Chapter Forty-One #2
My shoes were already off, so I unclasped my cloak. I wouldn’t have worn that in, anyway. It dropped to the sand, falling in a semicircle around me.
Raphael was now waist-deep in the water, the white foam obscuring what was below.
I fingered the steel buckle of my belt. “Be a gentleman,” I called. “Turn around.”
“Not sure I’ve ever been accused of that,” he said with a huff. But he complied.
I unfastened the belt and folded my trousers, setting them on my cloak.
I toyed with the edges of my tunic. I’d forgone my chest wrappings, instead wearing a short chemise I’d gotten accustomed to with my day dresses.
If I removed the tunic, I wouldn’t be naked.
It would stay dry for me to change back into.
No, not naked.
But I’d be exposed.
Yet there was no one but Raphael to see. That thought was equal parts terrifying and thrilling.
I discarded the shirt on top of the trousers. The white fabric of the chemise was even flimsier than I’d thought, but there was no more hesitating.
I stepped into the water.
“That is cold,” I hissed.
“You’ll acclimate. Can I turn around now?” Raphael’s back was still to me, but I knew he was fighting a smile.
“Just a moment.” I stepped farther in, coming closer to Raphael. “Okay, you can turn around.”
The chemise was a bad idea. While the water was up to his hips, it was already past my waist. The small waves lapped at me, soaking me.
The white fabric clung to my breasts, their outline firmly visible.
My nipples had pebbled from the cold, and my attempt to sink lower in the water did me no favors.
Raphael looked at me and swallowed. Then his eyes snapped back to my face, and he offered me a hand.
I took it. Raphael began to lead us deeper into the water, his long, powerful legs kicking slightly.
The heavily salted water helped buoy me, but I still glanced around nervously as we moved farther.
I wouldn’t be able to stand here. Then he moved us farther still.
I looked back at the shore, no longer certain it was such a good idea.
“We won’t go past there.” His body was halfway between me and the open ocean as he pointed to an outcropping of boulders in the water. They were maybe fifty, sixty feet away.
“What now?” I asked hesitantly.
“Now, you practice treading water.”
He led me through a series of motions, moving around to support me. First, he held both my hands while I kicked my legs, then he held one hand at a time while I learned the movements for the arm. Once satisfied, he let me go—despite my rapid, curse-filled protests.
Raphael’s teaching style involved more “do or die” than regulated practice, I’d learned.
“You’re doing it,” he said, a look of pride on his face.
I was. I had built it into a more complicated thing, but with the improved stamina and strength vampirism offered, it wasn’t so bad.
Raphael stayed in front of me, barely an arm’s length away.
He moved his arms only a little, mainly cycling with his legs.
Water clung to every part of his exposed shoulders, his hair, his chin.
He ran his fingers through his wet hair, brushing it back.
His bicep flexed, and I followed its path as it dropped below the water again.
I couldn’t see under the water, but I was very, very aware of the fact he was naked. And the only thing between us was the scrap of fabric I’d clung to, like that might give any semblance of propriety. What a joke.
My success was suddenly short-lived as that thought distracted me, and I began to sink. I quickly swung my arms in the water, trying to get back into it. I splashed Raphael in the process.
He splashed back. “You’re not focused on treading water. What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking I may as well be naked,” I said, more focused on regaining my coordination than filtering the response. When I realized what I’d said, I truly lost any semblance of treading water.
His hands were around my waist in an instant, pulling me back up. And closer.
“What an interesting thought,” he all but purred. “It’s not too late to change that.”
It was a good thing he was holding me, because the thought of being naked in the water with Raphael hit me low and deep, especially with the way his hands held me securely at the waist.
It was also a bad thing, because my mind was most assuredly not on swimming.
“I’ll practice more now,” I said, trying for curt. Instead my voice came out a bit too high-pitched.
Raphael just grinned, letting go but keeping close. I continued to practice treading water. I debated asking Raphael for more complex strokes to practice, but given our respective states of undress, it seemed dangerous.
Everything in the water seemed dangerous and wicked.
The sky continued to explode in bursts of colors, but the water muffled the sound around us.
