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Serena cocked her head and smirked. “Then maybe we should be grateful for some alone time, too.” She touched my face. “Did you dream of me?”
“I’ve been dreaming of you since the day I lost you.”
“Oh, you’re full of it, pirate. Good thing you’re so handsome.” She shook her head, turning away, but I touched her chin and turned her back to me.
“No, I mean it. In the way the winds guided my sails as I outran the horizon. In every moment of peace on calm clear waters. In every rolling wave caressing my skin. In every storm raging at sea. When I’d lie down on my ship, you were the waves rocking me to sleep. In the way the ocean called my name as I set my hand to the wheel. It was always you. You were every dream between me and the sea. You’ve been etched in my memory and my heart since the dawn of time, and the sea has been reminding me of you every day since.” I paused, hesitating before asking a question, my lips hovering over the skin of her neck. “If we’d never found you, would you have stayed trapped at the bottom of the sea with the Kraken forever?”
Serena turned away and crawled out the hatch, leaving my question unanswered. I was getting tired of that. I followed her, chasing her down across the sand as she walked along the surf. “Would you stop doing that? Stop being so stubborn for one damn bloody minute and talk to me!”
She whipped around as I neared. “What choice did I have but to hide with the Kraken? I woke up in that pit after your father killed my human form and put my heart back in the sea! Davy Jones basically rules the seas without my power to keep him in check. It was too dangerous to leave. The sea loses its magic more and more each day. The sea gods’ power is nothing more than a fingerprint left behind in myth and lore. The wonder of the ocean is just a shell of what it once was. And so am I.” A tear shimmered in the corner of her eyelash, and I wiped it away gently with my thumb before it could fall.
“No. You’re everything. With or without your power.” It pained me to see how much she yearned to get her power back. Especially when I knew it might mean letting her put herself in harm’s way. If only she’d just let me do it for her. To make up for the way I failed her before. It almost seemed like…like maybe the harder I tried to fight it, the worse things got. But I couldn’t fully convince myself of that yet.
She turned away again to face the tide, and I reached around her waist from behind. I nuzzled her ear. “Let’s forget our differences of interest for a while.” She spun in my arms, turning to face me and gazing up at me with those hopeful caramel eyes. I slid my hand down. “All the past lives of loving you haven’t been enough.” I wished she’d listen to me. I wished there was something I could say to keep her from endangering herself.
“You’ve always been persuasive, Bellamy.” Serena breathed with a hint of laughter. “But in the end, you can only decide what you will do. You don’t get to decide what I do.”
I smirked, amazed but also somewhat unsettled at her ability to practically read my thoughts. But it made sense. “Then I decide that right now, I forget all this for a moment, and spend this night worshipping the goddess I’m fated to love.”
Her tropical scent intoxicated me. I ran my lips along the curves of her shoulder, and my hands slid down the small of her back. She sighed softly, touching me back in all the right places. I quickly glanced around, looking at the set of double footprints in the sand leading away from the boat to ensure Katrina and Milo weren’t around.
“Don’t worry about them. Like you said, they’re probably off having just as much fun as we are.” Serena assured me with a grin. She glowed like the moon as the sun dipped below the horizon. “Just be with me,” she whispered, pulling my face to hers. She bit my lip, playing with my mouth along hers as she teased the skin beneath my shirt.
The sunset’s orange glare reflected on the rolling tide like a stained-glass window, lighting up the sky around us with a red haze. Serena tugged at each piece of my clothing until she had removed them all, and I returned the favor by sliding off the dress that enrobed her so beautifully. But not as beautiful as how she looked without it. The delicate silk slid between my fingers like liquid as it dropped to the floor. I took in the sight of her—a sight I thought I’d never see again. She was everything a goddess should be, the broken sunlight hitting her flawless skin to cast a glow as warm as the gold she wore.
We danced to the sound of the water swirling around, our bodies pressed together as my fingers worked their way along the smoothness of her thigh. I kissed her deeply, savoring her tongue against mine. Heat roiled in my core down to my pounding lower half. I brought my lips to her breasts, feeling the way they perked up at my touch and relishing the scorch of her skin.
The blood rush in my veins felt like a song in my soul as I indulged in the feeling of her—something I’d been so cruelly deprived of the last time we’d been together in this way. Every touch, every lick, every stroke, every drop of sweat and desperate breath that escaped our bodies felt like the first. What an absolute wild blessing and curse, I thought.
She tried to turn back around in my arms, as she pushed the lower half of herself against me. But I gripped her shoulder, spinning her to face me again. I gently laid her down, pinning her to the sand, kissing her still. “No,” I groaned. “I want to look into your eyes as we reclaim each other.” I reached beneath her, feeling her slick heat, desperate to fill the need I knew she had. Her soft moans made my muscles tight and hard. It was unbearable. But I was gentle with her, placing myself wherever she needed until I felt her body riot with sensation and heard her gasp with breathlessness.
“Very well,” she smirked, opening herself to me fully. I plunged forward, diving into her like the raging sea she was.
The water around us cast a glow of dusk that reflected the very fire I felt in every inch of my body as I joined mine with hers. All I could think about was how I’d never let her go again—and how delightful every part of her felt. Like quenching a thirst I’d been craving, like a cool rush of wind on a hot day, like a burst of sunlight in the darkness. She was all of it, and with each thought, my body grew hotter, faster, and tenser, until I lost myself to a rush of release.
“Serena. Atargatis. Damn, you could be Aphrodite. Whatever your name is, whatever title you hold, I only have one for you. Mine.”
“Always yours.” She sighed, stroking my hair. She held my head close to her breast as we both rested against the sand. “Since the beginning and until the end.”
I whispered with a smile. “From North to West.”
36
Fight the Current
Milo
“Looks like maybe we should stay gone a bit longer.” Katrina mumbled with a chuckle at the sight of Serena and Bellamy lying in the sand as we stumbled back through the trees to the sailboat.
I set down the crab net and coconuts we’d gathered, taking Katrina in my arms. “I’m alright with that.”
She kissed me, dropping the papayas she held and grabbing my face. Even though just a short while before we had been lying sprawled in the sand ourselves, her body beneath mine in a long-overdue reunion, it wasn’t enough. I wanted her more every moment. And I’d happily entwine myself with her again here and now.
“Do you know what this place reminds me of?” I said.
“What’s that?”
“The first time I met you. When you came to the island of Valdez’s shipwreck and sat down next to me without a clue.”
