Breathless (14 page)

“It’s strange,” he continued. “My people don’t touch often. The majority of our contact comes through battle. But your kind . . . your kind touches al the time. I like that.”

He shifted closer so that our bodies touched from our shoulders to our hips. His skin, always several degrees cooler than mine, sent a ripple of shivers through my body.

Bastin stil ed. “Are you cold?”

“No.”

“But you shivered.”

I wondered if Bastin could feel my blush as it burned its way from my cheeks to the rest of my body. “Because of your touch.”

He smiled. “Is that a good thing?”

I laughed nervously and directed my attention to the sky. “You sure ask a lot of questions.”

His grin widened. “And that bothers you?”

I shook my head. “It’s just . . . awkward.”

“Why?”

I fidgeted on the rock. It was as if I could feel Bastin inside my mind, poking around, digging things out that I longed to keep buried. “I guess I’m just not that comfortable talking about my feelings.”

“Oh.” Bastin turned his head away from me and gazed at the moon. “My kind is the same. We don’t talk about our feelings, either.” He was quiet for a moment. “Sometimes I think most of them don’t have any.”

Sir’s image floated in my mind, and I grunted in agreement. “I know what you mean.”

In a flash, Bastin was above me, his hands on either side of my face. “But you feel, don’t you, Edith? You can feel this?”

He leaned over and pressed his lips against mine. Softly at first, but then fol owed by an urgency. The taste of him spread through me, sea salt mixing with my blood. His kisses became fevered, his arms twisting behind my back, pressing me into him, as if he could sink into my skin and underneath, to find the answers to al the questions he asked.

When he final y released me, I felt an immediate longing to close the space between us. “I definitely felt that,” I whispered.

“Good.” He grinned, a sight that ignited a flame deep within me. “The way you make me feel—” And the smile was gone.

My heart clenched tightly. “What’s wrong?”

He closed his eyes for what felt like an eternity before looking at me. “It’s like you’ve brought me to life. No one has ever made me feel this way before. Do you think . . .” He paused. “Do you think you’re the only one that wil ever make me feel this way?”

Picturing Bastin with another girl, even a mermaid, was too unbearable to think about. It took me several moments before I was able to answer him. “I-I don’t know. I guess only you can answer that.”

He cocked his head and appeared to think about it. “I think, Edith, you’re the only one who can make me this happy. Make me feel this alive.”

I stared at him. The way his eyes, endless in their depths, stil seemed to get lost in the light of the moon that control ed him. I wanted to answer him back, to tel him how when I was with him, the rest of the world fel away, as if it’d never existed at al . That al there was and al there would ever be were the two of us. But even as the words burned on my tongue, something inside of me refused to let go.

“Why do you think, of al the creatures on this planet, it’s you who is meant for me?”

The world around me swam out of focus as my breath caught in my throat. Like a computer struggling to download a complex file, my mind locked up, unable to make sense of what he’d said. Bastin thought I was meant for him? How was that even possible? He was a mythical creature and I was . . . the kind of girl who wore underwear that came in packs of six. Boring. The answer to his question seemed obvious. “You’re total y cursed.”

Bastin laughed, a sound that brought a smile to my lips. “No more than you, it would appear.” He leaned over and kissed me again, only this time it lasted much longer. We kissed until his arms could hold him no longer and he lay on top of me. We twisted and twined like vines growing along a tree until you could no longer tel where Bastin ended and I began.

Bastin pul ed away first. He always pul ed away first. I had a harder time letting go. Good things didn’t happen to me, and Bastin was the best thing in the world. There had to be a catch. A moment when it would al come undone. Until then, I couldn’t help but treat each kiss as if it would be our last.

“Edith,” Bastin’s voice was husky, and it made me smile to hear a mer out of breath. “I want to give you something.”

I blinked.

He continued. “Tel me what you want most in the world. Anything. I wil find a way to give it to you.”

“That’s sil y.” I sat up beside him. “I don’t need or want anything. I have you.”

He took my hand in his. “But I want to do this. I can only be with you at night. I want to give you something that reminds you that I am thinking of you even when you’re walking in the sun and I’m swimming under it.”

