Feeling the tensile strength of their tentacle wrapped around me, I couldn’t help but wonder what it’d be like in otherplaces, probing deep inside me, stretching me wide. Ursuline was precise, methodical, and steady. Surrendering to control like that was beyond any fantasy I’d had before. And here in the water, this was their terrain. I couldn’t be safer than swimming out with a cecaelia.
“How does it feel to be able to swim like you can?” I asked. Year after year, as I’d visited the Sentient Sea, I’d always wondered what diving underwater like the merfolk and other oceanic monsters felt like. To be able to exist down there without fear of drowning.
Ursuline’s tentacle stroked my arm, and a shudder rolled through me. Their eyes crinkled at the edges with their soft smile. “What does it feel like to walk on two legs?”
I nodded, understanding trickling through me. Some things were incomprehensible unless experienced. “I always wished I could swim like that. The water’s been a second home to me from an early age.”
“To think, you’re going to marry a girl who wants the opposite,” Ursuline stated. Their features grew tight, and they withdrew the tentacle from around my arm. I bit back a cry at the loss of touch. I didn’t blame them, though. I was betrothed to a mermaid who at most offered a bright smile and tinkling laugh before going her own way. At first, I’d been charmed by her lightness, but the more I got to know her, the more I understood she accepted her place in this society. She was comfortable with her role, not mourning it.
Unlike me.
“The irony,” I said, arcing my arms through the water as I swam around Ursuline. The air between us was charged, as if we could generate a storm ourselves, all lightning and thunder and a torrent of sheer energy and passion I’d always longed for.
Nothing like the marriage I was about to enter.
My stomach soured at the thought, but I didn’t want to waste my time with those. I was beginning to hoard the minutes we spent together, collect each and every second and tuck them away in my mind.
“Can I watch you swim?” I asked. I wanted to see the fluidity as they wove above and beneath the waves, the naturalness of someone in their true element. They were graceful on land, but in the sea, they’d be magnificent.
Ursuline scanned me over, their gaze dark and measured. For a moment, I thought they’d say no. We’d already danced around forbidden territory tonight, pushed a little too much. Then their full lips quirked, and they shook their head. “Or you could swim with me,” they said. Ursuline swirled around in the water so their back was to me, and I couldn’t help but soak in the sight of those defined muscles, the broad, sturdy frame. “Hold on to my shoulders.”
My mouth dried. Oh. That was far beyond what I’d hoped for, and even though I should, I couldn’t say no. Instead, I bobbed my head and swam forward until I bumped against their back. I rested my palms on their shoulders, and the breath snagged in my throat. My chest plastered against their back, and the heat that bloomed between us created an inferno. The cold waters around me no longer mattered.
“Grip me tight, sunshine,” they said. “Do you want me to stay above water?”
The fact they asked meant more than I could express. I wasn’t sure if I could handle going under right now, not after the way I’d been dragged to the depths at Breakneck Beach. However, if they were the one controlling this, I knew I’d be safe.
I chewed on my lower lip. “Above water for now.”
“You might want to wrap your legs around my torso,” Ursuline warned. “Once we start moving, it’ll be fast.”
I followed direction, but then realized what a mistake that was. The moment my groin pressed against their lower back, my cock woke the hell up. I kept my legs around them and prayed it would deflate during this swim. “Are you sure I won’t be weighing you down?”
Ursuline let out a low laugh, one that left a resonant mark in the air. “You weigh nothing in the water. Are you ready?”
“Yes,” I said, even though my heart thrummed a mile a minute. I clung tight to their shoulders, and my legs wrapped around their midsection. With my whole front plastered against them, I couldn’t ignore how their proximity awakened my body like nothing else. This close, their scent of salt and black currants cast its spell over me.
Without another warning, Ursuline surged forward.
The breeze whipped my hair around with the speed they sliced through the water, the spray of droplets and smaller waves churning up around us. They sailed like a boat through the bay, leaving a foamy trail in their wake. I clutched them tight as their arms sailed in lazy arcs to direct them, all while the power of their tentacles propelled them forward in powerful surges.
This wasn’t anything as simple as a swim. No, we soared across the water, waves forming around us from Ursuline’s speed. My soul grew as buoyant as I was right now, the worries and concerns about my future shedding away. All that existed was Ursuline, me, and the water.
I pressed against their back, their muscles moving against mine, and lust pumped through me, hot, undulating, and inexorable. Yet I didn’t dare unlatch myself with how fast we raced across the water in big bursts as their tentacles pushed us forward. They circled around the bay, the crystalline water glimmering in the moonlight. This was what I’d always envied when I’d watched the monsters swim in the ocean. The speed,the way they zipped by with an ease of familiarity I’d never know as a human.
And yet Ursuline gifted me with a taste tonight.
Fierce appreciation trickled through me, the heady warmth spreading through my limbs even as the winds grew icy from their speeds, and combined with the spray of water, my cheeks stung. I squinted, the droplets blurring my vision temporarily, but then Ursuline surged forward again, and we flew.
Awhoopescaped me, exultant and unencumbered. In this moment, I wasn’t trapped here in an arranged marriage. For this brief swim, I was free.
I clutched tight to them, our bodies melding together, and I couldn’t think of another time I’d ever felt this close to anyone. They pushed through the bay again, the salty taste of droplets of brine landing on my tongue, the sting in my eyes. My heart hammered hard, and I clung with all my might since they moved with a grace and speed I was unused to.
The moon glowed down on us, the bluish, lavender light coasting across the bay, turning the sand pale as well. With Ursuline zipping us through the water, I wasn’t afraid of anything. Not the waves, not the currents, not anything else that might be lurking in the water. A safety existed with them that I’d craved my whole life—a safety, and a comfort.
It would be far too easy to fall for them.
My heart twisted hard. Except I was engaged to another.
