They were almost at the rocks on which her house perched when the engine came back online, allowing her to smoothly glide up to the moon pool. Just before the submersible arm came down to pluck her out of the water, the merman swam up beside the vehicle.
Raising his dark brows, he pointed one clawed finger at the moon pool.
Clementine’s stomach swooped. She couldn’t tell if he was saying she should dock or that he intended to come up, but she knew which oneshehoped it was.
Fingers curling reflexively around the too-big bracelet dangling over her palm, she nodded twice. Even knowing he probably couldn’t hear her, she said, “Please come up, too.”
The mechanical arm clicked into place, jolting her vehicle, but Clementine didn’t register it because her predator had reached out to run his fingertips over the plexiglass again. His eyelids lowered to half-mast and one corner of his lips kicked up.
She stared, dumbstruck, as the arm slowly pulled her vehicle up and out of the water.My friend is gorgeous.
The realization left her somehow even more off-kilter than she was before. Nerves fluttered restlessly in her belly as water sluiced off the submersible, revealing the interior of the moon pool room. A cheerful beep from the console told her that she was now free to disembark.
Hands shaking, she unclipped her seatbelt and scrambled to open the hatch. He wouldn’t be able to get in until the submersible was in its docking position and she desperately wanted him to come in.
This is it. This is my chance.
She was so excited and nervous at the prospect of finally making a friend — a friend whose thoughts were miraculously inaccessible to her — that she almost couldn’t stand it.
Tremors radiated outward from her middle. Her stomach appeared to have deserted her entirely. Her heart thundered in her chest. Her throat was tight.
You can do this. You can do this. You can?—
Her foot caught on the final rung of the attached ladder. Weak from adrenaline and nervousness, her fingers lost purchase on the wet lip of the hatch. Clementine careened backward and landed with a grunt on the rubbery floor beside the moon pool.
The breath exploded from her lungs on impact, leaving her wheezing as she stared at the submersible, now free of its passenger, slowly rising to dock high above the pool.
Luckily the distance from the ladder to the floor wasn’t big enough to leave her injured, but it did momentarily stun her. She’d barely gotten her elbows under her when a sleek back shape emerged from the glowing green water of the pool.
Clementine froze.
First the top of his head appeared, his black hair slicked back behind him like a great mass of spilled oil. Then his eyes broke the surface. He blinked once, sending droplets of water back into the sea from the tips of spiky lashes, before his black eyes fixed on her.
His irises were larger than hers, she noticed dimly. They were almost like a shark’s. She could barely make out any whites around them, and when she looked into them, she saw a fathomless center of darkness.
She held her breath, her muscles locked, as she watched the rest of him emerge.
Webbed hands came next. They splayed on the rubber floor in front of her, flattening to support the weight of the massive body that rose out of the water.
Of course, he seemed powerful when she was in the submersible, but nothing could truly prepare her for what it would be like to see him emerge from the water less than a foot away. Wide, muscled shoulders and a thick chest led into a sturdy waist, which tapered seamlessly into a sleek lower half. A bag was slung across his body and tossed behind his back, but it only held her attention for a moment. Her gaze traveled down, over his white belly to skim over the black markings on his tail and the curious slit they appeared to frame.
Realizing what exactly she had to be looking at, Clementine flushed crimson and forced her gaze back up to the merman’s determined expression.
She kept expecting him to stop at some point. For his great body to end, but it didn’t. Suddenly realizing that all that bulk had to go somewhere, Clementine made a squeak of alarm and scrambled backward on her hands, giving him some room to hoist himself up onto the floor.
He did so with a surprising grace — that landed him squarely over her legs. Before she knew what was happening, Clementine found herself trapped beneath him, his arms locked to keep the majority of his weight off of her. Water ran in rivulets down his body to drip onto her jeans and windbreaker with tinyplap-plap-plaps.
She could only stare mutely up at him, her heart a fluttering beat in her ears, as he leaned in close enough for her to feel his breath against her lips.
“What’s your name?”
She jumped, surprised by his clear speech, and then immediately felt ridiculous for it.Of course he can speak English! Just because his thoughts aren’t in a form you know doesn’t mean he isn’t perfectly capable of speech.
His accent was as melodic as his thoughts — lilting, almost like he was singing the words rather than speaking them. A shiver worked its way down her spine. Her mouth, which was slightly parted with astonishment, went painfully dry.
It was almost impossible to speak, but she somehow managed to force out the words, “I’m Clementine.”
That predatory smile returned, unspooling across his aquiline face in a slow, sensual movement. “Clem-en-tine.” He leaned closer, nearly bumping her nose, to sing-song her name once more.“Clementine.Soft and sweet, just like your name. My Clementine couldn’t hurt a minnow. You haven’t even tried to bite me once.”