My confidence grew, the movements becoming more natural.
At least until I looked back and realized how far we’d gone from shore.
The rocks he’d pointed to, which had seemed so distant moments ago, were only a few feet from my fingertips.
Raphael read my panic in an instant. “Relax. I won’t let any of the charybdes get you.”
“That had better be a joke,” I growled. Logic told me the sea monsters would never come so close to shore, but I didn’t truly have any personal experience to draw on.
He blinked at me, all innocence. “Would I joke about your safety?”
“Raphael!”
“Relax,” he soothed. “They won’t come near us. They know I’d bite back.”
His grin was all teeth. The points of his fangs were as sharp as blades. The way they gleamed in moonlight sent a shiver down my spine. Something like fear, but not quite. Whatever alchemy went through the evening, it turned trepidation to anticipation.
How would those fangs feel? I’d let him bite me once, as a human, to save his life. In the moments before sleep claimed me, I allowed myself to remember the sensation. Would it feel like that as a vampire? Would it be different?
Why did I ache to know? When all my life, I’d been raised to fear nothing more than a vampire’s fangs?
“Is the ocean everything you dreamed?” The lights flared overhead, the greens and blues reflecting in the wet strands of his hair. I clenched my fingers with the urge to run my hands through them.
“It’s everything I was afraid to dream about,” I rasped.
He drew closer, the water barely rippling with the movement. “And how does it feel, doing what you were afraid of?”
His voice was low, confiding, like he was asking for a secret, one that would never leave the water with us.
“Terrifying,” I admitted. “Like every part of my body is charged with electricity, and I know it’ll end me, but I want it anyway because I’ve never felt so alive.”
It was like I’d been transported to another world, another life. One vicious dream that would be ripped away with the dawn.
But dawn wasn’t for a few more hours. And while the day brought responsibility, duty, fear—the night was for desire. And for this one evening, I would let it transform me into a creature of the night.
“You told me to do what I want,” I started, chest tight.
A challenge gleamed in his eyes. “I did.”
“Well.” Now or never. “I want you. I want you like I never imagined I could want a person.” I didn’t say everything I thought.
That I didn’t just want him the way my body did, the way I did when I replayed our kisses in my mind.
Didn’t say that I also wanted him in the moments when he had a wry smile on his face, when he bickered with Thea, when he helped me off the horse he’d taught me to mount.
Let him think it was as simple as wanting his body.
“Not a person, a monster,” he corrected.
“I want the monster.” The truth of it startled me. “But you’re so much more than that.”
His eyes glowed, twin rubies trained on me. “I’m your monster.”
I nodded.
And I wanted my monster. The one who had protected me time and time again. The one who was ruthless. The one who still scared me a bit.
I was done treading water. I surged forward, crashing against him as I pushed from the water. I wrapped my knees around his hips, the soaked chemise riding up around me. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except pulling my arms around him. He caught me, hands at my back keeping me steady.
I kissed the monster.
He tasted of sea salt and brine and darkness, just like the night.
I pressed closer. Raphael deepened the kiss, and I didn’t shy away.
Didn’t hesitate. I wanted him, wanted the way he groaned against me.
Wanted to live in the moment his eyes had flashed with surprise when I wrapped my legs around him.
Raphael was so powerful, so dangerous, but there was another side of him, one that I got to unleash.
Above the water, the chill of the evening hit my wet skin, but it didn’t matter. My body was hot, aching, and needy. I wanted more than the kiss. I tugged at his lips, liking how he jolted slightly at the movement. It wasn’t any true pain, just surprise.
I liked surprising the vampire king.
“I warned you I bite back,” he growled against my lips.
I lapped up the drop of blood, feeling bold. “What if you did?” My throat felt loose with desire. “What if you took my blood?”
He pulled back, and I saw a silent war wage within him. His throat bobbed once, as if unable to restrain his gaze from dropping to the column of my throat.
“Not tonight.” The words were a dark promise. Not tonight. But on another night, he planned to bend my neck and drink deeply.
Not tonight also meant he didn’t realize this was just for one evening. But I had no chance to correct him. He hoisted me higher on his body, his legs keeping us afloat.