Falling in Deep Collection Box Set

by Pauline Creeden

  It was the sweetest sound she’d ever heard. Distinctly human. More beautiful than any symphony in any hall in Europe. The man, whoever he was, might live. She flicked and kicked again. A cough. A sputter. More gurgling. Getting stronger and stronger.

  He was coming around.

  Syreena linked her arms under his again and began swimming.

  *****

  Dylan heard himself sputtering. At first he wondered who was trying to start a lawn mower, but then he realized he was the one making the sound. He tried to open his eyes but the lids were so heavy, he couldn’t seem to operate them.

  He coughed, forcing it this time, tried to clear his throat. Dylan’s lungs were burning and his mouth tasted like salted fish. His forehead felt like someone was driving an acid-coated nail into it. The last thing he remembered was a large wave, then blackness, everything closing in around him.

  If he could only open his eyes, he could get his bearings.

  He tried again and was able to open them to slits. Nothing but ocean. Flat water as far as he could see. Strong arms held him above the water. Thin, tanned, feminine arms. He closed his eyes again and worked up the strength to open them wide. He turned to the side to see the profile of a beautiful woman.

  High cheekbones, aquiline nose, long eyelashes framing eyes the color of green sea glass. Golden corkscrew curls plastered to her cheeks. Her lips were a rosy pink, full and pouty.

  “Who?” he asked.

  Something about her jogged Dylan’s memory; he’d seen her before. He searched his brain but couldn’t seem to bring up anything but a blurry, vague image. Oxygen deprivation. Made everything hard to access. Maybe when he had some time to normalize, he’d remember why she looked so familiar.

  “Shhhhh,” she whispered close to his ear. “Later.”

  An accent. French? He couldn’t be sure.

  He coughed again and briny water shot out of his nose and mouth like a waterspout. It burned like fire. He wiped the water from his eyes and blinked several times. The view was still the same.

  “We’ll be there in a moment,” his rescuer said. Her words were slow and deliberately formed. Definitely French.

  Dylan leaned back into her and tried to relax. He allowed his legs to float out in front of him. It would be less of a strain on her if he didn’t tense his muscles. The man, the officer, deep inside him wanted to insist he was okay, that he could swim on his own, but he wasn’t. For the first time in his life, he felt weak and incapable, as if his body was betraying him.

  “Just a few more minutes,” she said. Her breathing was becoming more labored. “We’ll be there. No sleep. You must stay awake.”

  He nodded and allowed her to drag him.

  CHAPTER TWO

  He heard her. Saw her. Syreena tried to tamp down the joy and save all her energy for the swim but it was impossible. She wasn’t invisible. At least not to him.

  Maybe the spell was weakening. She staunched the hope. Hope was too painful.

  She was exhausted but exhilarated. Her arms ached from being wrapped so tightly around the man. She nearly wept with relief when she saw the sandy outline of the cay. Only a few more flicks of her powerful tail and they’d be on the beach.

  And she could talk to him. Talk. The most beautiful word in any language.

  She had yet to really look at him. All she could see with any clarity was the large gash across his forehead and the blood congealed into a large lump.

  His back had been pressed to her breast for the whole swim. He was strong, muscled and lean. His skin was olive, dark like a Spaniard. She wondered if his eyes were dark brown. His hair was black. Jet black. The color of a crow’s wing.

  Looking at him, she felt something in the pit of her stomach, a totally unfamiliar feeling.

  It was probably the closeness. The feel of human skin. The joy of being acknowledged.

  Balancing his weight on her tail, she ran a finger lightly across his forehead, pushing his hair away from his eyes. A small scar, just below his hairline, was crescent shaped. She briefly wondered how he’d gotten it.

  She lay back in the water, way too tired to Change. She’d need to switch out of her mermaid form to help him. With the man still balanced across her fin, she allowed herself to float. Relaxing her muscles, she took a deep breath and looked up into the sky. There were only a few clouds, high and wispy.

