Children of the Sea 03 - Sea Lord

tale, crying for the moon.
    What did she want?
    “I want to be part of a normal couple,” she said. “I want a regular relationship. Somebody to talk to and laugh with and care about. Somebody who is with me because he cares about me. Not because of a prophecy or a sealskin or anything else.”
    He gazed back at her steadily with those cool-as-rain eyes. “I cannot change what I am or what I have done. I would not if I could. There is no going back for us.”
    “I’m not asking to go back. I just want to slow down.”
    “To what end?”
    Doubt lodged like a splinter in her chest, pricking old insecurities. She couldn’t entice her live-in boyfriend to go out for pizza. Did she seriously think she was going to sell the three-thousand-year-old lord of the sea on the concept of dinner-and-a-movie?
    “To get to know each other.”
    “I know you.”
    Sexually.
    Yes.
    The red marks of her teeth scored his arm.
    She flushed and looked away. “You only know part of me. You don’t know my favorite color or my favorite flower or if I leave the cap off the toothpaste or whether I like Chinese food. You don’t know if I go to church or what side of the bed I sleep on or the name of my first boyfriend.”
    “And you think these things are important.”
    She stuck out her chin. “What they demonstrate—the trust, the closeness—is important. Yes.”
    “Very well. Tell me.”
    She was surprised into a laugh. “You want a list?”
    “Yes.”
    He was serious. The realization was at once completely ridiculous and oddly reassuring. “Getting to know someone doesn’t work that way. It takes time.”
    He clasped his hands behind his back. “How much time?”
    He was pushing at her, always pushing. Tentatively, she pushed back. “Worried about how many childbearing years I have left?”
    His eyes glinted. “Not as long as I can spend them in your bed.”
    Her pulse jumped. Desire was a whisper against her skin, a throb in her blood. How could she slow her rapid slide into dangerous dependence when he could arouse her with a look, a word?
    “We need to compromise. I’m willing to give you—us—a chance. You need to give me space.”
    He raised his brows. “This room is not enough for you?”
    Haha. “I meant emotional space.”
    “Agreed. During the day, you may take all the time and talk and emotional space you require. But at night, we share the bed.”
    Her pulse beat in her throat and between her legs. “That’s your compromise?”
    His lips curved. “Yes.”
    She sank her teeth into her lower lip to contain her answering smile. She wanted to sleep with him, yearned for a body beside her in the dark to provide an illusion of intimacy and keep her dreams at bay.
    She wanted more than that. Even now, with her body slick and tender from his assault, she craved him in ways and places that shocked her. That would probably shock him, if he knew.
    Her gaze flickered to the bite on his arm and away, sliding over him like a hand, greedily gathering up impressions: the column of his throat, his long, strong, broad body, the pillars of his thighs. She recognized the slow uncurling of desire in her stomach with delight and despair. His rough possession had released her sexual appetite like a genie from a bottle. How would she ever wrestle it back under control?

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    I wish . . . I wish . . .
    “Tell me his name.”
    She jerked her attention back to his face. “What?”
    “The name of your first boyfriend. The one you think of when you look at me.”
    “Oh.” Hot blood flooded her face. “It’s not important.”
    Conn regarded her steadily, immovable as his tower, inexorable as the sea. “The trust is important,” he quoted softly back at her.
    Her heart raced. Trapped.
    “His name was Brian.”
    Conn waited.
    Crap.
    “He, um . . . We met my sophomore year. At a party?” She snuck a look at him to see if he understood.
    Just a typical Saturday night, open doors and open bottles at a friend of a friend’s apartment. Watching other people get wasted usually didn’t appeal to Lucy. She’d had too much of that growing up. But Caleb had recently deployed to Iraq, and she had felt anxious and itchy, cut off and almost unbearably lonely. So she’d let her roommate nag her into going.
    “You had sex with him,” Conn said.
    “That night?” Lucy winced. “Yeah.”
    Hookup sex. Her first time. Brian was drunk and she was