Chapter 31
Erica
I don’t know where this confidence is coming from, but the strength pumping through my veins is a welcome change.
As soon as the words left his mouth and I understood their meaning.
I just knew. I didn’t want to wait for the inevitable.
I didn’t want to wait a single second to have everything that I could with Ari. My real-life merman and soulmate.
His hand snaps up, taking my chin in his grip. “Are you taunting me, little siren?”
Using my sudden infusion of courage, I brat back, “If that’s what it takes to get what I want.”
He approaches, impossibly closer, the tip of his dick lightly tapping against my stomach as he looks down at me. “And you’re so sure this is what you want?”
Understanding his need to have my certainty, I genuinely take a minute to think about this.
Ari is the single most kind and respectful man I’ve ever met.
I have been blissfully happy touring with him and his band for months now.
He has never once made me feel unsafe, insecure, or unloved.
Before he ever told me how he felt, he showed me.
And that’s more important. It’s more than anyone else has ever done for me.
I know we’re still relatively young. I know this whole circumstance has been one whirlwind after another, but each storm that makes landfall around us is met with his patience and determination to get us through it. Get me through it.
I’ve laid myself bare to this man—physically and emotionally—on multiple occasions. Instead of running or trying to fix me, he meets me with compassion and a want to understand, to help. Not fix.
Taking all of that into thorough consideration, before you even add that we’re actual soulmates, my answer is clear, and unchanged.
“Ari Seabrook, will you claim me as your soulmate and make me yours . . . forever?”
The final syllable has barely rolled off my tongue before he’s on me. Our bodies coming together as those waves of sensation course through us, begging that we solidify everything between us.
I’m already panting when his mouth reaches the column of my throat. My core clenches in need, made visible by a trickle of arousal making its way down my leg.
As if conjured by my thoughts, Ari lowers his hand between my legs, growling into my neck. “Is this for me?”
Whimpering and pulling on him, trying to lead him back to the bed, he surprises me by swinging me into his arms, cradling me against his body as he takes the few steps to where I wanted him. I could have easily walked over myself, but I’m enjoying being taken care of.
I’m once again laid gently, reverently, on the bed before he joins me. While his hands roam my body, I ask, “Will it hurt?”
Between kisses, he assures me. “It will pinch at first, but the pleasure will overwhelm any pain you feel.”
Without making me wait another moment, he joins our bodies together.
Words aren’t spoken because our mouths are too busy devouring one another.
We swallow each other’s moans and cries while our bodies are one.
The steady and claiming rhythm of his hips against mine fills the room.
The magic of the moment so strong it feels as though it’s sparkling around us.
He feels my body begin to clench, the pleasure rising rapidly, and pulls his face from mine enough to ask me permission with his gentle gaze.
Nodding my head, whimpering through the pleasure and not wanting to use my words where they aren’t needed, I pull my hair out of the way and bare my neck to him.
A grumbling moan comes from his lips as his hips begin to falter.
He opens his mouth, revealing the razor-sharp teeth of his merman form, and leans into me.
A heartbeat before my orgasm crests and washes over me, his teeth sink into my neck.
There is a pinch of blinding pain that’s swept away by the overwhelming euphoria of our bond snapping into place.
In a mystical moment, it feels as though there are shimmering ribbons wrapping around us and tying us together. When they seem to solidify, I’m engulfed in feelings so strong tears run down my face.
Ari notices and kisses them away. “I know,” he breathes, and I realize that it’s his feelings for me that are filling me so full, that I’m able to admit that I’ve never known love until this moment.
How could I have? This is the love everyone waits for, writes about.
This is the kind of love they portray in movies.
The kind where you catch yourself thinking about it randomly throughout the rest of your life, unable to let how you felt in those moments go.