15. Rainstorm.
Rainstorm.
JAYCE
A lara whistles. “Oh my, look at this heartbreaker.”
I pivot, expecting her giant husband, but find Harlow instead, walking down the stairs of the common room wearing a white kimono leaving nothing to the imagination. I’m used to the summer fashion in Mandinka, but it never occurred to me how good it would look on him.
“Fuck me sideways,” I breathe out.
Alara snickers. “Ask him. Who knows, he might be a raging top.”
I glare at her just as Harlow reaches us. She shouldn’t fuel my fantasies like this; it’s not helping.
“What?” Harlow asks as he reaches us. A slight blush tinges his cheeks.
“We were just saying how fucking gorgeous you look today, lil’ dragoner,” Alara says. “Where are you going like this? You got a date?” She eyes me. The minx.
Harlow smiles self-consciously. “I’ve got nothing planned. I thought I might visit the city again.”
The idea of him walking alone in Mandinka while looking like this—drop-dead gorgeous—doesn’t sit well with me. He’ll get hit on again . I shouldn’t feel as I do, but I never pretended to be a wise man.
“Good,” I say, “because we have something planned.”
“We do?” Alara teases. The traitor.
I ignore her. “Today’s your first swimming lesson. We’ll gather the crew after breakfast, and I’ll take you all to a secluded beach I know of. My family used to take us there when we were kids. We’ll take my mother’s sailboat.”
“Alright.” He offers me one of his smiles. He’s been doing it more around me lately. Maybe he has forgiven me for our aborted affair.
Freddy, who has been ordering food for breakfast in the inn’s kitchen, comes back to the table with a tray laden with fruits, bread, honey, boiled eggs, sweet cakes…
Even though there is space around the table, Harlow sits by my side.
There seems to be an invisible attraction, pulling him to me like a magnet.
I can’t help but notice how good he smells, like a weirdo.
My hand flexes under the table, eager to trail my palm on his naked inner thigh under the kimono.
Alara goes upstairs to wake Gia, Wilbur, and Kuroki. Our three friends stagger into the common room in that order, Wilbur the only one who looks well-rested.
“I take it your date went well?” I ask Gia, who looks about to fall asleep on the table.
“She was insatiable,” she says, accepting the coffee Harlow gives her gratefully. “She didn’t let me leave until four this morning. You Mandinkans know what you want and deserve.”
Alara snorts and says under her breath, “Not all Mandinkans know what they want.”
I feel the urge to throw the loaf of bread in her face, but Freddy distracts me by passing a plate of food around.
“Today, we’re taking the sailboat to spend the day at the beach, if you guys want to join,” I announce.
Kuroki snaps out of his daze. “Awesome! Let’s go.” But Wilbur says, “Sorry. I’m going to work on the Blunder today. I have a few things I want to improve,” in the same breath, and my cousin looks dejected.
Something must have happened between these two—their exchanges feel off lately—but I haven’t figured out what yet.
A soft brush on my arm catches my attention, and I turn. Harlow is talking with Gia, but his hand touches my forearm on the table. It’s the barest touch, but enough to send shivers skittering over my skin. He doesn’t seem to realize he’s doing it.
Unwisely, I keep my arm where it is. Short of him sliding his hand in my underpants, I don’t have it in me to pull away from his touch.
And even if he did, I doubt I’d stop him.
The only reason this affair didn’t go far was that Harlow didn’t push me.
One little shove, and I’d be all over him.
The man has been invading all of my senses since he joined my crew.
An hour later, we’re all jumping on my mother’s sailboat, except for Wilbur.
Sailing is in my blood, and in a matter of minutes, we’re cruising through Mandinka’s port and over the blue waters along the coast. Unlike the rest of my crew, it’s Harlow’s first time in the Green Isles, and the turquoise lagoon surrounding the island blows his mind.
I feel pride in where I was born, even if I spend my time traveling away from it.
The fact that I have the sky and the sea under my skin isn’t to blame on my childhood home.
The Green Isles are one of the most beautiful places in Hargos.
Some people are just not meant to take root on land.
My father was the same, to my mother’s greatest chagrin.
I give the control of the sailboat to Freddy and tap Harlow on the shoulder. I point toward the jungle, and his eyes follow the direction.
“Do you see the mountain?” I say. “It’s only visible on days like these with a clear sky.”
A white mountaintop floats far above the lust treeline, like a mirage.
His eyes widen. “The Frost Peak! Where Koryu has his lair.”
I nod. The old dragon is a legend in the Green Isles. They say he’s the protector of Mandinka, and his image is on the palace walls. “He’s the only carcass I won’t scavenge if he expires. My people would never forgive me.”
“He’s over three-hundred years old,” Harlow says.
“He never comes down to mate anymore and only goes as far as the forest below his mountain to hunt water buffaloes. Dragoners who wanted to get a look at him used to brave the climb and the eternal snows. Now, airships let us check on him from time to time, to make sure he’s still alive. ”
“I heard he sleeps under the snow, and mountain climbers sometimes walk on him by mistake,” Kuroki says from the bench behind us. He braided his hair today.
Harlow shakes his head. “The snow would melt right off his back. Dragons’ blood runs hot. He sleeps in his lair, deep under the mountain. No one has ever set eyes on it. It’s unreachable to us. Thank you for pointing out the Frost Peak to me,” he says with a wink before turning back to the view.
I blink. Did Harlow just… wink at me?
