She didn’t move when he leaned in even closer, and his hands settled on her hips, slipperyhair shrouding them both. His sigh matched hers when his lips grazed her cheek, tickling her skin with the lightest touch as they mapped a path over the bridge of her nose to her other cheek before drifting up to caress her temple and eyebrows. She closed her eyes against their feathery pressure on her eyelids. Her lips parted as his mouth rested briefly on hers and stayed.
Did merfolk kiss?
The question drifted across her thoughts before fading. It didn’t matter. If he didn’t know, she would teach him and hold close in her dotage the wondrous memory of it.
He twitched against her when she took his bottom lip between her lips and lightly sucked, exhaled a moan when her tongue traced its outline, tasting a hint of brine. Strong hands dug into the folds of her skirt to hold her hipseven harder, and he surged against her, the powerful flex of his tail almost carrying him out of the water.
Brida’s eyes snapped open and she pulled away to stare at Ahtin who stared back with a gaze gone almost completely black. Heat poured off him like a furnace, and he loosened his grip on her body long enough to touch his mouth with one fingertip.
A series of clicks, much too rapid and unfamiliarfor her to translate, spilled from him before he went silent, scrutiny never wavering as he searched for a word.
“Kiss,” Brida told him. “That’s a kiss.”
“Kiss.” He drew out the end of the word as if savoring its sound and texture.
She smiled a tentative smile. “You like it?” The gods knew she certainly did.
He wore the same look as when he licked the spoon she’d given him. A quick nod, andhe reached for her, drawing her closer to him until the lower half of her skirts floated in the pool, drifting around him like a spill of blue ink in the luminescent water. “Land magic,” he breathed across her mouth. “Teach me, beautiful Brida.”
