by Amira Rain
I wasn’t going to be doing any diving. I wasn’t going to be swimming out anywhere near the diving rock. It wasn’t far enough out in the ocean to be near any strong currents or anything, but it was too far for me nonetheless.
Now upright, treading water, Melissa pointed to it and yelled with one hand cupping her mouth. “Get out here! We’re gonna jump!”
I yelled back, resolute. “No, we are not!”
Beside me, Hugh peeled off his shirt. “Sadie and I will swim out to the rock to join her, and then you’ll swim out to join us all, simple as that. That’s going to be your goal... the rock.”
“But—”
“I know it might look like miles to you, Ellie, but it’s really not that far. Little kids swim out there and back with their parents. Some of the bigger kids are allowed to do it on their own. Heck, Sadie and I can make it out there in about a minute, and we’re old-timers.”
In the water up to her bathing suit skirt, Sadie gave him a dirty look over her shoulder. “‘Old-timers?’ Speak for yourself.”
Melissa yelled again, telling me to strip down to my suit and telling Hugh to “push” me in. I definitely did not like the sound of that. But just then, I was saved. Saved by Dalton, who was strolling down the beach with two guards just behind him. He called out to me, waving, and I waved back, then turned to Hugh, trying to suppress a triumphant, victorious grin.
“Well, I’d love to continue this forced ocean swim, but as you can see, my spy duties call. I’m about to go get some answers about our little golem problem.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
I’d gotten too cocky about my “saving” via Dalton, and I ruined my chance to talk to him right then.
On alert for strange sea creatures that could possibly bite me, I’d been meaning to watch my feet at all times while in the ocean. But, while talking to Hugh, and then gloating about my save by Dalton, I’d kind of forgotten about that. And not a split-second after saying my triumphant words to Hugh, I’d felt something bite the bottom of my foot. Something that felt like it had razor-sharp teeth.
Thinking I’d been bitten by some strange sea creature, I let out a bloodcurdling scream, completely unable to help myself. “My foot! Something bit me!”
I scuttled out of the ankle-deep water backward, tripping and landing in the sand on my rear.
Hugh looked alarmed at first, but only for the briefest of moments. Then, frowning, he stooped, picked up some small object out of the water, and held it up to me. “It was just a shell, Ellie, for God’s sake. It was just a shell. It was probably flipped upside down and you just stepped on the sharp part of it for a second.”
Now, feeling more than a bit sheepish, I didn’t know what to say. “Oh.”
“Here, let’s see your foot.”
After a quick inspection, Hugh declared that my foot wasn’t cut or even bruised. “That shell sure didn’t ‘bite’ you very hard.”
Still eager to talk to Dalton, I got up and began brushing sand off the back of my shorts, seeing that he’d turned and was now heading up the beach in the opposite direction. And the reason for this was obvious. Warren was sprinting down from the castles, shirtless and barefoot, wearing only jeans. Dalton steered clear of Warren at all times.
When Warren reached me and Hugh, he immediately pulled me into his arms and squeezed me to his chest for a moment, but then he pulled away and began looking me over from head to toe. “What happened? I was just leaving for patrol when I heard a scream. Are you okay?”
Hugh responded before I could. “She’s fine. She just stepped on a shell. She’s just a wimp.”
I scoffed, folding my arms across my chest. “Well, what a nice, fatherly thing of you to say, Hugh.”
Warren looked at Hugh with his stormy gray eyes just slightly narrowed. “That wasn’t very kind, Hugh.”
Hugh lifted his linebacker-wide shoulders in a shrug. “You’re right, and I apologize. Both to you, Chief Knight, and to Ellie. She’s not a wimp. I know she actually has a lot of strength in her, but I think she’s the type of person who’s going to have to be pushed before that strength comes out.”
Hugh gave me a knowing look and then lumbered into the ocean to join Sadie, leaving Warren and me alone.
Warren searched my face with his expression clearly one of concern. “Are you really all right? The shell didn’t cut your foot or anything?”
