The first time.
Only a few days after The Change, long before she’d learned to tell the weather by reading the clouds, feeling the pressure changes in her ears and watching the behavior of the other sea life, a hurricane had blown into the Caribbean.
The sea had been angry, as if the top was sinking to the bottom and all the sand and grit moved to the top.
The terror, coupled with the loneliness, was nearly too much to bear.
“The storm is getting closer. We need to find shelter,” Dylan said.
“There isn’t any, except the trees.”
He looked around the beach. “But most of the trees are standalone. If lighting struck one and you were under it, you’d be a goner.”
She wrapped her arms around her knees and brought them closer to her body. “Sometimes the storms are scary but I’ve never had the tools to build a shelter. Usually I just swim through them.”
“Not this one. I’m going to pull something together.”
“You’ll have to do it fast.” She glanced at the clouds. “It will be here soon.”
“I know.”
“Your leg?”
“So others may live,” he recited the Coast Guard motto.
Syreena had no idea what he meant. Maybe it was a language thing.
He pushed himself to his feet with a groan of pain. “Son of a bitch,” he growled. “That hurts.”
“Please don’t open the cut again,” she said, rising to her feet. “I’ll swim through the storm and you can… “
“We need shelter,” he said, hobbling way from the beach and toward the interior of the island. “I won’t let you weather this storm out in the open.”
“But I can swim. I’ll be okay.”
His eyes met hers. “I’m going to take care of you, Syreena. I’m going to protect you from this storm. It’s not negotiable.”
The amulet warmed against her skin. She reached up to touch it. When she wrapped her fingers around it, it gave off a faint buzz.
*****
It was still hard to believe she was a mermaid but seeing her reaction to the idea of a movie did a lot to convince him that she wasn’t from the present time. Not to mention divorce, which was, in his opinion, one of the great triumphs of civil law.
He hoped he didn’t have to be the one to tell her about The French Revolution. From the way she took the news that Haiti no longer served the King of France, that particular war was going to be a hard one to swallow. The fact that there wasn’t even a French King to serve might be even more difficult to accept.
Dylan had fallen overboard and been saved by a time-traveling mermaid.
Time travel? Not really. It wasn’t as if she’d been plucked from the eighteenth century and deposited into 2015. She’d been on hold, separated from the world for over two hundred years and hadn’t aged a day.
Even weirder than time travel.
The pain in his leg was excruciating. It felt like someone was jabbing a hot knife in the space behind his knee with every step but he persisted, kept putting one foot in front of the other until he reached a small grove of trees several hundred yards from the beach.
He looked around, combed his brain for every bit of information he’d learned in his Coast Guard survival course. One look at the clouds told him he didn’t have time to make a Tee-Pee Shelter. A lean-to would have to do for the night.
He combed the ground for something long enough to construct a center beam. He finally found a branch. From the looks of it, it had been in the sea a long time before it washed up because it was weak and littered with tiny holes.
Since there wasn’t a Home Depot nearby, it would have to do. He dragged it toward the trunk of a large palm and wrestled it into place. His injured leg throbbed with every step. Once he was satisfied it was well-placed, he gathered all the palm fronds he could find.
The lightning and thunder were getting closer and closer together.
“Syreena,” he called over the sound of wind and waves. “Bring me the shirt, the one you used to tie off my leg.”
“Okay,” she answered.
When she reached the grove, he said, “Tear it into strips. I need to lash these fronds to the main beam.”
She nodded and began ripping.
Just as he lashed the last frond the main rib, the first fat drop of water hit the roof of the lean-to.
“Made it,” he grinned. “Just in the nick of time. Welcome to our new home.”
She smiled and he felt his heart jump. His leg hurt like hell, but her smile made it worth every twinge of pain. “Thank you,” she said.
Dylan held aside one of the fronds so that she could enter the lean-to. He entered behind her. “It’s not Versailles but it will keep us safe from the storm.”
“I haven’t had a roof over my head since The Change.” Syreena breathed deeply. “It’s very nice.”
There was very little room inside the canopy of leaves. There was no way to sit without touching her. Not that he was complaining.
Above the fresh misty scent of the rain, was the scent of Syreena. She smelled like jasmine and sun, like the beach. It was incredibly exotic.
He tried not to look at the way her breasts strained the leather bodice. He also tried not to concentrate on the shimmery skirt that looked like it should belong to a mermaid in a Vegas night club.
But it was hard. Damn hard.
“It feels so safe in here,” she said. “I didn’t realize how much I missed having a roof over my head until this very moment.” Tears welled in the corner of her eyes. “After a while, I tried not to think about my life before The Change. It was too hard.”
He wrapped his arm around her shoulder and pulled her closer to him. “I can’t imagine.”
And he couldn’t. While he’d traveled a lot in the Coast Guard, he’d always had a roof over his head. A place to crash. He’d always had friends and family and shipmates.
Syreena had been totally alone for longer than he’d been alive. By nearly two centuries.
“Who do you miss the most?”
She leaned his head on his shoulder and sighed. “Papa. Sometimes I try to remember how his voice sounded but as time passes, it is more and more difficult. I also miss Colette. She was my nanny but she stayed even after I grew up. She was like a second mother to me.”