Absently, I tapped my jeans over the anklet underneath. I didn’t know if Bastin would be upset that I had a hole dril ed through the stone, so I didn’t show him. “You already gave me that beautiful stone.”

His eyes darted away. “That doesn’t count. That was to replace something that Luna took from you.” He cupped both my hands. “Please, Edith, let me do this for you. You’ve done so much for me. Tel me what you want.”

I was quiet for a moment before I shook my head. “What I want most in the world I can’t have.”

Bastin squeezed my hands. “What’s that?”

I leaned my head against his shoulder. “You. With me. Forever.”

He sighed and wrapped me in his arms. “And there’s nothing else?”

“Someday,” I said, “when I can get away from Sir, I want to get a puppy. I’ve wanted a dog for as long as I can remember.”

“This is your great wish? A dog?”

I laughed. “Pretty stupid, huh?”

I felt Bastin’s head shake as his chin brushed the top of my head. “No. I like dogs. They’re funny creatures. They always seem so happy.”

“That’s what I like best about them.”

“There used to be a house up the coast,” he gestured across the bayou, “with a dog. Big and brown with ears that flapped in the wind. I believe I heard the owner cal it a Chesa-” He frowned, searching for the words.

“Chesapeake Bay Retriever?” I offered.

He smiled. “Yes. That’s it. Such a happy dog. Then the owner put some sort of a wire in the ground that kept the dog from running outside an invisible barrier—something to do with a col ar. After that, they left him outside al the time. The dog was so sad, he used to howl pitiful y. So every night I removed its col ar and we played. We ran along the beach and swam in the ocean. I was quite impressed with the creature—he was almost as skil ed as I at catching fish.” Bastian chuckled. “If I were human, I would most definitely want a dog, too. One exactly like the Chesapeake Bay Retriever—a dog that loved water and loved to play.”

“What happened to the dog?” I asked.

Bastin sighed. “The humans moved away, I guess. One night I came to visit the dog, only he wasn’t there. I returned every night, in the hopes the dog would be waiting for me, until a month later, there was a dog. Only this one was smal , white, and al it did was bark at me. It hated the water and didn’t want to play.”

I kissed the side of Bastin’s cheek. “I’m so sorry you lost your friend. The Chesapeake Bay Retriever sounds like the perfect dog.”

“Oh, he was.” Bastin nodded his head emphatical y. “The little white ones are not.”

I laughed until tears sprang from my eyes. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been so happy. It was like life hadn’t existed before Bastin, and in a way, it hadn’t. The trouble with life, however, was it always ended. You start dying the moment you take your first breath. It was inevitable. And as soon as I had the thought, it was branded on my brain with a red hot poker. My time with Bastin was an hourglass ful of razors, ripping through me as time ran out.

The fol owing night, rain sprinkled from the few grey clouds streaked across the midnight sky. It wasn’t enough to soak my clothes, but it did plaster my hair in annoying lines down my cheeks.

Bastin pushed a wet strand out of my eye and tucked it behind my ear. “I would like to show you something.”

Another day of roaming the hal s of my school in a half-awake stupor, leaky faucets, and dirty glances from Gabriel e and her friends, had led to this moment.

Total y worth it.

Slowly, as if Bastin were a creature to be swayed by fast movements, I uncurled my fingers and lifted my hand to his. In the moment before our skin connected, I could feel an electric current travel the air between his hand and mine. As if he was a magnet and I was metal, everything in me designed to fol ow the pul that was him.

When our fingers entwined I knew something dangerous was happening, but I couldn’t see past the night’s stars or, even brighter, the smile on Bastin’s face. Blinded. The night fel away, fol owed by the world. And al that remained, al that
could
exist was the two of us.

I glanced at my hand, swal owed inside of his. Only it wasn’t just my hand held captive. I wondered if there was anywhere he would lead that I wouldn’t fol ow.

“Come with me,” Bastin said. He led me to the water and I fol owed without a question. He waded deeper until the water reached his waist, and stil , I fol owed. When the water reached his chest I inched forward on my tiptoes, straining to keep my chin above the smal waves. If he took another step, I’d go under. Stil , I couldn’t find enough strength to let go.