I shook my head, slightly embarrassed. “No. I just had a little freak out. I thought something bit me.”
Not wanting to dwell on it, I asked Warren if he’d gotten some sleep, and he said yes.
“Although I can’t say it was very quality sleep, because you weren’t in my arms, and I couldn’t feel your soft skin or your silky hair. I did dream about you, though. I dreamed about the two of us together.”
Smiling, I wrapped my arms around his neck and pressed my body to his. “Oh, yeah? And what were we doing in the dream?”
With his dark hair glinting in the sun, he gave me a sexy half-grin, then began lowering his mouth to mine. “It started like this.”
The moment our lips touched, my knees seemed to turn to jelly. The feel of Warren’s hands on the small of my back, combined with his masculine, woodsy scent, only made them even wobblier. As did the feel of his muscular bare chest against the soft curves of my own chest, and I couldn’t help but think about how my t-shirt and bathing suit were the only things preventing us from direct skin-to-skin contact.
I was beginning to feel like I was experiencing sensory overload, though in the best possible way. I wanted Warren to take me to his castle, or mine, whichever, and I wanted him to undress me and then show me just exactly what else he’d dreamed about us doing together. However, low, rhythmic whooshing sounds overhead told me that what I wished for right then was not going to happen.
I broke the kiss with a soft groan and looked up, spotting several dragons high in the clear blue sky. They were circling, slowly flapping their wide wings, seeming to be waiting for something, or someone, specifically Warren, I was sure.
“Your men are waiting for you, aren’t they?”
Warren grimaced, tightening his arms around me. “Yes.”
I sighed, thoroughly disappointed. “I know you have to go, but I’ve missed you... so incredibly much. I’ve missed us getting to spend time together, sharing meals together, and just laughing and joking together. I’ve just missed us. And I’ve also really missed... well, I’ve missed us being together, together, if you know what I mean. I actually feel like I’m maybe starting to go a little crazy without that. I’ve come to realize that I need you that way... on a pretty regular basis.”
Still holding me against his front, Warren growled faintly, the sound barely audible above the crashing of the surf nearby. “And I need you that way, on a pretty regular basis... even more than any words can even adequately describe. So much lately that I can sometimes almost feel sick with desire just thinking about you.” Looking deeply into my eyes, he paused for a moment, then continued in a low, husky voice. “I’ve never been more strongly attracted to any woman in my life, Ellie... have never felt more of a physical and mental connection... to the point that I’m sure I’ll be half insane by the time this damned golem is destroyed.”
“I can’t wait that long to make love to you again. It could be weeks before the golem is destroyed. I’ll be dead by then, Warren. Dead of sexual frustration.”
I hadn’t meant to be so frank, not to mention melodramatic, but the words had just tumbled right out of my mouth.
Warren’s full lips curved in a sexy half-grin for the second time during our conversation, turning my insides to mush.
“Well, I can’t have the most gorgeous woman on the entire planet dropping dead of sexual frustration, can I?”
I shook my head. “No, you can’t.”
“Then, I’ll tell you what. I know I’ll be gone until very late tonight, but how about if we agree to meet for dinner tomorrow night? Just you, me, a bottle of wine, and severa
l hours for us just to be together and reconnect. Barring the alarm sirens going off tomorrow evening, I’ll tell my men I’m strictly unavailable. Joshua will be responsible for supervising the patrols. How does that sound?”
It sounded wonderful, and I told him that.
He grinned, dipped his head, and planted a lingering kiss on my mouth. “Good. It’s a date. I’ll see you at eight tomorrow evening.” After one more kiss, he released me, telling me he had to go. “But before I do, any progress with Dalton?”
I shook my head. “Not yet. But I’ll be on it in just a minute. No one wants information that may help us destroy this damned golem as badly as I do.”
That was the truth. I couldn’t wait until a dinner date with Warren was a regular occasion and not just a rare treat.
