by Starla Night
“Sorry.”
He cracked one eye to glance at her. “Why do you apologize?”
“Because…”
Wait, why was she sorry? Was she saying it as a reflex? She often apologized when others were upset even if it had nothing to do with her. Sydney and Ian both told her to toughen up. Don’t apologize for no reason.
“I’m sorry you don’t feel better,” she compromised.
“No.”
“No?”
“I do feel better. Much better.” He turned his head to her, careful to keep his chest forward. “Because of you.”
Her mouth opened but she couldn’t think of how to reply. A thudding heat flushed over her face. The warmth radiated from her chest.
“W-well, uh, I was standing next to the criminals who threw that dynamite. Ian and I even talked to them earlier. I had no idea.”
“Do not take blame.”
“It’s a little my fault. We’d been friendly. That’s why I volunteered.” She indicated the bedroom. “I, uh, hope you recover quickly. And I’m so sorry I didn’t stop those people before they threw the dynamite.”
“The most dangerous enemies hide beneath the skin of friends.”
“Ah … yeah, I guess.” She tried to laugh. “I’m not a good judge of ‘friends’ these days.”
“You have a bright, pure soul.” He glanced at her chest again and nodded as though he could see her aura. “Your kindness is strong. Of course you will share your strength with many less brilliant souls.”
Her chest blazed again.
His attention intensified as though he sensed her pleased, embarrassed heat.
Could mermen see auras? An article she’d read said the shifters had a special sense allowing them to visualize “resonance,” the strength of a person’s affinity for the rare, healing, ocean gemstone Sea Opals, as a light in each person’s chest.
So, he definitely was not checking her out no matter how much she arranged the collar on her low-cut, purple beach dress.
She arranged it now, smoothing the hem. “Thank you. But I’m still sorry I couldn’t help you when you most needed it.”
“You did.”
“Did what?”
“Helped when I most needed it.” He looked down at the ice bag he held to his chest. “You were the voice in my nightmare.”
“That’s good?”
He frowned, struggling with the words to explain. “After the explosion, I fell to a dark place. There was agony and danger. But I heard a voice. ‘Come back.’ And I felt no pain. The darkness went away. I was here. Safe.” He focused on her. “With you.”
His intense sapphire-threaded gaze reflected the depths of the articulate, honest, fierce warrior’s soul.
The world seemed to tilt.
She wanted to slide forward, onto the bed, and taste the lips that had been her dream while he’d been sleeping. She wanted to wrap her arms around his neck and tease the dark ducktail at the base of his skull. She wanted to press her tingling breasts against his broad pectorals, release herself from her satin bra, and slide her taut nipples over his sweat-slicked, olive-sapphire skin.
Her channel clenched.
She shook herself free of the daydream.
Dosan was a warrior of a race only recently revealed to the world. And he’d just crawled out of a coma. His chest was bruised badly and his brain had probably gotten scrambled.
And, she’d just ended a two-year relationship. Her heart was cracked. She couldn’t jump the next male who complimented her.
“I, uh, thank you. Can I get you something?” She felt the old anxiety creeping in. “Fish? Seawater? Something to eat?”
“Water.”
She handed one of the pre-filled glasses to him and gulped the other.
He carefully took it, not touching her fingers. “Thank you, Bride Jen.”
She nearly spat her water. “Oh, I’m not married.”
“Ian?”
“Is my brother. This is so weird! They thought we were married on the boat, too, even though we — oh. When I booked the tour weeks ago, I probably did reserve it was for me and my husband.”
Well, that explained the confusion.
Dosan swigged the water as though it were fortifying alcohol. “You are married.”
“No.”
His gaze focused on her.
“It ended. Embarrassingly.”
He tilted his head.
The urge to confess made her words spill out. Excise the memories like they’d happened to someone else.
“A week before my wedding, I spent an extra-long lunch reviewing our flowers. Gary reviewed one of our sales reps naked on the office photocopier.”
The embarrassment and hurt of that day rose in her throat like a rising tide.
She swallowed and finished. “And then he accidentally forwarded the copies to the entire office.”
Dosan studied her without judgment. “He is a male without honor.”
“He really was.”
She’d returned in the early afternoon to shocked laughter suddenly cut off, avoided gazes, seeming busyness that slowed as soon as she passed her coworkers’ desks.
She’d even stopped by Gary’s empty desk to tell him about her progress, not knowing he was then in a meeting with HR about his “future” with his great uncle’s insurance company.
But after she’d sat at her desk, opened her email, and discovered what the rest of the company already knew — and once the shocked horror wore away to bitter anger — she’d wondered. Had Gary been callous by accident? Or had he been too lazy to back out and instead used the pictures to break off his engagement?
Either way, she had a problem. She jumped in too deep with guys before knowing their characters.
She was too trusting and set herself up to be taken advantage of.
That had to stop now.
“So I’m not married,” she finished. “Not now, and maybe not ever.”
Dosan shook his head. The light glinted on his sapphire threads. “Dragao Azul awaits a queen.”
“Dragao Azul?”
“My city beneath the ocean.” He rested his glass on the nightstand and took her hand, tugging her out of her seat. Her knee pressed his waist.
