Children of the Sea 02 - Sea Fever

stomach an icy lump.
    She burrowed into him, needing heat, wanting skin, seeking to blot out the memory of pitch-black caves and her dreams of rising water. Chilling her bones, stealing her breath . . .
     
    She shivered, fumbling with his buttons, clumsy in the dark. He ripped open his shirt and gathered her against him, mashing her nose against the hard planes of his almost smooth chest.
     
    She shuddered in relief. But even in his arms, her dreams crept in, blanketing her brain like a heavy gray fog, clinging and cold. She hated those dreams. She reached for Dylan’s belt buckle instead, feeling the muscles of his stomach jump. Good. He felt warm, warm and alive, and—
    His hand closed over her shaking hands, holding them still. “What are you doing?”
     
    She was close to tears. She tried to joke instead. “Isn’t it obvious?”
     
    “Not to me.” He sounded grim.
     
    She felt a hot trickle of humiliation, and even that was better than the cold.
     
    “Bad dream,” she explained.
     
    “I guessed.” He didn’t let go of her hand.
     
    “I can’t stop remembering . . . I can’t help thinking . . .” She was back in the caves, in the dark again, only now the shadows were infested with demons. “I’m scared.”
     
    “You should be. And I am not the one to comfort you.”
     
    Because he wasn’t human? Or because he would leave? Neither mattered much to her at the moment.
     
    150
     
    “You’re the only one.” The only one who understood what she had been through. Who knew what she faced. Who could deliver her from the dark. “You were there. You rescued me.”
     
    “So, what’s this? ‘Thank you’?”
     
    The humiliation spread, a warm flush of embarrassment in her cheeks, in her chest. She hunched a shoulder. “If you want.”
     
    “Let’s talk about what you want,” he said, cool as a priest in the confessional.
     
    “I want to stop thinking,” she said, her voice shaking as much as her hands. “I want to feel something besides afraid and alone. I want you.”
     
    “I don’t want to hurt you.”
     
    “I’m already sore all over. Sex isn’t going to make me feel any worse. It might even make me feel better.” Make me feel alive.
     
    “A comfort fuck. How very . . . romantic.” There was an edge to his voice now. Annoyance or amusement? She hardly cared. Either was better than his indifferent calm.
     
    “This from a guy who did me drunk and standing against a rock?”
     
    He did laugh, then, a vibration in the dark. She felt him shift—not close enough, not nearly close enough— and rise on one elbow.
    Moonlight from the window behind her painted the hard line of his cheek.
    His teeth gleamed. “I thought that was romantic.”
     
    She sniffed. “You thought I was easy.”
     
    “You?” He combed a strand of hair from her forehead, his touch lingering behind her ear. She felt the faint rasp of his roughened fingertips and shivered all the way down to her toes. Not with cold this time. “You’re the most difficult woman I’ve ever known.”
     
    He watched her a moment, his dark eyes swallowing the moonlight, making her breath catch in her throat. He laid his mouth gently, lightly on hers, his kiss teasing, almost tender, almost . . .
     
    151
    She groaned and arched to meet him, craving his taste, his tongue.
    He gave them to her, feeding her in sips and tiny bites that promised more than he delivered.
     
    She curled her fingers into his shirt front to pull him closer. Still not enough. Her hands wandered under his shirt, learning his shape, hard where Alain had been soft, smooth where Alain had been hairy. Different.
    She flattened her palm on his chest, where his heart beat hard and fast, and something inside her softened. Sundered.
     
    He was here. He was hers. At least for tonight. Tonight she needed him.
     
    His hands smoothed over her camisole top, shaping her breasts, rubbing the peaks, making her clench with excitement. Her legs moved restlessly between the sheets, twining with his. The scrape of denim against her bare skin irritated and aroused her.
     
    She drew back, touching her tongue to her lips, tasting his kiss on her mouth. “You really want romantic, you could take off your pants this time.”
     
    Another breath of laughter. “There you go, being difficult again.”
     
    The covers heaved as he shucked his jeans and threw them on the floor. He rolled back to her, eyes gleaming. “Satisfied?”
     
    Her heart pounded. “Not