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He was so strong. Alys didn’t need to see him draw her out of the submarine, as though the suction in that room wasn’t enough to send her careening back into the sub. She could see it in the rippling muscles of his shoulders and the way his chest flexed. She could see it in the anchoring of his tail around her ship and how easily he tugged her against his heart.
He was...
She didn’t have words for it. She wished she did.
Alys shook her head. Her palms pressed against his cool chest when she realized for all the time that they had been together, they’d only been experiencing his world. He’d taken her swimming and taught her how to swim better and faster. He had brought her seashells and fish from the depths of the sea. They had laughed at each other’s antics, but she’d never asked his name.
Reaching for his face, she trailed a single finger down his forehead, cheek, to his jaw. She was so comfortable touching him, when she’d never been comfortable touching anyone else like this. Not a human, that was for certain.
“What is your name?” she asked, her voice little more than a breathless whisper.
He arched a dark brow, that devastatingly handsome face wrinkling with confusion.
Swallowing, she touched a finger to her forehead. “Alys.” Then she tapped his forehead.
He didn’t seem to understand what she was asking, so she did it a few more times. Never saying anything other than her name. Then suddenly she could see the realization dawn on him. His eyes widened, his lips parted in sudden shock.
“Alys,” he repeated, that low voice singing the word. She’d never heard the sound of her own name be so beautiful.
Reaching up between them, he traced her jaw with a long claw. “Alys,” he said again, then rumbled a word that she would never forget. “Imber.”
“Is that your name?” she breathed. “Imber?”
His entire face brightened with the word as she said it, and she knew she was right. His name was Imber, and it was such a strange name for a man so large and dangerous.
Yet, he was still holding onto her. Sinking away from the sub and allowing the current to gently nudge them toward the kelp. He relaxed, allowing his body to almost lay flat in the water as she sat draped on top of him.
Naturally, her legs fell to either side of his body. Naturally, she wanted him.
Maybe it made her some kind of deviant. She didn’t know anyone else who would see a monster from the depths and find him attractive, but she was lost in him. In the hard angles of his features, the blackness of his eyes, and the green scales that abraded her palms as she slid them down his chest, ribs, and sides.
Everywhere she touched him felt like molten metal. Or maybe it just made her hot to touch him. There was definitely something wrong with her.
And yet, sometimes she looked at his eyes and saw an answering flash of interest. As though he knew what was going through her mind every time she dragged her fingers down his sides. Every time she had the opportunity to drape herself over his chest just like this.
He knew. He had to know.
Somehow, she wasn’t embarrassed by that knowledge, either. She was so happy that he was with her, and that made all the difference.
Sighing, she rested her head as comfortably as she could against his chest. The tube got in the way, and the mouthpiece wasn’t all that comfortable to wear when she was touching something else. But it felt right to lie against him and just... be.
“Did you bring me anything to see today?” she asked, drawing a pattern on his pectorals as they finally reached the kelp forest. “You usually bring me some interesting things from the depths.”
As if he understood what she was asking, he reached underneath them to draw out a small bag he must have left in the kelp forest. He popped it onto his chest, as if he also knew that she didn’t want to move from where she was. At least, not yet.
She straddled him, sitting up on his abs so she could rip into the bag without ever having to stop touching him.
Healthy? No. This entire relationship would likely end in one of them dying. She’d either drown, or he would accidentally kill her. That’s what her father would say, at the very least. But for now, she wasn’t going to think about the fact that she was straddling a very dangerous creature, or that he was rubbing his hands up and down her thighs as she pulled the bag open.
Inside was the most beautiful shell she’d ever seen. Abalone, she thought it was called, but it was every color of the rainbow. It had been meticulously carved into the image of what looked like a wave. A swell that crested into the white exterior of the shell and then dove into swirling patterns of water.
“It’s beautiful,” she whispered, although her attention was certainly pulled away from it when his hands squeezed the meat of her thighs. He shouldn’t do that. He shouldn’t toy with fate.
They were two different species. And while he was clearly intelligent, a creature who was very much capable of learning and emotion and all the other things that made her human... How would they fit?
Alys knew without a doubt she flirted with going against nature as she looked down into his pleased gaze. But she supposed it didn’t really matter in the end.
She was here. He was underneath her, and she had never been so thankful for anyone before. He looked at her like actually saw her. She wasn’t the daughter of an inventor who had changed the lifespan of humans across the globe. She wasn’t the girl who had to live up to her father’s impressive deeds.