“What about your mother?”
“She died of malaria shortly after we arrived in Saint-Domingue. I don’t really even remember her.”
“I’m so sorry, Syreena.” He kissed the top of her head. “You’ve been through so much.”
She buried her head in his chest and cried quietly. He listened to the storm as it came closer and closer and then passed overhead. It felt so right, holding her in his arms, her head pressed against him.
It felt right in a way nothing had ever felt before.
The shelter kept the rain out and he only noticed one leak deep in a corner.
By the time the thunder was far in the distance, Syreena’s breath was regular again. “You okay?” Dylan asked.
“I’m sorry. It’s just I’ve been alone for so very long.”
He looked into the blue depths of her eyes. “You don’t have to apologize.”
She smiled. “It’s amazing how much I missed human touch.”
He didn’t mean to kiss her. Before he knew it, his lips were on hers.
Syreena tasted like sun and sand. Her lips were moist and supple and he loved the feel of her. She was soft and firm at the same time.
He threaded his fingers through her hair and cradled the back of her head in his hand. Dylan pulled her even closer to him. While he’d kissed his share of girls, this was something new. Something totally different. He couldn’t get close enough to her, couldn’t kiss her deeply enough.
She gave off a soft moan and he felt himself grow hard. A lifetime of mermaid fantasies culminated in this moment. He ran his fingers along the skin of her back and marveled at how smooth it was. Her full breasts pushed against
his bare chest and it was the most erotic feeling in the world.
Syreena broke the kiss and pulled back to look at him. Her eyes were large and clear and in them, he saw all the beauty of the sea. The beauty he’d been chasing for as long as he could remember. She smiled.
“Now I know why people want to kiss,” she said quietly.
“That was your first kiss?”
She nodded.
“Could’ve fooled me.”
The storm broke overhead, the thunder so close it seemed directly overhead. Syreena shivered and he pulled her close to him. She tucked her head into his chest and he marveled at the feel of her hair ticking his chest. “It’s okay,” he whispered into the crown of her head. “You’re safe.”
“I’d rather be swimming. I feel safer in the water.”
“But we have shelter now and we have each other.”
Her shaking slowed. “I haven’t seen a storm in so long.”
He tilted her head up with his index finger. “Let’s watch this one, then.”
Lighting bounced off the water turning it into a wash of neon blues and purples. The rain wasn’t far behind and the large drops pounded the fronds of the roof but Dylan and Syreena stayed dry.
“That’s amazing,” she said as a blue-white jagged slice of lighting split the sky. “Look at all those colors. They remind me of how my Papa described fireworks.”
“You’ve never seen fireworks?”
Syreena shook her head. “No. My father saw them, though. It was one of my favorite stories. When I was just a child, not quite a year old, Mama and Papa went to Versailles to celebrate the marriage of Marie Antoinette to Louis XVI. He used to describe it to me when I had a hard time sleeping.”
The mermaid sitting next to him had been born before Marie Antoinette became the Queen of France. He shook his head. The whole scenario was unbelievable.
“Papa said the spectacle lasted half an hour. Mama didn’t care for the noise or the smells, but Papa said it was wonderful.” Her eyes danced in the low light, sparkled, shimmered.
“Maybe I can take you to see some fireworks if we ever get off this island. There’s a nice display in Boston on the Fourth of July.”
Syreena turned to him, her face backlit by the crackling lighting. “That would be magical.” Her eyes were child-like and full of wonder. “If only I could tell Papa.”
Dylan placed his hand on the small of her back. “I’m sorry about your parents.”
“I’ve missed Papa every day. Wondered what happened to him.”
“Maybe he escaped and died a natural death.”
“I hope so,” she whispered. “He deserved that.” She snuggled closer and Dylan wrapped his arm around her.
“We’ll get out of here. I’ll find a way.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
When the storm finally passed, Syreena looked at Dylan. “Thank you. I’d forgotten how beautiful storms could be.”
“You’re safe and dry tonight. Let’s get some rest.”
She curled up beside him, her pelvis tucked into his. Her ass was perfectly shaped and he loved the feel of it rubbing against him. He fought an erection, tried to think of every unsexy thing he could: crochet, sub sandwiches, Walmart. It didn’t work. Thankfully, Syreena fell asleep quickly.
While she slept next to him, he worked on devising a plan to get off the island. His leg, while it still hurt like hell, would be fine in a couple of days. Fine enough to stage an attempt at getting the hell off this island and back to civilization.
With the storm, the Coast Guard might not have had the opportunity to launch a search operation. Depending on the conditions that caused the rogue wave that knocked him overboard, coupled with the storm they’d just weathered, it might be tomorrow before they could start looking in earnest.
Dylan would do his part. He’d spent most of his adult life aboard a Coast Guard cutter. He could navigate by the stars as well as anyone. As soon as the clouds cleared, he’d try to get a better bearing on where they might be.
For tonight, sleep was what he needed most.
He wrapped his arm around Syreena’s waist, breathed in the scent of her hair and tried to ignore his hard-on. Again.
