Chapter 10 #2
The lake carries us gently, patiently, toward the secret alcove in the north cove.
The place where the water has carved out privacy, where the lake bottom rises to create a shallow shelf covered in soft sand.
We surface there, into the small pocket of air sheltered by the overhang of willows and stone.
She transforms as we reach the shore. Scales recede and her tail splits into legs, the vibrant indigo fading into the warm brown of her human skin. The transformation is gentle, unhurried, as natural as breathing.
I remain as I am here in the shallows—half-seal, half-human, caught in the in-between that is what I become in deep water.
She lies back on the sand, her chest heaving, her hair spread around her like a dark halo. The moonlight filters through the willow branches, dappling her skin in silver and shadow. Her thighs are slick with lake water and our combined arousal, glistening in the filtered light.
I move over her, my mouth finding hers in a kiss that is slower now, more deliberate. She tastes of lake water and salt and the particular sweetness that belongs to her alone. When I pull back, she's looking at me with dark eyes that are soft and hungry at once.
“I'm not done with you,” I tell her.
“Good,” she breathes. “Don't be.”
I kiss my way down her body—her throat, her collarbones, the soft curve of her breasts.
I take my time with each one, sucking her nipples until they're hard and she's arching into my mouth with small desperate sounds.
Her hands find my hair, holding me to her, and when I bite down gently, she gasps my name.
I continue lower, kissing down her stomach, her hip bones, the inside of her thighs. She's trembling now, her legs falling open in invitation. When I reach the place between her legs, I pause, looking up at her.
Her dark eyes are luminous in the filtered moonlight. Her lips are parted, her breath coming fast.
“Please,” she says.
I lower my mouth to her.
She's slick and swollen from our mating in the water, sensitive in ways that make her gasp at the first touch of my tongue. I can taste myself on her—salt and musk mixed with her own sweetness—and the combination makes me groan against her.
I take my time, savoring her. I lick along her folds, teasing, learning again what makes her voice break, what makes her hips lift off the sand in desperate seeking. When I find her clit with my tongue, she cries out, her thighs trembling on either side of my head.
“Muir—oh god—”
I circle it slowly, then faster, then slow again.
I slide two fingers inside her while I work her with my mouth, feeling how she clenches around them, still sensitive from the orgasms in the water.
She's so wet—lake water and arousal and my release still inside her—and the obscene sound of my fingers moving in and out of her makes my cock throb with renewed need.
Her song starts low. A hum that resonates in her chest, in her throat. As I work her higher, the song grows, filling the small alcove with sound that echoes off the stone and water.
It's the most beautiful thing I've ever heard.
I add a third finger, stretching her, and curl them to find that place inside her that makes her voice rise. At the same time, I suck her clit into my mouth, and she breaks.
When she comes, her voice rises in a pure note that seems to shake the very air. Her thighs clamp around my head, her hands fisting in my hair, her body convulsing with the force of it.
I don't stop. I keep licking, keep stroking inside her, drawing out her pleasure until she's sobbing and pushing at my head because it's too much.
I kiss my way back up her body, positioning myself at her entrance. My cock is hard again, aching, and when I push inside in one long thrust, we both groan at the sensation.
She's impossibly tight after so many orgasms, her body oversensitive and clenching around me. I have to move slowly at first, letting her adjust, but then she wraps her legs around my waist and pulls me deeper.
“Don't hold back,” she says, her voice breaking into song again—wordless, primal, the sound of a sirena who has stopped managing what she gives. “I want everything. I want you to fuck me like you've been dreaming about for four years.”
The words break something in me. I thrust harder, deeper, driven by the sound of her voice, by the way she arches beneath me and takes everything I give her.
My cock finds angles that make her gasp and sing, the flexibility of my shifted form allowing me to stroke places deep inside her that make her shake.
“Like this?” I ask, my voice rough. “Is this what you want?”
“Yes—god, yes—don't stop—”
“Don't stop singing,” I tell her. “Never stop singing for me.”
I shift my weight, changing the angle, and she cries out as I hit something that makes her whole body convulse. I do it again, and again, each thrust deliberate and deep.
Sweat is mixing with the lake water on our skin, making us slide against each other. The wet sound of our bodies moving together fills the alcove, obscene and perfect.
“Touch yourself,” I say. “I want to feel you come around my cock.”
She slides her hand between us, her fingers finding her clit. I can feel the movement of her hand against my body as I thrust, can feel the way she tightens around me as she works herself higher.
“That's it,” I say. “Let me see you. Let me hear you.”
Her voice rises, breaking into frequencies that make my vision blur. I'm close—so close—but I want her to come first. I want to feel her fall apart around me.
“Muir,” she moans my name.
“Do it,” I say. “Come for me.”
She does, her voice rising in a final note that seems to hang in the air. Her body clamps down around my cock so hard it borders on pain, and I follow her over the edge. We cling to each other as the pleasure crashes through us, my release filling her again, her voice singing us both through it.
I collapse beside her, both of us breathing hard, the water lapping gently at our feet. Her voice has gone quiet, but I can still feel the echo of it in my bones.
For a long moment, we just lie there, tangled together, our bodies still trembling with aftershocks.
Then she turns her head to look at me, her dark eyes soft in the moonlight.
“You came,” she says quietly.
“You called,” I answer. “I'll always come when you call.”
She reaches up and touches my face, her fingers tracing the line of my jaw, the place where my human features blend into something else.
“I know,” she says.
I pull her closer, and she comes willingly, tucking herself against my side. We stay like that as the night moves toward morning—held by the water, sheltered by the stone, finally home in the only place that ever mattered.
Each other.