A Pirate's Dream (18 page)

Slapping at his indomitable hold, she growled, “If you do not like my legs, beluga—”

“By Calypso’s teat,” he swore. Then cupping a hand behind her neck, he forced her down on him, so that she had to either brace her hands on his chest or risk falling right on top of him. “I do want you. All of you, you silly, lovely pirate. I love your legs!”

The way he said it, almost defiantly, made her freeze. Did he mean it? “You do?” She damned the quiver in her voice as weakness.

“Aye.” His stormy eyes grew thick with lightning. But the water between them was calm and cool.

His fingers stroked through her hair gently, disturbing a sleepy Jian, who snapped at his king before swimming off his comfortable nest for the relative safety on the other side of the room.

“They are soft and feel... good. Especially when they clamp down on me as yours now are.”

He bucked his hips a little, and now it was her turn to groan as his slick scales rubbed between her thighs.

“Why are you not hard then?” she asked, then snapped her mouth shut as words she’d had no intention of speaking poured out.

“Hard?” He kissed her brow, but it was hard, impatient, and full of surly fire. It made her melt. “I am so hard that I feel as though I might break. I am in pain day and night, Nimue. I desire your body. Desire to feel you stroke me. To hold me.”

With her heart beating so fast that she thought she might vomit, she glanced down at his tail, which was still only a tail.

Sircco closed his eyes, releasing his grip on her and tossing his arms out to either side. “I want to remain a gentleman with you, Nimue. I do.”

“Where is it?” she asked softly.

His eyes snapped open, and she’d never seen them storm the way they were now. Licking his lips, he said, “There is a hidden slit. But I look nothing like you, and I do not wish to terrify you, my little pirate.”

Scared now what he could possibly mean she imagined all sorts of diabolical things—a penis with spines on it or perhaps full of poison sacks.

Thinking about it caused her to touch the scar where the hag had cut her months ago.

“I... I...”

Why was she doing this to herself? To him? She had no intention of lying with him. Doing so would only make everything messy and complicated when she had to leave.

A deep sigh caused his chest to rise, and her along with it, causing her to squirm again and eliciting a moan from him.

“This will not work,” he muttered angrily.

“What!” she screeched, shoving herself up his body so that she once more sat on him instead of sprawling on him.

It was one thing for her to think it and quite another for him to speak it.

“You don’t get to decide that, beluga. I do. And I say... no?”

She sniffed. Why had that been so difficult to get out, and why had it sounded more like a question? And why, in Calypso’s name, had it come out like a mouse’s squeak?

“I can make legs, Nimue.” He looked at her.

“You can do what?” She frowned. “Can all of you do that?”

“No, only my sister and I, but we do not care to keep the form long. It is unnatural.”

She slapped his chest. “There is nothing unnatural in this room but you, you big insufferable whale!”

“Gods Above and Under. That is not what I meant, hagfish.”

Eyes wide, she gasped, ready to drive her dirk through his tongue. “You would dare call me that. I loathe you, male.”

Not true. But whatever.

Grabbing her wrists, he shook them gently. “I wasn’t speaking of you, Nimue. But me. The form feels itchy to me. I cannot wear it long, but if it would help you... help us. I would do it.”

Sex
.

She froze.

No sex.

Yes sex.

Good.

Bad.

So bad
.

She whimpered, nibbling on her bottom lip so hard that it ached. Her nipples were pointed, painful things, thrusting against the thin silk of her robe and throbbing each time they rubbed against it.

Sircco released her. “I will not force you.”

Whimpering again, she fought an internal war with herself. “I want sex with you, male,” she finally admitted, and her insides skittered when he groaned. “But I am leaving soon.”

The hands he’d been raising to her sides dropped with a thunk to the mattress.

Nimue had pushed things between them too far. It took a Herculean effort to get off him, and when she did, she had to fight the need to rub her hand between her thighs to satisfy the need.

“My great-mother awaits me,” she mumbled regretfully.

He still wouldn’t talk, but he nodded.

Angry, frustrated, and feeling violent all of a sudden, she stomped her foot. “Why do you have to be so perfect? Leggers and fish do not mate, Sircco! We do not mate!” Then twirling on her heel, she raced for the door.

