Dreaming by the Sea (an erotic paranormal short story) (2 page)

After I’d found
him a pair of drawstring pants to wear from the jumble of clothes in the guest room, I wandered out onto the balcony, cradling a cup of hot tea and gazing out at the darkening ocean.

“Is there another cup?” came the low rumble of his voice behind me.

“On the counter in the kitchen,” I said, feeling breathless. I didn’t hear footsteps padding away, but then again I hadn’t heard him approach. It was just a little creepy how quietly he moved. I leaned against the rail and sighed as the wind tugged at my hair again.

Fingers loosened the rubber band I’d used to tame my hair. “That’s better, isn’t it?”

I nodded, sighing as his fingertips scratched my scalp. “Shouldn’t you be making your way back to your car? Or to your own house?”

“Do you really want me to leave?”

I kept my gaze stubbornly on the blinding rim of the horizon.

His hands landed on my shoulders and kneaded away the tension. Warm, sweet breath slid along my cheek. “Isn’t this better?”

“This is crazy. I don’t know you. You haven’t even given me a name.”

He turned me to face him then gripped my hips to pull me so close our bellies rubbed. I didn’t miss the bulge of his erection.

“I’m Thane,” he rumbled. “Give me your name.”

I wrinkled my nose and tried to ease the tension a bit with a smile. “Despy.”

“That’s unusual.”

“It’s short for Despoine.” I wrinkled my nose. “Try getting anyone to spell it, much less pronounce it.”

“After the daughter of Demeter and Poseidon.”

Surprised he’d made the connection, I blinked. “You know your Greek mythology.”

“Of course. Just as you do.”

I grew still, my smile fading. Why had I let down my guard? He was just a stalker. More handsome than most, but he knew who I was, had probably read everything I’d written. Of course. It’s how he’d figured out my fear of the sea. My young heroine was terrified of the sea due to the nymphs who waited in the deep water to drag her down. “Let me go.”

“I can’t.”

“You’ve read me. My Poseidon series. You know who I am.”

His eyes narrowed.

And was that confusion knitting his brow?

“You wear your emotions on your face. I don’t have to read your mind to know something about what you think.”

Wriggling, I tried to free myself, but his arms closed tighter around me.

“Stop playing and let me go.”

“It’s not what you really want. Your eyes fill with that salty water you’re so afraid of. You don’t want to be alone. Why did you come here, to these cliffs? Why not stay inside a human city?”

Human city
? I shook my head at his strange choice of words. Something about the tone struck me as familiar. Like notes of a song that tease because you know there’s more but you can’t hum the rest.

He leaned his forehead against mine. “A kiss, Despy. Let me give you a kiss. I promise all will be answered.”

A kiss. How simple. How frightening. Everything would change. I knew it. “Why don’t you just take it? You haven’t listened any other time I told you no.”

His jaw tightened. “Do you never wonder why you can’t remember anything farther back than ten years? Why you’re not even curious?”

I narrowed my eyes, trying to think. But when I sought a memory, his scent, the cooling air, every sensation distracted me.

“You can’t remember because the door is shut. Let me kiss you.” His gaze locked on mine. “The truth will be revealed.”

“You think you have a magic kiss? That I’ll know everything if you kiss me?”

“I need your consent. It’s the way it works.”

I didn’t care that he was crazy. Didn’t care he was nearly naked, warm, hard
everywhere
, and so handsome he’d hurt my heart. And I’d been alone…forever, it seemed.

I rose on my tiptoes, my body rubbing his, until my mouth was just beneath his firm lips. I gripped his shoulders to steady myself. “Kiss me, Thane.”

As far as kisses went, this one was pretty tame. A soft caress that slowly deepened as he circled gently on my lips until I groaned in frustration and opened, needing air, needing deeper intimacy.

His tongue stroked gently inside my mouth and I sucked on it, pulling on him, wanting more. His chuckle was warm and vibrated against me. And then something burst—almost like a membrane—and my thoughts rushed past it, enriched by the connections my mind made to happenings that stretched back so far I felt myself tremble and cry because I couldn’t believe I’d been content to live with only the memories I’d created in this new life.

My chest heaving, I pulled away, unable to meet his gaze. I’d abandoned him when I’d fled my father’s realm. Why didn’t he hate me?

His arms loosened but remained around me.

When all of my life settled around me, the fuzzy curtain of my past torn aside, I sank against Thane…no,
Thanasius
, I now recalled. “Did he send you?” I whispered.

He sighed. “I was supposed to seduce you.”

“You’re doing a great job,” I muttered, although inside I was thrilled. Moved.

“You dug in your heels. Deep inside you must have remembered something about me.”

“Maybe, although, I really did hope you were just a weekend thrill-seeker. That beach is treacherous. I would have been impressed.”

“Will you let me seduce you? To fulfill my quest?”

I leaned away to look into his face. “You can try. I’d really like for you to try.”

His arms dropped, but before I could be disappointed, he bracketed my face with his palms and glided a thumb over my lower lip. When he kissed me again, my eyelids drifted down as I was lost in the soft blessing of his firm lips. He rubbed them over mine, dragging on them until I breathed another sigh and he stroked his tongue inside.

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?”