Page 26 of Stranded With the Grumpy Mermaid

She is beautiful in a way that hits me low and hard. Not polished. Not posed. Salt dried on her skin, bruises darkening one knee, a scrape at her hip, hair wild from the sea. Neri exactly as she is.

My gaze travels down her again. She parts her thighs a fraction beneath it.

"You're staring."

"I know."

"Is that going to continue for long? Because I'm cold."

I lower myself onto the blanket beside her again, one knee settling between her parted thighs. I brace one hand beside her shoulder and lean over her until my chest nearly brushes hers.

"A while longer.” I put my hand flat on her stomach and she shivers under my touch. I bend over her until my mouth is close enough to brush hers when I speak. “First, I'm going to make you come all over my mouth. Then I'm going to get inside you and make you come again."

Her breath goes out of her all at once. The shimmer flares along her collarbone and I run my fingers alongside it, fascinated. Her body is telling me what she wants even when she doesn't have words for it, light chasing every shiver across her skin.

I slow down.

I start at her mouth and work down, sliding my fingers over her silken skin. Her throat. The line of her collarbone. Her breasts, heavy and soft. When I take one nipple into my mouth she makes a low sound and her spine comes off the blanket.

I draw it over my tongue, then suck gently until her fingers tighten in my hair.

Her breath catches. I do it again, harder this time.

"Rafe."

I cross to the other breast and give it the same attention, my thumb continuing to circle the first nipple while my tongue works the second. Her breathing grows shallow. Her knees shift wider beside my hips.

When I lift my head her chest is glowing, faint and steady, and she is looking at me with her lips parted and her eyes gone dark.

I want to see how bright I can make her. I put my mouth on the gill seam under her jaw.

The reaction is instant.

She arches so hard her heel skids in the sand past the edge of the wool, and the seams open a fraction under my lips, silk-fine and warm. A faint taste of salt touches my tongue.

She gasps.

"Rafe. What is that? What did you just do?"

"This?"

I do it again, slower, tracing the delicate seam with my tongue. Her fingers flex against my scalp. Her hips shift beneath me. The seam trembles under my mouth.

I suck lightly at the skin just below it. Her entire body jerks.

"Oh God."

That nearly ends me. I follow the line of her throat down to her collarbone and lower. There is no need to ask if she likes it anymore. Her body is answering every question for me.

Her hands slide restlessly over my shoulders as I move down her. Sternum. The soft underside of her breast. Ribs. The flat of her stomach, where the shimmer pools and moves beneath my mouth.

I kiss the uninjured hip first. Then the scraped one, gentler. Her stomach tightens when I move between her thighs.

I look up the length of her. Her legs are spread around my shoulders. The sight of her open for me makes my mouth water.

She stares back at me.

Then slowly, deliberately, she lowers herself onto the blanket.