by Lena Loneson
Then his fingers touched her back, massaging her, relaxing her, and it was suddenly easy. She sighed and let herself go limp on the blanket. “That feels good.”
“Does it?”
“Mmm-hmm.” His hands were so warm. He left one working on her back and the other touched down on her thigh, rubbing one then the other. The earthy scent of the blanket and the grass beneath it filled her nose. She drank it in. He moved his hands to her ass, cupping it, spreading her cheeks. His finger between them surprised her into a squeak.
“How does this feel?” He moved his finger in circles around the bud of her anus, so softly that he was barely touching her.
“Amazing?”
He laughed. “You sound confused.”
“It’s…different. Keep going.”
The cap of the plastic bottle clicked when he opened it. Her body tensed, anticipating his next move. When he touched her again, his fingers were cold and slick but pleasantly so. He slid one inside her. Another finger joined it. They felt enormous, as if he’d already filled her with his cock. She breathed deep and heavy, willing her body to relax, pressing into the ground. He moved the fingers in and out so slowly that she wanted to scream. “You’re teasing me now.”
“Maybe.”
“I want you inside me.”
When he slid the fingers out of her, she strained to hear him using the lube. It squelched out of the tube. In the distance, the birds were singing again. Had they been all along? The wind rustled through the trees. She turned her face to catch the sky out of the corner of her eye. Gray clouds moved closer.
Something touched her ass, much larger than a finger and slick with lube. She expected him to ask her if she was ready. Really he was being overly considerate.
Instead he pushed inside her. “Oh!”
His answering chuckle sent warm breath against the back of her neck. “Didn’t think you wanted me to wait. Oh, you’re so warm.”
She grasped at the ground, one hand clutching the blanket, the other finding a fistful of grass. “How much of you is in me?”
“Just the tip.”
“Oh Lord.” If he’d said she was completely full she’d have believed him. What would the rest of it feel like? “Keep going.”
When he did fully sheath himself in her ass, Nora saw stars. And then they stopped talking and joking, instead focusing all their effort on moving against each other, moaning into the air. Every part of her pulsed—her anus clutching at his cock, the walls of her pussy and her clit throbbing as the blood rushed to them. He rocked his hips against her ass and she thrust it up to meet him. He tangled one of his hands in her hair. The other surprised her at her clit, lightly flicking the nub to make her gasp again. The pressure built inside her. If the ground had broken open and swallowed her whole, she wouldn’t have minded it.
“Eamon.” His name felt good on her tongue. “I’m almost there. I want to feel you come in me.”
He flicked his fingers more quickly against her clit. Her toes and fingers numbed as the orgasm burst out of her. As she reached the apex, his cock jerked in her ass and a wetness gushed inside her, hot and slick. The ocean of him roared inside her body.
When they’d both come, he pulled out of her and they lay together, side by side, panting. She was as sore as fuck. She caught Eamon’s eye and they grinned at each other. His pants were down around his knees and her dress was still around her waist. They must look ridiculous.
A droplet of water hit her face, then another. “When did it start raining?”
“Hmm?” His voice was distant, his breathing still hard. She smiled. Nice to know the sex had been as good for him.
“It’s raining.”
“Bloody hell, of course it is. One thing I don’t miss about Ireland.” But the smile didn’t leave his lips. He reached out and moved some hair from her face, which was getting wetter by the second. “Let’s just stay here and soak. I could make love to you forever. And I plan to.”
What did he mean by that? Was it just something to say or had he chosen the word forever deliberately? Nothing in his face gave him away. He still wore that pleasant, sex-addled smile.
Thunder cracked in the distance.
“We’d better get moving,” she said, for want of anything better to say.
They gathered up their leftover food and wine, rearranged their clothing as best as they could and folded the blanket, which was now damp from the rain. Their walk back to the castle from Griffin’s Lough was slow. Nora wasn’t in any hurry to leave him and the storm wasn’t coming too quickly. As they walked, they found little reasons to touch each other, bumping hips then linking arms.