  The afternoon storms, so common the Caribbean in the summer, wouldn’t be here for hours. She hoped she’d have time to get the man stitched up and comfortable before the thunder and lightning arrived.

  Syreena moved her tail from beneath him and hooked her arms under his. “We’re here,” she told the man. “We must get onto the beach.”

  “I can swim from here,” he mumbled. His voice was deep and hoarse as if he had a sore throat.

  “No. You are too weak. Let me pull you the rest of the way.” The water was getting shallow and her tail was dragging the bottom. She needed her arms to help push her way out of the sand but they were wrapped around him.

  “I can walk from here,” he said, pulling his legs underneath him. On the first attempt, his legs buckled. He went down in the sand. After a few ragged breaths, he used his arms to push himself upward.

  Syreena felt helpless. While she could Change at will, it took time and energy. She’d never Changed around anyone and she was surprisingly self-conscious. She tamped her shyness down and tried to still her mind.

  He needed her in human form.

  After several attempts at standing upright and realizing his legs weren’t going to cooperate, the man fell to hands and knees and crawled onto the beach. When he reached the dry sand beyond the high tide mark, he wretched. Buckets of sea water poured from him, followed by coughs and sputters. He rolled onto his back in the sand and shaded his eyes from the sun with his hand. She watched the rise and fall of his chest. His breathing was rough and irregular. With every third or fourth exhale, he sputtered and coughed.

  After a few deep, clear breaths, he fell asleep on the sand.

  She watched him from the safety of the water. He looked nothing like the men she’d known. He came from a world totally different from hers.

  He was nothing like the men she saw in the market.

  Men had changed in the years she’d been a mermaid. They dressed differently, moved differently and none of them seemed to carry pistols or swords anymore. This was more than that though. This man didn’t feel like anyone she’d even seen. He felt shimmery, shiny. New.

  Syreena shouldn’t be alone with him. It went against everything that had been drilled into her head by Colette and her father. Old rules from another time. Out here, there was no proper society to worry about, no one to shun her for breaking the rules. Nothing but her and the water but it still felt strange.

  For a moment she wondered if he was a traveler like her. If Guillaume could cast spells, then surely other people could too. Maybe that’s why the man could see her. She hoped not. She hoped he was one hundred percent human but even if he wasn’t, at least he could see and hear her. She hadn’t had that since she’d left Belle Emilie. It was something.

  Syreena made her way from the water onto the beach. The man was out cold. She sat on the sand and waited for her tail to morph into legs. When she was on dry land, her legs reappeared and worked the same as they had before The Change.

  But only for a few hours. A few hours a week.

  For the thousandth time, she wished she understood the spell better. After all this time, she still had no real idea about how it worked, what the limits were. All she knew was that the only thing that would permanently release her from her fins was winning the love of a man who could protect her and returning to the beach where it all began.

  She glanced back at the unconscious man on the beach.

  Syreena saw her future. A future without scales.

  It was time for The Change.

  The transformation wasn’t painful just uncomfortable. It felt like a gentle tugging, a r
elease, a stretching. A division.

  She closed her eyes and leaned against the trunk of a palm tree. After a few deep breaths, punctuated by the man’s loud snores, she felt her tail splitting into legs, the joints hinging, and her fins differentiating into feet.

  Syreena wiggled her toes, luxuriating in the feel of wiggling them in the warm, grainy sand. While having the lithe body of a mermaid who could cut through the water with the speed and grace of a dolphin was nice, it had nothing on toes.

  The Change now complete, she quickly dressed in a leather bodice and a skirt, two pieces that washed up separately but matched well enough. Even though she was alone and invisible, she valued her modesty. She walked over to the man. She poked him with her toe. He didn’t move.

  His shirt and pants were dark blue. Just above his heart, embroidered in white, were the words “U.S. Coast Guard.” Above his right breast, the word “Gray”. Like the color. Below it, on the pocket, in blue thread the same color as the fabric, there was a large crest.

  Interesting.

  She knelt in the sand beside him.

