Page 11 of The Naiad's Lover

I pulled at his forearm. To my surprise, he didn’t unwind it. Instead he squeezed tighter, nosing at the back of my neck. He brushed my hair away, exposing my nape, and set his teeth to it. He scraped lightly, then licked. A slow, wet drag.

The muscles low in my abdomen tightened.

“Tell him to stay in his city,” Sayan murmured, his breath warm against my skin.

“All right,” I said. “If that’s what you want.”

He purred. “It is.”

“I will simply visit him there instead.”

Sayan stiffened behind me, then whipped me around and glared. “No.”

Over the winter months he’d been sleepy, soft and gentle with drowsiness. Perhaps—and oh, how I hated to think of it—perhaps because he usually spent the season locked beneath the ice-bound lake, lying all alone at the very bottom in a death-like hibernation. His body still expected it, even if his heart wanted to stay with me.

As the green tide of spring had rolled slowly in from the southern lowlands, however, he’d grown more demanding in his lovemaking. His possessiveness had increased.

I couldn’t deny that I was flattered by it.

In my former life, I’d been married to my childhood sweetheart and dearest of friends, Nils. We’d had many happy years together before I lost him to a wasting sickness. During our marriage I’d been satisfied with him alone, but Nils had needed more and, with my blessing, he’d sought out other people and experiences.

I’d never known jealousy, either towards him or from him.

My bond with Sayan was as different from my bond with Nils as it could possibly be.

I sometimes thought that it was the very reason I’d been able to allow myself to love him.

One of the last things Nils had said before he left me forever was that I should find someone who could give me all of the things he’d never been able to.

Someone to dote on, a man who would soak up all my attention like he needed it to live.

Someone who drove me wild with passion, and wanted only me.

I’d certainly found that in my naiad.

Nils would approve.

Sayan’s possessiveness, then, was both novel and flattering. His jealousy over Lars, while also novel, was concerning rather than flattering, and it had only sharpened over our time together.

Lars and I had a brotherly bond and nothing more. I’d tried to explain this, knowing that Sayan at least had experience of siblings even if he couldn’t grasp the concept of a non-sexual friend. It hadn’t seemed to clarify anything.

I could only hope that Lars would hurry up, stop writing me letters complaining that he missed me, that the city was a barren wasteland to him now I’d abandoned him for my wild naiad and the north, that neither feast nor wine nor fucking would satisfy the hole I’d left in his life, and justvisit.

The only way Sayan would stop being jealous of him was if Sayan saw us together.

And, I thought with a smile, if he got to know Lars himself.

Sayan was still tense and angry. The sight of my smile didn’t help. “I am yours,” I said. “You must know that.” Holding his burning gaze, I reached up to frame his face.

He drew back before I could make contact.

Ah. It was to be like that, was it?

I lowered my hands to his chest instead, sliding my palms over his firm pectoral muscles and grazing the small, tight nipples. He was sensitive there. He was a naiad—he was sensitive all over. But, I had noticed, he particularly liked it when I paid attention to him here.

Most likely because all anyone else had ever paid attention to was first his face, and then his cock.

He fought not to react. If you didn’t know him, he would have seemed unaffected by the light touch.

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