Chapter 21
Iris
Water cascaded down her body as Finn pulled her against him, her cool skin meeting his warm body.
There was no stopping the little whimper that escaped her as her bare breasts pressed against his wide chest.
Finn’s fingers flexed on her hips in response to the sound as his gaze held hers for just a moment, looking, searching, and seeming to find the answer he was seeking.
The second their lips met, it was over. For just that moment, she was his. He kissed her like he knew it.
He kissed her like the tide—fierce and impossible to resist.
Iris’s hands slid up his strong arms and wrapped around his neck, letting her press closer as Finn pulled her fully out of the water.
He pulled her with him as he lowered down to the sand, situating her across his lap as the water dried on her tail.
His hand slid upward, framing her face as the kiss grew deeper, rougher, needier.
He caught her lower lip between his, sucking gently before adjusting the angle and devouring her.
His hand tentatively touched the side of her tail, dragging a little sigh out of her, urging him on.
His palm moved upward, gliding over her scales even as her tail was slowly starting to disappear.
By the time his fingers were at her hip, he was touching her human skin.
Need crashed through her body as his tongue swept over hers—tentative at first, then filled with hunger as a moan escaped her.
Iris pressed her thighs together, trying to ease the ache growing between them.
He wouldn’t need to look to know how consumed she was. She was all pulse, heat, and slippery need.
Iris shifted up onto her knees, and Finn’s hungry gaze slid down her body, taking in every exposed inch of her.
When his gaze reached hers again, her hands moved out, grabbing Finn’s wet shirt and drawing it up and off his body.
She slid closer, dropping down onto his lap, feeling how he ached for her. Their chests brushed, making her nipples peak and ache.
A rumble moved through Finn.
His hands slid up her back, pulling her until her chest met his, making both of them gasp.
Finn leaned down, his lips meeting the column of her neck, making a tremble slide down her spine.
There was no stopping the way she rocked against him, feeling the hard length of his desire against her heat.
His tongue teased out, tracing over the pulse in her throat before moving downward.
His lips dragged like silk across her skin as he moved between her breasts.
She swore she could feel his breath in her bones—each soft exhalation a match strike.
He leaned her backward so he could move down, his tongue tracing around her nipple.
Goosebumps rose in a rush at the sensation just before his lips closed around the peak, sucking it into his mouth.
Her thighs clenched around his side as need sparked between them.
Finn sucked and licked and grazed until she was rocking against him, desperate for relief from the ache growing in her lower stomach.
Finn moved across her chest, and she arched without thinking, her spine bowing to invite more.
Time hiccupped—every second stretched thin with wanting, with sensation.
Just when she was sure she couldn’t take another moment of sweet, soft torment, his head shifted between her breasts. Then he was moving down.
Their bodies moved together until she was flat on the wet sand and he was shifting her legs over his shoulders as he slipped lower and lower.
“I want you to come apart,” he murmured. His lips pressed a kiss to that delicate crease of her inner thigh. “Slow,” Finn went on. His soft hair teased her sensitive skin. “Sweet,” he added, lips pressing to the triangle above her sex. “And all over my mouth.”
His lips closed around her clit then, dragging a ragged moan out of her as pleasure bloomed in her core.
Her pulse fluttered deep in her throat. Her breath hitched in halves, like her body had forgotten the rhythm.
Iris’s hands went downward, fingers curling into Finn’s hair as his tongue started to trace a maddeningly perfect path around her clit.
Finn’s hand grazed up her thigh, slipping between them, then pressing into her.
Her breath caught and flipped, like tripping over her need at the feel of his touch slipping inside.
His tongue flicked, steady and teasing, and his fingers followed, deeper now.
Her body pulsed.
Her moans poured out into the night, the sound as primal and desperate as the tide crashing against the shore.
The pressure built to a fever pitch.
Then she was there.
Right at that precipice.
Her body clenched around the promise of it, every breath a gasp, every heartbeat a countdown.
Then everything inside her seized and spiraled, the pleas-ure flooding out in helpless, rhythmic bursts.
She cried out as the orgasm pulsed and pulled her under over and over, leaving her shaking and breathless in the aftermath.
Finn’s head shifted, kissing across one thigh, then the other, before moving across her hips, belly, between her breasts, then her neck.
“I could stay between your legs all night,” he murmured against her ear.