But she stopped and changed direction, heading not for the bed, but the chest. Looking at him the entire time, she retrieved a handful of gold and jewels, fisted it tightly, and gave him a haughty stare, because that’s what pirate’s did.

S
ircco wanted to both laugh and roar. He’d never felt such a violent need before in his life. He’d forced himself to remain on his bed, not blinking or moving until her dainty heel disappeared behind the slamming of his chamber door.

Once he was sure she was gone, he sailed from his bed and glowered, wanting nothing more than to rip the door off its hinges, find her, drag her back here, and demand that she love him back.

He blinked, startled by the thought.

Love.

He felt it.

He palmed his chest. The violence, the urgency, the softness, the need... what the poems said, he felt it all—for a legger.

His
legger.

“Bloody damn, barracuda,” he snarled, but all the fire was gone now as he dropped back onto his bed.

Talia had told him once that she couldn’t help how she felt, but that if she could have, she’d have given her heart and soul to him.

He’d never been able to understand how she could find one of them so alluring, so intriguing that she would willingly give up her life in Seren for Hook. And now he only wished she were here so that he could tell her thank you, because without her sacrifice, there would be no Nimue.

Nimue. Lady of the Lake. It was what her name meant.

A legger with the soul of a fish. His lips twitched. He knew what the humans called his kind. He’d never much enjoyed the moniker, you could not eat folk the way you could eat fish, but perhaps they also did not care to be called leggers.

Squeezing his eyes shut, he recalled the way she’d felt on him. Without her legs, he could not have felt her touch on both sides of him, like a band around him. A maiden would have had to place herself on one side or another, but Nimue had been wrapped all around him.

Her arms, her legs, and her warm center had rubbed so close to his painfully thick penis that he’d been forced to think of hagfish—ergo the reason for calling her as he had—whenever she did it. he slimy, repulsive creatures were nothing at all like his ivory-skinned, rosy-lipped human.

Grunting, he slipped his hand down, grabbing hold of himself. He wanted it to be her doing this to him. He was a king—he should not need to service himself, but if he didn’t, Goddess help whatever poor creature crossed paths with him this day.

He made quick work of it. All he needed to do was think of her tongue in his mouth and how soft, wet, and minty she’d tasted, and he released in a powerful thrust of hips and tail.

Flicking his wrist, he cleaned up the mess and briefly considered going downstairs to join Sirenade in the study, but he had no interest in seeing her coy smiles and knowing eyes. Lying back down, he sighed. He would close his eyes for a moment, just long enough to give the rabble below time enough to get immersed in other tasks besides gossip.

Five minutes later, he slept.

*

“I
hate him!” Nimue yanked at a kelp frond so forcefully that hundreds of baby snails showered down by her feet.

“Nimue!” Her great-mother scolded. “They’ve only just been birthed, my dear. Do have a care. And you most certainly do not.”

Remembering that it would be a bad thing to snarl her teeth at her grandmother, whom she loved dearly, she dropped to her knees and picked up the little babies with gentle fingers.

She felt bad for hurting them. They were so cute, unlike that insufferable... “Beluga!” she snapped again.

“Nimue, honestly. Tut, tut.” Maiven smacked at her hands. “Release my snails at once. If you crush a shell, I will crush you. Now, come, let us eat some sea weed cakes, have a nice mug of herbal tea, and talk this through, shall we?”

Rolling her shoulders and realizing that if she stayed out here another moment, not a single snail would survive her wrath, she gave her grandmother an unenthusiastic nod. “Aye. Fine.”

They were settled around Maiven’s cozy table minutes later and nibbling on sweet cake.

“I am sorry,” she mumbled after eating her second slice. “I don’t know what’s come over me. I’m frustrated and itchy everywhere, and I cannot stand it.”

Before coming to Maiven’s, she’d serviced herself not once, but twice. And neither time had helped. They’d only made it worse. That blasted fish and all his talk of sex.

“Perhaps you could start with why you are frustrated and how my king comes to play into this scenario?” Maiven asked coolly, sipping on her tea.

“He propositioned me.”

