Dreaming by the Sea (an erotic paranormal short story) (3 page)

“Your mother wasn’t very forthcoming.”

“I swore her to secrecy.”

“And she does love hiding her daughters from their suitors.”

“Why now?” I repeated, almost choking on the words.

His jaw tightened. “Your father is pushing mine into deep waters. This is my last chance to be with you.”

“Your father is Nereus,” I whispered, remembering that Nereus had been the one to propose the marriage that had so infuriated her father. “I won’t be used against my father for your father’s sake, even though he had first claim to the oceans. I don’t get along with Poseidon, but I won’t stand against him.”

His blue eyes darkened, his features growing so taut a muscle along his jaw flexed. “I don’t want you to choose between us, only for you to choose to be with me.”

My heartbeat quickened. “Why is choosing you so important?”

The muscle alongside his jaw flexed, and his glance fell away.

“Stubborn as always,” I muttered. “If you’d just bent a little, given me a clue about how you felt, I might not have run so far.” He remained inflexible, his neck unbent.

I took a deep breath. “Why do you think I sought refuge on land? Yesterday, you saw how I miss the softness of the water. The ease of movement.” She knew now why the sea had frightened her. She’d been tempted to throw herself into the tide without understanding she’d be transformed. She’d believed she had a death wish. “Hell, I still feel the jolt every time I take a step.”

“Then why live here?” he asked, his voice raspy.

She opened her arms to encompass her surroundings. “Because here I’m free. My life isn’t preordained.”

“You won’t come back, will you?” he said, his voice bleak. “Not to my father’s realm? Not even to your own?”

I swallowed hard against a dry throat. “As much as I miss it, I can’t go back.”

His gaze broke with mine and scanned over the stormy sea. “Do you think he knows I’m here?”

I followed his gaze, staring out at restless, choppy waves. “I’d bet his triton he has someone watching. Maybe it’s not such a good idea to swim again while you’re with me.”

“If what you say is true, he let me come through his waters. He didn’t stop me from returning again today.”

I snorted. “That’s not exactly the same as a blessing.”

“No, but he hesitates, waiting to see whether I will hurt you.”

I swallowed hard and turned my face to meet his glance. “That’ll happen anyway when we say goodbye.”

Thanasius reached for my hand and threaded his fingers through mine. When his gaze rose again, it was stark and clear. “Would you like a companion? I will stay with you.”

Stay
? I tried to pull away my hand, but he held firm. “Why would you give up what you are?”

“Once I heard what you’d done, giving up your tail, I was curious. I didn’t know how you could live so long out of the water without being tempted to even touch it.”

I shook my head. It was unfathomable to me, too. Now that I remembered everything. “It was part of the spell. I lost my memory and didn’t need to wet my tail, ever—but mother built in the fear so that I wouldn’t transform and be confused.”

“She’s clever, your mother. And Demeter’s forever standing between the brothers and what they want most. This amused her.”

I tilted my chin. “However much she might like tweaking my father’s nose, she’s still my mother. Why would she help you find me?”

His eyes grew stormy; again a muscle flexed along the side of his hardening jaw. A look that had entranced me the first time we’d been introduced at my father’s court.

“I convinced her I wanted to walk by your side. That if it was your wish, I’d never return to my kingdom.”

A painful tightness lodged inside my chest. “But why would you do that? You hadn’t seen me in ten years.”

“I wasn’t sure I’d feel the same. So I watched you. I saw the yearning, and recognized it for the same feeling that stirs inside me. Poseidon usurped my father’s kingdom but the longer he held it, the less I wanted it back. I’m…unfettered. My future my own.”

I smiled, recognizing a kindred heart in my first and only love. On impulse, I leaned toward him and gave him a kiss. “I’ll teach you to walk on two legs.”

He snorted. “I can walk. Didn’t I climb that cliff?” He kissed my fingers. “But I would let you guide me in this new life, if you will share the journey.”

