Ocean's Touch (14 page)

“I mean, what the hell was that? What was I doing there? Why the hell did I let myself do that?” she continued, furiously scrubbing at the shelves with a cleaning rag. Dressed in her party finery, her actions looked more than a little odd. But Dylan understood.

“Why shouldn’t you have been there? Did you not enjoy yourself?” he asked.

“You know I
enjoyed
myself,” she replied, her voice bitter. “But that doesn’t matter. I should never have gone to that party. I should never have behaved the way I did.”

Dylan watched her place the condiments back on the now-clean shelf with the same vehemence with which she’d removed them. He knew he had to intervene before she lost more than her mustard.

“Mer,” he said, his voice soothing as he walked up behind her and stroked his hands down her arms. “Stop berating yourself.”

To his surprise, she stepped away from him, and he felt the cold wash of her anger.

“Don’t touch me. None of this would have happened before you came. I wasn’t like this before.”

Dylan shook his head sadly. “No,” he agreed. “You weren’t. But is that a good thing?”

Meredith shivered, but she wasn’t giving up so easily. “I was whole,” she whispered fiercely. “I knew who I was and what I wanted. I wasn’t like this.”

Dylan closed the refrigerator doors to lean against them. He kept his posture carefully casual—not crowding her, not demanding anything of her. Meredith needed to have this moment, this conversation that was actually with herself, rather than with him. But it wasn’t going to be easy for either of them.

“Who were you, then?” he asked as tears flooded her eyes.

“I was Teddy’s,” she said as she crumpled to the floor like a wet rag.

“Oh, lass,” Dylan said, sitting down next to her and gathering her in his arms. “Will you listen to yourself? You act like you were his property.”

She sniffled, noisily and inelegantly, and he used his magic to pull the box of tissue off her counter and toward them. After she’d blown her nose, she sat back against the refrigerator door, legs straight out in front of her. He echoed her position, keeping his hands off her. This was something she was going to have to go through alone, even if he wanted to be there for her.

“Everything was simple,” Meredith said, and her voice was that of a person looking deep inside, into the dark places where light rarely shone. “I knew exactly who I was. I was Teddy’s, and what he wanted, I wanted. I was happy,” she said, looking at Dylan as if begging him to understand.

“I’m sure you were,” he replied. “You were in love. And you were a child when you two met.”

“I was twenty-one,” she argued.

“A child,” was Dylan’s only response. “Married to a much-older man who knew himself. Who knew what he wanted and could articulate his expectations when yours were still unformed.”

“You make Teddy sound like a villain…some Svengali, controlling me. It wasn’t like that.”

“No,” Dylan said. “I’m sure it wasn’t. Life is always more complicated than the narrations we force upon it. But there are the facts, Meredith. Your youth, Teddy’s experience, and the fact that, while you loved him, he is now gone.”

Fat tears dripped down Meredith’s cheeks. “But why does everything have to change? Why do I have to change?”

Dylan smiled a sad smile. He’d seen so many members of his own race, his own friends, turn from individuals delighted with their lives into cynical, world-weary beings longing for the ultimate release of the Summerlands. Dylan knew all about how people changed.

“Change is inevitable, Mer. You’ve grown up, become a woman. Your experiences with Teddy were going to change you, no matter what, but you would have changed anyway. Life is change.”

“But this? What am I doing with you, with Alex?”

Dylan chuckled. “Are you really bothered by what happened tonight? Or do you feel you should be bothered?”

Meredith immediately opened her mouth to answer, then he saw her reconsider. A second later her lips closed, then pursed in thought.

“Do you feel…what do humans say? Dirty? Do you feel dirty about what we did?”

After a pause, Meredith shook her head. “At the time, it felt right. It felt wonderful. But what must Alex think of me?”

“Mer,” Dylan said, his voice gentle. “Alex isn’t Teddy. Teddy didn’t like sex much, did he?”

Meredith blushed. “Teddy had more important things on his mind,” she said primly. Dylan arched an eyebrow at her.