Smiling, Maiven’s eyes twinkled, and Nimue growled, “You knew!”

Snorting, her great-mother nodded. “I may have heard the chatter. But as I was told it, you were the one dragging him behind, dressed scandalously with all of your legs on display for the world to see.”

“That is not at all how it was.” Okay, so maybe the robe had covered nothing, and perhaps she had been the one doing the dragging, but... “He came willingly.”

Wait? What
?

Shaking her head, she tried again. “Rather, he didn’t try very hard to get away. Gods and damnation,” she snapped, because she hadn’t meant to put it that way, either. “I didn’t beat him over a stick to come, great-mother!”

Patting her hand and tutting gently, Maiven’s smile never wavered as she said, “My dear, he is a fine and handsome merman. There is no shame in falling under his spell. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with dalliances. I was known to have them often in my youth.”

She frowned harder. “With him?”

Nimue hadn’t meant for it to sound like such a spitting accusation, but just the thought of another maiden with her hands on him made Nim want to go feral.

“Well, dear, no, not him. But he is no saint, love,” she said gently, as if trying to break the terrible news in such a way so as not to cause another eruption.

Blowing out a raspberry, Nimue rolled her eyes. “Aye. Of course, in theory, I understand that he’s been with others. I simply do not ever wish to come face to face with a liaison.” She glowered. “Has Stygia sunk her claws in him?”

“My love, you sound positively jealous.” Maiven chortled, sounding delighted. “As to Stygia, I couldn’t say for certain, but I’d bet my soul that he hasn’t dipped his snake in that pond.”

“Eww.” She shivered, the analogy making her flesh crawl, especially considering she was fairly certain his penis might bite her if she got too close to it.

“I’m sorry.” She laughed harder. Her entire body shook with it now. “I just couldn’t resist.”

After several more minutes of wiping tears from her eyes before finally regaining her composure once more, Maiven sighed. “Great-daughter of my heart, you sound halfway toward being in love with him.”

“I am,” she wailed, now feeling oddly as though she might cry.

She never cried. She was a pirate. And pirates did not cry. But it seemed to be all she did here, and she hated herself for such weakness.

Picking at the crumbs on her clamshell plate, she stared at the half-eaten slice of cake as though she wanted to murder it, knowing full well what her great-mother would say.

Guard your heart, Nimue, and guard it well. For leggers and fish never mate. Arghhhh...

Okay, so that last argh had been a bit of theatrical embellishment, but still she figured she had it about right.

Maiven’s fingers grabbed hers and squeezed gently. “Look at me, great-daughter.”

When she did, Nimue was horrified to feel the tear roll down her cheek. But Maiven didn’t look appalled or discomfited by it.

“Long ago, Talia told me something almost similar to what you have. Do you know what I did?”

Rolling her lips, she shook her head, not trusting herself to speak at the moment.

“I told her that if she wrapped her tail to a legger’s, she was no daughter of mine and could never return to me.”

Nimue sniffed when this time, her grandmother’s eyes filled with tears.

“Those were the last words I ever said to her, Nim. She died believing I did not love her. But what she never knew was that I loved her too much to let her go.”

The mood was suddenly too tense and fraught with emotion. The two women somehow found themselves with arms wrapped around each other and clinging as though for dear life.

It took several more minutes before either one of them was able to speak. With a gasping, shuddering breath, Maiven drew her thumbs across her cheeks, drying the remaining tears there.

“Much to my everlasting shame, Nimue. And had she not, had she not been willing to forsake my love for one far greater, I would not have you. Every time I see you, I am reminded of my terrible actions, and yet in some small way, I feel you are my redemption, too. I have come alive with you again. I am happy to see you each morning. To talk and share our days. To spend time out in the garden or playing with the children. I feel whole again, and I haven’t felt that for much too long.”

“I love you, too, great-mother.” The words came out so easily that Nimue could not doubt it.

She missed the above, her parents more than anything else, but she was also growing content. If she could only see them on occasion, she would never have cause to leave.

“My daughter was proof that folk can and do rarely fall in love with a legger. So much so that the Great-mother cast her soul to the breeze so that she could find her Hook again. How does it feel when he is with you?”