Dreaming by the Sea (an erotic paranormal short story) Read online

  He tasted like the sea. Fresh, salty, warm, alive. His breaths quickened, reassuring me he was growing every bit as excited as I was.

  When he broke the kiss, he nuzzled into the corner of my neck. “I want to make love to you.”

  I nodded against his cheek, and he straightened, his hand closing around mine as he led me down the short hallway to the only bedroom in the small cabin.

  The windows were open and the wind lifted the thin white curtains. We fell onto the coverlet, pushing at each other’s clothes until we both lay nude.

  His knee shoved a little hard between my thighs, but he was the one to wince. “These legs are clumsy. Forgive me.”

  I opened mine to let him move closer and rub against my sex. “Think of them as a second set of arms.” I wrapped my legs around his hips, and his crooked smile warmed me.

  His thick cock nudged urgently between my folds, prodding until he found the center. Taut hips moved side to side as he pushed deeper, opening me, and then he braced himself on his arms and knees and thrust toward my womb.

  His sudden inward rush left me stunned. My channel felt raked, stretched. “Yes,” I hissed, nipping at his earlobe to give him back a bit of the pain.

  “Too fast?”

  “Fast enough,” I gasped, digging my fingers into his flesh. “Been a while, I guess. But move, please move.”

  We found our rhythm, opposing glides that brought us close then apart. My hands smoothed up his back, fingers sliding into the groove of his spine. His body shuddered, his breaths deepened.

  “You don’t have to hold back,” I whispered.

  “I won’t leave you behind.” He paused, dragging in air and slid to his side, taking me with him. He arranged my thigh over his hip and continued to thrust. He slipped a hand between our bellies and two fingers glided into the top of my folds, circling, pressing until he found my clit. After that, his caresses were unrelenting, sliding and swirling until my head thrashed and my body convulsed.

  When I came back to myself, my face was pressed against his chest while his hand smoothed up and down my back. His cock was still hard and lodged deep inside me.

  “I want to please you,” I said, my voice rasping.

  “You think you don’t?” he murmured against my hair.

  “You didn’t come.”

  “I wanted to watch you. It’s a sight I dreamed of for a long time.”

  I leaned back and raised my gaze. His eyes weren’t a cold, remote blue. Instead, they smoldered like the center of a hot flame. “Did it live up to your imagination?”

  “My imaginings didn’t come close.”

  My skin heated, but I was pleased. “Let me have that same joy.”

  His eyelids drifted halfway down as his features sharpened with arousal. “Roll onto your belly.”

  I gave him a crooked smile and eased from his embrace. “And how am I supposed to watch you?”

  He didn’t answer, pushing me to lie on my belly. I came to my knees when his hands urged me up. His grip shifted to my buttocks and he molded them in his palms, squeezing hard and opening them. One hand slipped lower, and his fingers thrust into my channel.

  I moaned and the center of my back sank to raise my ass higher. “Don’t play. I swear I’m ready.”

  His laughter was low and sexy, but he must have been just as ready, just as tense. He fit the tip of cock to my entrance, dug his fingers into my ass, and slammed forward.

  Air gusted from me in a feminine grunt, and I braced my hands to push back and meet his thrusts. Ten years, not to have known this pleasure. Ten years since I’d even felt desire. He’d awoken my sensuality with just the sight of him, and I hadn’t realized how significant, how rare that was for me.

  Shortening his strokes, he hammered faster.

  I widened my knees, trying to tilt just a little more to give his balls space to slap. My arousal was growing, tightening, but I wouldn’t be with him at the end without a little more sensation.

  He slowed, circling his hips, screwing in and out of me, and then reached around to slide a fingertip over my distended nubbin. I mewled my pleasure, my body beginning to writhe, hips undulating slowly.

  “Despy,” he whispered, voice tightening.

  “Yes, please, oh please…”

  He ground deeper, a finger rasping my clit and I came again, howling like a stormy wind, and releasing him to power into me and finish himself off.

  With a whoosh of expelled air, I collapsed beneath him.

  His chest billowing, he snuggled against my back. “Tell me if you can’t breathe.” He shifted again, taking some of his weight off me, and slipping an arm beneath me to cuddle me closer. “Sleep.”

  My eyes were already drifting downward and I was pulled into a deep dreamless sleep, where it was enough to feel his warm skin against my back and his breath feathering my cheek.

  *

  The next morning, I sat at my kitchen table, my laptop open, tapping at my keys when he strode nude through the cabin door without knocking.

  “Where have you been?” I asked, immediately feeling foolish because his body was slick, long rivulets dripping down his body from his dark hair.

  He raised a mocking brow.

  “There are towels in the bathroom. Dry off.”

  “Of course.” But he didn’t head down the hallway, he sauntered closer.

  At the last moment, I shoved away my laptop, because he leaned over me and squeezed his hair, letting the water drip over the tops of my knees. Everywhere the salty water splashed bluish scales appeared on my skin, and I hurriedly dried them with my hands. “Why did you do that?”

  He grinned. “Just to make sure I had the right girl.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I haven’t changed that much.”

  “You have legs.”

