Page 65 of Of Magic and Rum
“Worse than dying a painfully slow death in the equivalent of immortal drowning?” I blink at her.
“Funny thing about being immortal. A sword through your stomach won’t kill you, but you can feel it all the same.” Her eyes turn glassy like she’s remembering the moment it happened.
“Anne.” Waiting for her to return to reality, I edge my thumb under her bottom lip. “We should get back to the ship. Nøkk could reappear at any moment.”
It’s peculiar to feel protective of another life above your own. But I dare say I’d be swallowed whole by the Kraken if it meant saving her life in the process. Is this what love is? Devotion? Commitments of the heart?
Anne chews her lip, her mossy eyes suddenly heavy, and unbuttons her shirt. “The sea ismydomain. He has no power here.”
Her domain. Anne cancommandthe seas and oceans. The realization should make me feel inferior as a mere mortal, but surprisingly, it only draws me to her more. Because I know she’d be willing to share it all with me. And even if I never ask, this knowledge puts her on a pedestal far above me.
I slide the unbuttoned garment from one of her shoulders, then the next. “I do suppose the crew can wait a few moments longer.”
She grins at me, propping on her elbows and spreading her milky thighs with a beckoning finger. As I remove the wet clothes, still clinging to me like a second skin, the tide has grown closer and splashes over us, making Anne’s blue scales on one side of her body shimmer in the moonlight. And as I crawl across the wet sand, hovering over her still smiling face, half sea nymph, half pirate queen, I admit what a lucky scoundrel of a pirate Calico Jack truly is.
He did it. Hefoundme—a mortal man without powers and only his mind, intuition, and strength to aid him. It’s remarkable, and not only can I not explain it, but I also had no doubts he’d succeed. There’s no way to rationalizethateither. Then he took care of me, rushing me to the sea despite the frigid temperatures heknewcould harm him. And when I opened my eyes, in complete sea nymph form, he gazed down at me like a prized, glittering jewel. No semblance of shock. No hints of distaste in his expression for my aquatic persona. Despite the cold seeping into his bones, he didn’t even appear in pain.
And now we sit on the sandy shoreline naked and devour one another with our gazes. There are so many destined unions among ethereal beings—soulmates, fated bonds, clandestine love that can withstand time and circumstance. But Jack is right.How would I know one way or the other if I have no idea how it’s supposed to feel? I don’t. But Nøkk? I can say with absolute clarity that he’snotmy mate.
Jack hovers over me, trailing the back of his hand down my cheek. “Give me your tail.”
The command gives me pause, and I blink at him.
The confusion must be evident in my expression because Jack smirks and kisses the tip of my nose. “I believe there were promises of tail play?”
A knot coils in my stomach, and I play a heated stare. I don’t know how much more perfect this man can be for me. Anything more, and I’d call him a liar for claiming to be merely human. Shifting my leg from his other side, I join my knees together and will the tail to return. My limbs fuse with a seam of shimmering blue light. The feet are the last to change, morphing into dark blue fins that I flap against the sand. “I can’t move much, beached like this.”
“Sounds like you’ll be at my mercy,” Jack whispers, coating his words with filth and silk.
A wave from the sea laps against my arm, the cerulean scales gleaming back to life. I curl my tail toward my chest, but Jack places his palm where my human knees would be and slowly shakes his head—left to right. My heart is racing like we haven’t done what’s about to transpire once before. As if we haven’t shared countless kisses and intimate moments. But this—this is different in so many ways. This is us going farther than lust and attraction alone.
“Lay on your stomach, love,” he says, coaxing me to turn and drumming his fingers against my tail’s scales.
I do as he asks, my breasts pressing to the wet sand. Turning my head to one side, I rest it on my hands, my tail’s fins involuntarily swaying in anticipation. An excited surge of nerves bubbles in my core, and I gasp when his callused fingertipstrace down my spine. He reaches the spot where my hips meet the apex of my tail and spends extra time stroking me there. The central fin at the tail’s tip flicks skyward, a sensual coil tightening in my stomach.
No one has ever touched me like this—exploratory, appreciative, and seductive.
Jack gently drums his fingers across my scales, skirting to one of two smaller fins protruding from where the tops of my thighs would be. His hand flutters over it, sending shivers and trembles through my lower half. My fingers dig into the sand now, my face lifting, eyes pinched shut. He’s trailing his touch down the tail’s center, paying particular attention to the seam where he saw my legs joining.
Pleasure builds and builds, the two smaller fins near my ankles flapping frantically. When Jack reaches my main fin, tracing through the primary vein, I blank out and cry through a climax I never knew possible. My body quakes through the aftershock. Jack’s beard brushes the skin at my nape.
“Am I a first for that too?” Jack smiles against my skin after giving it a playful nip.
Seas below. Even his arrogance has netted me.
I answer him by hoisting my hips in the air, thumping into his gut, and arousing a satisfying grunt and chuckle.
“Now give me your legs, Anne.” Jack’s hands curl around my waist, and he leans back on his haunches, watching my legs materialize with sapphire shimmers and ribbons of suspended bubbles.
I’m on my hands and knees in front of him, my ass propped in the air, presenting myself to him. A masculine groan pulls from his throat, and he grasps each cheek, squeezing them. The tip of him pushes at my entrance, but unlike before, he takes his time sliding inside—the slowness of it blissfully excruciating. When he’s filled me completely, he stills, bending forward totrail kisses down the length of my spine. He scoops water into his palm and trickles it over my back. As each scale appears, my skin sends jolts of pleasuring stings around their edges, making me acutely aware of each.
He's thrusting now—rhythmic and claiming. I reach behind me for his hand to latch onto something real because, despite my chimerical existence, I’ve somehow been thrown off my axis. He interlocks his fingers with mine, keeping the other palm at my hip, pulling me on and off him, and kneading the dimple at my lower back.
The sea’s waves become choppier and unruly, matching my erratic heartbeat. I can hear the waves rolling toward the shoreline before it reaches us, and as if Jack somehow senses it too, he hoists me up, slamming my back to his chest. The water splashes against our sides—frothy, salty, and majestic. I keep the chill from settling into Jack’s skin, not daring to let it ruin a moment like this. With me writhing against him behind me, he tilts my chin up to meet his lips, kissing me so deeply I can feel the sensation in my toes. He presses our foreheads together as we work in tandem. His thumb dips into my mouth, his other fingers gripping my chin.
After nibbling on his fingertip, I let out a shattered gasp, the euphoria sneaking up on me, and I reach for the back of his head, fisting his hair. One of his burly bronzed arms wraps around me, his hand splayed at my stomach right above my sex, and he pushes me against him, keeping me deliciously captive in his grasp.
“Incredible,” Jack moans against my neck, still pumping in and out of me in languid motions. “I can feel the oceanthroughyou.”
