Chapter 12
The night sky stretched before me in an array of soft blues, blacks, and purples, studded by starlight.
I wanted to reach out and touch it, as if the surface would be as velvety as it looked. I wanted something soft to soothe the ache in my chest.
I stepped up beside Ursuline by the deck railing, and their shoulders relaxed, even if they didn’t verbally acknowledge me.
I’d spent enough time around Jason to learn to read the signals.
The breeze was heady and cool, swirling around my limbs, dizzying my mind.
The distant susurration of the water lapping the shore formed a sweet melody, one I needed to hear in the moment.
I clutched at the railing, the grain of the weathered wood imprinting in my palms. “I can’t do this.” The words escaped me, even though I’d tried to restrain them. “Following their rules…marrying when I don’t love her…it’s killing me.”
It was the first time I’d admitted the truth out loud, and something tight inside me unspooled.
Ursuline turned toward me, and I faced them.
They stood inches away from me, towering above.
The elegant arch of their nose, those imperious brows, their firm lips—everything about them mesmerized me.
And with the way their dark eyes glittered, with the same intensity as the stars above, I couldn’t look away.
The tension broiled between us, growing stronger and stronger with every second.
Denying myself felt foolish when the woman I was promised to marry had fucked another man in the bathroom during our engagement party.
No love would be lost between us.
Mere inches separated me from Ursuline, and the ache in my chest expanded, a longing so ferocious I could barely breathe. One that promised to consume me body and soul. Just the smallest taste, and I could die happy.
I needed to know what it felt like to be possessed by them, to be theirs, even if only for a few stolen moments.
“I just want to be able to choose,” I murmured, the words barely audible. Because I hadn’t chosen this engagement. I hadn’t chosen to come here. I hadn’t chosen my path in life. And the truth left an indelible mark on my soul.
One moment, I was staring up at Ursuline, my whole soul pleading for them to close that distance.
The next, they succumbed.
Ursuline stepped forward, wrapped their hand around my nape, and they leaned in.
The moment their lips pressed against mine, my soul soared.
A thrill rose inside me, tentative and trembling at first, but it fast rose to the power and fury of the tide.
This kiss was my early sketches, pencil scratching on paper, the expansion of my chest as my soul poured out of me onto the pad.
The prickle of the forbidden across my shoulders, because if my parents caught on to what I was doing, they’d be furious.
I’d frequented quiet corners, abandoned rooms, anywhere I might not get caught.
Because a Durand didn’t indulge in whimsy.
Except my art had never been whimsy, just as this kiss was anything but pale or fleeting.
Living on the surface, refusing to dive beneath, had never been for me. I craved the colors, the depths, the thrills, the spark of creativity, the pulse, the pulse, the pulse of the blood pumping inside me.
No, this was what made a life not just survivable, but the exultant joy that made it memorable.
Ursuline’s lips memorized mine at first, quick brushes as they tasted me. However, then their tongue delved into my mouth, and they claimed.
Their hand wrapped around my nape, and the other pressed against my lower back, keeping me in place.
My whole body trembled from the sensations crashing through me.
Their kiss held the same silent intensity that they did, more powerful than I ever could’ve imagined.
And I surrendered to it at once. The dam inside me burst open, everything I’d been containing from the moment we first met.
We kissed and kissed and kissed until I floated above with the stars themselves.
Their tentacles roamed around me, lightly caressing, keeping me on edge.
The brush at my hip, the one around my leg, my arm, stabilized me.
I sank into the feel of their lips as they devoured me, the way their touches consumed me.
I’d never been kissed like this before, like I was something of value.
Like I was worthwhile. Ursuline’s scent wrapped around me, the deep sweetness of currants mixing with the salty brine.
My heart thrummed, and I gasped for breath between kisses, not hesitating to dive back in.
In this pristine moment with them, every other worry faded away.
Every fear, every bit of guilt and shame and sorrow.
I just existed, the sea in the distance, the moon steady and incandescent overhead.
The nighttime breezes swept by, but they did little to cool the rising inferno inside me.
Ursuline’s tentacles tightened around my wrist, around my ankle, and a silent thrill rippled through me.
The sensation of being bound, the bit of helplessness, sent a shot of lust through my system.
Rampant fantasies of them pinning me down, of them using those tentacles to pump inside me, all while I was bound by them circled through my mind.
My cock woke up, testing the confines of my dress slacks.
The fantasies I’d had in the past were similar but always with someone faceless. I’d never met anyone I even hoped could give me what I needed. Who I’d even trust to hand control over to. Except with Ursuline, that came effortlessly.
Because from the moment we met, they’d proven themselves to me over and over again.
They broke the kiss to nip at my neck, my ear, and I panted, the touches making me delirious.
I’d never felt this electricity before, never experienced the charge that ignited between us.
The emptiness in me ached now, but not from being alone.
