His hands glided up from her shoulders to cup her face. She drew in a breath, held it with her heart drumming as for a moment, forever, he just looked into her eyes.
And he looked into her eyes still as his lips touched hers, lightly as before. But not as before. Soft, so soft, light as the butterfly on the flower.
She wondered if the flower felt this stirring, this yearning.
Then his lips rubbed hers, pressed. And worlds opened.
Her breath released; her eyes closed as he took her so slowly, so gently into those worlds. Worlds of sweet pleasure, of new tastes, of quiet wonders.
Her lips parted, answered his, and it was like sliding deep and deeper into the warm and the lovely.
He’d known, somehow known, he’d be lost if he ever took this step. No compass could ever guide him back to solid ground again. She gave, absolutely, her hand pressed to his heart as if to hold it, her mouth, her tongue gliding with his as if created for him.
The scent of the sea, her scent, mixed together, enchanted him. And always would. The sound of water against rock—that constant mating—the sound of her sighs, blended like one. Bewitched him, and always would.
Everything good and right and worth fighting for coalesced in that single kiss. And still, he wanted more.
But he remembered what he could never allow himself to forget. Honor. And so he eased back.
“Annika.” He kept his hands on her face because, oh boy, how they wanted to wander down. While he struggled for the right thing, the honorable thing to say, to do, she smiled. All but blinded him with the light of it.
“Now I can kiss you.”
“You just did.”
“No, no—first. Before I couldn’t, but now—”
Her arms came hard around him. Her mouth took his in an explosion of passion that blew the sheer concept of honor all to hell.
She burned against him, a torch on the water, impossibly hot and bright. He dived into the fire, letting himself take, be taken. Her skin, soft as velvet. Her breasts, firm and perfect and finally filling his hands. The miracle of her tail, sleek and wet and fascinating as the texture changed.
He knew he should slow things down, knew he should stop, but she coiled and curled around him while her upper body arched to offer until all he heard was the beat of his own blood.
Desperate now, driven to taste those perfect breasts, he shifted to lie her back on the rock. She turned with him, just as eager, and they slid off the rock, into the water.
Dazed with lust, he went under, started to push to the surface. She pulled him straight up, laughing.
“I got too happy.”
Once more she curled around him, and with her arm circling his neck,
kept him afloat without appearing to move at all.
It struck him he was in over his head, in more ways than one.
She laid her head on his shoulder, nuzzled there.
Lust didn’t cool so much as melded with affection so he found some balance.
“Can’t be too happy,” he said, stroking her hair.
“I feel so full of it, I think I could stay like this and never run out.”
But they couldn’t stay, he reminded himself. They’d already been away from the house, from the others, longer than was wise.
“I know we can’t,” she said before he could. “But one minute more. Here, now, the darkness is precious and good. Soon it won’t be.”
“One minute more.” He let himself enjoy the minute, floating on a moonlit sea, buoyed by a mermaid.