by Sonya Blake
She attempted a roguish smile, but Sam saw through it.
“You don’t have to put this place on the market till you’re ready,” he said. “Won’t sell in winter, anyhow. You’ve got time.”
“I feel like this is where I need to be.” She sighed, her big eyes resting soft on his. “I obviously have some things I’ve gotta figure out about myself.”
Chapter Fifteen
Violet was used to spending her Saturday nights alone, but somehow this one felt worse. She was annoyed at herself for getting attached to the idea of a date with Sam. As for being jealous of Kaia Foley—well, she wasn’t.
Even from their momentary acquaintance in the apothecary, Violet was able to pin Kaia as the sort of fool who always trusted the universe to provide for her and to blame herself when it didn’t, then pull herself up by her bootstraps and keep going. She was the kind who took her life passively, unlike Violet, who had painstakingly carved out every micron of her existence because she knew from her hundreds of lifetimes that handouts were few and far between, and most people would trample and take advantage where they could.
Her Mercedes gave a cheery beep when she locked it and walked through the garage door and into the mudroom of her house. Kicking off her snow boots, she padded into the spacious, open-concept kitchen of the showy waterfront Victorian her parents had originally kept for summering away from Boston. She threw her purse onto the labradorite countertop and went to the fridge for some veggie juice left over from the morning.
No. Better to keep an empty stomach. The work she was about to do would require total focus and purity of intent. While being hungry wasn’t comfortable, it was common witch’s wisdom that a certain degree of hunger sharpened one’s wits and lent itself to more potent spellcraft.
Violet climbed the sweeping staircase in the center hall, ascended to the third floor, then took the narrow stairwell to the cupola room at the peak of the house’s impressive tower. The maple and oak floor was designed in a starburst pattern radiating from an eight-pointed star in the center, widening to the octagonal walls with their cushioned window seats below mullioned windows. She lit three white pillar candles on a simple, undressed table in the center of the room, then went to a large trunk against one wall. It was made of the heaviest oak and inlaid with iridescent shell. The latch gave a smooth click when she unlocked it with the key she kept always around her neck.
The winter wind careened around the cupola, carrying with it the crash of the ocean against the rocky edge of land to the north of the harbor, where the water was rough and wild. It must be a constant sound in the house on Foley’s Point, Violet thought. Sam must be hearing the ocean crashing right this very moment, and he must love that. She squeezed her eyes tight, trying to choke off the suddenly-materializing image of him leaning in to kiss Kaia, his big, strong hands on her coiled thighs.
Bitterness twisted and tore through her stomach as she lowered her hands into the trunk. Her fingertips found the thick, smooth fur within. She felt her knotted innards loosen. Gathering the heavy pelt, she lifted it out of the trunk and into the candlelight. Laying it out on the table, she ran her hands over the lush, spotted fur, admiring the way it caught the light like a dark gray pearl.
Chapter Sixteen
Sam told himself he’d bank the fire in the furnace in the shed on Foley’s Point and then head home to the island. But when he stood out there in the frigid dark, smelling the tang of the ocean and the warm sweetness of woodsmoke, listening to the distant sound of Kaia singing as she did dishes inside, he wanted to stay. Badly. He looked up at the light from the kitchen window and wanted nothing more than to go into that warmth and remain there till morning, with her.
They’d already said goodbye—a platonic hug and an awkward smile. It would be stupid for him to go back inside now. There was no reason to. They had behaved themselves and given each other nothing to regret. It’d be smart not to mess that up.
Yet, even as he started moving one foot in front of the other in hopes that his path would take him down to the cove where the dinghy waited to transport him to the Angeline, he found himself heading back toward the kitchen door. Kaia’s voice beckoned to him, lilting and floating in effortless, unaffected beauty. The light broke upon him as he swung the door open.
Kaia looked up from the sink, up to her elbows in suds. Her full, gorgeous lips parted in surprise. Her ginger brows lifted over her wide eyes, blue as wild irises.
“Forget something?” she asked, utterly innocent.
That innocence about her, that honest openness—it turned him on to the point of distraction. He loved it like the nip of a freshly squeezed lemon, or the zap of heat from a dash of good hot sauce on his tongue. He craved her.
Sam crossed the floor in two strides and cupped her face in his hands, finding the warm softness of her lips with his. She tasted of the ocean and good beer, and she released a small, satisfied moan as she let her body lean into his. God, he wanted to hear more of that. He wanted to hear her growl with pleasure, and he wanted to be the one to make her do it.
As she began to unzip his jacket, he sank his head to her shoulder and kissed the velvet softness of her neck, where she smelled of shampoo and soap, and the wooly scent of her sweater. Her hands slid his coat off his shoulders as her lips took his again.
If it were up to him, he’d set her round rump right on top of the kitchen table and take her then and there, but she was leading him into the living room, entering the warm circle of firelight beside the hearth, pulling her sweater overhead. He ached at the sight of uninterrupted, creamy skin above her yoga pants, her breasts each the perfect size of half a grapefruit and already peaked with excitement. He didn’t want to let her out of his sight, but even more than that he wanted the sensation of her skin on his, and so he forfeited looking at her for the moment in order to get out of his own shirt.