“No, he didn’t like sex,” she eventually responded to Dylan’s silent challenge. “He was too…fastidious. He didn’t like the mess. The physical or the emotional. Plus, he was sick. We didn’t know it at the time, but I don’t think he could have been more physical, even if he’d wanted to be.”

“He could have been more physical, Mer. He mightn’t have been able to perform, himself, but he could still have enjoyed your body and your pleasure.”

“That would have been unfair to him,” she protested.

“Whilst making you ignore your body was fair?” Dylan asked. Meredith refused to answer, but her silence spoke for her.

“It’s normal to want to be sexual, to want pleasure,” Dylan said, after he’d let her think for a bit. “To want to honor your body, as well as your mind.”

“But what am I doing, Dylan?” Meredith interrupted, her voice small and scared. “I don’t know who this Meredith is, and I’m afraid.”

Dylan touched her then. Wrapping his arms around Meredith, he pulled her close, tucking her head under his chin.

“You’re living, lass. You’re living for yourself, with no one telling you how to be. And yes, it is scary. But it’s how it should be. You need to figure out what you want, not be told.”

Meredith remained silent, thinking through all Dylan had said. When she finally spoke, she preceded her words by placing a long-fingered hand on the planes of his stomach. Dylan had long since let his tux-glamour melt away, leaving him “dressed” in his default glamour of a pair of jeans slung low on his hips.

“I’m sorry I blamed you,” she said. He dipped his lips to kiss the top of her head, accepting her apology.

“I’ve loved being with you. I’ve loved how you’ve made me feel. I was being awful, and you didn’t deserve that,” she continued. Meredith believed in thorough apologies. Before Dylan could answer her, however, she’d stood up.

“Can we go swimming?” she asked.

Dylan’s only response was to grin and hold out his hand so she could help him to his feet.

Chapter Eleven

Keeping a firm grasp on Meredith’s hand, Dylan powered them through the water using his magic. Unlike the first time they’d swum together, he’d taken the time to explain to Meredith that he could “breathe” for them. She’d nodded, wide-eyed in the night air, and he’d marveled at how far she’d come. Instead of questioning everything, Meredith had merely kicked off the flip-flops she’d worn down to the beach to protect her feet against the stones. Otherwise, she’d walked down naked, more proof of Meredith’s evolution that made Dylan fiercely proud of her.

Meredith, meanwhile, reveled in how the ocean lit up her senses. While she knew the water was freezing in reality, with Dylan’s intervention it felt just shy of room temperature. And while she could see the waves were rough, it was like they softened right before hitting Meredith and Dylan, caressing the couple rather than beating against them.

At first, she’d found it very difficult not to want to breach the surface of the water to breathe. Despite trusting Dylan and his magic, not breathing went against every natural instinct she had. But once she’d stopped thinking about it, she’d discovered that minutes passed without her body straining for oxygen. Then they’d begun really swimming, and all other thoughts were pushed out of her mind.

Dylan took them down, deep into the water. Cradling them in his magic, he descended with Meredith all the way to the sea floor. There, he let her explore.

Meredith, one hand always in Dylan’s, crept along the ocean bottom. Even with the strong vision Dylan’s magic afforded her, the coastal region of Maine was hardly a tropical reef. And yet, while nothing sported bright colors, the seabed teemed with life. Lobsters lolloped about like drunken, clawed bulldogs between the other mollusks and crustaceans littering the sea floor. Meanwhile, hunting their bounty, codfish and haddock flashed grey-blue scales. The spotted sides of flounder winked at Meredith through the gloom as they too sought out their dinners.

Everywhere Meredith looked, something either swam or scuttled. And then suddenly a whirl of activity preceded the arrival of two gray seals. Their lithe bodies whirled through the water as they darted after fat fish. Meredith was unsure how much of their actions was serious hunting and how much playing. Then, watching the seals’ joyful movements, she wondered if there was any difference for the jubilant creatures.

