Page 144 of Bewitched By the Sea Monster
Oh my goodness.
Thes-e-x.
One night, I lay up on the cliffs and masturbated while he brushed his nose against my arm, talking to me. Coaxing me. And I hadn’t been entirely into it at first. But hisvoice—when he dragged that husky timbre over my brain, murmuring nonsense words and terms of endearment—it was enough to have me shoving my hand between my legs and working myself until I reached that spine-tingling orgasm.
And, somehow, my voice did the same for him, even if I was absolutelyhorridat dirty pillow talk.
“Er…I’m going to suck you dry, and…Oh stars, I sound like avampire!” I grinned and thumped his nose when he choked on a richly amused laugh. “‘I vant to suck vur blood.’ Goodness. I told you I’mawfulat this.”
“You’re lovely, Pippi. Always.” Alistair whuffled. And then groaned, when I rubbed my hands along his nose and muttered, “I wish I could actually get you in my mouth, though.”
I couldn’t see how he pleasured himself, and me asking, or trying to envision it out loud, usually made him writhe, so I asked a lot.
He told me I was lovely. Again, and again, and again, as he worked himself into a release. I’d never be able to hear that word again without either bawling my eyes out or flushing in embarrassment.
We pleasured each other as well, the way we had that first night. And every time I orgasmed, I saw visions of that long-limbed man. The one I dreamed about. The one who held me so tenderly and lovingly, while he kissed and suckled and yelled my name as he came undone.
And I knew this was the man Alistair had once been. Before the curse had gripped the island and twisted its inhabitants into new forms.
This was where the cruelty of fate came in.
Because I wanted that man. Wanted Alistair.
I laughed more with him than I ever had with Jackson. I felt sexy and free and content, as I dreamed and played and experienced.
For the first time in thirty-five years, Ilived.
I’d had to nearly diein the jaws of the sea to find myself. To figure out what my heart and soul wanted.
But the rapidly closing week was going to snatch all those discoveries away.
“I don’t want to go,”I whispered on my very last night on the island. The final time Alistair, as he’d lamented, would get to wear his “favorite hat.”
I hadn’t stayed on his head though, because I’d been too antsy to see him. So I treaded water beside him, suffering the cold, for a chance to explore his body.
Alistair twisted his neck, watching me.
“I could stay. You know…” I palmed his side.
“You can’t,” he said.
“Who says?” I traced my hand along the swell of his back. “I’m sure the isle is hiring. And I’d probably like working in tourism. Getting to meet new people every week. Listening to their stories and sharing their experiences.”
“Without ever living those stories and e-e-experiences yourself,” Alistair said.
I paused. “This week has beenmoreexperience than most people get in an entire lifetime.”
“But you shouldn’t settle for one week. You shouldwantmore. If you stay here…the…they…the isle…” He shook hishead, working at the words. “The isle s-s-staff…they came here because they had nowhere else. They stay, because they can’t a-a-a-affordto go anywhere else. They talk,” he added when I started to ask how he could possiblyknow that. “If you stay, you’d be trapped.”
“There are worse places to be trapped. I’d at least have you.” I peered up at him.
His nostrils billowed as anguish and longing curdled my insides. “No, Pippi. You freed yourself. Of that quagmire you spoke of. I won’t be the reason you become trapped in another.”
My nose twitched as tears tickled it.
He was right. Of course. A week on this isle, surrounded by the fog, had worn on me. A lifetime of staying on this little slab of rock, surrounded by the sea, suffocated by magic, never seeing the sun or the stars or the moon—it would destroy me. Eventually.
But leaving Alistair behind would destroy me as well.
