Chapter 18

Chapter

Eighteen

His dick jerked like the eager fucker it was, but Nireed's plea had his mind racing at a million miles an hour. Mating wasn't a flippant word choice. Wasn't synonymous with good old fun sex. It came with connotations, and given how close the merfolk lived to nature, to the harsh realities of survival, to life and death, he wouldn't be surprised if they readily answered their biological drives. This would be deeply important to them. And to Nireed.

The last thing he wanted to do was offend her.

"Well," he began, collecting himself. "It's not just about fucking, right? It's about making a baby." He linked his arms around her waist. Catching on to his serious tone, she released him, her hands coming up to rest on his chest.

His eyes dipped down, and he allowed himself to picture, just for a second, her belly round. Maybe even with his kid. It was a terrifying, and yet surprisingly thrilling prospect. "Do you want a baby, Nireed?"

Her brow furrowed. "Is that strange?"

"Just different." He chose his next words carefully. "Humans don't lead right out of the gate with that. We date first. It's like a practice run. We spend lots of time getting to know one another to make sure we're compatible."

"Oh." Not only did her face fall, but her bioluminescence also flickered out, leaving them in complete darkness.

"Hey," he soothed, lifting her chin. "I'm not telling you no. Just not yet."

A faint glow returned.

"I still want you. Just let me get a condom, okay?"

She tilted her head with a curious, catlike expression. "Okay."

He felt her eyes on him as he swam back to the boat. His boxers had been swallowed by the sea, so she had a full view of his backside as he pulled himself out.

A few months after moving to Maine, he'd made a dating profile and had bought a box of condoms to go along with it. There'd been plenty of interest, but only a few made it to drinks, and only one to dinner. If only Reid-then could see Reid-now, about to go all the way with a mystical creature of the sea.

Nireed was waiting for him by the diving platform when he sat down, a foil packet in hand.

"How's your side? Any cramping?" As enthusiastic as he was to get inside her, he wasn't going to jeopardize her health to do it.

She crinkled her nose in thought, seriously considering the question, which he appreciated. "Forgot about it until you asked. Still sore, but not bad."

"Have you ever done this before?" He tore open the packet, watching her study him as he rolled it down his length. Either way it went, he was going to be careful, but it helped to know.

"For a short time." She spread her hands up his bare thighs, claws mindfully angled up. "About a year ago. But he's mated to another now. No babies."

He swallowed thickly. Never thought to ask her if she had kids.

Even if it wasn't the first time for either of them, it was theirs together, which was just as, if not more special, because they were choosing each other after all that had come before.

He was going to savor this with her.

Palming his shaft and giving it a deliberate stroke, he asked one more question. "Still want this with me?"

Her inner amber light flickered to life. "Reid, I want whatever you're willing to give."

Slipping into the water, he pulled her in for a slow, drugging kiss. Even if he couldn't give her everything right now, there was a whole lot he could. A world of possibility lay before them—they had time—and starting here, with their bodies doing all the talking, saying the things words couldn't, wasn't a bad way to begin.

His fingers found the sensitive round pearl of flesh she'd shown him and didn't stop lavishing it with attention until she was trembling and gushing over his fingers, her bioluminescence pulsing in time with clenching muscles. He noticed that she produced more of it, too, than human women did, no doubt accounting for the need to have more lubrication in the water.

Nature rising to the occasion.

Their heads were bowed together when he lined himself up, his dick a dark silhouette against her pretty, luminescent pussy. "So damn gorgeous." His voice was gruff. Holding her hip as he fed himself into her depths, he watched her part around him, then envelop him whole, that inner flesh ridiculously plush and smooth as it suctioned onto him in a dizzying, watertight seal.

It was fucking hot. She was fucking hot.

"Mm," she purred, bumping her nose to his. "Feels good?"

"Unbelievably." Using her hips as anchor points, he eased in and out in slow, measured thrusts. She grasped the hair at the top of his head, on the cusp of too long for regulations, and his hip, too, to help with leverage. "You?"

Her eyes had fluttered closed, her lips slightly parted. "So good."

God, he was burying himself in her, and it wasn't enough. He wanted that beautiful, dangerous mouth on his. Wanted to feel every hitched breath, every gasp, every moan. He wanted to taste her pleasure, her joy, the moment she broke and came, waves upon waves crashing on his shores.

"Can't get enough of you," he murmured, recapturing her lips, feeling her hold on tighter and clench. As their bodies sought each other again and again, he kissed her slowly, loosely, just enough to keep his lips on the pulse of her desire.

This was a little more than just fucking. He knew that in the way his heart beat an ecstatic, relieved staccato in his chest, and in the way his stomach swooped even as the tingling at the base of his spine grew and grew.

"Reid." She gasped against his lips, her brows pinched so fucking beautifully. Concentrating on him, on her pleasure, on the sensations they built together.

"Getting close, sweetheart?" He rolled his hips, intentionally delivering pressure on her inner clit. He loved its placement, so easy to pay devotion to with every stroke.

She nodded, her forehead still pressed to his. "You?"

"Oh, yeah." He nipped at her lower lip. "But I'm going to try to get you off first."

Her eyes met his with a heavy-lidded gaze. "You make this feel so good. I don't want it to end."

His heart stuttered, an unfathomably warm feeling building in his chest. "It doesn't have to be just this once. I've got a whole box in there."

"First of many," she agreed, matching his rolling rhythm. "You'll have to get more boxes."

God, he loved the sound of that. He never wanted to stop. "I will, Starfish. I promise."

Clutching each other, they sped their efforts, gasping and panting through their need, racing toward the finish line. She was so swollen and sensitive around him, her channel getting all at once slicker and tighter. He did navigational calculations in his head just so he wouldn't blow before she did.

"Come for me," he pleaded, seeking her lips.

With a sharp inhale, she arched in his arms, her muscles contracting around him, sucking him in, and keeping their hips pinned. It was such a tight, delicious squeeze, he almost blacked out from the pleasure of it.

"That's it," he groaned against her mouth. Licking against the parted opening, he intentionally nicked his tongue against her teeth, sharing the coppery taste of his blood. She pressed into the kiss, worrying her tongue over that spot with soothing strokes.

He came hard, her channel fluttering in time to her pulsing bioluminescence as she fell over the edge with him.

Breathing heavily, they clung to each other under the stars, lost in the fog of their release.