She scoffs, shaking her head. “Flawless? I’m not, I’m not…” She lets out a shaky sigh, her fingers trailing down the uneven bumps of skin on the side of her neck. “I, well, I wish my scales were as pretty as yours.”
Scales.
My lips quirk into a smile, and I rise to my full height to study her.
“If you can handle my scales, I think I can handle yours,” I say, not letting my gaze break from hers. The two of us skim each other’s skin and scales, taking in our similarities and differences beneath the cheese-ball orange tinted skies.
“Then,” she says, her palm spreading flat across my chest, “let’s stay like this.”
Tentatively, with caution I’m unable to shake, my hand covers hers, the webbing outstretched, cupping around her fingers like the sleeve of a sweater.
It’s a funny thing, really; the two of us wearing layers of flesh and fabric. For what? Covering up our flaws or differences doesn’t matter.
Especially now that we’re face-to-face, neither of us give a damn.
We want to be next to each other.
I reach out to stroke along the arch of her elbow where her skin is pink and irritated. Marina winces in anticipation and I freeze, my finger webbing outstretched and on full display.
“Does it hurt?”I ask. The last thing I want is to cause her discomfort.
“No, it’s not that.” She bites her bottom lip. “I don’t want to gross you out—the skin might be broken in a few places.”
It is.
But if she thinks a little thing like that will keep me from wanting to touch her, she’s wrong. “May I?”
She nods, and my fingers slowly glide from the bumps on her elbow to her neck—the area I’ve seen her scratch at the most. The pad of my thumb softly traces the places where she’s left claw marks in her wake.
Marina sucks in a deep breath but doesn’t move away. Is she enjoying this?
Interesting.
“I should have never run from you,” I whisper, drawing her close and leaving a kiss on her temple.
“Then don’t next time,” she says with no room for argument. She pulls me down by the shoulders until her lips are on mine.
The kiss is tender, her lips soft and as sweet as the pie she ordered for breakfast yesterday morning. She wraps around me with the fluidity of the springs themselves, cupping my face in her hands.
The warmth of her mouth is tender andall mine, punctuated with gasps until that sure feeling turns to desperation. Her arms wind around my neck, trailing across the gills that sit along my cheek bones.
“I’m so glad I found you again,” Marina whispers, her chest is taut against mine. There’s a familiar buzz of magic pulling at me all of a sudden. I look down and see my glamour is around her neck—and the charm is now resting on my skin.
My disguise flickers on for a moment, like a glitch on a screen, and Marina draws back with a gasp. As soon as the contact is broken, I return to my true self.
“This isthe thing that disguised you?” She turns the charm over in her hands—I must have left it on the edge of the bathtub.
While I like the idea of her wearing jewelry that’s mine, I’d rather have it be something that doesn’t make me look like a human again when we touch.
Unless…
“It is,” I say, my voice hoarse. Our faces are so close I can feel her breath on my lips—I’m shivering from the delicate way she explores the different textures of my face with one hand. With the other, she pulls the necklace away from her neck with so much force it breaks the clasp.
“Then I guess we don’t need it anymore,” she whispers. Then, holding the chain out so it sways over the surface of the water, she lets go. The expensive and unnecessary charm sinks to the bottom of the springs.
She sees me, she found me, and now, this is where our story begins again; this time neither of us is going anywhere.
“I planned to tell you all this differently,” I say, but she’s tucked under my chin, her skin on mine, and I can’t say I’d change a thing about this moment.
