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“Yes,” I said. “I’ve lost you too many times. Stop waiting. Yes.”

I reached forward and pulled him down to me. I watched the water rolling off his shirtless body, and I felt heat rolling in me like clouds rushing to storm. He took my hand in his and guided it to the hardness below his abdomen. I felt him, touching and pressing against his firmness, and a sensation like a wave came over me, revealing itself in my trembling breaths.

Milo pushed his lips against mine as he leaned farther over me, kneeling in the space between my legs. He coaxed from me a tender gasp that had me holding my breath as he gently nudged my legs apart.

“Katrina Delmar, my starlight, I’ve waited 300 years for you,” he breathed. I used my other hand to help remove the soaked undergarment from his lower half. My core shook when he pushed his length against the bare skin between my thighs. He braced himself up with one hand, looking over me, and stroked my hair with the other. I ran my fingers up his back, tracing the curve of his muscles and feeling every part of him in a new way.

“In those 300 years, I’ve found many treasures, but never one as priceless as you. I would bury myself with you to keep from losing you again. I would seek you a thousand times to find you again and again. I would make a map of your body with the stars and follow it for eternity.” He kissed me again before pulling away to snap off the ring from where it hung around his neck. He took my hand and slid the tiny gold circle onto my finger. “In this place, I confess my undying love for you. You are finally mine. And I will share you with no other.”

He dipped below and tasted me. Fire blazed up in me like cannons, like the flare of a warship in the dead of night. I moaned out my pleasure softly. He held me, clinging to me like a lost treasure he’d found again. My back arched as he pulled me to him. Slowly, gently, he rolled against me until he buried himself in me. I raked my fingers through his hair and down his back glistening with sweat and seawater. He crashed against me like waves rising and falling along the shore over and over. And with my legs hooked around him, I pulled him further into me like the draw of the tide.

With a tender growl in my ear that made me whimper, he squeezed my wrists. “Trust me,” he uttered against my lips that were swollen from kissing him. I closed my eyes and let myself drift in this ecstasy as I rocked my hips against his, as though we were two rolling waves breaking into each other.

“I always have. Make me your map. That only you can navigate,” I shuddered between soft gasps.

Milo continued as I looked up at him once more. In his eyes I saw a look of rugged desire and unguarded passion that made me want to stay here forever, trapped in a time and place where no one knew we existed. So that we could stay like this till the end of time.

A powerful sensation in me crested, and I cried out with an ancient songful voice, as he flooded me all at once with a trembling groan. And the cave grew silent except for our heaving breaths and the ever-constant rushing of water at our backs. With a beautiful, foreign exhaustion overtaking my body, I rested my head against Milo’s rising chest, and he wrapped his arm around me, tracing the skin on my chest with his fingers.

“Many are the stars, Katrina. But yours is the only light I want to look upon.” He brushed his lips against my hair, and we rested together for a while in the dark of our paradise beneath the moon. I clung to him, cherishing every moment until our inevitable return to the belly of Nassau and the cruel wake of reality.

31

Know the Ropes

Milo

Ipulled Katrina closer to me as she slept. How could she love me after what she’d seen me do? How could she yield herself to me like this after she watched me kill? I didn’t understand it. But maybe there was just enough darkness in us both to balance things out.

I traced the rim of the ring on her finger with my thumb. My promise to her to be whatever she needed whenever she needed it. A protector, a friend, a lover—and even an enemy when that “other” side of her took hold. And I smiled as I realized it was just as much her promise to let me.

The night hours passed like the mist in the air from the waterfall below, fleeting and gone as quick as vapor. But it couldn’t vanquish the memory of her skin against mine, her flesh between my teeth, and her hands taking hold of my body. The sweet taste of honeysuckle and sweat lingered on my tongue. Each sensation around me seemed as tangible as fireflies, each a dreamlike mark of our time here.

“We have to go back,” Katrina uttered weakly. “We can’t stay here.”

“I know,” I rubbed her bare shoulder as she shivered against me.

I helped her to her feet, and hesitantly we both reentered the water to make our way back to the shore of the lagoon.

“I can definitely feel how cold this water is now,” Katrina said through chattering teeth.

“Now you see why it took me so long to get in,” I chuckled. She responded with an icy splash, and I returned the favor. Finding our clothing, slightly damp from the humid night air, we dressed and set back out toward the inn.

“How often will I have to change, I wonder?” Katrina asked as we walked, and the dim glow of the town just came into view.

“I suppose whenever you feel you’re losing yourself,” I shrugged.

Katrina sighed and looked ahead, quickening her pace. “ I wish…I wish there was a mermaid I could talk to who could help me understand all this. There’s too much to learn. And even if we find the trident, Cordelia said only a siren can use it. But that could mean anything. What if we find it and can’t figure out how to use it? This is like the necklace all over again.”

I matched her pace, quickening my step to stay alongside her as I thought of something that I debated whether or not to share. But I knew if I stayed silent in an effort to keep her safe, it would be a rift in the trust we’d rebuilt. Even if I was the only one who would ever know about it. I couldn’t try to keep her from dangerous things. I couldn’t do that to her again.

“There are mermaids aboard the Siren’s Scorn,” I uttered. “Captives. Two, if I remember correctly.”

Katrina dug her heels into the dirt path below us and whipped around to face me. “Can you take me to them?”

“We’ll have to be careful. And quick. We need to rest before tomorrow.”

“We did rest,” Katrina winked at me.