When they reached Tullamore’s gardens, they were both significantly wet. Nora’s dress was heavy, pushing against her breasts. Water dripped off the tip of her nose. Eamon leaned down and kissed it. “When I took you back to my room soaking wet that first night, you were so beautiful with that white cotton outlining your body, your dark hair wild and free.”
“I’m pretty sure you mean as tangled as a bird’s nest.”
He shook his head. “I wanted to make love to you then and there. Have since the minute I pulled you from the ocean, dripping with seawater.”
“I should have let you. I shouldn’t have run off.”
“Make it up to me. Come back to my room now. We can spend the evening and night together.”
She wanted to. Would she get many more chances? How much longer would he be in Donegal County or even in Ireland? The memory of Mary Catherine’s disapproving looks that morning nagged at her. “I promised Ma I’d be home for dinner.”
“Call her.”
“I can’t. I can’t just leave her alone.” Not when her ma was so vulnerable and torn up over Nora’s near-drowning. How could she explain that to him without explaining her entire history? How much did he need to know about her?
“Even for a night?”
She shook her head, looking away. He grasped her chin, pulling her face back to him. “What is it?” he asked. She could barely hear him over the rain. He raised his voice, nearly shouting. “She thinks you’re going to grow a tail and swim away?”
Her throat closed. How did he know?
“I’ve heard the rumors, Nora. That your father was a selkie, that you’re one too.”
“No,” she said, a million thoughts whirring through her brain. She wasn’t a selkie, that wasn’t the story—she was merely the daughter of one.
“I know what they say,” he continued. “That the spirit of a drowned sailor births another selkie. I know your birthday.”
She shook her head, water flying from her face. What was he talking about? What did her birthday have to do with anything? Nora wasn’t a selkie. That was ridiculous. She’d dreamed of being a seal, maybe, yes, but she had no pelt. She’d never had one. Her dreams were just dreams. The ocean didn’t own her. The call of the sea was just her fucked-up mind playing tricks on her.
Wasn’t it?
Thunder boomed, closer than it had before. She jumped. Her nerves were paper-thin. What did Eamon know that she didn’t?
She could ask him right now. Demand that he tell her everything. But did she want to hear it from him? What must he think of her, the crazy girl who thought she was a seal?
He held her face between his hands. His hair, skin and clothing were soaked. His hands were shivering. They should both get inside.
“Nora, please tell me who you are.”
How could she tell him when she didn’t know herself?
“Nora, just tell me. I promise I’ll understand. I’ve seen more than you think. More than you could know.”
This wasn’t the same as little faerie houses in Iceland or an hallucination of his dead wife’s voice. This was Nora’s life he was talking about. Not a story in a magazine. Not a dream.
“Tell me,” he said.
Her hands shook. Something was breaking within her and she didn’t want him to be there to see it. She sucked air into her lungs. It was too h
eavy. “I can’t tell you. I can’t tell you because I don’t know.” She raised her voice, screamed it at him. “I don’t know!”
With that, she pulled from his grasp. “Just leave me be, Eamon. Leave me be.” She ran from him again. She was always running. But this time she would be running toward something. To answers. To Mary Catherine.
Chapter Eighteen
The slam of the cottage door behind her was harsh even to Nora’s ears. She paused inside, kicking off her wet sandals and wringing water from her hair. Drops pattered on the welcome mat.
“Ma?” She cleared her throat, calling louder. “Ma?” Her vocal cords were cold and weak from the rain and stress.
“In here.” Her ma’s voice coming from the kitchen was friendly. Good. She’d gotten over her snit from that morning. Nora’s walk down the hallway was purposeful. Finally she would get some answers. Mary Catherine must be able to tell her more about herself.
