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“ART, ART.” The chanting started up again, and Laverne swerved around me, letting me crash face-first in the sand alone.
Would I ever learn?
I spat out a mouthful of dry sand and used my elbows to roll onto my back. Feeling defeated, I dropped my arms in the sand with a loud sigh. Laverne wasn’t ever going to let this jealousy thing go, was she?
Barren’s head came into view, and I cast my eyes downward, searching for where Laverne was probably celebrating at his feet. And there she was, urging him to leave me behind with an insistent nuzzle to the back of his knees, but I hardly noticed her. Fascination widened my gaze.
Oh.
Mermen didn’t know about underwear after all.
“Laverne, she’s, uh… ha…” My voice broke into shaky laughter. What was I even trying to say?
At least my new wrap had survived the transformation. Fine grit blew across my shoulders as my spine squirmed over the sand. Even if I could pull myself up without looking foolish, Barren’s dark eyes had me pinned. A heavy gaze examined the glimmering scales of my tail, fixed on the most vulnerable part of me, and lines of doubt formed over his usually expressionless face. Like he hadn’t expected me to actually turn out to be a mermaid.
Yeah, well,relatable.
He took a step forward, and the movement drew my eyes down a tour of his body.
The scarred barrel of his chest. The muscles practically swallowing up his kneecaps. Back to his face. Legs again, but this time a little higher. A quick breath whistled through my teeth.
“Sorry,” I blurted, and covered my face with the crook of my elbow. I wasn’t supposed to stare, dammit. It was on the checklist!
Before a few months ago, I barely even knew what a man looked like below the belt, and now I seemed to be bombarded with nakedness at every turn. And these guys didn’t even have the decency to look like normal men. No, they had to be perfection personified.Freaking mermen!
A dreadful sinking feeling settled in my belly, sending my head rocking into the sand. These mermen were going to ruin me. After this trident business was over with, and I went back to my old life… How could a normal human ever live up to what was in front of me now?
Barren’s heavy steps came closer, and I locked my elbow over my eyes. Why was he even naked? I was supposed to be the one learning how to swim, not him, and it wasn’t like he could even go into the ocean.
“You, uh, can wait for me down by the water.” Anything to get him away from me now. He wasn’t mine to look at, but with that dangly eel of his hanging out there, just tempting me to look it in the eye, how could I not? “I’ll catch up. As soon as I get my legs back.”
The ground shifted, sending my shoulder sinking into the sand. Was he crouching over me? My body seemed to think so. The uncanny feeling of his body hovering over mine sent a shiver of anticipation running through me. Anticipation forwhat,exactly? Nope.I immediately took that question back; I didn’t need to know what wicked perversion my body was ramping up for. Whatever it was, it wasnothappening. But seconds passed as he stood over me, making it clear he wasn’t interested in heading down to the water alone.
The sound of waves crashing over the shore mixed with Barren’s relaxed breaths. He was so close I could picture his chest rising and falling. Was he going to torture me like this until my legs came back?
The sand shifted again, and when he opened his mouth, his voice had a raw edge to it. “Some help?” It was shocking how strained those words sounded, like just uttering them had been enough to cause him physical pain.
Help?Help withwhat?
I dropped my elbow and found his face over mine, his eyes focused on his great palm resting beside my shoulder. He wanted to lift me? But the way his thick brows knit together as he glowered down at his arm told me he was wrestling with the question ofhow.
“Um…” I drew up my arms and tentatively hovered them over the thick muscles framing his neck. “Like this?”
There was a hint of dark stubble lining the harsh curve of his jaw, trailing down his neck. I wondered why I hadn’t noticed it before, but then again, this was the first time we’d been this close. His jaw tightened in a nod, and a shiver ran over my arms as I hooked them around his neck.
“Could you…?” he asked in that heavy accent of his, his voice warming me more than his body heat. His arm stretched, reaching for my tail.
“No.” I pulled myself up along his shoulders, helping him out in the only way I could. “I can’t move it at all. Sorry.” Shame reddened my face, but Barren acted like I hadn’t said a word. His palm found its balance under my tail, and suddenly I was weightless.
He stood, and my body fell against his chest. The arm cradling me tightened, drawing me closer to his titanesque form than I ever imagined possible. It was the first time I’d seen Barren without his brace on, and I couldn’t stop myself from inspecting the angry constellation of scars trailing along the permanent groove the leather had worn into his skin. I followed them up to the place where his shoulder sank into a pit and felt my chest tighten.
Whatever had happened to his right arm had been violent. By the look of his scars, whoever or whatever had claimed his arm had done so by ripping, boring, or biting, and if he knew how focused I was on his shoulder right now, the wounded look he’d give me would kill me. I jerked my chin away, forcing my eyes to any other part of him, and my shame quickly shifted into mortification.
Had I really consented to letting a naked man bridal carry me across the beach?
A pathetic sound threatened to slide up my throat—a whimper mixed with a groan of pure agony—and it took everything I had in me to swallow it back down.
Laverne looked like she was in just as much agony. She circled Barren’s feet, her neck downcast in disappointment and tail carving out a pattern of corkscrews in the sand as Barren carried me toward the ocean.
