Page 3 of The Naiad's Lover

Summer was almost here.

I’d expected Sayan to all but run us to the lake, but as soon as we’d left the cabin behind us, his urgency eased. He still set a fast pace. Every few steps, I had to swallow my pride and jog a little to keep up.

He squeezed my hand and looked down at me, excitement lighting his green eyes.

I smiled and shook my head. “Youreallywant to teach me to swim,” I said ruefully.

“Of course I do! You will love it!”

I swung our hands between us. “I will certainly try. But Sayan, I won’t feel about it quite the way you do.” I didn’t want him to be disappointed with my reaction, and I wasn’t about to insult either of us by faking an enthusiasm I didn’t feel.

He scoffed. “Of course you will not. You cannot. You’re just a human.”

I raised a brow.

Flashing me a smile, he lifted my hand to his lips and turned it to press a quick kiss to my palm. “You cannot understand the world as I do,” he said. “I do not expect it. What I want is to take you to my little island, and to my favourite bays and beaches, and to the fjords far from here. I want to show you all of my favourite places.” His gaze heated and his deep voice roughened. “I want to make love to you in the water.”

“If that’s what you’re after, we managed to make love perfectly well in the bath. We can do that again, whenever you like.”

“We will,” he said confidently. “Many, many times. But I want to take you in my lake. I need it to know you, as it knows me. You’ve barely even dipped a toe in it.”

Because it wasfreezing.

It wouldn’t be freezing today, I comforted myself. Winter was far behind us and summer was a couple of short weeks away. Perhaps out in the deeper water it would still be icy, but that didn’t concern me, as I had no intention of going out into deeper water.

I had no intention of going any deeper than my chest.

My chin, at most.

Sayan’s lake was as big as a sea. It stretched hundreds of miles in length, crossed the borders of seven kingdoms, and only Sayan knew how deep it went. Settlements large and small clustered around its southern edges, while the farthest northern reaches of it were so inhospitable, they were as yet uncharted. It had many different names, in many different languages.

Here, the townsfolk of Laskeld and the surrounding villages called it simply Greenlake.

I’d asked Sayan once what he called it.

He’d given me a perplexed look and said, “Mine.”

As soon as we reached the sliding pebbles of the gently sloping shore, Sayan tugged on my hand—he’d clasped it tightly in his the whole way there—and turned me to face him. His quick fingers unbuttoned first my coat and then my shirt in short order. He made a deep, satisfied sound when my chest was exposed. I caught his wrists, laughing, as he almost yanked me off my feet with his enthusiasm.

He tossed the coat to the ground and hauled the unbuttoned shirt from my waistband. He unfastened my breeches while I was still drawing breath to protest, and whisked my breeches and drawers down my thighs to my ankles, where the bunched fabric got stuck on my boots. Crouching before me, he grabbed my left ankle and lifted it impatiently.

“Sayan.” I wobbled and braced a hand on his broad shoulder. “Sayan, wait.”

“I do not want to.” He tugged at my boot.

“Stop.”

At my firm command, he heaved a put-upon sigh and rocked forwards from balancing on the balls of his feet to plant his knees on the beach. He scowled up at me.

I touched his cheek. “Let’s at least make sure there is no one around to startle with my nudity.”

It was one thing for Sayan to be strutting about in all his glory. It was a treat to see him. According to the townsfolk, it was an honour.

Me, though?

I was less of a delight. Despite Sayan’s baffling admiration of my ordinary body and plain face, I was just another average middle-aged man.

And in general, one kept one’s clothes on in public.

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