Soon he leaped into the air, muscles in his broad back rippling, shifted into his dragon form, and ascended to the sky to join his men and lead them on patrol. I watched him go, kind of awestruck, as I usually was when seeing him in his dragon form. The sight of his massive dark body, long, scaly tail, and enormous wings was still somewhat of a surreal one to me, and also one that never failed to send a little shiver rippling through my body. A shiver of longing, anticipation, and something that felt an awful lot like outright lust. I hoped the hours between the present time and our dinner date would pass quickly. And, I thought, if I could busy myself with trying to get some information out of Dalton, maybe they would.
With a wave goodbye to Hugh, Sadie, and Melissa, who were now all swimming out by the diving rock, I began striding off down the beach in the direction Dalton had gone.
I expected to find him somewhere down the shore, collecting and examining rocks, sand, and shells, as he seemed to be doing nearly all the time. But, after not finding him anywhere, even after spending almost an hour walking down to the very end of the beach, where wooden village limits signs were posted, I backtracked to the long row of castles and casually made my way over to his.
His small guest castle could have been alternately described as a large stone hut with a turret. Like mine, it was a single-story structure, though it was smaller than mine, and clearly not made from as fine quality of rock. Dark gray in some areas and a pale salmon pink in others, it actually appeared to be made out of “leftovers.” I suspected this was perhaps the guest castle where less-welcome guests and long-term prisoners were kept. It seemed that I’d lucked out with my spacious, carefully-crafted guest castle. Or maybe Warren had known in his gut all along that there was no real need to classify me as a prisoner.
Outside Dalton’s castle, his two guards, who’d been briefed by Warren as to the plan, sat at a low stone table playing cards. Conscious that Dalton could possibly be looking out a window, maybe even an open one he could hear out of, I sauntered over, still trying to be casual, and asked the guards if they knew if Dalton would be coming back out soon.
“Just curious, because I found a strange shell on the beach I wanted to ask him about.”
One of the guards, a muscular man with pale blond hair, shook his head. “He’s in for the day, and he asked not to be disturbed. He found a microscope in the scientists’ old storage bunker, and he said he needs to do some ‘work’ with it. What kind of ‘work,’ we have no clue. Probably studying all his precious little pieces of driftwood and seaweed. He’s a funny little dude.”
Already beginning to stroll away backward, I shrugged. “Well, okay, whatever. I’m sure my seashell question can wait until tomorrow.”
With a wave, I turned and began walking down the boardwalk that connected all the castles like a little lane. Crestfallen couldn’t even begin to describe how I felt. Because of my stupid freak-out about stepping on the seashell, I was going to have to wait to try to get some answers out of Dalton. I just hoped he’d be finished with his microscope work and out and about the next day. I thought it would be too obvious and out of the ordinary if I knocked on his door and specifically asked to talk to him. It might arouse some suspicions. Not to mention that if I interrupted him while he was doing whatever he was doing with the microscope, he might not really be in the mood for sharing anything about the real reason he was on the island, or the golem, if he was even going to anyway.
Trying to steer clear of Hugh, Sadie, and Melissa, because of their efforts to try to get me into the ocean, I spent the rest of the day assisting Melody with the dance classes. It turned out that she remembered more about her childhood ballet training than she’d thought she would, and she said that teaching the kids was a nice change of pace from nursing.
“Although I can’t ever see myself doing this full-time, though. Two classes in, and these kids are wearing me out.”
I understood completely. I’d always thought that teaching was a profession where a person had to have energy reserves upon energy reserves. Which, some days, I myself didn’t feel like I had, but at the same time, now that I was back into teaching, I couldn’t ever see myself not doing it. I loved it too much. And just as soon as I got some info from Dalton, and the golem situation was resolved, I couldn’t wait to get back into it and start teaching the classes myself again.
