Authors: Virginia Kantra
Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Paranormal, #Suspense, #General
parched for her, his mind restless as blowing sand, his spirit dry and
discouraged. She poured herself over him, her mouth lush and giving. Her
hands stole over him, under his shirt, over his chest, rousing him to life.
He grabbed at her. Smiling, she slipped through his grasp to his bed,
sliding backward until she lay against the pillows. He drank in the vision
of her long hair waving against the white sheets, her skin shining like
pearl through her open blouse, the white globes of her breasts. He forgot .
. . everything else. There was only now. Only her, her smooth thighs and
her warm smile and her great, dark, unfathomable eyes. He yanked at his
belt, tore at his shirt. She was rain, water, life, and he was dying for her,
his hands shaking, his touch feverish as he sank beside her on the bed,
reaching, touching, wanting—
She was so warm. So soft and pink and slick. He spread her with his
thumbs, loving the feel of her, ripe and wet, the sight of his tanned hand
working in and out against her silky thighs, her soft, dark bush. He bent
to kiss her, to drink from her, dizzy with her scent. Her sweetness. She
gasped and moved with him, under him, rising and falling like the sea,
and his blood pounded in his head. He was drowning, drenched in her. He
felt her crest around his fingers, against his mouth, as he suckled her.
She tugged his hair. He indulged them both with one long, last,
lingering lick before he dragged his body over hers—wet, quivering,
his
—and shoved his scarred knee between her thighs.
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Her hands pushed at his shoulders. “Your leg—”
He didn’t care about his leg. He didn’t care about anything except
being inside her as close, as deep, as far as he could go. He straightened
his arms, shifting his weight. She rose to meet him; strained to take him.
Theirs eyes linked. Locked. With one swift, deep thrust, he entered
her.
She gasped and shuddered.
So did he.
They plunged together, fused by sweat and passion. Complete.
Connected. Whole. He was part of her as he had never been part of
another being in his life. Her legs wrapped his. Her hair tangled his
fingers, a net of texture and fragrance. She tightened around him, a silken
fist, and he turned his face into her neck and spilled himself into her, gave
himself up to her, body and soul. She shuddered again, vibrating under
him, her nails digging into his shoulders.
The last shimmering wave retreated, leaving him beached and
breathless on top. Wrecked. At peace.
When he could breathe again, when he could speak, he raised his
head and said it.
“I love you.”
Margred lay stunned under him, trying to regulate her breathing and
her thoughts.
Caleb’s words curled warm against her heart.
I love you
.
Selkies did not do love any more than they did miracles.
He loved her?
What was she supposed to do about that?
What was she supposed to say?
“Thank you.”
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Wrong answer. She saw his eyes cool, felt him distance himself even
as his body still filled hers.
She moistened her lips and tried again. “You honor me.”
“No, I make you nervous,” Caleb said. “What are you afraid of?”
It was hard to be honest with him lying on top of her, lodged inside
her, studying her face with assessing green eyes. Hard to think with her
body still thrumming and moist from sex.
She wanted him again. Possibly she would want him forever. Maybe
that was why she was afraid.
“We are very different,” she said.
“That’s why we work. You told me once I lived in my head. With
you . . . I feel like I’ve found my heart.”
Whatever breath she had left escaped in a soft rush. “I cannot think
when you say such things to me.”
His eyes narrowed. “Maybe I don’t want you to think. Tell me how
you feel.”
“I . . . care for you,” she admitted. “More than I have ever cared for
anyone in seven hundred years of existence.”
His body went very still. “Seven hundred—”
“Years. I am immortal.”
“My mother wasn’t. You said she died.”
He told her he did not want her to think. But she could almost hear
his brain ticking like the clock in the hall. “Her life—her present life—ended. But because she returned to the water, she will be born again on
the tide and the foam.”
“And that was more important to her than her husband. Her
children.”
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Margred thought of pointing out that Atargatis had taken Dylan with
her, but his mother’s choice would hardly soothe Caleb’s feelings. “She
was selkie.” Margred defended her. “We belong to the sea more than we
can ever belong to another.”
“She stayed with my father for fourteen years. I thought they were
happy.”
Ah
. Margred bit her lip, the tiny pain an echo of the one at her heart.
The boy Caleb had believed he was the child of love, of a true union
between husband and wife. Atargatis’s desertion not only had deprived
him of his mother, but had tarnished his earliest memories and
perceptions of family.
He deserved better of her. He deserved love.
Or at least the truth.
“They were too different.” As she and Caleb were different, Margred
reflected with a pang. “Your father possessed a selkie. He never had her
love.”
A muscled worked in Caleb’s jaw. “You think I’m trying to possess
you?”
He already had more of her than she had ever given another, even
her long-dead mate. Her feelings for him filled her like a pregnancy,
crowding and pushing inside her. She felt swollen, stretched into
someone—-something—she almost did not recognize.
Doubt wrapped tentacles around her heart. Could she ever be what
he needed? Could she give him more than his mother had given his
father?
What would it do to her to try?
The fear in her chest tightened, squeezing the air from her lungs.
And what would it do to both of them if she failed?
“I think,” Margred said carefully, “that you belong here, in this
place. With these people.”
“And you don’t.”
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“I am selkie,” she repeated. Her words sounded thin, even to herself.
“The ocean is our element. Its magic is in our blood. We must return to it
or die.”
“You can’t return. What if you’re going to die anyway?”
His question quivered like an arrow in her heart. And yet it was the
wrong question.