  I laughed at how his nose wrinkled in disgust. “You get used to it. Didn’t you enjoy the sex? And tell me you haven’t donned legs before to seduce women. It’s so much easier for you. All you have to do is raise your waist above the water and you’re a man. I’d flop like a fish on the ground if the salt water even touched my skin.”

  He grunted, and then amusement faded from his expression. “That’s the difference between a mermaid and man. We have greater opportunities to find lovers.” He held out his hand. “Come out to the balcony with me while the air dries my skin. I need to tell you something.”

  His expression closed. Frightening me. Even though we’d only just reconnected and so much time had passed, my heart didn’t recognize the distance that should be between us.

  Outside, he leaned his butt against the balcony. “I lied when I intimated your father sent me. I sought you out for myself.”

  “Why lie about it?” I asked carefully, because part of me always waited for betrayal.

  “If you didn’t feel anything for me, I didn’t want you uncomfortable.”

  “Thanash, why did you come now? It’s been so long.”

  “Not loving you before you left was a mistake. But you were already battling your father for independence. I didn’t want to add another complication. I never thought you’d wipe away your whole life to thwart him.”

  “Seems a little drastic now, doesn’t it?” I shook my head at the memory of the dramatic scene. “I was pretty angry. He didn’t approve of you.”

  “Your father worried I was a pawn in my father’s war. When he discovered your mother used a spell to put you on dry land permanently, he was satisfied I’d never be his son-in-law.”

  We’d planned to marry. I remembered now. And wished I hadn’t because the pain of the breakup was fresh. “Why did you wait until now to find me?”

  “Your mother wasn’t very forthcoming.”

  “I swore her to secrecy.”

  “And she does love hiding her daughters from their suitors.”

  “Why now?” I repeated, almost choking on the words.

  His jaw tightened. “Your father is pushing mine into deep waters. This is my last chance to be with y
ou.”

  “Your father is Nereus,” I whispered, remembering that Nereus had been the one to propose the marriage that had so infuriated her father. “I won’t be used against my father for your father’s sake, even though he had first claim to the oceans. I don’t get along with Poseidon, but I won’t stand against him.”

  His blue eyes darkened, his features growing so taut a muscle along his jaw flexed. “I don’t want you to choose between us, only for you to choose to be with me.”

  My heartbeat quickened. “Why is choosing you so important?”

  The muscle alongside his jaw flexed, and his glance fell away.

  “Stubborn as always,” I muttered. “If you’d just bent a little, given me a clue about how you felt, I might not have run so far.” He remained inflexible, his neck unbent.

  I took a deep breath. “Why do you think I sought refuge on land? Yesterday, you saw how I miss the softness of the water. The ease of movement.” She knew now why the sea had frightened her. She’d been tempted to throw herself into the tide without understanding she’d be transformed. She’d believed she had a death wish. “Hell, I still feel the jolt every time I take a step.”

  “Then why live here?” he asked, his voice raspy.

  She opened her arms to encompass her surroundings. “Because here I’m free. My life isn’t preordained.”

  “You won’t come back, will you?” he said, his voice bleak. “Not to my father’s realm? Not even to your own?”

  I swallowed hard against a dry throat. “As much as I miss it, I can’t go back.”

  His gaze broke with mine and scanned over the stormy sea. “Do you think he knows I’m here?”

  I followed his gaze, staring out at restless, choppy waves. “I’d bet his triton he has someone watching. Maybe it’s not such a good idea to swim again while you’re with me.”

  “If what you say is true, he let me come through his waters. He didn’t stop me from returning again today.”

  I snorted. “That’s not exactly the same as a blessing.”

  “No, but he hesitates, waiting to see whether I will hurt you.”

  I swallowed hard and turned my face to meet his glance. “That’ll happen anyway when we say goodbye.”

  Thanasius reached for my hand and threaded his fingers through mine. When his gaze rose again, it was stark and clear. “Would you like a companion? I will stay with you.”

  Stay? I tried to pull away my hand, but he held firm. “Why would you give up what you are?”

  “Once I heard what you’d done, giving up your tail, I was curious. I didn’t know how you could live so long out of the water without being tempted to even touch it.”

  I shook my head. It was unfathomable to me, too. Now that I remembered everything. “It was part of the spell. I lost my memory and didn’t need to wet my tail, ever—but mother built in the fear so that I wouldn’t transform and be confused.”

  “She’s clever, your mother. And Demeter’s forever standing between the brothers and what they want most. This amused her.”

  I tilted my chin. “However much she might like tweaking my father’s nose, she’s still my mother. Why would she help you find me?”

  His eyes grew stormy; again a muscle flexed along the side of his hardening jaw. A look that had entranced me the first time we’d been introduced at my father’s court.

  “I convinced her I wanted to walk by your side. That if it was your wish, I’d never return to my kingdom.”

  A painful tightness lodged inside my chest. “But why would you do that? You hadn’t seen me in ten years.”

  “I wasn’t sure I’d feel the same. So I watched you. I saw the yearning, and recognized it for the same feeling that stirs inside me. Poseidon usurped my father’s kingdom but the longer he held it, the less I wanted it back. I’m…unfettered. My future my own.”

