Resignation made her sound tired when she asked, “From my abilities?”
“What?” Drawing back to give her a confused look, he said, “No, from thepod.”
It was her turn to be confused. “Why do you need to protect me from the pod? We haven’t even seen anyone since the day I saw that fin.”
She winced at the memory. When she casually mentioned that she thought she’d seen another being’s fin near the shore, Emory had gone into a frenzy trying to shore up the security on the moon pool and made her swear to be careful around the water.
She hadn’t thought much of it at the time. Of course she needed to be careful. Just because Emory didn’t want to eat her didn’t mean thatno onedid. However, she’d been so wrapped up in her own insecurities that it never occurred to her that other merfolk were the reason he didn’t want her to goanywherewith him.
“Because,” he bit out, “you are a treasure. Any one of them would try to steal you from me. Almost everyone in the pod is like me — unmated and unable to find a partner due to the damn treaty. One look at you, ripe and pretty and soft and unclaimed, during breeding season and they’d challenge me for you. I don’t want to have to kill a podmate for you, Clementine, but I will. Believe me, I will.”
Well, she wasn’t at all certain how she felt about being calledripe,but she was relieved to realize his reticence came from an abundance of caution about how desirable she was. Not that she believed him, really.
A woman worth fighting to the death for, I am not.
And it was a good thing, too, since she didn’t want to be with anyone but Emory anyway.
A knot in her chest eased when she began to work backward through all of the signals he’d been sending her. “So… I can’t go trade with you because…”
Emory flashed his most vicious, merman snarl. “There will be unmated merfolk there. I willnotparade you in front of them when you aren’t claimed.”
Right, and claiming means forever.
Clementine was almost certain that’s what she wanted, too, but sitting naked in his lap in their shower wasn’t the time or place to tell him so.
“Okay, so the boats are out.” Stroking the sharp angle of his jaw, she tentatively asked, “Is there something else we can do together, then? Something that won’t put me in front of the pod?”
“Like what?”
After a moment of thought, she offered him a shy look. “I want to see your cove.”
ChapterSeventeen
It wasan acute sort of discomfort, being torn between elation and terror.
Over the weeks they’d been together, Emory grappled with both. The joy he felt in their cove was something beyond his wildest dreams. The fear he experienced outside of it, however, was a thing from his darkest nightmares.
They were directly proportional to one another. For every second of undiluted happiness, he was treated to an equal amount of raw, crushing anxiety that at any moment something might happen to his mate.
He’d done his best to hide it. Emory hated the idea of disturbing their new bond. It had taken days and days to build Clementine’s confidence enough to have her reach for him.There was no chance he would mess that up by pushing her because of a threat she couldn’t see.
But he wasn’t as good at hiding the stress as he thought he was.
His mate was a keen, sensitive soul. Of course she noticed his hesitance to explain where he’d been — primarily doing rigorous patrols around their islands, with brief pauses for hunting and trading. Of course she picked up on the strain that suppressing his instincts took on him. Of course she wondered about his odd behavior, his sleeplessness, his unexplained demands for her to stay on the island even when he left.
I’m lower than a slug.
Hadn’t he raged at his parents for stifling him? Hadn’t he learned from his own father’s rarely discussed feelings about not being able to share the water with his family? Didn’t heknowwhat that was like?
He truly hadn’t meant to neglect her, but between balancing the roar of instinct, her boundaries, and the gradual return of the pod to Grim’s Bay, he’d missed the obvious signs of her dissatisfaction.
Emory wanted nothing more than to rectify his mistake. He just wished it didn’t mean taking her outside.
He hadn’t done it immediately. Days of bad weather provided him some time to gird himself for the short trip, as well as between his mate’s pretty thighs, gradually introducing her to the pleasures they could share with lips, tongue, and fingers. He revelled in Clementine’s blooming sexuality and would have done just about anything to stay sequestered with her, enjoying her newfound enthusiasm for sucking cock.
Unfortunately, he’d made his mate a promise and he intended to see it through, even if it killed him.
The weather was clear. She had no urgent business. He spotted no threats on the horizon. There were no more excuses.