  Even in the water, she’d known the man was handsome. She’d known that in the water, but seeing him now, with plenty of time to savor each of his features, she saw just how beautiful he was. His features were perfectly symmetrical. A sharp nose, chiseled cheekbones, the tiniest hint of lines at the corners of his eyes.

  His eyes moved under his lids. Syreena wondered what he was dreaming.

  She allowed her eyes to move along his muscular forearms and to his hands. Large with flat, squared-off nails, they were the fingers of a gentleman and showed no signs of heavy work. Cautiously, she ran the tip of her index finger along the tendon connecting his thumb and first finger.

  His skin felt wonderful. It had been so long since she’d touched another human. More than anything she wanted to entwine her fingers with his, connect to his exquisite, glorious humanity, but first she need to look him over. The pulse in his wrist was strong and affirmed that he was warm, alive. She drew back her hand, determined to finish exploring him with her eyes before he woke.

  Syreena focused on the cut just above his eye. It was deep and needed stitching but the salt had cleaned and dried out the gash. She had neither needle nor thread but she had to find a way to close the wound. Left unclosed, it might get infected. The cut was going to scar. She looked at him with a critical eye, tilted her head to the side. She decided that the scar was going to be a good thing. It would give some character to his face, mar the perfection just enough to make him look real.

  Without thinking, she ran the tip of her finger along his lower lip. Something deep inside her shivered. Heat blossomed in her cheeks, in her breast, and lower. Much lower.

  If he felt the same pull of attraction she was feeling, it wasn’t going to be hard to make this man fall in love with her and offer his protection.

  To get back on land, she’d make a deal with the devil.

  Monsieur Gray would do nicely. At least he was a handsome devil.

  She looked down at her legs. She only had a few hours left. Syreena dreaded The Change. It had been so long since she’d been this close to another human being who could actually see her, hear her. She wanted to stay close to him but she knew that as soon as she got hungry enough, she’d have to Change.

  With a gash that deep on the side of his head, he might have other injuries she couldn’t see. Syreena began by unbuttoning his shirt. While it was relatively easy to remove, the shirt underneath was stuck to him like a second skin. He barely moved, even with her tugging and pulling on the fabric. After a few minutes she gave up and used the edge of a sharp shell to cut the garment up the center.

  His chest reminded her of statues she’d seen on a trip to Paris. Each muscle was well-defined and sharp, as if they were carved from marble instead of flesh. He shivered when she ran her fingers along his abdominal muscles. There wasn’t a cut or bruise to be seen, just miles and miles of olive skin, glistening where the sun reflected off the water droplets.

  Syreena had seen slaves in the fields with bare chests, but she’d never seen a man like him. Just the sight of him did curious things to her body, from head to toe. Her fingers tingled where they touched his skin, a tickling of electricity ran all the way up her arm.

  She bent over him and placed her ear on his chest, listening for his heartbeat. It was there, strong and steady. She loved the way his skin felt next to hers, warm and slick.

  Distraction. She needed to finish inspecting him for cuts and injuries instead of lying across his chest like some wanton woman.

  She rose and looked at him. Pants. What should she do about his pants?

  After much indecision, she decided to cut them just above the knee. The plan would preserve his modesty while still allowing her to make sure there were no major injuries she missed.

  She knelt in the sand and removed his boots and socks.

  The shoes had nearly sealed his fate. If she hadn’t come along, he would’ve been unable to do anything with them on his feet. They were heavy and clunky and nearly impossible to unlace. As fins, they would’ve been deadly.

  She held the bootlace up and looked at it. It was made of dozens of tiny strands. If she could separate them, one strand would be the perfect size to stitch his cut.

  His feet were so beautiful she could’ve wept. In a world of fins and flippers, the separation of toes, the delicate formation of the bones, and the nails, square and well-trimmed, were as exquisite as any piece of art work she’d ever seen.

  Syreena cut one pant leg, saw that his right leg was fine, then moved to the left. There was a tear just behind the knee. Instead of using the shell, she gripped it tightly and ripped.