She saw the instant he realized it, watched his eyes chill, felt his
body brace like a warrior’s for a blow.
“If you had your sealskin,” Caleb said quietly, “if you could return to
the sea, would you stay here with me?”
Would she give up all the seas and eternity to live on land with this
one man until they both were dead?
Her mouth dried. She did not, could not, answer him.
But that was all the reply he needed.
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Eighteen
"WELL, THAT WENT WELL,” CALEB SAID AS HE left the
polygraph examiner in possession of his office—the only space on the
island that hadn’t already been taken over by the state’s task force.
He lied.
Not for the first time that morning. But even with Caleb’s right arm
in a blood pressure cuff and finger plates wired to his left hand, even with
rubber tubes around his chest and a digital readout confirming the truth of
every word, there was no way the examiner was going to believe a story
about a seven-hundred-year-old mermaid being stalked by a demon.
Sam Reynolds stood in the doorway of the small break room that
housed the coffeepot and the copy machine. “Don’t worry about it,” he
said. “Three hours on the box would have my mother sweating like a pig.
You already passed my test.”
Caleb raised his eyebrows. “DNA results back already?”
The state dick snorted. “Who do you think we are, the FBI?”
“So why the sudden change of heart? Unless you’re grateful that I let
you sleep in my jail cell instead of on the beach.”
Reynolds shrugged. “You gave us the DNA sample. You
volunteered for a polygraph. If you were guilty, you would have told us
to pound sand. So either you’re thick-as-a-brick dumb or you’re
innocent.”
Caleb was not in the mood to be mollified. The woman he loved
wanted to leave him, he’d been shut out of the task force meeting that
morning, and the sergeant in charge didn’t trust him to direct traffic.
He rubbed the back of his neck with one hand, his gaze traveling
from the flashing copy machine to the stacks of paper lined along the
counter. “What are you doing?”
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Reynolds fed another sheet into the machine. “Copying your case
notes.”
Caleb cocked an eyebrow at Edith Paine. The reflection from her
computer screen—bright white cards against a brilliant green
background—gleamed in her glasses. “I don’t make copies,” she
announced. “I don’t get coffee either.”
“Good to see you keeping busy,” Caleb drawled.
Edith clicked on another card. “Don’t start with me. That phone’s
been ringing off the hook all morning. Every busy-body on the island has
been through that door. The summer people want armed escorts to go
swimming, and the home-owners want you to arrest the rubberneckers for
trespassing. ”
The vise gripping the back of Caleb’s neck tightened. “Whittaker?”
“Haven’t heard from him.”
Caleb frowned. That was odd. “Did he go to the mainland?
“And miss the excitement?” Edith sniffed. “Not likely.”
“He could be sick. I’ll check on him when I do patrol.”
The island was hard on those who lived alone. Visiting shut-ins and
the elderly was good community relations. And in this case, visiting
Whittaker gave Caleb an excuse to recanvass the area.
If he’s human, I’ll find him
.
“Who are you talking about?” Reynolds asked.
His questions jarred Caleb from his thoughts. “Local lawyer,” he
said briefly.
“Local blowhard,” Edith muttered.
“Well, if you’re going out, watch out for reporters,” Reynolds said.
“A Channel Six news crew came over on the ferry this morning.”
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Edith kept her eyes on her game. “They’re at Antonia’s. Regina
called.”
Caleb’s tension spiked. He’d just spent three hours lying on a
polygraph exam, and Maggie could blow it all in a five-minute interview
with a couple of tabloid headlines. MERMAID BEDEVILS LOCAL
COP. DEMON HUNTS OFF COAST OF MAINE.
Screw patrol. Maggie needed him, whether she admitted it or not.
News of a nude blond corpse on the beach attracted more folks than
a Rotary Club clambake.
Like a winter storm, the threat to their island brought the locals out
in search of food, company, community. When Caleb pushed open the
door to Antonia’s, a wave of noise rushed to greet him: babbling voices,
clattering dishes, the hiss of the grill. The smell of fish and onions, fries
and coffee, floated on the air.
Caleb scanned the packed booths, the line snaking between the
tables, the weathered faces around the room. New England faces, most of
them, with Viking eyes and Puritan mouths.
Where was Maggie?
Regina slapped two plates from the pass-through on top of the
counter. “One chowder, tuna on wheat, lobster roll with fries. Come get
your order or I’m giving it away to the next person in line.”
No waitress, then. No Maggie. Caleb’s gut cramped. Couldn’t she
stay put just once?
Eight-year-old Nick scuttled among the pushed-back chairs and
denim-clad legs, clearing tables.
Where the hell was she?
Regina caught his eye and jerked her head toward the kitchen. The
knot in Caleb’s stomach eased.
He took one stride, quickly checked as some asshole slid out of a
booth and into his path. White male, mid-thirties, blow-dried hair,
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bleached smile. Not an islander, despite the vaguely familiar face. Caleb
made him for the Channel Six reporter before he opened his mouth.
“Chief Hunter?”
Caleb nodded warily.
That raised a stir and a flurry of questions. Somebody thrust a long
black microphone under his chin like the muzzle of a gun. Caleb’s jaw
set, but he didn’t reach for his weapon.
Veteran makes progress in
adapting to civilian life
.
“Do you think World’s End is still safe for tourists?” the reporter
asked.
Loaded question. Caleb would have preferred the gun. Conversations
stopped all over the restaurant as locals and summer people waited for his