Children of the Sea 01 - Sea Witch

some.” And be more private.
     
    She glanced up the bank and then back at his face. “All right.”
     
    He followed her under the cool, dark shadow of the trees. Weathered picnic tables stood at angles on the uneven ground.
     
    Caleb looked from the jacket hanging open around her shoulders to the stone pit with its rusty iron grill and said, “I could build a fire.”
     
    Yeah , because that would help him cool off .
     
    22
    She perched on one of the tables, and the sarong thing she was wearing fell away, exposing the long, lovely line of her thigh. Her eyes glinted. “If that’s what you really want. What shall I do while you are building your fire?”
     
    A real Sharon Stone moment, he thought, his blood pumping and his teeth on edge. The perfect fuck, and then you die.
     
    He couldn’t put his life back together that way. He wanted more than a one-night stand. Dinner, wine, conversation . . . all the trappings of a normal date. A normal life.
     
    Then sex.
     
    To please her, to tease her, to test himself, he flattened his hands on the picnic table, trapping her between his arms. She was so close. Warm and close. Hell, she was hot, and he was getting hotter by the second. He leaned in, sucked in by her closeness and her warmth, by those huge, dark, hungry eyes, and heard a rushing in his ears like the sound of the sea.
     
    He was drowning.
     
    He drew away. “You could unpack the cooler.”
     
    Margred pulled back sharply and met his eyes. “What?”
     
    Caleb turned away to crouch by the open stone fireplace, ignoring the twinge in his reconstructed leg. “I brought dinner. In the cooler. You could unpack it while I start the fire.”
     
    Margred stared at the long, strong line of his back, frustrated.
    Amused. Affronted. Sex had never been this much trouble before.
    Humans were always in rut. Any other male would have had her flat on her back on the table and be pounding away between her thighs.
     
    “I don’t need you to feed me,” she said.
     
    Fire leaped in the grate. Straightening, he turned to face her, humor curving his mouth. “You don’t get cold. You don’t get hungry either?”
     
    She narrowed her eyes at him. “Not for food.”
     
    23
    He laughed. He had a nice laugh, deep and wry, but his eyes remained steady and sad. “I thought women liked to be courted.”
     
    She didn’t know anything about what women, human women, liked.
    “It’s not necessary,” she repeated.
     
    “Not for you, maybe. I thought we could spend some time getting to know one another.”
     
    He was serious.
     
    “Why?” she asked.
     
    His gaze held hers. His eyes were green, the color of the sea on a cloudy day. “Because you’re a very attractive woman.”
     
    His compliment caught her off guard, melting her irritation. Surely she could give him something in return?
     
    She blew out her breath. “What do you want to know?”
     
    A corner of his mouth turned up. “We could start with an exchange of basic information. Marital status. Health history. Country of origin. I don’t even know your name.”
     
    “I told you, it’s Margred. Margaret.”
     
    “What do people call you? Meg? Maggie? Peggy?”
     
    “Not Peggy.” She tilted her head to one side, considering. “I like Maggie.”
     
    “Maggie,” he repeated softly.
     
    His deep voice shivered through her. She felt a tug under her breastbone.
     
    Oh, this would not do, she thought, dismayed. She had not come for this.
     
    “Are you married, Maggie?” he asked in that warm, mesmerizing voice.
     
    24
    Mated, he meant. She shook her head to rid it of memories. “I was.
    He died.”
     
    “I’m sorry.”
     
    His sympathy slid under her skin like a knife. “It was a long time ago.” More than two score years. Long enough that she had given up hope her murdered mate would ever be reborn to find her again.
    Deliberately, she crossed her legs, flashed her most sultry smile. “What happens now is more important to me.”
     
    The man watched her with his sober green eyes. “And what happens now?”
     
    “This,” she said, and reached for him.
     
    25
     

Three
     
    HER EYES WERE HUGE AND DARK, DEEP ENOUGH to drown
    him, wide enough to swallow him whole. She wrapped her arms around Caleb’s neck, pulled him between her smooth, bare thighs, and kissed him.
     
    Her mouth was silky hot, wet, and hungry. She tasted like one of those girly umbrella drinks, sweet with a raw kick underneath that slammed you in