Immortal Sea (32 page)

Morgan stared up at the flat white ceiling of Elizabeth’s pretty bedchamber as she melted over him, their limbs tangled, her hair spread over his chest like a net drying in the sun, all warm, moist, fragrant woman. His woman. Sleepy. Satisfied.

She had taken him apart the way Emily’s kitten would unravel a ball of yarn until his guts were strung out for her to play with and his heart rolled across the floor. He could not find strength to move or breath to speak, but his instincts, honed over centuries of survival, quivered in warning.

He was in very deep danger here.

She raised her head from his shoulder, the glow still on her cheeks and in her eyes. Her kiss-swollen lips curved. “That was nice.”

His system was swamped, his world had been shaken to its foundation, and she thought it was “
nice
”?

He struggled to form words. “Yes.”

She stretched against him, making his libido sit up and beg like a dog. “I feel wonderful.”

He raised one hand, unsticking a strand of hair from her parted lips. “Yes.”

She blushed, modest even after sex. “You’re awfully agreeable all of a sudden.”

“You have destroyed my brain,” he told her truthfully. “I cannot think.”

She grinned, pleased, and bounced a quick, affectionate kiss off his jaw. Another layer of his defenses swirled down like a sand castle assaulted by the tide. “I have a lot of lost time to make up for.”

He cleared his throat. “How did you survive without a lover all these years?”

“Oh.” She wiggled, distracting him. “I have a decent imagination. And some good memories.”

Memories of him? Or of her husband?

An unfamiliar stab of possessiveness caught Morgan under the ribs. “The finfolk live in the moment. We are not bound by memories.”

Elizabeth shook back her hair. “What about love?”

“We are not bound by love either.” The words, practiced for centuries, came easily. “Emotions are ephemeral. We are immortal. Nothing lasts forever but the sea.”

She narrowed her eyes. “The sea and love.”

He shrugged, uncomfortable with the conversation. “That’s what my sister thought, and she died.”

“You have a sister?”

“Had.”

“What happened to her?”

He drew a quick, harsh breath, regretting he had ever introduced the subject. “She died. She took a mortal lover and gave up everything for him, the sea and her life.”

Elizabeth’s brow pleated. “Did she regret her decision?”

“I do not know. I never spoke to her again.”

Not a decision he was proud of, upon reflection. But he was not much given to self-examination.

“How sad,” Elizabeth said.

“I believe she was happy,” he offered stiffly. “There were children. Five.”

Tiny figures on the shore, playing by the sea that should have been their birthright. Morwenna had walked with them, her pale hair floating in the breeze, her husband at her side. The lady of Farness. A wave of yearning for what had been, for what never was, swept through him.

“The first year . . .” Elizabeth’s voice faltered.

His attention sharpened. She was no more prone to faltering than he was to introspection. “Go on.”

“After Ben died, I was angry with him for leaving me. Leaving us.” Her throat moved as she swallowed. “Even though his death wasn’t his fault, even though I knew my feelings were part of the grieving process, it took me a long time to forgive. But until I got past the anger, I couldn’t get on with my life.”

Her words struck him like stones. Were they still talking about his sister and her dead husband?
“I was angry with him for leaving me . . . It took me a long time to forgive.”

“And did you?” Morgan asked, braced for her answer. “Forgive?”

She nodded so that her hair brushed his collarbone. “I remembered how much I loved him, and how he loved each of us. I thought how much richer my life was because he was in it even for a little while.” Compassionate and direct, her gaze sought his. “And I realized that I would rather have loved him and lost him than never to have had him in my life at all.”

He lay beneath her, mute and stiff.

“You say you live in the moment. Maybe,” she suggested softly, “you should let go of the past.”

Could he? His emotions churned. His revelation earlier today must have turned her world upside down. But she had turned him inside out, leaving him uneasy, aching, raw.

“I never told her that I loved her,” he said abruptly. “My sister. I gave her all the reasons in the world to stay but that.”

Elizabeth cupped his jaw, her touch indescribably tender. “Maybe she knew without you telling her.”

He met her steady dark eyes. “I cannot promise you a future, Elizabeth.”

“Then I’ll take now.”

He covered her hand with one of his own, holding it to his cheek. “Take me.”

“Yes,” she said.

He wanted her again. He would always want her.

He pushed the fear aside. He dug in the drawer for another of the damn sheaths and put it on before he rolled with her, deliberately overwhelming her with his strength, shoving into her without foreplay or finesse. She was still silky, soft, wet. With a moan of welcome, she opened to him, wrapping her legs around his hips, her arms around his ribs.

“That feels so . . . Oh.” Her tremor shook them both. Yet she craned her neck to look at the clock. “I don’t think we have time.”

No time
, he thought.

“I do not need long,” he said and set out to prove it, stroking into her fast and hard, hammering into her over and over in a push toward forgetfulness, a rush toward release. But she met him, matched him, tilting her hips to take his thrusts, twining her fingers in his hair, her legs around his legs,
Elizabeth
in every pulse, push, breath. He felt her around him, inside him, part of him, and when she cried out and came, her orgasm took him like the sea, changed him in his heart and the marrow of his bones.

He lay on her, listening to the rain drum on the roof and drip through the trees.

Beached.

Bewildered.

Changed. He would never be the same, never be himself again.

Outside, a car crunched over gravel. Headlights sparked on the glass and arced away.

