He pulled away enough to look at her. “I can tell when I’m getting too hot, Daria. I’ll know. Let’s just try.”
“We don’t have to just because I mentioned it,” she said. “I told you I’m perfectly comfortable—”
“I want to,” he said, cutting her off. “Holding you all night sounds…” He couldn’t seem to find the right word. “I want to.”
“Okay,” she dragged out slowly. Then the next question was really where. She had to stay near the lighthouse so they couldn’t go to the beach and there was no way she’d be able to carry him up a flight of stairs to her bed—though a mental image of her buff and carrying him bridal style did pop to mind.
Plus, didn’t only married couples share a bed? Though she imagined that the real prohibition was copulation, not the snuggling.
“Just lying beside each other, okay?” she said. “Anything else is for marriage.”
“What? Why are you mentioning ‘anything else’? What is ‘anything else’?”
No, she was not ready to tell him what else sleeping together could mean—or what often happened in a couple’s bed. She was sure he knew what it was because of nature—she had often seen animals partaking—but if he didn’t have the idea of it in his mind, she was not about to bring it up—
“Why? Did you mean something else besides just sleep?” His eyes told her he knew exactly what he was referring to. “Would that work between us?”
She put up her hands as if she could physically stop the words. “I don’t know, but stuff like that is really for marriage only.”
“Okay,” he replied easily. “Daria?”
“Yeah?”
“Have you ever been married?”
“What?No.”
“Have you ever slept beside a man or...?” He didn’t know the word for sex and she was glad of it.
“No. I’ve never done anything with a man. Have you? I mean, with anyone, like a girl mermaid.”
He shook his head. “No.”
“Have you…wanted to?” She wasn’t sure what masochistic part of her brain was asking, but she seemed to want to know as much as she didn’t.
He shook his head. “No. The only other mermaids I saw were with pups. I…” He sighed. “I know it’s natural to kill the pups to have the moms, but after my own mother’s fate, I just couldn’t do that to another living being. So I always hid so they wouldn’t be scared.” He looked so ashamed, like it was more ‘proof’ of him being a ‘failed’ mermaid. “But they always looked so happy together,” he continued. “It reminded me of better times.” Even in the smile, he looked so pitifully lonely.
It was only then that he looked up. “Daria, why do you look so horrified? Did I…?” It seemed as if he wanted to say ‘Did I say something wrong?’ but couldn’t.
“What do you mean kill the pups?” She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Her precious Kallias would think of something like that?
“Well, Mother and I would always hide if a male came by. She said they’d kill me to get to her because no one likes offspring of another male around and taking food and her attention. A woman can only usually protect one pup at a time and the males want it to be theirs so if they can….” Again he looked so ashamed, but not of the child-killing monsters, but as ifhewere the problem. “Once when we were hiding, some others swam by and the male we were hiding from…well, I saw what she meant. I’ve seen the dolphins do it too so….Daria! You’re crying!”
His hand was instantly wiping away her tears and his face was almost like he was in a panic. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I just said I would never make you cry and…oh, I’m so sorry.”
She grabbed him, pulling him into a hug as she fell back in the water. “Kallias,” she murmured into his skin. “Why do you look so ashamed?”
CHAPTER 35
“You said something before about being a failed mermaid,” she continued when he said nothing. “I don’t see a single ounce of failure.” She pulled back enough to look him in the eyes and placed her hand on his cheek. “Not a single ounce.”
He searched her face as if he needed to see if he believed the words. “You don’t find it pathetic?” he asked finally. “A grown man hiding.”
“To make a mother and her baby comfortable? No, I find that sweet. Clearly, it must be different in the sea, but on land, a human killing another human—baby, wife, even another’s child, it doesn’t matter—it’s atrocious. No one has the right to take the life of another. It’s against the law, which means we might lock them up or kill the offender.”
He looked surprised at that. “But I’ve seen….” But then he stopped.
Had he seen humans hurting each other too?