  The dark blue pants had hidden the cut. It was much worse than the one on his forehead. It was still bleeding, the red of the blood diluted by the sea water.

  She grabbed the remnants of the shirt she’d cut off him and tore off several strips. Syreena tied one around his leg, just above the cut. She used the rest of the garment to dry the skin around it.

  The bleeding slowed and then stopped.

  She breathed a sigh of relief. With two bootlaces, she’d have enough to stitch both cuts. She only had to find a needle.

  The man was still unconscious, totally unaware she’d removed his clothes or stopped the bleeding.

  Mon Dieu! Bleeding like that with a whole shiver of sharks in the water. It was a miracle she got to him first.

  She touched the amulet, giving silent thanks for its protection.

  The man, with his olive skin, his muscular chest and beautiful feet, made her heart do strange things. Her face felt hot, flushed. She couldn’t resist running her index finger along the outside of the muscles in his abdomen. Just as she reached his belly button, he stirred.

  “Unnnhhh,” he moaned. “So hungry.” His eyelids fluttered open and then closed again. “Starving,” he muttered, before he fell back into a deep sleep.

  If the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach, there was no time to waste.

  *****

  Dylan woke to the smell of roasting fish. His stomach growled.

  It took three attempts to open his eyes. The sun was falling over the ocean, casting orange and gold onto the water.

  Sundown. How long had he been asleep?

  Where the hell was he?

  He shook his head trying to loosen the mental cobwebs and get his bearings.

  All he knew was that the beach faced west and he was hungry enough to eat a rock. Or a shell.

  Dylan’s mouth was dry and tasted like the inside of a salt shaker. He used his arms to prop himself up into a sitting position. His muscles screamed with the exertion. A low growl came from his throat. The vibration of his vocal chords caused more pain to ricochet through his body. He collapsed back onto the sand, totally exhausted. He rubbed his head, felt a sting when he found the gash above his eyebrow. His whole body ached.

  His left leg screamed. The pain was so intense it m
ade him nauseated. He propped himself up on his elbows and looked down to see that someone had used his T-shirt as a makeshift tourniquet.

  No wonder his leg hurt. It looked like it had gotten the business end of a ship propeller. Son of a bitch.

  His upper body was covered in sand. He leaned onto one elbow and ran his free hand across his upper back trying to shake off some of the grains. Looked at his feet. Bare.

  No shirt. No shoes. Big Problem.

  Where the hell was he?

  Then it all came back to him. The book, the music. The wave, the drowning. The beautiful woman. It had to be a dream. He’d be at sea too long. Read too many books. Surely it was a dream. Probably a drunken one. He struggled and found his voice. “Ma’am?” The only answer was the lapping of the waves. His shirt, socks and what remained of his pant legs were spread across a rock drying the in the waning sunlight.

  “Ma’am?” he repeated, louder this time. He tried to scoot closer to the water but it was too difficult and he gave up after a few feet. He called out again. “Ma’am?”

  Her head emerged from beneath the water, hair cascading down her back and barely covering her breasts. The woman who saved his life was even more beautiful in the soft light of sunset. All of her curves melted into one sinuous, sensual line. “You’re awake,” she said. “Don’t try to move. Your leg is hurt pretty badly.”

  Definitely a French accent.

  She turned her back to him, reached to the side and picked up a bodice. In the dim light, it shone, like it was made of old leather. She buttoned around her breasts, leaving a slice of her midsection showing.

  “We need to stitch your cuts.” She swam to the shore and sat in the shallow water that covered her from the waist down. “I’ll do it after we eat.”

  Eat. Food. His stomach growled in reply. “Food sounds fantastic.”

  He couldn’t keep his eyes off her. She was beautiful in a way that went beyond the physical. It was an ethereal, otherworldly kind of beauty. He rubbed the gash on his head. Judging by how dizzy he still felt, he couldn’t trust his eyes. That didn’t mean he wasn’t going to enjoy the buzz while it lasted.