Page 12 of The Mer-Mate

It’s like it was waiting for me to say it. Something deep inside me unlocks, and my merman’s knot slides home. My eyes fly open, my vision filled with strobing light, my body electrified.

“My Shayle,” he pants. “My mate, I’m coming ... ”

And then he’s swelling, hot, and filling me in places that didn’t exist until now, binding us together, the pressure setting off a blinding orgasm, coiling through my entire body as I crash around him.

Toren throws his head back and roars, hands flexed on my hips, until stones shake loose from the sea floor. His heat pours into me, and he fastens his incisors on my neck to claim me forever.

I could be burning. I could be flying. I could be dying. I don’t care. It’s ecstasy.

The throb in mya’weshdims, finally sated. My fingers loosen in his hair, holding his mouth to my throat, and my eyelids shutter closed.

Claimed by my mer-mate.

A sweet pain is already fading as his teeth leave my flesh, and he licks at the wound. “My mate,” he murmurs. “At last.”

A lifetime of trying to find him. Years on boats, scanning the horizon, diving below the surface, always searching. Even as he kept himself hidden, watching me from afar,to keep me safe.

Ever since that day I went overboard, the trouble I got in as a child. How I should have known better, having been raised by the ocean and getting so close to the edge, how reckless I’d been to fall from our boat.

But I didn’t fall. I’d been trying to reach him.

And now I have him.

“My mate,” I ask. “Why did you wait so long to show yourself?”

He strokes where he marked me. The pain has faded to a glow, twin pricks of warmth I’ll carry on my body forever. “You are so curious. Always seeking knowledge. I did not know if I was worthy of taking you from the surface and bringing you into the cold. If I would be enough to satisfy you.”

“I’ve always been yours,” I say. Already my life above the surface is fading from my mind. All I can think about is my future with my merman, and my new reality sets in.

There’s so much to learn. I can’t wait.

I press my mouth to his, luxuriating in the slow kiss. The water eddies around us as I pull back to look into his dark eyes. “And now that you have me, what will you do with me?”

He smiles, fangs gleaming in the cave light. “Let me show you everything.”

Fin