Happiness, true and as deep as the sea, filled me. The Fates had finished weaving the threads of our lives together, and a lifetime of loneliness melted away in the beauty of his smile.

Together we faced a quiet sea. I had no doubts my father was pleased. Now, my mother… Well, Demeter had meddled in the affairs of her daughters’ hearts for the last time.

“Come to bed with me?”

I arched a brow. “Do you now prefer a mattress to open water?”

“Are you brave enough to swim away from the shore?”

“With you beside me, yes.” I glanced around the cabin. “I’ll have to extend the lease.”

“We’ll have the best of both worlds.”

I stood still as he drew my clothing from my body, piece by piece. I grew breathless as he stripped away his own. Then hand in hand, we ran down the stone steps, eager to feel the kiss of the ocean, together.

Delilah Devlin is a
New York Times
and
USA TODAY
bestselling author of erotica and erotic romance with a rapidly expanding reputation for writing deliciously edgy stories with complex characters. She has published over a hundred forty erotic stories in multiple genres and lengths, and she is published by Atria/Strebor, Avon, Berkley, Black Lace, Cleis Press, Ellora’s Cave, Grand Central, Harlequin Spice, HarperCollins: Mischief, Kensington, Montlake Romance, Running Press, and Samhain Publishing.

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C
allie Murphy had
never been one to moon over a man. Fairytale romances were best left to novels. After all, she’d seen first-hand how transitory love could be after watching her mother drift in and out of three marriages, only to be left disappointed when “true love” faded. However, the video Callie watched for the thousandth time stirred a wistfulness inside that left her feeling restless and thinking about what might have been.

Just the sight of that steady gaze enveloped her in warmth. The deep timbre of his voice as he sang raised the fine hairs on her arms and caused her nipples to tauten, because she remembered that same voice murmuring in her ear in the darkness.

Knowing she’d never get his approval for security’s sake, she’d snuck this recording of their Skype session using a plug-in installed on her computer because she’d wanted something of him to linger after they’d said their goodbyes. This recording had been made before their final breakup. Now, watching and listening to him was a form of self-torture. Wearing desert camouflage pants and a brown tee stretching across a well-muscled chest, his dark hair a little shaggy and his beard scruffy, he was all man. All complication. Those piercing blue eyes stared into the camera at her, steady and determined, and Callie couldn’t help the tears welling in her eyes.

Prickles of dismay swept over her as she imagined some other woman, someone not her, on the receiving end of one of his calls, being serenaded with that husky, smooth-as-silk voice. The last time he’d proposed, she’d been firm, making it clear she had no interest in leaving behind the life she’d built in Two Mule, Texas while he was set on a career in the Navy. Rightfully, he should have moved on. No one here in Two Mule would ever fault him. No one really understood why she kept refusing him, but then they hadn’t walked in her shoes through her childhood.

Her mother had followed that “broken road,” uprooting Callie three times, from the friends she’d made, from the roots she’d tried so desperately to sink deep into every place she’d lived. She’d never make that same mistake. Love faded, turned bitter and dark. When love ended, good people drifted apart, or worse, struck out at each other. She’d lived it, first-hand.

So when Derek had stood on her doorstep that last day before heading back to Little Creek, where no doubt his team would be deployed on more dangerous secret missions in the Middle East, Africa, or whatever foreign hellhole the powers that be scrambled a SEAL team for, she’d shut the door on everything he’d offered, despite the fact he’d been sincere—and despite the fact her own heart had twisted inside her chest at the disappointment darkening his eyes.

Watching the video now, him seated on a narrow cot strumming a guitar while he sang about roads leading him straight to some other woman, Callie couldn’t help sniffling. He’d known even before that last proposal that she’d say no. And yet, here he’d been, reaching out to her, letting her see inside his heart as he strummed out his pain.

Watching him as he’d given her a smile, and then sat back to pull his guitar across his legs, she remembered everything she’d felt—nostalgia for their long-shared past, irritation he’d never give up, and joy, deep inside, that his love had never waned, because she was selfish like that. Although she’d been unwilling to hitch her star along with his, she’d depended on his love.

