Page 66 of Ensnaring the Siren

Reid’s grip around her hips tightened, his rhythm growing fierce and urgent, and she loved that she drove him to such frenzied need. One that matched hers. This angle, this wonderful, demanding angle, was taking to her higher highs, and when she fell, she would shatter into oblivion, her pieces as innumerable as the stars.

Together they climbed higher and higher until she was wound so taut, she thought she might snap. “How many?” she ground out through clenched teeth.

His hips punched forward and with a sharply hissed curse, he came apart. Her body responded in kind, her channel fluttering and squeezing all around him. Even in this form, it did not want to let him go, not for anything.

“So many.” Two simple words shouldn’t sound so filthy, but falling from Reid’s lips it was an indecent promise.

Chapter

Twenty-Two

“I got this for you.” Reid held a small waterproof notebook in his hand, a pen hooked to the front flap.

“Another present?” Nireed had returned to her mermaid form, arms folded across the diving platform as she looked up at him, silvery tail waving languidly behind her.

“It’s for if you come, and I’m not here. My schedule’s unpredictable sometimes with work and errands, but this way you can leave me a note. And I can write back. I’ll keep it in here.” He patted the red pouch he’d adhered to the side of the boat.

She took the notebook from his hand and clicked open the pen. “I have been practicing my writing.” Flipping the book open to the first page, she began to write something, slow and careful. “Shorewalker and Cure Creator have been teaching me, and I’m a quick learner.”

Odd nicknames she gave her friends, but they seemed to hold social significance, particularly the last one, which he’d figured out was what she called Dr. Lila Branson. The marine biologist published papers on the virophages she’d had a hand in creating to treat morbillivirus in merfolk.

Shorewalker…he wasn’t sure what that meant or why she called her friend that. Was it categorically different from Surface Dweller or just a polite synonym?

When Nireed finished writing, she tucked the notebook and pen into the red pouch, grinning proudly.

Crouching down low, he leaned forward to kiss her.

He missed her already. Too soon Nireed had to return home. But he was due back at the station, and she needed to see her family and friends. The last time she’d seen them, they’d all been fighting for their lives.

Pulling back, he playfully flicked water at her. “See you around, Starfish. Try not to scare the shit out of me next time?”

Her amber eyes flashed, positively mischievous. “No promises, Coast Warrior.”

And then, in a flash of scales, and a circle of rippling water, she was gone. Just like that.

The past few days felt like a wild fever dream, all at once too terrifying and blissful to be real. Needing a dose of reality, Reid reached for the red pouch and the notebook inside, half expecting the first page to be empty. But he had to know, had to confirm that this wasn’t all an elaborate figment of his imagination.

Taking a deep breath, he flipped open to the first page.

And there it was, scratched out in the kind of perfect, uniform letters one would expect to see in early grade school primers. He couldn’t help but smile to himself. Not just a quick learner, but an overachiever too.

Until the next adventure.

Or revenge against bad fishermen. Whatever comes first.

-Nireed

He smirked. True to form, vicious mermaid. True to form.

His vicious mermaid.

Putting the notebook back where he found it, he grabbed his overnight work bag and left for work. There, Perez cornered him in the break room, a tumbler of iced coffee in hand. “How are you holding up? Any word from Nireed?”

It took him a moment longer than it should have to put together that she was talking about their last case and the butchery they’d found onboard Gale’s Promise. The last three days with Nireed had kept his mind off it and the evidence they had lost.

“Yeah, actually. She found me at home. Helped her patch up some flesh wounds and let her stay and heal for a few days. She swam home this morning.” He stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Nautic caught a baby mermaid in their net. That’s what started this. It was a rescue mission.”

Horror and rage darkened Perez’s expression, and while Reid hurried to assure her that the kid was okay, it did nothing to stem the long string of curses that erupted in both Spanish and English.

---