My heart beat a frantic rhythm inside my head. Something intense was happening here. Something I’d failed to understand until just now, when it was too late. I’d thought Bastin to be safe but I’d been wrong. The danger had been just beneath the surface, waiting for me to open my backdoor that first night. And I was paying the price. Bastin was inside of me now, pulsing through my veins with each beat of my heart.

He dropped my hand long enough to fidget with something underwater. Moments later, he lifted his arm exposing the shorts dripping wet in his grasp. He tossed them on the beach.

My throat went dry and I couldn’t help but move away from him. I’d never been around a naked guy before, and it felt far more dangerous than I’d ever imagined.

Bastin disappeared under the inky waves. Scared, but not sure why, I took another step back only to run into something solid. I turned to find Bastin standing in front of me, looking down at my face. He licked his lips, looking even more the predator. “I can hear your heartbeat under the water, Edith. Why are you scared?” His fingers found mine, and before I knew what was happening I was pressed against him, his skin so much different now that it was wet, slippery even.

Because I couldn’t think past the curve of his hips pressed against my own, I stammered the first thing that came to me. “A-a-al igators. There are al igators in here.”

Bastin laughed, a sound that twisted things deep inside my chest and below my navel. A pain so beautiful it ripped my heart and I was glad to bleed. “But you’ve already bested an al igator, remember? Besides, no al igators would dare bother us tonight, Edith. On that you have my word.”

“How can you be so sure?”

His smile would have brought me to my knees if he hadn’t been holding me inside his arms. In that moment, I wouldn’t have cared if we were surrounded by a hundred gators. I stil would have fol owed him—straight into their hungry mouths.

“Come on!” Bastin released me and took a couple of strokes away from the shore.

I didn’t move. “Where are we going?”

Bastin, his head bobbing above the waves, only smiled.

“You know I can’t swim the way you can,” I said.

“You can with me.”

“How?”

Instead of answering, Bastin disappeared into the water. Alone and nervous, I considered trudging back to the shore, but before I could even take a step back, something wrapped around my waist and forcibly pul ed me under.

It was too dark, the water too murky to make out more than a few feet in front of my face. Stil , there was no missing the enormous, glittering fishtail that made up Bastin’s lower body. I’d believed him when he’d said he was a merman. I’d watched him disappear into the ocean every night.

Yet I couldn’t seem to make sense of the image before me. He floated in a sea of black silk. A rainbow of emerald, ruby, and sapphire-colored scales shimmered down the length of him until they disappeared into his pearl-colored skin. Behind him, his hair fanned behind him like a silver cloak. It was too much. Not only did his beauty hurt to take in, it also served to remind me how different we truly were.

I tried to look away and failed.

As if reading my mind, Bastin’s lips moved and I heard him speak as plainly as he did above the water. “I thought you should see the real me.”

I wanted to answer back, to thank him for opening himself up to me. But unlike him, I couldn’t speak. And I couldn’t stay underwater much longer.

My lungs were beginning to ache for oxygen and my shoulder burned in the saltwater.

Bastin stopped smiling. It was as if he understood what I’d been thinking only a moment ago. He couldn’t exist in my world and I would die in his.

He swam toward me, and, while I would have liked to wait for him, my need for air was too great. I kicked for the surface but a hand ensnared my wrist before I could break free.

I whirled around and found myself staring into the depths of his eyes. What was he doing? Didn’t he realize I needed air?

I struggled in his grip until he whispered in my ear, a trail of bubbles tickling along my cheek. “I’d never hurt you, Edith.”

Despite the burning fire consuming my lungs, I relaxed in his arms.

Bastin brought his mouth to mine. I felt the faintest brush of his tongue tracing the outline of my lips before he breathed deeply inside my throat.

The barbed wire encasing my chest disappeared. Oxygen! With his lips stil on mine I continued to breathe from him. I wrapped my arms around his chest and clung to him, drinking him in, as his tail moved beneath me, pushing us along. Bastin secured one arm around my waist and slid his other hand behind my head. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine what it would be like to be a mermaid, to be able to be with Bastin forever. There was nothing for me on shore. Everything I wanted was under the water where I could never stay.