Page 33 of Sea of Evil and Desire (The Deep Saga #1)

31

Morgana

T he memory of the attack, of the pirates’ bloodshot eyes and rough hands, clung to me like seaweed, wrapping around my thoughts and suffocating me as I fought my way toward the shore.

The anti-Mer propaganda, the dead mermaid with her purple features, those red eyes, and the shadows surrounding them—I no longer cared if these horrors were connected. I just wanted to put them behind me. To forget.

Something seethed through my blood and boiled around my bones. I didn’t know if I wanted to be sick or if I wanted to smash something to pieces—perhaps both. My eyes burned, and my jaw remained clenched. Rage, nausea, and shame twisted within me like ribbons coiling around my organs, leaving me drained.

Clouds hung low in the sky like hammocks holding too much weight, and the water was dark, but the milky glow of dawn on the horizon comforted me. I suspected I’d only been away a night or two, but I couldn’t be sure.

My grandmother’s fur coat flapped around my now-human body, and the cold water clashed against my hips as I dragged myself toward the beach.

A silhouette emerged on the boardwalk and quickly descended the rocks.

Shit, it’s headed for me.

The waves were just above my knees now, crashing against me like a desperate lover begging me to stay, and my wet coat was heavy on my back.

The figure was almost upon me. Their feet splashed my face with water as they approached, and there was nowhere to run.

I cried out, stumbling forward. At the same time, strong arms wrapped around me. Images of Teachie and Rackham flooded my mind, and I tried to push the attacker off, but my body was still weak from my transition into human form.

I fell, and my would-be attacker lifted me back up. Their touch was gentle, and they pulled my wet fur over my body. So, not a pirate. Not a danger.

The murky shades of dawn illuminated dark features. Finn .

I let out a gargle of relief. How welcome his familiar face was at this moment.

His gaze searched mine, and the absurdity hit me. How on earth was I going to explain this?

“I-I, um . . . swimming—again.” My teeth were chattering.

Finn’s black eyes glistened in the half-light, and I waited for him to pepper me with questions, but he said nothing. Keeping one hand on my back, he used the other to cup my chin, and his eyes darkened as he took in the places where the pirates had beaten me.

“What happened here?” He ran his fingers gently over the skin under my right eye.

I flinched at his touch, the memory of the attack flashing through my mind, and he quickly withdrew his hand.

“I must have hit my head on some rocks,” I lied. Badly.

His other hand, still on my back, curled into a fist. “This is all my fault,” he breathed.

Tears threatened to spill from my eyes, and all I could do was shake my head.

His black jeans were soaked, and his white T-shirt, which had become wet from my coat, was sticking to his chest. Yet he wasn’t trembling with cold like I was. He pressed his body close to mine, and I thought about how many times I had imagined this—imagined my hands on him, digging my nails into his chest.

“This is not your fault,” I exhaled. The nauseating thoughts of the pirate’s rough hands eddied from my mind as he looked at me.

An inner turmoil seemed to plague his features as his eyes fell upon my lips.

“What are you fucking doing to me?” He sighed, removing his hand from my cheek to rake it through his hair.

“Make me forget . . .” The words slipped from my mouth before I could stop them, and as Finn turned back to me, his features were shadowed by something carnal, but then he looked away again, biting his knuckle as if fighting a battle in his mind.

Before I could second-guess myself, I dragged his face back to mine and kissed him. He stiffened in surprise, but then his tongue swept into my mouth, and I whimpered.

Finn’s movements became driven by need as he grabbed my hair, intensifying the kiss. My split lips cried out in protest, but I didn’t want to stop. The faces of Teachie, Rackham, and the dead mermaid faded from my mind with his touch.

His lips found my neck, and he pressed his open mouth into it. His intoxicating scent washed over me—a blend of sea salt, cologne, and the smoky trace of whisky, as if he’d tossed back a glass before rushing to meet me.