Now with the heat of the fire on his bare torso, Sam dropped to his knees on the hearth rug, running his hands up the curve of Kaia’s hips, pressing his fingertips into her waistband. He looked up at her as he began dragging her pants down over the slope of her ass, grabbing her panties as he went. Her mouth fell open, her eyelids half-closing over her eyes.
The skin of her belly was warm and soft as he rubbed his nose against it, relishing the feel of her fingers gripping his hair. Sitting back on his heels, he pressed his lips to the cleft between her legs and dipped his tongue into her.
Chapter Seventeen
Kaia had never wanted anybody like this. Never wanted anybody so bad it hurt. She was throbbing for him, and what he was doing was, at the moment, only making the ache more intense. Throwing her head back, she released a shameless groan.
“This okay?” Sam asked, pausing as he looked up at her.
“Don’t stop,” she replied, stroking her thumbs along his high cheekbones. Even though she wanted him to stop. Because she wanted more than this. She wanted everything.
He kissed the top of her hip, trailing gentle kisses back toward the apex of her thighs, and she ran her hands over his hair and his dark beard, taking in the span of his strong shoulders. The wild tattoo covering his arm seemed to writhe in the firelight, flickering with the movement of his muscles as he touched her, so softly. Nothing more than a whisper of pressure, but it made her tremble and groan. Gently, he pressed two fingers against her, sliding in and pulling out with a steady, even stroke, eyes watching her all the while. His tongue was slick and firm, laving and sucking until her knees went absolutely shaky and she had no choice but to hold on to his shoulders for support. Then he closed his eyes and moaned into her, growling until she felt the vibration shoot straight into her belly.
Kaia cried out at the explosion of pleasure, feeling energy rocket through her entire body, bringing her to her knees. She clutched Sam’s chest. She could easily have collapsed onto the carpet in a pile of satisfied, humming pleasure, but his hand stayed with her, his fingers gently stroking as he began to unbuckle his belt with his free hand.
“I want you,” he whispered, his eyes searching hers as he pushed his jeans and boxers down around his hips.
“I can see that,” Kaia said, biting down on her lower lip as she lifted her head to get a look at him. Everything about the man was impressive, it seemed. “I want you too. I don’t think I can wait another minute.”
“Me neither.” One side of his lips curved in a smile as he looked down to roll on a condom slipped out of his wallet. “At least we’ve got that figured out, huh?” he said, now leaning over her, clutching his sheathed cock with one hand and gripping her waist with the other.
He began to enter her gently, eyes glued to hers. She took hold of his hips, wanting to fill herself with him, wanting to know what it was like to have all of him. But he smiled as he pulled away and leaned down to lick her again, boldly, like he was a dying man and she was his oasis. She arched against him, hands scrabbling for purchase on the rug as he pressed his fingers inside, gliding over the spot where pleasure was still buzzing deeply within her.
“Oh my God,” she cried, slamming her fists into the floor when he made her come again, almost instantly.
He chuckled as he kissed her hipbones, her navel, up to her ribs. She squirmed delightedly at the tickling of his beard brushing her skin as he took one nipple between his lips, tonguing it and rolling it gently between his teeth until she was writhing.
“Now, Sam,” she begged, desperate to feel him inside her, gripping the back of his neck and sealing his lips with her own. “I need you now.”
He tasted of brine and sweetness, smelled of woodsmoke and the cold ocean outside. “All right,” he said, softly.
Her jaw dropped as he edged in for real this time, all the way.
She’d never known fullness like this. It felt as though a column of molten gold had been drawn tight through the center of her body. He pressed until his body was flush with hers, his face slack with languor, then coming to life as he drew in a satisfied breath and smiled shyly.
“Does that feel… okay?” he asked, moving with caution. “Because I know I’m…”
“Kinda huge?” Kaia offered. “You feel amazing.”
She threw back her head and laughed with pure ecstasy.
Chapter Eighteen
He burrowed his head in her wild red curls as he began to thrust steadily, pressing her hips open now that he knew she could handle him doing so. She was so tight and hot he felt like he’d inserted himself into a burning Chinese thumb trap, in a good way. A really good way. He wanted it to go on forever, but her slickness and the sound of her moaning was driving him to the brink.
He gathered her hips into his hands and lifted them from the floor as he let loose and pounded into her. At the sight of her breasts bouncing, Kaia throwing her head to the side and shutting her eyes, the feeling of her inner muscles contracting against him as she came for the third time, he gritted his teeth and cursed, striving to contain himself.
He wanted to turn her over. Her ass. He wanted to see her ass. He wanted to grip her by the tight little waist and hoist up her hips and pound against her round, full—but it was too late.
“Fuck!” Sam gasped as he came, throbbing hard inside her. She came again—was that four now?—gripping him tight with her strong thighs as she gasped and moaned.