The kitchen was a quaint scene of domesticity that seemed so far removed from the rainstorm and talk of magic she’d experienced outside. It was warm. The scent of baking bread filled her nostrils. Mary Catherine stood by the stove, facing Nora. Her wrinkled hands, too old for someone not yet a grandmother, shook as she wiped them on a dish towel.
Her ma had always seemed frail, but was she really? She’d been the one to support her daughter on a schoolteacher’s salary while Nora studied music. She’d been the one to raise Nora as a single mother.
“Good evenin’, Ma.”
The pleasant smile on Mary Catherine’s face slipped a little as she saw Nora’s soaked clothing. Her mouth twitched. Nora waited a beat for the lecture. When Mary Catherine’s mouth opened, Nora spoke before she could. “Just got caught in the storm, Ma, nothing more.” Why did she have to explain herself? It was her decision to go out, her life, no matter how hurt her mother looked at Nora’s snappy response.
Why did she still feel like an errant child? She was the wronged one here. She was the one who didn’t know her own past.
“Shall I make you some tea?” the older woman asked. “You can change while the water boils.” Mary Catherine picked up the old metal kettle and turned to the sink to fill it.
“I want to talk to you first.”
“Aren’t you cold?”
She was. It would be petulant to stand there, dripping rainwater on her mother’s floor, just to prove a point. She did it anyway. “I’m fine.” If she went to change, she might lose her courage. Nora pulled out a wooden chair by the kitchen table and sank down on it. “Will you come and sit with me?”
Mary Catherine didn’t speak. She plugged in the kettle and flipped the switch. Her long gray hair fell in a curtain down the back of her apron. Her back moved in a sigh. Would she give in? Did she know the questions Nora would ask?
When Mary Catherine turned back toward Nora, her lined face was hard, unyielding. But she sat. “Did you have a nice time with the Canadian lad?” Her solicitous, pleasant voice didn’t match the stony look on her face. She knew.
“I did.” Nora took a deep breath. “We talked about local legends. He writes about them, you know.”
“Silly superstitions, the lot of them.”
Nora wouldn’t bring up the times that Mary Catherine had forbidden her from whistling in the house, moved Nora’s bed from north to south as she recovered from the flu, or tied a sprig of mint to her wrist.
Better to come out with it bluntly. “You know what everyone says about my da.” She gripped the arm of the wooden chair.
“He left us. We don’t speak of him.”
“They say he was a seal-man.”
“Nonsense.”
Nora met her mother’s eyes with her own. Mary Catherine didn’t back down. Her stare belied the frailty with which she’d dried her hands earlier. Why had Nora always thought her weak? How many times had she put off a trip or a plan to take care of her ma, when it was Nora who had always been taken care of—fed, clothed, living in this house years after her adolescence.
She’d been manipulated, whether or not it had been intentional on her mother’s part.
“My da was a selkie, wasn’t he?”
The chime of the oven timer rang out. The relief on Mary Catherine’s face wasn’t a surprise. “I’d better get that. We can talk more later.” She half rose from her chair.
“We can talk now.”
“The bread will burn.” But there was no spark in Mary Catherine’s eyes. Nora could win this one.
She shivered, her wet dress clinging to her skin. “Let it.”
“What do you want me to say?” The quaver in her mother’s voice almost gave Nora pause. Almost.
“My da was a selkie,” she said. “That’s why the sea calls to me. You treat me like an errant child, playing too close to the shore, but I’ve waded in every time. I can’t stop myself.” Her voice rose shrilly. It sounded nothing like her own. “When will you tell me the truth? Will you speak it to my corpse when it washes up on the shore?”
“Nora, please let it be.”
“Who was my father? Tell me.”
Mary Catherine clasped her hands in front of her, resting them on the table. Gray lashes hid her eyes as she stared down at them. Her lids dropped. When she spoke, her eyes were closed.
“You’ve heard the truth. Your da was a selkie.”
She’d expected to be terrified at hearing the words finally spoken out loud. But though her heart beat faster, her body also felt more solid, grounded. It was real. She hadn’t imagined it. She wasn’t crazy. The legends were real.
