CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
WHY IS IT I CAN’T GET him out of my head? No other man makes me feel like he does.
It’s that simple.
From Ozora’s personal journal.
“Bastion!” Fraser shouted, panic in his voice. “Ozora!” His voice faded as I sank, pulled under by my long skirts. They tangled my legs, and only wrapped tighter as I tried to kick my way to the surface until I could only weakly swing them. My arms flailed against the pull of my soaked clothes.
Wish I’d held onto one of those amulets I made for Fraser. I’d never learned to swim. Swinging my legs frantically only wound my skirts tighter, and pulled me deeper. The surface got further away, and my heart drummed in my ears as I fought rising panic.
My vision wavered, and I bit my lips to hold my mouth clamped shut against my body’s demand for air.
It was getting darker, and the glow from the surface was fading when two muscular arms slid underneath mine.
Fraser dragged me above the waves in moments, and I gasped, drawing fresh breath into my starved lungs.
He started yelling as soon as we broke the surface, but not at me.
“You big, dumb meathead! What the hells were you thinking?” He directed all his rage at a hippocamp stallion perched at the end of the quay. The beast stood on his forehooves, braced upright by his long, powerful tail. He snorted and shook his mane, as if pleased with himself.
Fraser leaned back in the water, dragged me across his chest with one arm, and pulled for the stairs with his other.
His forearm, the one I’d wanted to slide my fingers along earlier, still felt the same; my hand clenched tight around it.
My fingers barely made a dent in his taut muscle, and all I could think was how much I wanted to touch more of him.
His arm wrapped around me erased the scraps of my self-control.
If I hadn’t been terrified of the water filling my mouth, I’d have begged him to give us another chance.
The stone steps hit the backs of my heels, and Fraser scooped me up in his arms.
I’m doomed. He lifted me like I weighed nothing as he stood, still berating the hippocamp.
“Quit acting like an idiot.” Fraser’s deep voice vibrated against my arm and thigh where he held me pressed against him.
“You could have killed her!” The stallion glared down at me and snorted, blasting a thin spray from his nostrils. His black eyes gleamed.
“Think maybe that was his intention. He seems like the jealous type.” Call me silly if I didn’t trust the snorting beast who’d nearly killed me.
However, I couldn’t deny he was gorgeous; built like a draft horse in the front with forelegs like tree trunks, and a thick, crested neck.
My magesight revealed their bond plain as the sun high above, sparkling with mingled blue and green numin.
I splayed my hand on Fraser’s chest where his end of the bond anchored in his heart. It was beautiful, a wide stream of shared energies that stretched from Fraser’s heart to the hippocamp’s chest high above.
“Jealous indeed,” I murmured. Did I mean the hippocamp or myself?
This bond was like nothing I’d seen. Stronger than a plaited steel cable, yet invisible unless I used magesight.
The energies spun in ever-shifting patterns, and I got lost in the dazzling play of numin over my hand.
Time seemed to disappear as I sank into the boundless feelings of love and trust that radiated from their link.
“He’s yours. This bond...” I blinked, pulling my awareness back from what was between them, and looked up into Fraser’s ocean blue eyes. “Are they all like this?”
Saltwater ran down his face and dripped from his scruffy, days-old beard onto the back of my hand.
His pounding heart and wet skin were smooth under my suddenly hypersensitive fingertips, and my palm pulsed in time with the thumping in his chest. All of him, pressed against all of me, drove all thoughts of bonds, and magic from my mind.
His lips shaped the word ‘no’, but I’d forgotten what I'd asked. All I could think of was how it felt to be held by him again and how much I wanted to kiss him. I didn’t just want to remember the feel of his lips; I wanted them on me.
Now.
As if he read my mind, his arms tightened, and he bent his head toward mine. I ran my hands up along the smooth planes of his chest, curved them around his neck, and tangled them in his sopping curls.
His lips were just a breath away.
“This. Is a very. Bad. Idea.” I swallowed his whispered words, not wanting to hear them.
“I know.” I breathed back; our noses brushed. “When has that ever stopped you before?”
With a low groan, he closed the slight distance between us, his lips claiming mine.
He was salty and sweet, just like I remembered. Hot, demanding. I trembled, opening to him as time stood still, and I sank into a sea of emotion. A turbulent ocean, shared only between us. Heat and desire pulsed, and I wanted to drown in him.
No one kissed like Fraser. No one else’s touch had me this ready, this needy. Only he made my heart sing and my body melt. His arms were like steel wrapped in velvet, and my whole being thrummed with pleasure to feel their strength around me once more.
He folded, sitting on the stairs so he could pull my legs across his lap and run his hand down my thigh. I sighed, then whimpered when he wrapped my tangled skirts around his fingers.
“Your pretty things nearly killed you.” Hot words caressed my neck while his fingers parted my soaked silks like tissue. Fingertips grazed my inner thigh as his lips explored my neck, sending fresh tingles along my nerves.
“I saved your life, Ozora. Again.” I barely heard him. A loud splash swiftly followed by a swamping wave took us under, pulling us off the stairs, and I was again tumbled beneath the water and tossed. I clamped my mouth shut, but saltwater drove up my nose, and I panicked, thrashing.
Fraser never let go. He kicked a few times, and we both broke the surface along with another. I snorted and coughed, trying to clear the water from my nose and mouth. Fraser patted me on the back a few times until I caught my breath.
“Ozora, meet Bastion.”
The three of us rocked in the waves caused by the plunge of the hippocamp stallion off the quay.
Even with Fraser’s arm around me, it was intimidating meeting the immense beast. He might’ve looked like a horse from about the flanks forward, but there was nothing horse-like about the sharp, curved fangs he displayed in a wicked snarl. This was a predator in his element.
I tightened my grasp on Fraser’s arm wrapped around my waist, unsure what the lip-lifting and snorting meant. When he steered us back to the steps and I could stand, the solid stones under my feet did wonders to restore my confidence.
“Stop acting like you’d eat her,” Fraser said to the hippocamp, and grabbed my wrist before I could escape, holding me waist-deep in the water.
“What, going to run away?” Eyes so blue I could drown in them lit with merriment.
“I thought you loved these critters? Now you don’t want to meet one?
Come on.” He tugged, and I stumbled into him.
His arm once more went round my waist. “He’s really a big puppy. I promise.”
Bastion obviously heard him and responded by squealing and stomping one finned forehoof, sending another spray over us.
“Okay, we get it. You’re fierce.” Fraser laughed, and turned his shoulder to block me from most of the splash.
He planted his feet firmly and gripped both my arms, holding me in place against the waves that lapped against the steps.
Bastion seemed to take offense at being teased, and reared up on his tail, slashing both hooves in the air in a dramatic display before subsiding with another splash.
Only Fraser kept me from being pulled into the deep again.
That was it. He might’ve been a sweet puppy with Fraser, but I was smart enough to stay out of range of those hooves and teeth.
The moment had definitely passed. I elbowed Fraser and slid out of his reach as he chuffed and relaxed his grip.
Only made it two steps before he once more captured my wrist. Irritated, I spun, intending to make him let me go but, his raw plea stopped me.
“Really, come meet him. Please.”
Stripped of all the masks and layers he usually wore, only his soul remained, laid bare in his clear-water gaze. It was a rare glimpse, one that took me back to when I’d believed in him, in us. He let go of my wrist, leaving the choice to me.
How could I say no?