“I have to get dressed,” Elizabeth kissed the side of his face, shoved at his shoulder. “It’s getting late. You have to go.”

He lay unmoving, his body as heavy as stone, her words trickling through him as cold and inescapable as water.

He had to go.

Sooner or later, whether he took the boy or not, he was warden of the northern deeps, with duties in the sea and on Sanctuary. He was lord of the finfolk, among the last blood born of his kind. He could not stay.

Could he?

Dylan had. But Dylan was both selkie and human, bound to land by his sealskin, anchored by a human life and human responsibilities.

“It is already too late,” he said.

Elizabeth looked at him without understanding. “The children will be home soon.”

The children. Zachary.

The reminder formed an icy ball in his gut. He disengaged slowly from Elizabeth’s body, reluctant to part with her warmth, already anticipating in his heart and in his flesh the larger separation to come. “I must speak with him. Zachary.”

Elizabeth’s clouded eyes cleared. He watched the subtle shift from lover to mother as she marshaled her authority and defenses. “Not tonight. He’s been through enough for one day.”

So had she. But she did not make excuses for herself, he noticed. He admired her determination to protect their son. But he would not let admiration deter him from what must be said. What must be done.

“Zachary is old enough to make his own decisions.”

She shook her head. “He doesn’t know enough to decide anything. He needs time to adjust. To accept. We all need time.”

The bitter echo of Conn’s words played in his head.
“You need time to recover . . . Take as long as you need
.
”

“Time will not change what he is,” Morgan said. “Or what I am.”

A frown formed between Elizabeth’s brows. “This isn’t only about you. Or even about Zack. I have to consider Em.”

He stared at her, perplexed, uneasy. “Emily already accepts me.”

“Exactly. She’s becoming attached.”

Attached.
Like a barb in his skin, a tiny hook in his heart.

The admission did not hurt as much as he thought it would.

“I am . . . attached to her, too,” he said carefully.

Elizabeth did not appear impressed. “I’ve been very careful about limiting the children’s contact with the men I’ve dated. I don’t want Em to think that because we’re involved, you’re a father candidate.”

The thought of Elizabeth with other men made him grit his teeth. Her rational tone drove him wild. She was still lying naked under him. How could she dismiss him so easily? “I was not aware you had come to this island to find a father for Emily.”

Her eyes sparked. “I didn’t. Any more than you came looking for a son. But here we are.”

“In your bed,” he reminded her.

“Yes.” She sighed, releasing her anger with her breath, and touched his taut jaw. “I can accept you won’t be around forever. I won’t ask Emily to accept it. I think it would be better if you don’t see her for a little while. You need to give us some space.”

Her barriers were up again, he realized. And he was on the outside. Despite her gentle hands, her rueful tone, her complete and satisfying surrender to him moments ago, she would not compromise where her children were concerned.

Frustrated, he rolled from her to sit on the edge of her mattress. “And Zachary?”

“I won’t stop him from seeing you. But if you care for him—if you care for me at all—you’ll back off. Give us time.”

Instinct and pride, primal, possessive, rose to refute her. Back off now? Leave her when she was vulnerable? When she was his? She would only use the opportunity to withdraw even further behind her formidable defenses.

And yet . . . She had no reason—he had no right—to expect otherwise.
“I can accept you won’t be around forever
. . .
”

He nodded stiffly, still with his back to her. “Very well. I will come back tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow is Saturday. Zack’s at the store all day.”

“Sunday, then.”

“We need one day together as a family.”

A family he was not part of.

He cast a sardonic look over his shoulder. “Will one day make such a difference after fifteen years?”

Her smile trembled. “If it’s the last day.”

Ah, God.

He wanted to reassure her that he would not rip Zachary unwilling from this life and her arms. But he could say nothing until he had spoken to the boy. Zachary was finfolk. The choice must be his.

“How much time do you need?” he asked.

FOR THREE DAYS, IT DID NOTHING BUT RAIN, a hard, cleansing downpour from clouds piled like oyster shells, thick white and luminous gray. The runoff penetrated every cranny of Liz’s house and leaked under the duct tape holding her broken window together. The chill permeated her bones. The smell of loam and moss and pine was everywhere. Rain splashed in the road like a river, collecting in puddles on the saturated ground, driving the tourists to the mainland and the islanders to the clinic for every twinge and sniffle aggravated by the creeping damp.

Liz advised ibuprofen, saline rinses, and rest, and wished she had a home care remedy for the anarchy brewing in her heart and head.

She wished she knew. Morgan’s absence ached like a bruise. She had made him promise to stay away from them until she had a chance to think, until she and Zack had a chance to talk, until she could figure out what was best for him and Emily.

But Zack seemed content to say nothing, to do nothing, to slide through the days and nights with as little fuss as possible, as if ignoring the issue would make it go away.

Part of her was grateful for the respite after the stress of the past few years, the shock of the past few days. She found herself a silent coconspirator in avoidance, doing her best to recapture the rhythm of their earlier life, making pancakes, watching movies, playing Go Fish around the kitchen table as if everything were normal. As if Zack were normal. Hoping, selfishly, that the simple family pleasures, the familiar family routines, would be enough to hold him when the time came.

She knew they would not hold Morgan.

Something had changed the last time they’d made love. In him. In her. She felt it. But his words lay stark between them.
“I cannot promise you a future, Elizabeth
.
”

She didn’t need guarantees, no longer believed in happily-ever-after. But her children deserved stability. Security.