The water lapped at our ankles, as persistent as the heat building between us, and his lips met mine once more. Our tongues slid against each other, wet, warm, and salty. So this was what it felt like to enjoy a kiss? There was loneliness and pain on his tongue as it searched my mouth, desperate for release. I had never been kissed like this before.

It had been clumsy and rough with other boys, their emotions a nauseating mess. But this . . . this was something else. This was dangerous—the kind of kiss that lingers in your bones, haunting your thoughts for a lifetime.

Finn’s hands skimmed my hips and then closed around the fur coat covering my ass as he felt the shape of me. An image of the pirate’s grasping hands flickered through my mind. I flinched. Finn noticed and released his grip.

No , this was my choice. I would not let the pirates take this away from me. I arched into him and met a stiffness beneath his jeans. I trembled as an image of Rackham’s crotch pressed against my face made it through the throbbing pleasure. Trying to forget it, I ran my hand down Finn’s front and cupped the hardness growing there.

“ Fuck ,” he rasped into my neck. My hands lingered between his thighs, feeling the length of him pressing against the wet denim of his jeans—but Rackham’s rotten grin crawled back into my subconscious.

Reality washed over me in the absence of pleasure.

“Wait, stop!” I pulled myself from Finn’s embrace. “You have a fiancée!” As the words came tumbling from my mouth, my heart ached with the weight of the truth.

Finn turned from me, looking out over the ocean. His arms were still at my waist, and part of me wanted to pull him back into me. I chewed on my lips—they tasted of him.

“Forgive me.” He let his arms fall from my sides. The wind was in his dark hair, and his white shirt, now soaked, was adhering to him, outlining the muscles in his torso. When he turned back to face me, his impenetrable mask had returned.

“I’ve tried to fight this because you deserve . . . better. But that’s also why I couldn’t stay away. ” Rubbing the back of his neck, he dragged his gaze from mine.

No, no, no . That was not what I wanted him to say. I wanted him to say that it was over with his fiancée and that he was free. Free to kiss me, free to let me run my hands over every inch of his body, free to run his hands over mine. Free to take me here and make me forget about it all . . .

How could I have been so stupid? Perhaps it was because I was still half in my water-world mentality, where anything seemed possible. My heart raced—it was no longer pounding from Finn’s touch but from boiling rage that bubbled up somewhere deep within.

“Why are you here, and why now?” Color bloomed on my cheeks. The wind was in my hair, too, and it had begun to pluck at its strands. Like Medusa calling her many snakes to action.

Finn looked bashful for once in his life. “I, ah—intuition,” he muttered.

“Why do you continue to seek me out when you have a fiancée? Why ?”

“I . . . ” His face looked pained, as if finding the words he needed to say was a struggle. “I’m sorry,” he finally managed. “I’m not a good person or someone you should be around.” He hung his head, and the wind toyed with his curls.

“You’re the one who’s come here and found me!” I cried. Oh no, the lump in my chest was back.

He raised his eyes to meet mine, his expression cold as ice. “It was wrong. Everything I have done with you has been wrong.”

Everything I have done with you has been wrong. His words impaled my chest.

A burning line of anger slithered through my being.

Seriously, fuck him.

How was he able to be so cold, so composed, when my emotions were tearing my body to shreds?

“I never want to see you or your split personalities again. Just leave me alone!” My voice broke, as I pulled my wet coat around me. As tears burned my cheeks, I marched out of the surf and onto the damp sand.

I will not let him see me cry.

“Morgana, I’ve got to talk to you! I can explain,” he called after me, still standing in the crashing waves.

I disregarded his cries and clambered up the slick black rocks. As I left the concrete docks behind, the horizon was bleeding into a golden hue. I didn’t look back. I didn’t want to see Finn standing there.

It dawned on me how crazy I must look striding up this sleepy street in the early morning hours, tears streaming down my bruised cheeks, my red hair wild and wet, wearing nothing but a long fur coat.

The panic of being trapped by the pirates still clung to me. But Finn’s kiss had made me forget them. His kiss had made me forget everything .

My anger dissipated slightly. What had he wanted to tell me?

Wrong, he said that we were wrong.