I walk back to the stern of the boat and sit beside Alara, who’s already sunbathing in her underclothes while watching her giant husband work the sails.
“Did you see that?” I ask her.
“What?”
“Nevermind.”
“Oh, you mean the way our little dragoner is flirting with you? Yes, I saw it .” She chuckles.
I lie beside her on the pile of ropes. “So, I’m not imagining things.”
“No. You’re in deep shit, captain. Serves you right.”
I point a finger at her face. “You’re fired.”
“You can’t fire me, sugar. I don’t work for you. I’m self-employed; you just rent my skills.”
I snort. “You’re self-employed on my ship.”
“Semantics,” she says, closing her eyes and turning her face back to the sun.
“Do you even know what semantics means?”
Alara waves her hand in my face to shut me up.
Freddy laughs quietly from his position on our left.
“You’re fired too, big guy,” I say to him.
The giant just raises an eyebrow at me.
The secluded beach is known only by a few, and so it’s quiet when we arrive half an hour later. There is a quaint wooden hut under the trees, built by my uncle years ago—Kuroki’s father. My cousins and I used to spend nights here, away from family obligations, and plan our future adventures.
We anchor my mother’s sailboat in the shallow waters and walk the rest of the way, carrying the baskets of food and clothes over our heads. Harlow looks unsure at first, reminding me why he needs to learn how to swim.
As soon as he takes off his flimsy kimono to avoid getting it wet, my eyes zero in on his loincloth, and my traitorous brain provides visions of our night in my quarters. The taste of him still lingers on my tongue, refusing to let me forget and move on.
As if sensing my attention, Harlow looks up and our eyes meet. A faint blush spreads on his cheeks, and he smiles a little self-consciously.
“Give me that,” I say, grabbing the basket he’s carrying above his head.
He frowns, hanging onto his possessions. “I can carry it.”
“Try swimming to shore, so I can see what we’re working with.”
He glares. “I can’t swim, and you know it.”
There he is, the Harlow I’m accustomed to.
“Very well, Your Royal Highness. Then walk to shore, and we can start your lesson as soon as we’ve dropped our things.”
He’s smaller than me and the crystal-clear water reaches his stomach.
He gets a hold of my forearm, his hand gripping me tightly, as if in need of reassurance.
For as long as I can remember, the sea has been a part of me.
I don’t have the faintest notion of how it would feel to not know how to swim and find myself in a body of water.
But I remember the first time the Blunder took off, and I almost shat my pants as we left the ground, so I walk at Harlow’s pace.
As soon as we reach the pearly white sand, Gia pulls the food out of the baskets and Freddy sets out to find wood to build a fire.
I take my clothes off and tighten my loincloth before gesturing to Harlow to follow me back into the blue lagoon. This beach is the best place to learn how to swim, thanks to the shallow depth and the coral reef protecting the coast from the open sea.
I offer him a hand, and he accepts it after a small hesitation.
“We’ll take it slow, I promise,” I say.
I realize too late how intimate it sounded.
Once Harlow is certain I won’t let him drown, he’s a fast learner and eager to prove he can do it.
By the end of the first hour, he can swim over a few feet before losing momentum and going under.
To help him, I have to hold his slim waist often, and his skin is soft and oh so tempting.
I wish I could sink my teeth into his hips and thighs.
Gia announces that the food is ready, and we stop our lesson to join the others on the sand. We eat meat cooked on the fire with bread from this morning, marinated vegetables, and fresh fruits.
Before we even finish eating, Harlow is back into the water. Kuroki follows us for a time, pretending to be an ungraceful mermaid, before going back to the beach to take a nap alongside the others.
And so when the rainstorm comes, we’re still in the water. The clouds appear above our heads, bloated with rain, minutes before the downpour. Freddy goes back to the boat to roll the sails before finding shelter in the hut with the others.
Harlow and I find ourselves alone in the lagoon, the rest of the world disappearing behind the curtain of heavy rain. He laughs as the fat droplets pelt his face and shoulders. Thunder rumbles in the dark sky at the horizon.
“The sea feels warm now,” he says, water reaching to his chin.
I smile. “That’s because the rain is colder. When we were kids, we used to rush to the sea when it rained, convinced it warmed the water. Took us a while to understand.”
Harlow laughs, and the sounds make my toes curl in the sand. I’ve never seen him look so beautiful, happy as the sky falls on us. He floats on his back, the way I taught him, and closes his eyes. I hover over him, wanting to kiss his eyelids and taste his lips.
Eventually, he wipes the water from his face and looks at me. He reaches for me with his hand, and our fingers intertwine.
“Thank you, Captain,” he says with a smile full of secrets, his eyes roaming over the entirety of me before landing on my mouth.
Gods, I’m fucked.
“The pleasure is all mine, Mr. Prince,” I say, my voice too deep.
I want to pull him to me… to lick the curve of his throat and pretend we’re alone in the world and bend him on the white sand. I want to taste every part of his body until he begs me for more and admits that this attraction between us can’t be fought or ignored any longer.
I want him to convince me to let go at last so I can stop pretending he’s not everything I crave—as much as the ocean and the sky.
To my regret, the rain-clouds clear too fast, and the sun shines once again. Harlow lets go of my hand just as the crew comes out of the hut, and we all gather our things and go back to the boat.
Back at the Mermaid’s Ire , Alara squeezes my shoulder with her small hand and says, “Stop being such a hard-ass, Jayce,” before disappearing into her room.