  I smiled, recognizing a kindred heart in my first and only love. On impulse, I leaned toward him and gave him a kiss. “I’ll teach you to walk on two legs.”

  He snorted. “I can walk. Didn’t I climb that cliff?” He kissed my fingers. “But I would let you guide me in this new life, if you will share the journey.”

  Happiness, true and as deep as the sea, filled me. The Fates had finished weaving the threads of our lives together, and a lifetime of loneliness melted away in the beauty of his smile.

  Together we faced a quiet sea. I had no doubts my father was pleased. Now, my mother… Well, Demeter had meddled in the affairs of her daughters’ hearts for the last time.

  “Come to bed with me?”

  I arched a brow. “Do you now prefer a mattress to open water?”

  “Are you brave enough to swim away from the shore?”

  “With you beside me, yes.” I glanced around the cabin. “I’ll have to extend the lease.”

  “We’ll have the best of both worlds.”

  I stood still as he drew my clothing from my body, piece by piece. I grew breathless as he stripped away his own. Then hand in hand, we ran down the stone steps, eager to feel the kiss of the ocean, together.

  About Delilah Devlin

  Delilah Devlin is a New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author of erotica and erotic romance with a rapidly expanding reputation for writing deliciously edgy stories with complex characters. She has published over a hundred forty erotic stories in multiple genres and lengths, and she is published by Atria/Strebor, Avon, Berkley, Black Lace, Cleis Press, Ellora’s Cave, Grand Central, Harlequin Spice, HarperCollins: Mischief, Kensington, Montlake Romance, Running Press, and Samhain Publishing.

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  From Rules of Engagement:

  Callie Murphy had never been one to moon over a man. Fairytale romances were best left to novels. After all, she’d seen first-hand how transitory love could be after watching her mother drift in and out of three marriages, only to be left disappointed when “true love” faded. However, the video Callie watched for the thousandth time stirred a wistfulness inside that left her feeling restless and thinking about what might have been.

  Just the sight of that steady gaze enveloped her in warmth. The deep timbre of his voice as he sang raised the fine hairs on her arms and caused her nipples to tauten, because she remembered that same voice murmuring in her ear in the darkness.

  Knowing she’d never get his approval for security’s sake, she’d snuck this recording of their Skype session using a plug-in installed on her computer because she’d wanted something of him to linger after they’d said their goodbyes. This recording had been made before their final breakup. Now, watching and listening to him was a form of self-torture. Wearing desert camouflage pants and a brown tee stretching across a well-muscled chest, his dark hair a little shaggy and his beard scruffy, he was all man. All complication. Those piercing blue eyes stared into the camera at her, steady and determined, and Callie couldn’t help the tears welling in her eyes.

  Prickles of dismay swept over her as she imagined some other woman, someone not her, on the receiving end of one of his calls, being serenaded with that husky, smooth-as-silk voice. The last time he’d proposed, she’d been firm, making it clear she had no interest in leaving behind the life she’d built in Two Mule, Texas while he was set on a career in the Navy. Rightfully, he should have moved on. No one here in Two Mule would ever fault him. No one really understood why she kept refusing him, but then they hadn’t walked in her shoes through her childhood.

  Her mother had followed that “broken road,” uprooting Callie three times, from the friends she’d made, from the roots she’d tried so desperately to sink deep into every place she’d lived. She’d never make that same mistake. Love faded, turned bitter and dark. When love ended, good peo
ple drifted apart, or worse, struck out at each other. She’d lived it, first-hand.

  So when Derek had stood on her doorstep that last day before heading back to Little Creek, where no doubt his team would be deployed on more dangerous secret missions in the Middle East, Africa, or whatever foreign hellhole the powers that be scrambled a SEAL team for, she’d shut the door on everything he’d offered, despite the fact he’d been sincere—and despite the fact her own heart had twisted inside her chest at the disappointment darkening his eyes.

  Watching the video now, him seated on a narrow cot strumming a guitar while he sang about roads leading him straight to some other woman, Callie couldn’t help sniffling. He’d known even before that last proposal that she’d say no. And yet, here he’d been, reaching out to her, letting her see inside his heart as he strummed out his pain.

  Watching him as he’d given her a smile, and then sat back to pull his guitar across his legs, she remembered everything she’d felt—nostalgia for their long-shared past, irritation he’d never give up, and joy, deep inside, that his love had never waned, because she was selfish like that. Although she’d been unwilling to hitch her star along with his, she’d depended on his love.

  She’d met him in high school, and they’d dated steadily. They’d even been one of the shining couples of the royal court at homecoming. At that time, she’d been carried away, in love, forgetting the hard lessons she’d learned, because he’d been so attentive, so affectionate, bringing her flowers on every monthly anniversary, giving her a tiny diamond promise ring in their senior year.

  They’d talked about the future, but only in vague terms, her in terms of the house she’d have and the kids she’d want, him of all the places he wanted to see. One day, close to graduation, he’d arrived at her mother’s house to tell her he’d signed enlistment papers and would be heading to Coronado, California for Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training as soon as he graduated, and her world had come tumbling down.