She’d met him in high school, and they’d dated steadily. They’d even been one of the shining couples of the royal court at homecoming. At that time, she’d been carried away, in love, forgetting the hard lessons she’d learned, because he’d been so attentive, so affectionate, bringing her flowers on every monthly anniversary, giving her a tiny diamond promise ring in their senior year.

They’d talked about the future, but only in vague terms, her in terms of the house she’d have and the kids she’d want, him of all the places he wanted to see. One day, close to graduation, he’d arrived at her mother’s house to tell her he’d signed enlistment papers and would be heading to Coronado, California for Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training as soon as he graduated, and her world had come tumbling down.

She knew enough from listening to him talk to his friends about Navy SEALs to realize what he intended to become would put him in incredible danger. “How could you do that?” she cried, slapping his chest.

Derek reached out his hands, but she dodged backward. He’d stood, brows drawn and raked a hand through his hair. “I thought you’d be happy. You know I don’t want to go to college, but this could mean everything to us. We’ll travel—”

“
You’ll
travel. I’d be stuck in the desert in California or on the East coast while you…” Her voice broke, causing her to pause and suck in a deep breath. When she had herself back under control, she leveled a narrow-eyed stare on him. “Have I ever once said I wanted to travel?”

His dark brows furrowed in a deep frown. “Well, yeah, you dream about goin’ to Paris.”

“
For a week.
” She glared, all her anger there for him to see. “How could you do this to me?”

His mouth firmed, and his expression closed. All the sparkle in his blue eyes dimmed. After that, the last days of high school had been a misery because he’d barely spoken to her.

Which only reinforced what she’d always known. Love never lasted. And his love of adventure was stronger than anything he felt for her.

Still, they hadn’t been able to completely break their bonds. Their mutual attraction was just too strong. They’d entered another phase of their relationship and seen each other off and on over the ten years he’d been away, even going on a dates when he was in town, which they’d both enjoyed. She’d written letters and sent him care packages filled with homemade cookies when he’d complained about mess hall food. “Met” his buddies through their correspondence, telling her how much they enjoyed her cookies and through the Skyped conversations they loved to interrupt with friendly shoves and wide grins. She felt she knew them. After all, this on-again, off-again connection had been going on for a few years.

The last time Derek had leave, he’d been a constant fixture on her doorstep. But once again on the last day before he caught a plane back to Virginia, he’d asked her to think about marrying him.

“Callie, I love you,
have
loved you for so long,” he’d said, holding both her hands. “But we’re not kids anymore. We both deserve more. Marry me. You don’t have to see the world—
be
my world. The rest will all work out.”

She’d swayed toward him, mesmerized by the heat in his eyes, her body still humming from his lovemaking. But she’d shaken her head and slowly pulled away her hands. Maybe out of habit. She wasn’t sure, because
dear God
, that time she’d been tempted to say yes.

The moment she’d withdrawn, she’d seen his jaw tighten. He’d given her a small smile. “Baby, I can’t do this anymore,” he’d said, his voice raw. “I won’t bother you again.”

Seeing him turn to walk away filled her with panic, and her breath lodged painfully in her chest. “Derek, I’ll write.”

“Don’t,” he’d said over his shoulder, a hand dropping as though he were tossing something away.

That had been five months ago, and she still heard that single, bitter word repeat in her dreams. Now, it was too late for anything but regrets.

The doorbell rang, and she closed the screen just as Derek ended the song and stared one last time into the camera. She’d frozen that moment dozens of times to read his expression. There was a hint of a promise, a firmness in his jaw. He’d made up his mind about something. He’d known even then he was going to move on if she didn’t give him the answer he longed for. The song he’d chosen,
Broken Road
, had said it all.

What had he expected? She’d told him on a dozen different occasions that they had no future, because he was the boy who wanted to see the world and she was girl who wanted to plant deep roots. But at last, he’d taken her at her word.