Burning Up (22 page)

But she was right, too. She could make a place for herself among humankind if she chose.

She smiled as she took the coin like a tribute from her lover’s hand.

She had her own ways of getting what she wanted.

She watched him confer with the shopkeeper; saw more coins exchange hands.

“Thank you, Hobson,” the man said quietly.

The shopkeeper bowed deeply, clutching the money. “Thank
you
, Major.”

His name was Major, Morwenna noted as he came back to her. She really must make an effort to remember it this time.

“Have you completed your errands?” the man—Major—asked.

She had purchased bread and shoes. Surely that was enough to prove to Morgan that she could function perfectly well onshore.

“Yes. Thank you,” she added, because he and the shopkeeper had both used the phrase and it seemed like the right thing to say.

“Then may I escort you home?”

He was so stiff, so considerate. Something about that strong, composed face, those warm, observant eyes, got her juices flowing.

Her smile broadened. “You may.”

“My horse must carry us both, I am afraid,” he said, a rueful expression in his eyes. “I could lead you, but my leg would undoubtedly give out on the walk over the bluffs.”

She regarded the great gray animal standing placidly in front of the shop and felt almost breathless. He expected her to ride on
that
? And the animal would allow it?

This day was proving full of new experiences.

“Your leg and my feet,” she said.

“I beg your pardon?”

She gestured toward her feet, already chafing in their laced leather boots.

His face cleared in comprehension. “Your new shoes.”

Her first shoes, she thought, wiggling her toes cautiously. They were very uncomfortable. Very human. She could not wait to show them to Morgan.

Major mounted with surprising grace for a big man with a bad leg. He leaned down from the saddle. “Take my hand,” he instructed. “And put your foot on mine.”

The horse flicked an ear at her approach.

“I beg your pardon,” she told it and took the man’s hand.

“Steady.” He tugged.

She felt the pull in her shoulders and gasped, more disoriented than alarmed as he swung her up and over. Somehow he lifted and turned her so that both her legs were on one side of the horse and her buttocks pressed his thigh on the other.

Morwenna had never been on horseback before. She clutched the man’s coat as the gray horse tossed its head. The ground seemed very far away.

But his chest was hard and unbudging at her back. The warmth of his body, the strength of his arms, enveloped her.

“Comfortable?” his voice rumbled in her ear.

She nodded, her fingers relaxing their grip on his sleeve. The muscles of his thighs shifted, and the horse stepped forward.

She sat very still, absorbing a swarm of new sensations, most of them pleasant. He was so very close, touching her. Surrounding her.

“Hobson tells me he has not seen you in the village before,” he remarked conversationally.

Morwenna straightened her swaying seat. She must remember not to get
too
comfortable. Her lover was human and male, which made him tractable, but he was far from stupid.

“No.”

“So you are new to the area,” he said, still in that not-quite-questioning tone.

She had no fixed territory. Unlike the selkie, who alternated between seal and human shape, the finfolk did not need to come ashore to rest. Their ability to take their chosen form in water gave them greater range and freedom than the other children of the sea. But their fluid nature made them even more susceptible to the ocean’s lure. Dazzled by life beneath the waves, they could forget their existence onshore, losing the will and finally the ability to take human form.

Even her brother admitted that time on land kept them safe. Kept them sane.

“I am visiting,” she explained.

“You must have friends nearby, then. Or family. You said you live alone.”

She squirmed on her perch above the horse’s neck. Most men were too distracted by sex to pay attention to anything she said. How inconvenient—how flattering—to find one who actually listened.

“Family.” Was that enough to satisfy him? “My brother.”

The horse lurched up the track that climbed the bluff. Water boomed in the caves as the tide rolled in.

“Older or younger?” the man asked.

Her brow puckered. She could feel his body heat through her dress along one side, his arm, strong and warm across her lap. Was all this chatter really necessary? He had not talked this much while they were having sex. Perhaps she should suggest they have sex again.

She eyed the distance to the ground and the cliffs that plunged to the sea. Perhaps not on horseback.