It was a long time before he dozed off.
CHAPTER FIVE
Syreena opened her eyes and realized she was still in the shelter. She ran her fingers down her hip and realized she still had human legs. Usually she had to Change every few hours but for some reason she’d been able to sleep all night in her human form. Her stomach growled and she knew it was time for a swim. It was time to trade her toes for fins again.
She left Dylan sleeping and went for a quick swim. After her breakfast, he was still sleeping so Syreena grabbed his clothes from the rock where they had been drying. She’d intended to put them under a stone so they wouldn’t blow away but when she began to fold the shirt, she discovered a hard lump in the breast pocket.
She unbuttoned the pocket and found a small silver rectangle. It was bendable but retained its shape. Curious. There was some sort of closure. It was silver and had little metal teeth. Syreena took the metal tab between her fingers and pulled.
The package opened, as if by magic.
A Syreena couldn’t believe her luck. A book!
A book!
She stifled a squeal. She didn’t want to wake Dylan, mostly because she wanted a few uninterrupted minutes to read. She was torn between wanting to dive in and read it all at once and limiting herself to only a chapter at a time so it would last longer.
Diving in won.
She plopped down into the sand and opened it to the first page.
The reading was slow, not because the book wasn’t incredibly exciting (it was), but because she was so out of practice. The fact that it was in English slowed her down even more. Many of the things they talked about were unfamiliar to her. Cellphones, laptops, Mini Cooper. She planned to ask Dylan about it as soon as he woke.
Syreena flipped the page and began chapter four.
“Enjoying it?” Dylan looked down at her.
Syreena jumped and placed her hand over her heart. “You scared me,” she said. “When did you start walking without groaning?”
He shrugged. “A good night’s sleep seems to have really helped.” He ran his finger along the stitches. “It’s still a little sore.”
She put the book down on the sand. “I’m glad to hear it’s only a little sore.”
Dylan sat on the beach beside her. “I think it’s going to be okay. Maybe I’ll go for a swim later. I feel grimy.”
“The water is nice today but you might want to keep the cut dry for a couple of days. I was thinking about a walk along the beach to see if anything washed up in the storm yesterday.”
“Some trinkets to add to the secret treasure box?”
She giggled. “A ruby necklace would be nice.”
“Or an emerald?” he teased.
“That would be fine, too.”
“Let me have a quick swim and then I’ll walk with you.”
She nodded. “That will give me time to get through this chapter.”
“I don’t have a change of clothes, so I’ll have to go in my birthday suit,” he said, rising into a standing position. He winced and Syreena glanced at his leg. No redness. No signs of infection but it still looked painful.
“Birthday suit?” she asked.
He winked. “Au naturel.” His voice was low, like a growl. She felt her face flush. “No peeking.”
Indeed.
Though she’d spent some of her early childhood in the best drawing rooms of Paris, life in Saint-Domingue was much more relaxed. On a large sugar plantation, overrun with African slaves, she’d seen more than most women of her age and station.
But she’d never seen a man denude.
“Cover your eyes,” he said.
“I’m reading. I won’t look. The book’s more exciting anyway.”
“Liar.” Dylan laughed. He t
urned his back to her and allowed his shorts and underwear to drop onto the sand. “How can you resist?”
Syreena dropped the book. Mon Dieu! His backside was so perfect he’d made Michelangelo’s David look soft and flabby. Symmetry, musculature, skin tone. Perfect.
“What do you think?” he asked, looking at her over his shoulder.
She couldn’t think in French, much less English. “I… I… ,”
“You peeked!” he said, mocking offense. “You bad girl!” With the laughing admonition, he limped toward the water.
*****
Dylan couldn’t go back into the water.
As soon as his toe touched the salt water of the ocean, he jumped backward as if he’d hit a wall. It wasn’t the temperature. The water was nearly as warm as a bath. He took a deep breath and tried again. He couldn’t force himself to put his toe back into the water. Not even here, where it was only a sliver of an inch deep. Something was terribly wrong. It was if he was suffering from some kind of weird paralysis.
His heart hammered in his chest. He took a step backward. His hands were shaking. Fear crept across his skull in a web of tingles.
What the hell?
He’d been around water his whole life. He’d had a pool in the backyard of his childhood home in Miami. He’d been a lifeguard in college. He’d been at sea for the better part of eight years in the Coast Guard.
Dylan knew what to do when it came to the ocean.
But now, he couldn’t even stick his damn toe into the drink.
Ridiculous. Stupid. Unacceptable.
He tried again. This time, even though every cell in his body screamed for him to back away, stay in the sand, he slowly walked out until the water lapped just above his ankle bone. There was no way to explain the terrified feeling racing through his veins, paralyzing him.
Dylan stepped backward.
Tried again to stick the other foot in. No luck.
Maybe it was too soon.
“Are you alright?” Syreena called from the beach.
“Yeah. Fine,” he called back. “Just thinking maybe I shouldn’t try to swim with this bum leg. If it starts bleeding again, I might have a problem.” There was no way he was telling a mermaid he was having issues with water. It was temporary. Just a little shell-shock.
Falling in Deep Collection Box Set Page 73
