Chapter 8
Troy
AS I SAT ON THE ROCK and watched Mira swim, I knew three things: I’d seen her before, she was in trouble, and I was in trouble.
The way Myrtle and Agatha had reacted when they had seen us exiting the coffee shop had confirmed it. They thought I should’ve recognized Mira, but for the waves in me, I couldn’t figure out where I could’ve seen her.
Mira’s cautious nature and the need to know who in town might be dangerous tipped me off about her being in trouble. As hot as she was, I could guess she had a stalker. If that were the case, she might’ve assumed a new identity, which would explain Myrtle’s reaction to me calling my little mermaid Mira.
As for me being in trouble, well, that was all because of Mira’s fluke. I had thought her legs were sexy, but sea weeds on a stick, her fluke was on another level. The teal scales shimmered in the sun and two wide pelvic fins caught the waves. Her caudal fin was light blue with yellow stripes on the sides.
The grace with which Mira moved, the smile lighting her face from something as simple as swimming had me clenching my fists at my sides, so I wouldn’t try to get my hands all over that gorgeous fluke.
“Aren’t you going to swim?” Mira asked.
I wanted to, but if I got in the water, I might do something stupid. Then again, I wanted to figure out how I knew her. Maybe she’d be more willing to tell me if we were both swimming. Water had a relaxing effect on mers.
Yeah, that was the reason I stripped off my clothes and shifted into my mer form. Not at all because I wanted to get very up close and personal with Mira’s fluke.
I submerged fully to wet my hair. If I were going to swim, I needed to feel the water on every inch of me. As I resurfaced, I found Mira inspecting me with interest.
“Mer form suits you,” she said with a flirty smile.
“Right back at cha.”
Mira dove to the side, her body arching with the motion. Her pelvic fin surfaced, catching the light, and suddenly, teal and dark blue became my favorite color combination. Until the caudal fin made an appearance and I went right back to obsessing with blue and yellow.
“Like what you see?” Mira asked, and before I could answer, she flicked her fluke, sending water into my face.
I splashed her right back, except I was better trained in the art of splashing, so my wave covered Mira’s whole head. She dove down in surprise, and before she could recover and splash me again, I was there, my hands on her bare scales, my fluke wrapped around hers.
Her breath hitched, and her plump lips parted as if begging for a kiss. She didn’t need to beg. I gave it to her, pouring all the desire that had been building inside me since the first time I had seen her profile picture.
My right hand moved up her back, exploring all that delectable skin on its way to her neck. Where her hair met the water, it floated in all directions around her shoulders, then moved up in sparkling strands. I tangled my fingers in her hair as I cupped the back of her head and deepened the kiss, letting my tongue explore her mouth, tasting her, committing that taste to memory. Everything about this felt right. Everything.
She wasn’t some immature, innocent girl. Mira stood on her own better than most women twice her age.
And then Mira moaned, and I forgot what right and wrong even were. The only thing I knew were our bodies touching skin to skin, scale to scale, the slide of her tongue against mine, the feel of her warmth seeping into me, and the scent of lavender, honey, and something synthetic, like the interior of an old car.
When we surfaced for breath, I could still feel her imprint on every inch of me, as if her kiss consumed my very soul, and waves above, she could keep it as long as we could kiss like this again.
“Mira,” I whispered.
“Troy,” she echoed.
I ran my fingers over her pelvic fin. The webbing on it was as smooth as silk. Hell, Mira’s entire being was like silk—beautiful, shiny, and strong.
“Your fluke is dangerous. If you ever want to win an argument, just whip it out.”
“You like?” she asked as if the damned thing hadn’t just evaporated all my brain cells. Didn’t she know how hot those fins looked in slow-moving water?
“I like.”
I looked around at the river and the shore that was much too close on both sides. This wasn’t enough. Mira deserved an ocean, not some isolated patch of shallow water. But she had asked specifically for something private.
Which reminded me that there were reasons behind it. If she was hiding from a stalker who knew she was a mermaid, it made sense for her to avoid public beaches. If I were stalking her, that would be the first place I’d look.
“So, Mimmy White, were your parents into Hello Kitty?” I asked, hoping her answer would help me figure out if it was her real name or not.
Mira let out a delightful laugh. “Picked up on that, huh?”
She pushed off and swam on her back away from me. It shouldn’t have stung but seeing her put distance between us made me want to forget my instinct to look closer into this woman’s past. She wasn’t mine. That was just one kiss.
“My mom liked it. We’d watch it over and over again on DVDs. Good stuff.”
I pushed my body forward in one smooth motion and erased the distance Mira put between us. I shouldn’t even want her, but none of it seemed to matter anymore.
“DVDs, huh? How retro.”
“There’s something about physically holding the movie and putting it into the DVD player that made it more real.” Mira got a glimmer of joy in her eyes as if simply remembering the act made her happy.
“I have all of my favorite movies on DVDs, but that’s because I’m worried they’d get digitally remastered to death,” I said as I got my hands on her again, this time holding her loosely by the waist.
Mira responded by putting her arms around my neck. Her soft curves lined up perfectly with my hard edges.
“Do you miss having DVDs now that you’re living out of your truck?” I asked another seemingly innocent question, but I was probing, needing to know if there was a reason she was always on the move.
Mira shrugged one shoulder. “It’s just stuff. I can always buy it again when I want to.”
That didn’t really answer my question, or maybe it did but in a different way.
“Well, you can come to my place and play with my DVDs anytime you like.” I gave her a suggestive wink and brought our bodies a little closer. “What’s your favorite Hello Kitty cartoon?”
“Growing Up With Hello Kitty,” she answered without hesitation.
I’d have to double-check the date it was released in the US. It definitely wasn’t one of the earlier cartoons, or I would’ve remembered it.
“Yeah? What were they about?”
Mira smiled fondly as she answered. “About eating your vegetables and learning how to dress yourself.”
“Eating your vegetables is important.” I nodded sagely before adding, “have you been getting a proper amount of cucumbers, zucchinis, and eggplants?”
“Well, I’m allergic to eggplants, but I wouldn’t say no if you offered me a cucumber.”
“Such a naughty little mermaid.”
And fuck, I’d give her my cucumber right now if I wasn’t worried someone might see us. Just because people didn’t usually come here didn’t mean they didn’t know the place existed. Plenty of teenagers came here for some privacy.
“When was the last time you swam in the ocean?” I asked.
Mira stiffened for a moment. “It’s been a while. Why?”
“I happen to have a boat, and I happen to like swimming in the ocean.” My thumb drew lazy circles on her back, forcing her to relax. “Would you like to come along? It’ll be just the two of us.”
Mira bit her plush lip and damn, I really wanted to see my cucumber in her mouth. Mira would be on her knees... No, she’d be in the water in her mer form. Yeah, definitely in the water. I couldn’t get enough of her fins.
“I’ll think about it,” she answered.
Of course, she’d want to look me up first, maybe leave more information for her friends in case she went missing. I wouldn’t expect any less from her.