Page 34 of Stranded With the Grumpy Mermaid

I nod.

He helps me find it on the next movement. And the next. The pleasure rises fast now, gathering low and tight until my rhythm starts to break. Rafe is breathing just as hard beneath me, his control fraying visibly.

“I’m close,” I whisper.

His eyes lock on mine.

“Me too.”

Something about knowing we’re going there together makes the last of my restraint disappear.

I move faster.

His hands clamp around my hips, holding me steady through every motion. My glow floods brighter over both of us, blue-white light spilling across his chest and the blankets and the walls of this absurd little room.

The pleasure crests.

I cry out and fold forward over him as the second orgasm rolls through me, sharper than the first, my whole body trembling around him.

Rafe follows almost immediately. His hands tighten on my hips and my name leaves his lips, low and broken, as he pulls me against him and shudders beneath me.

For a few seconds neither of us is capable of anything except breathing.

Then his hands soften. One slides up my spine while the other stays at my hip, holding me there as though there is nowhere else he wants me.

I let my forehead fall to his shoulder and listen as his heart pounds against mine.

And for the first time in maybe forever, I am completely relaxed in a man’s arms.

His heartbeat slows beneath my ear.

Mine follows. And that’s when it happens. Because apparently happiness is dangerous when you give my brain enough quiet to examine it.

He traces lazy circles over my shoulder and I close my eyes. I catch myself doing the one thing I haven’t permitted in years.

Imagining after.

It arrives fully rendered, that’s the horror of it. A kitchen. Some kitchen, any kitchen, mainland, morning, French press on the counter because he’s insufferable about drip coffee. Me at a table covered in someone’s papers, his or mine. Sunday. Two phone calls to make, his mother, my father. A full moon on the calendar circled in his handwriting, because he’d be the one who’d circle it, he’d have it in his calendar. Swim night, and a coast within driving distance, and him on the beach with a thermos while I shift and swim with all the other mermaids.

I stop the thought there. I want this life. I want him and the kind of life that comes with a man like him. A good man. A decent man who does indecent things to me and makes my entire body sing like a well-tuned instrument.

The realization lands so cleanly there’s nowhere to hide from it.

I want mornings with him. I want to know what he burns when he gets distracted cooking. I want to find his glasses in stupid places and hear him complain about my coffee and swim under a full moon knowing he’s waiting onshore.

I want a life.

With him.

And the old voice inside my head clears its throat. It doesn’t shout. It never shouts. It asks, perfectly reasonable:

And you think he wants this, too? You think he wants to be seen with a mermaid nobody?

There it is.

There is an entire world, back on the mainland. This island ends.

Eventually there is a boat. A rescue crew. A dock crowded with people who know exactly who Rafael Vasquez is.