A pained sound escaped her as another rush of need coursed through her.
She’d just been satisfied, but she was shaky and aching once again.
Her hands drifted down Finn’s back, sinking into his ass, finding herself riding against his hardness.
That sexy rumble moved through Finn again.
“Not done with me yet?” he asked, lips kissing the corner of her mouth.
“Finn, please,” she moaned, rocking her hips against him.
“Tell me what you want,” he demanded just before his lips sealed over hers.
With her mouth otherwise occupied, she showed him what she wanted. Her hands grabbed the waistband of his shorts, dragging them down.
Finn pushed up to allow her to work his pants down.
Her hands sank into his ass, dragging him against her, then grinding against his hard length.
A groan moved through Finn as he pushed up to watch her with molten eyes as she rocked against him.
“You’re so wet for me,” he murmured. His hips ground down on her cleft, dragging a ragged moan from deep within her.
Her stomach coiled, tight and expectant as the air between them crackled—too thick to breathe, too sweet not to taste.
But before she could feel the pulse of release, Finn was pulling up, sitting back on his heels, his gaze moving over her for a moment as he reached for his wallet, finding the foil, then making quick work of protecting them.
“Look at you,” he said, his hands drifting up and down her legs, “trembling just at the thought of more.”
“Finn,” she whimpered, reaching for him and pulling him down on her again. “Please. Please.” Her legs wrapped around him, her body shaky with her need.
“Shh,” he murmured, breath near her ear, “I know. I’ve got you.”
He rocked against her.
The press of him felt like a promise.
For more.
For everything.
Finn’s hips shifted.
Then she felt the press of him again, the push, the slide as he moved into her.
She was strung taut, every nerve lit, her body begging for the release that was just out of reach.
They both gasped at the sensation as he slid deep, her walls closing around him.
“I’ve been dreaming of this,” he told her, his voice thick with need. “About how you would sound when I’m buried deep inside you.” He rocked his hips just a little deeper, dragging a ragged moan from between her lips.
There was nothing then but sensation as he started to move.
Iris felt strung up, every inch of her wired and waiting, sure that the very next touch could detonate her.
“You feel so good,” Finn groaned as their bodies moved faster, growing more desperate.
Pleasure tightened, gathering low and hot like a wave about to crest.
Her breath came in frantic gasps.
“That’s it,” Finn murmured. “Let go. I’ve got you. Just let go.”
And so she did.
She came like a storm breaking, like a tidal surge swallowing everything but the sensations.
Everything clenched as she came, gasping, clawing, wrecked.
Finn groaned as the orgasm continued to roll, taking him with her, his body tensing, his breath catching, his weight coming down on her.
She wrapped him up in her arms and legs, satisfaction humming through her body.
The pleasure—that was easy. The quiet after, limbs tangled, heartbeats in sync, her mind clear to wander—that was another issue completely.
She lay still, careful not to breathe too deep, knowing any slight change would crack the fragile spell they’d fallen into.
It wasn’t long before thoughts surged that had something sneaking its way in. Not regret. But something like its quieter cousin. It was a sense of unease.
She wasn’t supposed to want him.
What did it say about her that she craved someone who never showed her anything real?
Except, of course, his desire.
But desire was fickle and fleeting. It could trick you into thinking you knew who someone was.
Finn lifted up, and she took the opportunity to curl away from him. Slowly. Quietly. Not because she wanted space, but because closeness could start to tell her a lie that she couldn’t afford to believe in.
It seemed as if the ocean itself sighed as the distance grew between them, as the connection dissipated like the sweat on their skin.
“How did you find me?” she asked, still naked, but she pulled her walls tightly around her, shielding everything important.
“Monty.”
Of course.
No one else would have known where she’d come out of the ocean but the pelican she’d been with at the time.
“Why did you run?”
“I was homesick.”
“You could have told me.”
“I wasn’t sure you’d notice.”
“You disappeared from the town hall. Of course I noticed.”
This was her chance.
To rein in her pride.
To confront things head-on.
She sucked in a steadying breath.
“I guess that makes sense,” she said, rolling up. She reached for her dress, yanking it down over her body, not ready to have this conversation while naked. “Since I stole the whole show, right? Made it all about me?”
Her gaze cut to his, watching her words land with impact, making his head jerk back slightly.
“Henry never should have said that.”