Ocean's Touch (8 page)

And with that, she stormed out of bed, made short work of her morning
toilette
—including an almost-angry shower to wash off the scent of him—and dressed in a purposely unsexy outfit of loose yoga pants and a wraparound yoga top over a tank. No-nonsense, rather frumpy indoor/outdoor slippers completed the look.

She was ready.

Yet still her heart beat furiously in her chest as she walked the absurdly long way from her bedroom to her kitchen. All around her was Teddy—all his things, all his family heirlooms, and all his family photos.

And I’ve invited a gigolo into our kitchen
, she thought, her mouth going dry as she slowly pushed open the kitchen door…

To find Dylan, wearing what looked like a cloak and an apron, frying something delicious smelling on the stove. She blinked her eyes, and suddenly he was wearing only an apron and normal pajama pants, although where he’d gotten them, she couldn’t imagine. They certainly weren’t Teddy’s.

And I could’ve sworn he was wearing a cloak…

“Good mornin, lass,” Dylan said, a bright smile splitting his suntanned cheeks. “Did you sleep well?”

“I did, thank you. And you?” she asked, falling back on her plentiful reserves of politeness to quiet her nerves.

“Aye, lass. Now sit down. Breakfast is almost ready.”

Meredith walked like a stranger into her own kitchen, noting that Dylan had set the table with two settings of her favorite morning china and had already laid out butter and jam. There was even a pot of coffee ready for her, along with milk and sugar.

While Meredith fixed herself a cup, she watched as Dylan cracked two eggs into the skillet. She knew what else was in there—the distinctive smell told her it was one of her favorite breakfast treats, and something she enjoyed only rarely. He expertly flipped over what looked like pancakes in another skillet, did some seasoning of the contents of the original skillet, gave both a good shimmy to make sure nothing was sticking, and then began plating up.

When he’d finished, Dylan walked over to her, looking ridiculously adorable in an apron stretched over his broad, naked chest.

He looks as delicious as the food smells
, she thought, before quashing her desire quickly.

Gigolo!
she reminded herself, working hard not to lick her lips, either at him or the food, as he set her plate in front of her then took his own place to her right side.

“Kippers,” she breathed. She’d known it was coming, but still.

“Aye. My favorite. Kippers and eggs will give you strength after our long night,” he said, winking at her.

Please don’t ask for money
, was all she could think.

“And…pancakes?” she asked, keeping a lid on her suspicions.

“Scotch pancakes. Taste them. They’re a bit different.”

She copied his slathering of the pancakes in butter and jam, and then tasted hers a split second after he bit into his.

“Mmm,” she moaned, unable to help herself. They really were wonderful—to be honest, not that much different from an American pancake, but absolutely delicious.

Seeing her reaction, Dylan stopped chewing long enough to give her a cheeky smile and a hungry look, before reaching a hand out to wipe away an errant blob of jam stuck to her lip. She herself paused, her pancake raised halfway to her mouth, as she watched him lick the jam off his finger, his eyes still hot on hers.

Terrified that she practically spasmed in lust at Dylan’s actions, Meredith gracefully jammed the rest of the pancake in her mouth, distracting herself and her body by chewing it thoroughly, if rather noisily.

“So, Dylan,” she said when she’d washed the pancake down with a draught of coffee. “You’re quite a good cook.”

“Thank you,” he replied, polishing off his own pancake with far more dignity. “I do like to dabble when I get the chance.”

“Do you not,” she said, trying to figure out how to suss his lifestyle with subtlety, “get the chance to cook that often?”

“No,” he said. “It’s hard cooking where I live.”

Meredith frowned. Ever since she’d sat down with Dylan across the table, the terrible doubt that she’d felt in her bedroom had eased. There was something about him that she simply trusted. And yet, still her brain worked overtime, trying to find something wrong with her current contentment.

And just where is cooking hard to accomplish?
she wondered.

Gigolo school,
whispered the nasty voice.
Or prison…

Oh dear God. Prison?

Dylan, meanwhile, was inundated with Meredith’s mixed emotions. He could feel her lust for him, and he could tell that at some level she recognized his honesty, and that his intentions toward her were good. But he could also sense a swirling miasma of doubt and anxiety.

To be fair,
he thought to himself,
I did pick her up on a beach. And Meredith isn’t the pick-her-up-on-a-beach sort of woman…

So he reached forward, putting his hand over hers where it rested on the table. “It’s not because I’ve got some evil secret, Meredith. I’m not here to harm you in any way. I just want to be your friend.”

He watched as Meredith blushed, and pulled her hand away to pick up her cutlery. She fiddled with her food a bit—breaking the yolk so the bright yellow liquid flowed over the oily skin of the fish—before she took a bite. He did the same, watching her as they both ate. He also watched as she came to some decision, putting down her fork and knife to turn to him again.

Dylan loved watching Meredith decide things. It turned him on immensely.

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to appear…anxious toward you. But I know nothing about you, as embarrassing as that is to me.”

Dylan smiled at her, his eyes warm and amused. “Why does that embarrass you? How could you know more?”

“But that’s just it,” she said, averting her eyes. “I hardly know you. Yet we’ve had sex. I’m not…”

“I know you’re no slattern,” he said, chuckling as he moved his chair closer to hers. “And I know we’ve not been acquainted for long. But be honest with yourself. Do you truly feel I’m a stranger?”

She thought about what he asked. “No,” Meredith whispered.

“And have you felt you’ve known some people forever, but that you’ve never understood them at all?”

“Yes,” she answered, thinking of dozens of examples.

“So stop beating up on yourself. I’m not someone you know too much about, true. But I’m no stranger. Now finish your breakfast,” he said, scooting her food toward her like a protective mother hen. “We’ll talk when your belly’s full.”

