Page 67 of Goldilocks
Fionn got up, and he took the marker and tub from Sam. “What am I writing?”
“Just the date and time,” Sam said.
Fionn inscribed both neatly on the tub, offered Sam back the marker and returned to his seat within the cabin. As they waited for the coastguard, Fionn got bored with the silence and loosed a dozen snapping insults about his boat and his suspicion that Sam had set him up, but he didn’t mention Sam’s eyes again.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The coast guard arrived on site and questioned Fionn extensively. Sam wasn’t even asked how he’d ended up coming to the rescue, and once he said the boat was half-sunk by the time he arrived, he was given leave to go. They dropped marker buoys into the water around the yacht so nobody would accidentally sail over it. Fionn transferred to their boat, and Sam left the area before them.
He went to Curlew Bay and quietly went about making his bed. He brushed his teeth over the side of the boat before he lay down under the blankets. One was gone with Fionn and two were set aside for cleaning, so Sam was back to the familiar chill of the ocean encroaching upon him as he lay down to sleep.
The boat rocked gently under his ear, a soothing lull.
And in that soothing lull, a familiar splash.
Sam sighed. “I’m not in the mood for any of this right now. I just want to sleep.”
“I do not wish to anger you,” Goldilocks spoke softly. “Or intrude on your nest. But you are cold.”
Sam opened his eyes to stare at the roof of his cabin. The words? They were simple enough. But that hesitant, wary tone had Sam well aware that an apology was soon to follow. Sam’s anger wasn’t even all that big anymore. He was tired; it had faded.
“Are you offering to warm me up?” Sam asked dryly. He craned his neck, flicking his eyes to Goldilocks. He was bare from the torso up, and a bundle of blankets hid the rest of his nakedness. “Or did you want to throw a wet blanket at me?”
“They’re dry.”
Goldilocks stood in the middle of the deck. Waiting. Patient. And he was damned patient, wasn’t he? Like Connor had said. Sam dropped his head onto the pillow. The rest of his anger depleted. The energy to hold even a pointless grudge was gone, never mind righteous anger. “Fine,” Sam said.
Goldilocks quickly knelt at Sam’s side and draped two more blankets of thick fur on top of the remaining thin blanket. They were dry, like he said, and Sam hadn’t a clue how he’d gotten dry blankets to the boat or even where they’d come from. Goldilocks lifted the blankets, but he hesitated. Long enough that Sam could have told him to leave. Which he didn’t.
Moving slowly, but deliberately, Goldilocks slid into the spot next to Sam. Just as slowly, as if he were purposely giving Sam time to warn him off, he rested his arm over Sam’s waist. It didn’t matter that Sam was clothed, he felt the heat of Goldilocks through the layers, annoyingly pleasant.
“I angered you,” Goldilocks said, breath warm on Sam’s cheek. There were a few beats of silence, and Goldilocks shifted around. Let out a huff. “But you are not perfect either.” His tone wasallsulk.
“Are you being serious right now?” Sam demanded, the words gushing out of him. He jerked toward Goldilocks, only to have to push back so he could actually see him and not just breathe against his cheek.
Goldilocks gazed at Sam, somehow sorry and challenging and sulking all at once. “This is aterriblenest,” he criticised. “A rat could build a better nest in a gutter.”
“Are you beingserious?” Sam demanded again, hot emotion choking its way up his throat.
“I’ve never seen a worse nest,” Goldilocks told him. “Yet I was kind and did not criticise because I know you tried and effort is important. Though the outcome is unfortunate.My point is, I forgave you. I did not get angry or—”
Sam scrubbed his face with his uninjured hand, a half-demented laugh bubbling up. “My nest is terrible. It’s terrible, but you were nice to me about it? You were kind and forgave my terrible nest?”
“Yes.”
Sam laughed.
“It was also nice of me to save that man,” Goldilocks pointed out.
Sam released his own face, grabbed Goldilocks instead, and he kissed the goddamn merman.
Their lips touched, and everything in Sam cracked free: all his finely held restraint, his values, his reservations, even his bruised heart burned up like cinder shards. He gripped Goldilocks’s jaw, getting his tongue between those lush lips, making the merman groan, and then he grunted in surprise as Goldilocks surged against him, pushing him onto his back.
A tail, not legs, slotted between Sam’s thighs. Goldilocks’s weight pinned him. Restrictive. Perfect. Comforting in a way Sam rebelled against.
Goldilocks pulled back too soon, and Sam chased after his mouth until a hand on his chest forced him down flat. “I was not angry about the nest because I know you are different from me. You do not value a nest in the same way I do. I could have been insulted when you first invited me into it, but I know that you did not mean it to be one.”
Sam panted beneath Goldilocks and blinked in the gloom to meet his shining golden eyes.