Clementine nodded twice in quick succession. Wanting to help her, he eased onto his side so she could reach the knot securing his wrists to his back. Her fingers were clumsy. He could feel them shaking as she plucked at the rope.
It took all his willpower to keep still, to not offer unwanted or useless words of comfort when what she really needed was to feel safe, to come down from the adrenaline that no doubt coursed through her veins.
After a few tries, he felt the knot give way. His mate tugged at the rope, loosening it, before she began to carefully unwind it from around his wrists, biceps, middle, and neck. By the time her work was done and the rope lay coiled beside him, Clementine’s breath was uneven and her shaking had progressed to full tremors.
Emory didn’t waste time stretching out his sore muscles. Instead, he sat up and reached for his mate. Clementine didn’t resist. She collapsed against his chest, her nose pressed into the juncture between his neck and shoulder. Her arms slid around his back, clutching hard like he might swim away if she didn’t hold him there.
“Easy, easy. All is well.” Emory stroked her silky hair and hummed a soothing note for her. “My brave little thing. I am very proud of you.”
“Why?” She shivered against him, so he held her tighter, until he could feel her fluttering heartbeat against his cavernous chest. “Because I touched you?”
“Because you did something new with me, despite the fact that I am a strange, dangerous creature with odd customs.” He rubbed the underside of his chin against the crown of her head, nuzzling her as she burrowed closer. “Being intimate is vulnerable. Being vulnerable takes courage. You were courageous with me, my Clementine.”
He felt her take a shuddering breath. Easing back just far enough to look him in the eyes, she replied with a wavering smile, “I guess it was kinda brave.”
An answering smile twitched at the corners of his mouth. “It was. You are a ferocious, brave little thing. Perhapstoobrave.”
It was another revelation, he realized, to watch his matelaugh.“Why would you say that? Just because I knocked you out and tied you up doesn’t mean I’m too brave. That was all panic.”
Emory shook his head and shifted toward the pool. He didn’t want to put distance between them, but they needed to get clean before his seed dried into more of a mess.
He tugged his mate closer to the gently lapping waves of the pool. Dipping her hands in the water, he began to carefully cleanse her delicate skin as he replied, “For starters, you don’t have proper security on your pool. A child could have broken in. Very reckless of you, my mate.”
“Well,Ididn’t build it.”
He caressed each of her fingers in turn, fascinated by the lack of webbing between them, before he pressed gentle kisses to each knuckle. With every kiss, her fingers curled just a bit and her expression softened with a look he couldn’t quite decipher. The closest thing he could come up with was a painful sort of hope.
Murmuring against her skin, he said, “No, but when I broke in the first time, you should have had it fixed by whoeverdidbuild it. At the very least, you should have laid a trap or two.”
Clementine’s fingers curled into her palm when she shyly replied, “I know I should have told someone, but… Ilikedhaving you around.”
Releasing her to much less gently scrub his stomach and slit with cool saltwater, Emory could only shake his head. “As much as that pleases me, I will be fixing the hatch. No merfolk should be able to get through except me.” Using the side of his hand to scrape the remaining seed-tainted water off of his body, he sternly added, “And no more toe-dipping or treaty breaking for my mate.”
Her squeak of alarm was adorable. “You saw that?”
“Yes.” He playfully tapped her pointy little chin with the pads of two fingers. “And it was very naughty of you, my mate. Don’t you know that’s against the law?”
She stared at him, lips parted in shock, for all of three seconds before she whispered, “You’re not gonna report me, are you?”
Leaning in close, he whispered back, “Only if your invitation to dinner is still good.”
ChapterTwelve
Clementine wasn’t entirelysure how it happened, but somehow they ended up having an early dinner in her living room.
She was fairly certain she was in shock. That was the only explanation for why it was so easy to guide him into her home, why she didn’t think twice about agreeing to let him rinse off the saltwater from his body in her shower, and why she was capable of carefully plating the liver he’d brought her on a large cutting board without flinching.
What other explanation was there for why she felt only a bubbly sort of giddiness when she sat down across from him? Normal circumstances would have dictated she feel awkward or nervous around the strange man she’d just been intimate with, but she didn’t feel any of that.
Clementine buzzed with energy, with a bubbling, fizzing rush of magic and potent arousal. There was no room for awkwardness when she couldn’t stop thinking about how powerful and sensual she felt as Emory orgasmed under her hand, his stare locked with her own, showing hereverything.
Disbelief gave her some distance from the enormity of what she’d done, too.Who was that woman?Not her. It couldn’t be. Clementine had never desired sexual contact with another being in her life. Had never evenconsideredit beyond a passing thought. But then Emory laid himself before her, told her she was brave and powerful and perfect, and it just…clicked.
Even the nerves that had threatened to overcome her were drowned out. They couldn’t match the roar of her desire to run her hands all over him, to explore, nor could they withstand the wild energy that was her magic crackling in her veins, reaching for him like she wished to burrow under his skin.
So she did it. She chased that feeling, became some new version of Clementine she didn’t recognize but longed to be, and now… Now she didn’t quite know what to make of it, but she didn’t feel panicked, either.
That sense of calm had to be a combination of the adrenaline leftover from their encounter in the moon pool room, her lack of experience, and his breathtaking confidence.