She couldn’t help but smile as she did as he’d commanded.

When she’d finished, she helped him clean up; then they returned to sit at the table together, a last mug of coffee steaming in both of their hands.

“Now, as I can feel you’re fit to bursting, ask me anything you like, Mer.”

“Where do you live?” she blurted out the question that had been on her tongue throughout breakfast.

He laughed. “I’ve told you, basically. You know where I live.”

Meredith frowned. “No, I don’t.”

“The sea,” he said, his voice strong and reasonable, just as he’d said everything that day. Despite the fact that what he was currently saying was insane.

“What do you mean, ‘the sea’?“ she asked, trying to remain equally reasonable. “Like…a boat?”

“No, not a boat.”

“Then what, Dylan. A house on the sea, like mine?”

“No, lass. You ken the truth. I live in the sea proper.”

“You can’t live in the sea. That’s ridiculous,” she said, drawing away from him and clutching her coffee like she was considering using the mug as a weapon.

Dylan sighed.
Mortals
, he thought. He’d seen it a hundred times. He could do something obviously “impossible” by human standards, and still they’d find a way to convince themselves it hadn’t happened, or had been something else entirely.

Why can’t they just believe?
he wondered, shaking his head. Although seeing Meredith straighten her spine even more at his obvious resignation made him remember why he adored humans so much.

Instead of answering her, he stood. Meredith, in turn, got an even better grip on her coffee cup.

She watched as he untied her apron, folding it rather messily before laying it on the island behind him. And then he…changed.

Instead of the large, handsome man he’d been, he was still large, maybe even more handsome…but definitely not a normal man.

Not a human
, Meredith realized, nearly spilling her coffee when her death grip on her mug loosened from surprise.

This Dylan was still man-shaped—long, muscular legs, the same thick cock she’d enjoyed last night, an equally well-muscled chest. But this Dylan’s hair—instead of curly and brown—flowed up from his head in a dark, iron-gray crown, as if he were floating underwater even now. His eyes, too, had gone from normal, human brown to entirely jet-black. Their inky weight surveyed her from a face that was Dylan’s, but not—his features gone fierce and fey—his chin slightly more pointed, his cheekbones more arched, his lips slightly fuller and an alluring shade of cherry red.

“What are you?” she breathed. Meredith knew she should be frightened, but she felt nothing more than the same mixture of kindness and curiosity flowing off the being that she’d always felt flowing off Dylan. Indeed, he felt like Dylan, even though he looked like Dylan-gone-manga.

“A selkie,” he said simply.

“But they’re…” she said, trailing off as she realized how ridiculous it would be to think this fierce being in front of her could change into a seal, of all things.

Instead of laughing at her, all Dylan did was twitch his shoulders, throwing forward his sealskin cloak before giving her a cheeky wink.

“You’re really…?” she asked, unable to finish her question.

“Aye, lass. Would you like to see?”

She gulped.
Did she want to see?
Here, in Teddy’s kitchen, that had never seen anything more magical than an ice sculpture carved off site by someone else?

“Yes,” Meredith said eventually.

He smiled at her, pulling his cloak up and around him until only his face peeped through. Then he drew it tighter still till, with an audible pop and a shivering of the air, Dylan was gone.

And where his feet had been lay a huge, sweet-faced seal, lying on his back and arching his spine to stare forward at her with his enormous black eyes.

Meredith stood, mute and staring, for a few seconds before she finally took a few tentative steps forward. The seal blinked at her lazily, and she could have sworn it was grinning.

When she stood next to Dylan’s seal, she lowered herself down into a crouch, reaching out one tentative hand. Shivering as her fingertips met unbelievably warm, soft fur, she ran her fingers lightly up and down the seal’s side. Then she let both her hands fall on the soft skin as hot tears burned down her cheeks. She sobbed, rubbing her hands up and down the silky, oddly muscular shape in front of her.

Meredith was crying so hard, in fact, that she didn’t even notice when the air around Dylan shimmered again, and another little pop sounded in the air. Instead of soft fur, her hands clenched at Dylan’s hard abdomen as he sat up enough to wrap his hands around her upper arms.

“Meredith, lass, shh…what’s wrong?” he asked, pulling her close.

“It’s really magic,” she sobbed into his neck, knowing she must look a mess but not caring. “You’re really magic…”

And with those words, Dylan felt Meredith’s long pent-up desire and frustration bleed out of her as her hands on his torso once again began to stroke his flesh.

Knowing what she needed, he leaned back on his elbows, giving her full access to his body.

Meredith shifted so that she was kneeling next to him, her hands and eyes hungrily roving over his body. Dylan could feel how attracted she was to him, yes, but he knew that this moment was about more than him. This was about Meredith, reclaiming what she’d lost—reclaiming not only her rights as a woman, including those of her woman’s body, but also her creativity, her imagination, and that lost bit of her that had once believed in magic.

Meredith’s tears had ceased, but wetness still glowed on her cheeks as she lowered her mouth to his stomach, licking over the hard bands of muscle revealed by his current position.

Her hands coasted up and along his ribs as she kissed her way down his belly, and he spread his legs obligingly as she moved to kneel between them.

His hands found her hair as her warm breath caressed his cock just a second before her tongue lapped at him gently, tentatively. He moaned his encouragement, running the fingers of one hand through her hair before tickling her earlobe gently.

Meredith squirmed, looking up at him with her massive brown eyes. No longer dull, they shone with a combination of just-shed tears and desire. He moaned as she took his hard cock into her warm mouth. His head fall back, enjoying the sensations of the soft, wet pull of her mouth, her tongue lapping at him, learning his size and shape. He let her play until she grew more confident, one hand moving to stroke his balls as the other pumped the base of his shaft.