Then Meredith had another thought. Looking at Dylan inquiringly, he immediately guessed what she was asking.
No
, he shook his head. They were not like him, but were real seals.

Meredith smiled, and then turned to watch as the seals swam toward them. The two muscular bodies with their dappled skin stopped in front of Dylan and Meredith, watching them curiously as if wondering what the couple was doing there. They’d most likely only ever seen humans in boats or walking on land. Never swimming naked, as were Dylan and Meredith. Unbeknownst to Meredith, however, Dylan used a pulse of his empathy to assure the seals that he and Meredith meant no harm. And so the larger of the two moved closer toward them. Meredith reached out a tentative hand, stroking down the length of the seal’s body as it swam past. Then both seals whizzed around them in a circle, as if saying their good-byes, before darting off toward a small school of fish swimming in the distance.

Meredith grinned fiercely, her expression enchanted. She was blown away by the stark beauty of Dylan’s undersea world, and so unbelievably honored to have been able to share it with him.

It’s amazing,
she thought.
And to have this experience…I feel so alive.

And then she realized how much she enjoyed that feeling. On the waves of that realization came another, darker thought. That feeling of life made Meredith recognize how dead she’d been—how lifeless, how numb.

Meredith knew then that it didn’t matter if she had no real answers. No, she didn’t know what she was doing—not with Dylan, and especially when it came to Alex. She didn’t know who she wanted to be yet or how she intended to become that person. But she knew one thing that made all that uncertainty not only bearable but exciting.

Meredith knew she wanted to live.

So she turned to her selkie lover, and she shared with him her newfound certainty. Running slender fingers down his chest, she cupped Dylan’s balls gently in her hand, then lifted her eyes to the surface in clear demand.

Meredith wanted him. And she wanted him now.

Back on the beach, Dylan used his sealskin to create a bed on the stone beach, underneath the stars. The natural magic of his skin would not only cushion them but keep them insulated from the cold night air. Meredith watched his actions with hungry eyes, and as soon as the skin was laid out she pounced.

Pushing him down and back, so that he lay sprawled before her, Meredith knelt between Dylan’s legs. She moved forward to kiss him hungrily, her mouth feeding at his. Then she began kissing her way downward—starting at his neck, where she nipped and sucked, then licking her way over his salty clavicles. His nipples came next, a hungry suckle to each, before she kissed her way down his flat stomach.

Dylan, meanwhile, lay riveted by Meredith’s aggressiveness. The way she moved down his body was less about teasing him and more about claiming his flesh as hers to enjoy. When she found his thighs, she nipped gently, pushing his legs wide as her hand found his tight scrotum. Dylan groaned as Meredith massaged him gently, before she took the hard length of his cock in her hands. She sat back on her heels, all the better to watch his face as she began stroking him. He didn’t hold back, groaning deeply and letting her feel his own pleasure.

“Take me in your mouth,” he said. She gave him a secretive smile before bending forward. Then Dylan felt her warm tongue lapping at the head of his cock. His hands found her hair as his back arched, and then her hot mouth took him in as far as she could, shocking him with the suddenness of his pleasure.

Moaning, he fisted the soft strands between his fingers, arching his back to pump his cock up into her mouth. Meredith responded by increasing her suction, sliding her tongue more firmly against the underside of his shaft.

Meredith let her selkie lover fuck her mouth. She loved the feel of Dylan’s cock between her lips, and the way he gasped with pleasure as she sucked harder or ran her tongue over his sensitive head on the upstroke. But when she knew he was close—his thrusts into her mouth more demanding, more insistent—she deliberately withdrew her mouth, lowering it to his balls. Sucking and licking first one, and then the other, her reward was his long, tortured moan.

“Move yourself around, lass,” he growled. “I want to touch you.”

Meredith smiled against his flesh, then moved her knees around so that she knelt next to his chest. As she leaned over to put her mouth back on his cock, she felt his thick fingers at her sex.