Setting aside his ice bag, he rested his chilled fingers on the base of her nape. “If you belong to no other warrior then you belong to me.”
He bent his head. His mouth swept her away in his possessive kiss.
Hot desire ignited between her thighs. Her oh-so-reasonable voice telling her to wait, be cautious, and not give in dropped silent at the taste of the deliciously masculine warrior.
She melted.
He dominated her lips, sealing hers like a promise, and then his tongue teased her seam. She opened. He plunged in, filling her with heat, with desire, with him.
He tasted of salt and musk and primal spice.
He dominated her mouth, finding where she hid and drawing her into his sapphire light.
Her nipples tightened. Her channel slicked, preparing for his welcome invasion.
She wanted him, hard and plunging into her, with a heat that defied reality. How had she gone all these years without tasting that this was the flavor of true love’s kiss?
She moaned.
He slipped an arm around her waist and pulled her onto his lap, his biceps bulging. He handled her as if her squishy bulk weighed nothing.
No boyfriend before had been able to do that.
She rested her palm on his hard pectoral for balance.
Dosan sucked in a breath between his clenched teeth.
His bruised chest!
“Oh!” She pulled back. “Sorry. I forgot.”
He perspired, clearly pained.
She grabbed the wash cloth and blotted his sweat, equal parts turned on, frustrated, and angry at herself for her frustration.
Dosan had been injured. Nearly dead. Probably his ribs were cracked. And she leaned on him like a section of drywall.
Even thou
gh … even though he was the one who had pulled her into his lap…
His face seemed a paler shade of olive. He licked his lips and swallowed. “You are mine.”
She shook her head even as she dabbed.
“My bride. Accept my claim.”
“I won’t.”
His frown sharpened his blunt features. “You touch me.”
Oops. Xalu had warned her Dosan would misinterpret.
She wiggled free of Dosan’s embrace and dropped the wash cloth on the tray. “Not anymore.”
“We are destined.”
Oh, she wanted to be destined!
She wanted to melt into his arms and surrender to her longing. Lose herself in passion and replace her callous, old fiancé with a mysterious, hotter new one.
This was the problem. Here was her whole problem in a nutshell.
She smoothed her dress over her pulsating body. “Don’t think a glass of water — or anything else — entitles you to ‘benefits.’”
“Benefits?”
“You can help yourself to anything in this rental, but you can’t help yourself to me.” She rested her palm over her thudding heart. “I’m worth more than a glass of water or that cheese-and-crackers plate.”
He blinked. “Cheese-and-crackers plate?”
“You have to show me respect.”
His eyes widened. Stunned. His jaw slacked and his mouth opened. “Respect?”
“Yeah. I, uh, deserve it.”
“I did not show you respect?”
“No. I mean, you did. Your words were respectful. But you can’t expect that one nice gesture entitles you to take advantage of me.”
“I am taking advantage?”
“I brought you food and water and everything. You can’t just take. Someday, you’ll have to give.”
He tipped over. His legs pushed the sheets off the bed and tangled on the sandy wooden floor. He made a choking sound and tried to rise.
She hovered, trying not to touch. “What are you doing?”
“I must … give … Provide you … with food…”
“What? No, no, no. I said ‘someday.’”
“In Dragao Azul … a warrior always … provides.”
“You’re not well, Dosan. Rest in the bed.”
He rose unsteadily, breathing hard.
She pushed his broad shoulders.
He resisted her like a wall. A deliciously hard wall of masculine power.
And then he tipped, timber! and fell into the rental bed with a heavy creak. He rolled to his side and onto his back, legs off one side, pain trembling his face like an earthquake.
“Right now, I’ll take care of you.” She backed around the bed toward the door. “Rest here.”
“I must provide.”
“You jumped on dynamite to save my life. That’s enough ‘provision’ for one day.”
“But I—”
“Rest.”
“But—”
“Stay.” She hurried outside.
Dosan’s hard gaze lit her on fire.
The door closed, shutting him inside.
She rested her back against the door. Her heart thumped so hard it practically knocked the wood. Her hands shook.
Her soul craved to open the door, hop into his bed, and take from him all the love and comfort and hot sex she’d been missing for her entire lifetime.
He’d give it to her. He wasn’t like those other men.
Gary had been easy to resist. She’d wanted to give her love freely and so she’d overlooked his warning flags.
Resisting Dosan was like trying to stand against an incoming tide.
And, given his injures, she couldn’t leave Dosan alone in this fragile state.
Jen pushed off the door and crossed the inner courtyard, weaving between the potted plants stationed around the gleaming pool. The sun was going down. It cast deep red shadows on the cloudy sky.
Xalu stood on the other side of the pool. His patrol had been interrupted by Sydney. They stood close and adversarial. Sydney confronted him.
Oh, no.
“Xalu!” Jen strode toward him. “Dosan’s awake.”
After a miniscule delay, the smoke-tattooed warrior tore his gaze from Sydney and turned to her. “Dosan wakes?”
“He is awake. Go sit with him.”
The large warrior hurried to the sick room.
Sydney looked away, flushed, and swirled her empty cup. “That’s right. Good riddance.”