“We are twins,” she said.

“You are close, then.”

The children of the sea did not bind themselves with family ties as humans did. But she and Morgan were among the last blood born of their kind, fostered together in the same human household until they reached the age of Change. For centuries, he had been her playmate, her companion, her second self.

She nodded.

“This brother . . .” he persisted, following some linear train of thought, as men and humans did.

Morwenna sighed.

“He does not object to your living alone?”

She grinned. “Oh, he objects. Frequently. Recently. Yesterday, in fact.”

The arms around her relaxed. “He was your visitor yesterday. The man you were expecting.”

“Yes. Morgan thinks I should return with him to court to—” Whelp babies, she almost said. “To be with my own kind. He does not think I can make a life for myself here.”

“So you went to the village today to prove him wrong.” His voice was dryly amused.

“Something like that,” she admitted. She turned her head to smile at him, pleased by his perception. His brown eyes were steady on hers, flecked with green and gold like the surrounding hills.

She felt a quiver in her stomach deeper than desire. Inside her something clicked like a key turning in a lock, like a door opening on an undiscovered room. Her heart expanded. Her breath caught in dismay.

Oh, no.

He did not know her. He could not know her. He was human and she . . .

“Tell me about your family,” she invited hastily.

Get him talking about himself.
Men liked to do that. She would rather be bored than intrigued by him.

“There isn’t much to tell,” he responded readily enough. “My father was a gentleman—a distant connection of the Ardens, as it turned out—who married a merchant’s daughter. I was their only child. They died together of a fever when I was sixteen, and, having no other prospects, I ran off to be a soldier.”

So he was essentially alone. Like her. She pushed the thought away.

“Do you like being a soldier?”

He was silent so long she thought he would not answer. She told herself she was not interested.

“I liked the order of it,” he said at last. “The sense of purpose. The responsibility.”

To have a purpose . . . She could hardly fathom it. “My existence would seem very frivolous to you.”

“Ladies are more restricted in their occupations.”

“I am not restricted.” She saw the frown forming on his brow, the questions gathering in his eyes, and added, “But I can see the appeal of feeling a part of something larger than oneself.”

“Yes,” he said. “I did not always like my job. Killing is an ugly business. But I liked doing my job well.”

How very odd he was.

How attractive.

The gray horse crested the bluffs. The sea sparkled to the western isles and beyond. Morwenna lifted her face, letting the wind snatch away her thoughts. The briny breeze mingled with the wool of his coat, the sweat on his skin, the scent of his horse. Sea smells, earth smells, animal smells, blended like water and wine. She drank them in, holding them inside her until the sky spun around her and she was dizzy with lack of oxygen.

She released her breath on a puff of laughter.

The man Major was watching her, a bemused expression on his face.

“What?”

“Nothing.” He shook his head. “It’s just . . . It’s you.”

She raised both eyebrows in question.

“You seem to enjoy things so much,” he said.

“Things?”

He gestured at the sunlit hills and bright water. “Everything. Life.”

She did not understand. “Is not existence meant to be enjoyed?”

“Not for most people.”

“Not for you,” she guessed.

He did not speak.

An unfamiliar tenderness unfurled inside her. She cupped his face in her hand, tracing the line beside his mouth with her thumb. “We must see what we can do to change that.”

His chest rose sharply with his breath. He angled his head, brushing her mouth with his. He kissed her once, again, warmly, softly, sweetly enough to steal her soul through her lips. She trembled.

Assuming she had a soul.

He raised his head, a curve to his lips, a troubled expression in his earth brown eyes. “I did not escort you home to seduce you.”

Her pulse pounded. As if he could, she thought with desperate pride.

“Then I suppose I must seduce you.” She paused before adding wickedly, “Again.”

Her heart lurched at his slow, wry smile. “I am at your service always.”

She chuckled against his mouth.