From finding a connection I never believed I’d have.
From the way each kiss of theirs, each stroke, each touch made my soul shine brighter and brighter, until I could turn this night to day.
Ursuline nipped at my ear, then licked at my neck, and a shiver ran through me.
They kept their hand braced on my lower back, the other around my nape, but their tentacles roamed, caressing down my sides, twining around my arms, my legs.
The sensations coming from all directions made my head spin.
I was delirious with desire, drunk on lust, and I didn’t want to stop.
My limbs trembled, but I didn’t need to hold myself up. Not with the way Ursuline kept me braced right now. With them, I was free to fall into their embrace. To lose myself to pleasure.
They kissed me on the lips again, drinking me in with each claiming stroke of their mouth on mine.
The thrills burst through me like fireworks, again and again and again.
The contrast of the wild capriciousness between us and the sheer safety was everything I loved about the sea, and I felt it here with them.
Ursuline dominated me with ease, their command as effortless as their competence.
I kissed back, greedy for every taste, every touch they gifted me.
My cock was hard, and my balls ached, my whole body sensitized from how they consumed me, from how their touches lit me up from the inside out.
I wasn’t sure how long we kissed, whether minutes or hours melted away, but the gentle lapping of water in the distance created a lullaby beyond, the cool moonlight gliding over us, and the crisp nighttime breeze a caress.
I lost myself in every second, never wanting to break away, never wanting this to end.
Eventually, Ursuline pulled back, even though their grip on me remained solid, reassuring.
We stared at each other, our breaths mingling, our shoulders heaving from the force of how we’d crashed together.
This was everything that had brewed for weeks in this place, every stolen glance, every stolen touch.
We’d crossed the forbidden line we’d been flirting with all this time.
Because deep down, I’d recognized the tension between us and what it meant, even if I hadn’t been able to fully acknowledge it.
However, seeing Arielle’s lack of concern tonight gave me the impetus to grab for what I’d wanted all along.
What I’d craved from the day Ursuline came to pick me up.
Their dark eyes were mesmerizing, intense and heated, and the light flush on their face lit me up inside.
Their lips were even fuller from the way we’d kissed, and I longed to taste them again.
The distant sounds of the water and the softness on their features soothed something inside me that was raw and ragged.
Like they’d begun to knit my damaged pieces together.
“This…” They let go of me. Pain flashed across their features, and my stomach turned. “We shouldn’t have done this.”
“Don’t say that,” I blurted out, panic rising inside me. The loss of their touch on me brought reality crashing in, cold and stark and so, so lonely. I loathed it.
“You’re promised to the Triton family,” Ursuline said, the softness bleeding away. Their features shuttered, and they slipped back a few paces. “Something like this…we can’t.”
Anger flared up inside me.
I was so sick of being told what to do. How to live my life. That I should take the high road when no one else around me did.
My hands bunched into fists at my side. “You’re promised to them too,” I said, the words tumbling out. “Just in a different way. So don’t pretend like we’re so different.”
Ursuline blanched and slid back farther. The anguish on their features socked me in the stomach. I regretted my words at once, but I couldn’t swallow them.
“I’m sorry,” I said, taking a step toward them. “Please, wait—”
They lifted their chin up, the imperious mask sliding into place, the same one I’d seen the first night I’d glimpsed them. As if they were cold, unaffected by the world around them. That couldn’t be less true.
“I’ve got to go,” Ursuline said, and they didn’t offer me a second glance.
No, they pivoted around and slunk toward the double doors to escape the deck.
I watched them leave, frozen by the railing, even though everything inside me yearned to rush after them, to stop them.
I’d soared to the highest heights only to stumble and careen back down.
They disappeared through the door, and it clicked shut behind them.
I sagged against the railing, my heart aching, aching, aching. Fuck.
I’d received the kiss I’d dreamed of my whole life on the night I announced my engagement to someone else.
Maybe I could fling myself into the bay.
Let the water carry me away. I knew they were guarded about their past, their association with the Tritons.
I never should’ve tossed that in their face.
Yet I longed for what we’d experienced right here with my whole soul.
I wanted more, not this brief moment in time.
These were the type of sparks I’d begun to believe I’d never experience.
The sense of fate playing a winning hand for once.
I turned to stare out at the bay, the darkened waters glimmering. Some days, when I looked out at those depths, they were inviting. Others, they were as distant as the stars above.
I clutched tight to the rail, the events of tonight threatening to bring me to my knees. From encountering my nightmarish parents, from Arielle’s dashed promises, from the brief, tremulous hope that unfurled while kissing Ursuline—only to have it dashed away.
When my parents had first broken the news to me that I’d be marrying Frederick’s daughter, I thought I’d been desolate.
But that didn’t compare to the reality.
Tonight, I’d tasted what true bliss could be, and in the aftermath, I’d gotten a taste of ruin.