Somewhat to my surprise, I slept like the dead that night. Something about my planned date with Warren the following evening, just knowing that we would finally get to spend some real time together, had seemed to quiet my mind and my hungry body a little. Although I did wake up briefly around midnight, after having a dream about our naked bodies merging and joining, with my legs wrapped around Warren’s hips. I went back to sleep with a bit of a dull ache in my chest, and a bit of a dull ache a little lower in my body, too.
The next day, same as the last, I emerged from my castle around mid-morning to find Hugh, Sadie, and Melissa waiting for me outside, all in bathing suits.
I groaned, slightly squinting against the neon glow of Melissa’s flaming tangerine-colored bikini top. “Seriously? You guys are going to try to subject me to more forced swimming in the ocean?”
Melissa, who’d been leaning against a palm, arms across her chest, pushed away from it to stand upright. “Yup. More forced swimming in the ocean. Get over it. Deal with it.”
Knowing I was going to have to, I began heading back inside to change into my bathing suit, grumbling. “This seems kind of like bullying to me, and I wonder what my boyfriend, Chief Knight, would think to find out that I’m being bullied by people who’ve sworn their allegiance to him.”
A shouted response from Melissa reached my ears just before I shut the front door.
“Tell him! He’ll probably thank us for being tough on you about this so he doesn’t have to be!”
Sometimes Melissa was almost more “big sister” than I could handle. I was sure Melody was probably quite used to it by now, but I wasn’t.
A short time later, Hugh, Sadie, Melissa, and I were down by the shore, and once again, the three of them were trying to coax me into the water. Hugh made some sort of a joke about looking out for “ferocious biting seashells,” which I didn’t really appreciate.
I got in up to my thighs before my heart started pounding. I just couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t swim in the ocean. All I could think about was my parents, and how they’d died beneath crashing waves.
I began backing up toward the shore, shaking my head. “I’m done, guys. I’m not doing this.”
After telling Hugh and Sadie to give her a second with me, Melissa walked over through the water and just looked at me for a long moment before speaking. “Ellie.”
“What?”
“Do you think Warren’s brave?”
“Of course I do.”
“Then, don’t you think he deserves to spend the rest of his life with a woman as equally brave?”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. My throat was suddenly tight and constricted, clogged with some sort of a lump.
While Hugh and Sadie floated on their backs a good distance away, Melissa continued. “Don’t you think Warren deserves to spend the rest of his life with a woman brave
enough to face her fears and just take a little swim in the damn ocean?”
I suddenly turned and began striding back to shore. “I don’t need this.”
“Wouldn’t it be worth it to you? To know that you and Warren are equally matched in terms of character and bravery?”
“We’re equally matched plenty well enough.”
“Enough so that if you and Warren have children someday, he can feel fully proud about the character of their mother?”
I stopped dead in my tracks, back to her, but only for a second. “Leave me alone, Melissa.”
I continued striding through the warm turquoise water to the shore, feeling as if the hot lava flowing through my veins could make the ocean boil.
But just then, my mood suddenly improved, and not by a little. Dalton was just a little ways down the beach, waving at me.
I waved back, moving faster. “Hey, Dalton! Let me get dried off and I’ll come down there and say hi!”
Soon I was walking down the beach in my shorts, tank top, and flip flops.
When I reached Dalton, I smiled. “Thank you. You just saved me from a swimming lesson from hell with Melissa.”
He grinned, making his green eyes sparkle in the sun. “Sounds awful.”
“You don’t even know.”
“Well, I’m glad I could be of help. I wanted to talk to you because I heard you say yesterday that you wanted to ask me something about a shell. And I’m sorry I couldn’t come out and answer your question right then, but I was deep into a project.”
“Oh, no problem. It was nothing important.”
“Well, what’s your question? I hope I can be of help.”
I hadn’t actually thought about what my phony “shell question” would be. Now, I really wished I had.
“Well, my question is just... well... it’s about those funny-looking peach-colored shells up by the jungle. Those teeny-tiny ones. I just wanted to ask you how you think they might have gotten there from the beach.”