They rode down the hill together, his arm holding her secure against him, the horse swaying beneath them. They did not speak. Morwenna felt oddly breathless. She was used to lust, to the rush to rut. There was something new and delicious about this slow, sizzling delight, this gradual buildup to the act of sex. Her blood hummed in anticipation. Riding cocooned against his strength, she had time to savor her arousal.

And his. When he helped her from his horse, she felt his desire for her hard against her stomach.

Drawing back, she smiled into his eyes. “Will you come inside?”

She cast a hasty glamour over the cottage as he pushed on the latch and opened the door, banishing sand and cobwebs, masking the disorder and neglect of years. Her body was sending her all sorts of urgent signals:
Him. Hurry. Now.
But the sweetness of his kiss stayed with her, warm and flowing through her veins like honey. Time itself slowed, trapped in this golden moment.

She sat in the room’s only chair to remove her boots as he bent to light the fire. For some reason, her hands were shaking. The laces tangled.

“Let me,” he said and knelt at her feet to deal with the knot.

Sweetness filled her heart to overflowing.

He picked at the laces and eased the boot from her foot. Angry red lines creased her toes and ankle where the leather had chafed her flesh. He cradled her foot in his hands.

“What are you . . .
oh
.” She sighed with relief, closing her eyes in pleasure as his strong hands pressed and rubbed all the sore and tender places.

“That feels . . .”

His hands stilled.

Her eyes opened.

“Oh,” she said again and tried to pull away.

He held her foot trapped in his big hands, staring down at the faint, iridescent webbing between her toes.

THREE

J
ack stared down at the pretty bare foot in his hands. Soft, pale skin. High, smooth arch.

Webbed toes.

They didn’t even look human. The connecting skin shimmered like fish scales, delicate as insect wings.

His stomach cramped. He looked up into Morwenna’s eyes, bright and opaque as the eyes of an animal. A primitive chill chased up his spine and lifted the hair at the back of his neck.

“What is this?” he asked quietly.

She snatched back her foot, curling it under the legs of the chair. “What does it look like?” she asked defensively.

He couldn’t say. He could hardly think. Stories from his schoolboy days—Poseidon and the Nereids, Ulysses and the Sirens—raced through his head, mixed up with memories of Morwenna singing at the water’s edge, her silver hair shining like seafoam in the sun.

Ridiculous.

He took a deep, steadying breath.

“Not like anything I’ve seen before,” he said carefully. Or anything he believed in. “I was hoping you could explain.”

She pursed her lips. “Must everything have an explanation?”

“In my experience, yes.”

She stood, shaking her skirts down over her ankles. “Then you explain it.”

“Morwenna, your toes are . . .” A gentleman did not discuss a lady’s feet. But he had held hers in his hand, and her toes were . . .

Webbed.
Shining with rainbow color like a soap bubble.

“Different,” she supplied.

He seized on the word gratefully. “Different. Yes.”

“And anything different must therefore be flawed.”

He straightened warily. She was offended. Hurt? “I did not say
flawed
.”

“Am I suddenly repugnant to you now?”

“No.”

Her chin tilted at a militant angle. “But you wish to leave anyway. Because of my different feet.”

He shook his head in baffled admiration. Like a practiced swordsman, she had reversed their positions, driving him on the defensive. “Of course not.”

“Then what do my toes matter?”

He could deal with her anger. But the emotion glistening in her eyes caused a quick clutch in his chest.

“They don’t.”

“Ah.” She held his gaze for a long moment, letting his words speak for her.

He knew he was being manipulated. He did not care. She was so beautiful with her flushed cheeks and that sheen in her eyes. Her quick passions had roused his. The memory of their last time together rose like smoke between them, firing his imagination, cutting off all oxygen to his brain.
Then
she hadn’t faced him from half a room away.
Then
she had dropped her dress and sat on the mattress, pulling him to stand between her smooth, bare thighs. He wanted it to be
then
.

He dragged air into his lungs. How could he press her with questions when he could not breathe? He could have her again, he thought. In this room, on that bed, this very afternoon. His shaft hardened. All he had to do was let go of his questions and enjoy the moment.