“He was a rover, a musician like you. He’d play in the village and up the coastline, never venturing far from the water. He was supposed to be my temporary lover, something to pass the bored days with.”
“You knew he was a selkie? He told you?”
Mary Catherine laughed, a harsh sound. “I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen him rise from the ocean, shedding his black fur pelt. That was how we met. I’d been wading by the shore. I supposed he liked the look of me. They’re seductive, the seal-men. They can take any woman they want, without the need of force.”
“That’s how I was conceived?” She’d always imagined something more romantic than a silly tryst on the beach.
Mary Catherine shook her head. “Not the first night. We’d meet in secret, on the beach, in the forest out behind the castle. I expected he would be a passing fancy and I’d grow up, put him behind me and marry another Irish lad. The boys of the village were my destiny. One day I’d move on with one of them. That’s what I told myself.” Tears escaped her lowered lids. Nora reached forward to take her hand but Mary Catherine pulled back, leaning into her chair, moving her clasped hands to her lap. The oven timer chimed again, loud in the momentary quiet as Mary Catherine took a breath.
“He was a good man. When I caught pregnant, he agreed to marry me, to keep me from disgrace. My parents knew of my condition. They didn’t know of his origin, however. I told them he was from Ballyshannon.”
If her grandparents had still been alive, what would they say if Nora asked them? Had they believed Mary Catherine? Had they been angry? But they were years gone. The family story had always been that her father had walked out, that he had been forced to marry Mary Catherine and had left her after the wedding. He had never been looked on as a role model.
“I was so touched by his offer. And he seemed genuinely pleased on the day of our wedding. It was simple. I wore a cream dress. His eyes were the darkest blue of the sea but they glowed when he said his vows. It was the day I truly began to fall for him.”
“What happened to him?” Nora asked.
“I did. It was my fault.” Mary Catherine wiped the tears from her cheeks with the long violet sleeve of her dress. Nora ached to reach out to her but she had to hear the rest of the story.
Mary Catherine continued, her voice wavering, “As the months went on, I fell deeply in love with him. We moved into this cottage. We made a life. But the more I moved close
r to him as my belly grew large, the more he pulled away. His eyes kept turning toward the sea. I knew the legends. I knew I’d soon lose him. I was terrified. What if he never returned? I couldn’t raise a baby alone.” She stopped speaking again, wiping at her cheeks. “Nora, will you fetch me a cup of tea?”
Nora nodded and rose. The acrid smell of burning bread had started to fill the air. She used that and the tea as an excuse to avoid eye contact with her mother as Mary Catherine continued with the story. With a tea towel wrapped around her hand, she took the bread from the oven and set it on the counter. The top of the bread was dark brown.
“You know the legend of the selkie, I presume?” Mary Catherine asked.
“Yes. A selkie is always pulled back to the water, to his seal form. But he cannot become a seal by desire alone. He needs his pelt to change.”
“Then you know what’s coming next. I hid his pelt while he slept one night. When he woke and couldn’t find it, he was furious. I’d trapped him. He wouldn’t hurt me—he wasn’t that sort of man and I was pregnant with his babe. But he never looked at me with love in his eyes again. A few months into my pregnancy, he begged me to find it for him. He said that staying on land was killing him. That if I wouldn’t help him, I’d find him drowned one morning. That he’d tear the house apart until he found the pelt. He said any number of things and I stayed firm. I knew if I kept it hidden, he would still be mine. I didn’t think he could do it—kill himself, leave me, leave the baby.”
Nora silently poured a cup of tea, adding milk as her mother spoke.
“I stopped going out. I spent each night at home so he couldn’t search for the pelt. It wasn’t until the night of your birth… There had been a complication and I was taken to hospital. That was his chance. He never visited. And when my parents went to look for him, they found the cottage ransacked. They never knew why. They assumed he’d stolen money or pawned something and left me.”
