has left her haunted. The islands can get into your head, if you’re not used to them. She made an excellent ghost story, despite the small detail that she was still alive.

  Not that ghosts weren’t part of her story. Perhaps her anger and sorrow would have driven her away from the place that should have been a week’s respite, if it wasn’t for the fact Jand hadn’t left her, either. He was still out there. Watching her. Every damn day, she went in the water. And every damn day, she knew he was there, a ghost leaving a chill of memory that never doused her ember of passion.

  Yawning, Sid slouched in the pilot’s chair, coming more awake as the island disappeared behind her. The ocean had always been where she was most alive. Each day, she drank in the gentle, steady breeze smelling rich with life, the perfect arc of sky, the light swells that rarely crested white. The water was azure, clear as glass, polished as a mirror. The sun was brutal, of course, blazing white hot. It played with the breeze until the air was the consistency of cotton—thick and fluffy. Everybody moved in slow motion, pushing through the heat. It was almost as if the water saturated the air so deeply the two became confused on their identity and had created some new element. Summer island soup.

  Today, as she motored out to her chosen location, the horizon line drew her brown eyes and befuddled them, calling a squint, a head tilt. It was seemingly close then impossibly far. Her sunglasses were the newest style, giant brown owl markings on her face. The huge frames were excellent for handling the dazzle of the sun. The blue of the sky was so strong it imprinted on her brain even through the lenses.

  She ruffled her hair, also brown. It was long enough now to put in a short tail at the base of her neck. Her heart-shaped face thrived on the severe style. Her tan was deep gold by this point in the summer. Sunscreen glinted on her skin, dewy with sweat despite the breeze.

  When she’d motored to the edge of her goal, only two hours out, she cut the engine, locked the wheel. She flicked on the depth finder to its widest cone. Taking a swig of lemonade, she licked the salt from her lips.

  Salt. Her lips on his throat, following the line of muscle. She’d never been annoyed, as some ocean rats were, by the ever-present taste that always coated your skin on the beach or the sea. It had always comforted her. Now, every pretzel hardened her nipples. On the loneliest nights, she’d sit in a bar, and nibble at a margarita until she was soaked, her clit throbbing. Then she’d slip back to the boat and come at the simplest touch of her handy, buzzing, pleasure egg.

  Last night, she’d decided she had enough to fill another capsule, so she’d chosen a place to mail it. The capsules had been her third idea, but still one of the best. Lining little plastic containers with weights, she sealed them with duct tape and glue. She filled them with demands, pleas, letters, poems, dreams, rationales, plans, and promises. She wrote whenever she wasn’t actively searching. JAND was written in phosphorescent paint on the lid. It would glow when it sank into the darkness.

  The anchor went over to slow her drift. Her diving buoy was set adrift. Stripping out of her purple sundress, she put on her mask and flippers. Nude, she sat on the splash deck. The ocean was like bathwater, but offered wondrous relief from the wretched, beating sun. She kicked, grinning in happiness at the morning. The ocean that had always given her the most peace now felt like the only thing she really understood. It was where she belonged. With him.

  Hefting up her capsule full of her latest erotic, angry, hurt, and demanding questions, she dropped it and watched it sink. She gave a twi
st of her torso, and the water surrounded her. “Like a lover,” the books would say. But those books had never known Jand. Still, the water on her core was delicious, her breasts instantly beading.

  “I’m back, Jand. I’m here, because I still love you, and I always will.”

  After speaking her little speech, she spat in her mask, set her snorkel and dove. Jack-knifing, she let her arms flow by her side as she lazily beat her legs, driving deeper. She’d decided solo dives were too dangerous. It’s not like she had a death wish. The ocean was creepy when you were alone, and so deep. Despite her love, Sid was in no way naïve about what lived below, and where she fit in the food chain.

  The first twenty feet or so was good enough. He’d taken her off the surface before. He could find her just below it if he wanted to. His serious black eyes in that chiselled, grey face. Sid swam in the green and blue waters, circling the boat in ever increasing spirals. His webbed hand splayed in the centre of her chest. The heat of the sun was such that the top of the water began to feel a bit uncomfortable, so she dove a bit deeper on her last spiral before lunch.

  Cooler. Darker. Watcher. She paused, letting her fins drop beneath her so that she stood in the water. The fine hairs on her arms stood up. Her nipples swelled and throbbed. Heat lit in her belly. It was like this every day. She could feel him out there. She was insane. Or he was a bastard. Or both. She decided it was time to give him something to watch beside a woman swimming in circles.

  Back arched, she let herself drift up to the surface, wrestling with her mask until it hung around her neck. Closing her eyes against the overexposure of sun, she let herself float. Her hands cupped her breasts. She trailed her fingers around and around, flicked the nipples with her thumb, regretted not bringing her nipple clamps on the boat. The clamps made her remember his sweet burn. Playing with her nails, a soft, central press, then a milking pull, she floated, drifted.