Page 3 of The Naiad’s Wish (Immortal Bonds)

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I stared at him indignantly as I scraped back my wet hair. When had he arrived? “You’re home,” I said.

“I’ve been home for a while,” he replied, leaning into the elbows he had resting on his thighs. “Don’t tell me I surprised you?”

“Of course you did not. You could not. I am aware of all things in and around my lake.”

I wasn’t about to admit that I’d been so caught up in my seething jealousy and my endless yearning that I hadn’t noticed him. That presumably, I hadn’t even noticed the turning of the world as two weeks slipped past like two minutes.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” I said. “I knew you were there the whole time.”

“You did, hmm? The whole hour that I have sat here and admired you as you drifted and dreamed away?”

I stood tall, tightening my abdominal muscles and dropping my chin to send him a sultry look from beneath my lashes. “Yes. The whole hour.”

He was still amused. “Because I thought I surprised you.”

“You did not.” I strode through the shallow water towards him.

“And I only got here ten minutes ago.” He was openly laughing at me now.

I didn’t care that he’d caught me out. I smiled back at him. I couldn’t help it. I loved to see him laugh.

I loved the way it made his beautiful dark eyes gleam. I loved the way his happiness wound around me, drew me in.

I came out of my lake, stepped easily up over the low bank that the willow—and Erik—sat upon, and slowed as I walked to him.

I wanted to rush.

I wanted to snatch him up, throw him to the ground and have my way at once. Cover his beloved face with kisses. Cover other parts of him with kisses. Have those laughing, rich-earth eyes look up into mine as the laughter faded and was replaced with passion.

But I would control myself. I was a master of this , at least, if not of Erik.

I closed the distance between us with all the seductive grace at my disposal, and eased between his legs. I touched his chin as he tilted his head back, and I kissed him softly, coaxingly.

He hummed, then pulled away and said, “No.”

“Mm?” I said, following his lips blindly. “What?”

He caught hold of my wrist and drew my hand out of his breeches.

I stared down at it. I didn’t recall putting it there.

I didn’t recall putting Erik on his back, either, and yet he was sprawled over the wide willow trunk and I was arched over him, with one hand planted beside his head and the other, until he removed it, in his breeches.

I blinked.

When had I done all that?

How did he make me lose control so easily?

“Yes,” I said on principle. “Oh, yes.”

He sighed and pushed up to his elbows. “I should have waited at home,” he complained to the sky. “Then—when you eventually realised I was here—you’d have come to find me, and we’d be doing this in comfort.”

My Erik was not fond of making love outdoors. At least, not when it was cold.

Last year, we’d had some successful trysts in the meadow at the end of a long hot summer day, or on an unseasonably warm autumn morning. In general, though, Erik liked the privacy of his own home.

“I knew you were here,” I insisted.

He didn’t reply, but his smile grew.

I scowled and tugged him lower on the trunk, closer towards me until his thighs were spread around my hips and I could feel his heat sinking into my bare skin. “Very well. I did not know you were here. But I was thinking of you.”

“You were?”

“Yes. I have done nothing but think of you since you left me.”

He reached up and held my sides. “I came home. I will always come home.”

“You had better,” I told him, pulling his shirt out of his breeches to expose his solid stomach. I rubbed an admiring hand over it, watching it hollow under my touch as he sucked in a sharp breath and enjoying the abrasion of the hair that began under his navel and led down to his lovely soft cock.

How strange, to think that when I first encountered his softness, it had confused and angered me. I still didn’t understand why he couldn’t get hard. I didn’t need to understand. It was a part of him, and so I loved it.

Whether he orgasmed or not—and he did not, at least not in a way I was used to—his pleasure was a thousand times more overwhelming than any of my former lovers, all of whom had come quickly beneath my touch, spilling over my hands, my belly, into my mouth.

Simply lying with Erik and pressing my body against his gave me more satisfaction and brightness than any youth spurting and wailing under my dutiful touch ever had.

“I have missed you,” I said, still caressing his stomach.

He watched me touch him, his eyes hot. “Oh, yes?”

I slipped my hand lower and caught his balls, squeezing gently. “Mhm.”

“I’m sure you found a way to entertain yourself in my absence.”

I cocked my head at the playful tone.

He was teasing me.

I released him and took hold of myself instead, putting a knee to the willow trunk and casting my shadow over him. “I did,” I said, working my hand the length of my shaft and moving my hips in gentle pulses. I hissed at the sensation. It was always so much more when Erik was with me.

He continued to hold onto my sides, his thumbs rubbing in gentle circles. “I suppose you kept busy swimming in your lake?”

The only place we touched was where he held me. One of his hands glided around to rest on my buttock as I rocked into my grip, slow and easy. His eyes tracked down to my abdomen.

He did love to watch my muscles work for him.

“Yes,” I said, and gasped. I wanted to say something else, something clever, but my thoughts grew hazy as my body clamoured to reach its peak.

“Took a few walks in the forest?” Erik said, still in that conversational tone.

“Hmm?” My hips were moving faster.

Erik’s smile flashed bright and strong beneath me. The hand that wasn’t on my buttock grazed up the length of my torso to rest over my heart, grazing over a nipple.

I moaned and flopped onto him.

He choked out a laugh, dragged my mouth to his for a firm kiss, then pushed my shoulders, easing me up and away. He ignored my noise of complaint. “Enough, Sayan. I want you home with me.”

“I want you now .”

“I want you now, too,” he said, “but I want you spread out beneath me on our bed, where I can spoil you.”

Spoil.

I shuddered at the word, and a prickling wave of delight rushed over my skin.

Erik loved to spoil me. I would take as much spoiling as he’d give me, and secretly want more and more and more.

I rubbed fretfully over him. “I don’t think I can wait.”

He pushed my hair back from my hot face, his expression fond and patient.

“But,” I said, heaving a sigh, “I will try.”

I pulled him quickly up to his feet, catching him when he stumbled. I took his hand, wove our fingers together, and drew him briskly along after me.