So Sydney was angry too. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think about how you or Ian would feel having foreign men invade our vacation.”
“Hmm? Oh, I wasn’t talking about … You know what?” Sydney threw her arm around Jen’s shoulders. “Let’s get a cup of coffee and chat.”
“Coffee? You?”
“I’ve got something to talk about.”
Jen strolled with her to the kitchen.
Like Jen, Sydney was a larger lady who favored Coach and Prada. At work managing the daycare center, her practical jeans were constantly covered in finger-paints and paste. On her vacations, Sydney swathed herself in a Juicy Couture track suit.
She’d recently ended her own decade-long wait on a first class loser and numbed the pain with the same liquid that had prolonged their deadbeat relationship.
Now, she moved around the kitchen tossing ice and margarita mix in the blender.
“Interesting coffee,” Jen commented dryly.
“What? Oh, my god.” Sydney stared at her blender contents in dismay, tossed them in the sink, and got out the French press. “Guess I really need this.”
She spooned coffee into the press while the water boiled.
“What did you want to tell me?” Jen asked.
“Huh? Oh … I haven’t been a very good friend to you, have I? All I’ve done on this whole vacation is hide in my room and drink.”
Considering what they’d both gone through, it made sense. “I understand.”
“Well, that changes now. How are you?”
“Me?”
“This is your ‘reinvention’ vacation and I’m here to support you. So, how are you doing with relaxing and everything?”
Jen rested her elbows on the table. “Dosan kissed me.”
Sydney froze, half-push on the press. “He did!”
“But it’s not happening again.”
She finished pressing and poured the coffee into two mugs. “That bad, huh?”
“It wasn’t bad. It was dreamy. Hot. Delicious.”
“Yeah.” Sydney smiled and then sipped her coffee.
Jen shook herself. “And never happening again.”
Sydney carried the mugs to the table. “Why not?”
“Because I’m supposed to be redefining myself. And I can’t redefine myself if ‘me’ is a couple.”
“Oh. I see.”
“Plus it’s a little fast, don’t you think?”
Sydney pointed her well-manicured, gold index finger at Jen. “You do not have to mourn Gary. Sister Sydney absolves you.”
“I’m not mourning Gary. I’m mourning the person I was when I was with him. The naïve, hopeful idiot who missed he was a jerk and thought we’d be happily married by now.”
Sydney folded her hands around her mug. “Okay, then. We’ll mourn her. And then, Jen, you deserve delicious hot kisses in your life, so we’ll do something to make sure you can kiss fearlessly.”
“Something?”
“You like checklists. We’ll make a checklist. You evaluate your warrior. That way you fall in love with someone who treasures you.”
Sydney seemed thrilled with this idea. Her hope was infectious. Jen started to feel a little lift.
They finished their coffees. Jen heaved herself to her feet. It had been a long day, actually.
“Be gentle with yourself,” Sydney ordered. “Take a long shower. Get a good night’s sleep. We’ll tackle this in the morning. You’ll be a whole new you.”
Well, it was reasonable.
She bypa
ssed the room where Dosan was resting with Xalu and continued around the pool to her bedroom next to Sydney’s.
There was no reason for her heart to jump like a squirrel on a trampoline.
There was no reason for her to feel every second they spent apart was wasted. Like, Dosan was her soul mate and if she didn’t act now to be with him, always, they might get ripped apart and never have another chance.
Jen closed and locked her own room.
The empty honeymoon suite.
Luxurious furnishings complimented a bucket of chilled wine — now warm and liquid — and a huge box of local chocolate.
She ate a piece from the satin-lined box, rolling the creamy hazelnut ganache around on her tongue, and sat in the comfy chair looking out over the pool.
The luxury was incredible.
Her responsible savings had paid for it.
When the pictures had landed in her inbox, she had been devastated. But also relieved. Gary had been hiding a lot. Cold feet? The chill had traveled to her toes. An expensive last-minute cancellation was still cheaper than a divorce.
Ian had talked her into going on the honeymoon anyway. “You’ve been working hard your whole life. You deserve happiness.”
Ian’s idea of happiness was to lie next to a pool in paradise.
Jen had enjoyed it. But it wasn’t her idea of happiness. Her idea was spending time with him and Sydney.
And now Dosan…
She shook herself and headed to the shower Sydney had recommended. In the privacy of her own shower, she could indulge in delicious fantasies…
In the morning she awoke late and dressed casually in a tank top and swimsuit. What were today’s plans? If necessary, she’d put a beach dress on later. First thing was to start on breakfast. Wait, no, first was to check on the gorgeous warrior who had filled her with yummy, salty dreams…
Outside her door, on a lounge chair, rested Dosan.
Her heart soared.
Down.
He rose with a wince. Dark hollows shaded his eyes and the bruise on his chest was a deep shade of purple. He wore a new pair of Speedos. His sapphire tattoos gleamed iridescent in the morning sun.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, easing next to him. “You should be in bed.”
“Your words were true.” He turned his pain-wracked eyes on her. “I must show my respect.”
“Sleeping on the lounge chair isn’t respecting me,” she argued.