He fell into the soft tumble of her hair, his heart thudding against the wall of his chest, sweat cooling between his shoulder blades and on the backs of his knees. After a few moments, when the spasm of pleasure had left and his body felt like unformed clay, he dragged himself off her.
She was grinning, but covered her mouth bashfully with one hand.
“What?” he asked as he knelt back onto his heels and peeled the condom away.
“Nothin’. Just happy,” she said.
It had to be the best thing he’d heard in a while. Maybe ever. Sam sighed, deeply satisfied himself. He rubbed a hand on her thigh, gazing at her languid, sprawled body.
Chapter Nineteen
Violet could not see what he saw, or hear what he heard, or even feel what he felt, but she knew Sam was with Kaia Foley at that very moment, betraying her. Hot, bitter tears streamed down her cheeks as she hugged the seal pelt to her chest, breathing in its familiar smell.
She’d found him on the rocks north of Marlan’s Cove, where she’d been collecting wild roses for a perfume she wanted to make. Her first perfume.
Emory—sporty and smiley—had made friends easily with the privileged girls at their private school in Boston. But not Violet. She lived for their summers in Maine and eventually convinced her parents—through terrible behavior that led to her expulsion from said private school—to let her remain in Quolobit with a full-time tutor, where she could walk across the street to the Quolobit Harbor Public Library whenever she felt like it, or take a bagged lunch and set out solo on the northward track that led out of town through mile after mile of undeveloped coastal forest. She’d been walking that way when she’d come across Sam.
He hadn’t been Sam then, though. He had still been a nameless creature. Wounded, wailing, he had frightened her at first. She watched him from the cover of the trees until she saw that he was not an animal from the sea, but a boy. A skinny but strong boy, naked and smeared in blood and seaweed, partially covered by a dark, slick thing that looked from a distance a little like a black trash bag.
Only it wasn’t a trash bag. And he wasn’t alone.
Out in the water at a short distance, the sun caught the wet, rounded head of a seal. Its black eyes were focused on land. The seal barked, and the boy barked back as he tried ineffectively to move towards the water. Violet edged her way to the open rocks, her hands sticky with pinesap, red and pricked by rose thorns.
This was no normal boy. Violet had read of such legendary creatures—selkies—ones who came from the sea to live as humans for a time. The pelt, still partially attached to his back, could bring her great luck and power, and give her complete control over him.
The rocks rumbled under her sandals as she stalked closer, foraging knife in hand. At the sight of her the seal dove into the water, its sleek body disappearing. Helpless on the rocks, the selkie boy looked up at Violet with wide, dark eyes, seemingly unaware of his nakedness as he screamed at her.
“You’re still mine,” Violet said now as she ran a hand over the cool fur of Sam’s sealskin. One of the candles guttered on her table. She pressed her lips to the ear of the seal pelt. “Go home, Sam. Leave Foley’s Point and go home.”
Chapter Twenty
Sam came back from the hall bathroom and began dressing immediately, a quiet, closed look on his face. As she pulled on her panties and the tee she’d been wearing under her sweater, Kaia asked, “Everything okay?”
Sam shot a look at her like he hadn’t realized she was in the room. He stared at her a moment, seemingly forgetting what they’d just shared. “I, ah… ” He rubbed his head, squeezing his eyes shut, then opening them again. “I’ve gotta go home.”
“What?” Kaia said, confused.
He grabbed her hands then, his eyes searching hers. “But I want you to come with me,” he told her, with a hushed tone in his voice that almost sounded like fear. His eyes darted away from her, into the shadows of the room.
Kaia let out a nervous laugh. “Sam? What the heck’s going on?”
“I don’t know.” He shook his head hard, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his palms. “I feel like there’s something I have to do… I just know I have to go home right now.”
“Okay,” Kaia said, gathering her leggings and sweater. “But is everything all right?”
Sam finished buttoning up his flannel. “Everything’s fine, yeah,” he said, his tone coming back to normal, sort of. “I need to work on some paintings for my show, and I want to do it first thing tomorrow morning.” The faraway look dissipated somewhat from his eyes, though he still seemed distracted as he tilted his head and gazed at her. “Maybe you’d let me paint you?”
Kaia chalke
d his odd behavior up to his artist’s temperament, and nodded. “I’d love that,” she told him, brightening. “I’d love to see your house—your island. And did you just say you have a show?”
As Sam spread out the embers in the hearth to make sure they didn’t reignite while no one was home, he told her about his upcoming show at the Water’s Edge Gallery on Main Street.
“That’s amazing, Sam! Congratulations,” Kaia said as she zipped up her coat and stomped into her Bean Boots.
Sam’s smile was part proud, part terrified. Kaia sensed there was something he wasn’t telling her. “You’ll do great,” she assured him, knowing what it was to be jittery about an upcoming engagement.
“I think it’d be amazing if you played at the show,” Sam told her, “if you’re still in town, that is.”
He held the door open to the howling night wind.
*
They arrived at Thursday Island just as the moon began to rise from the ocean, massive and golden amongst a smattering of tiny silver stars. Kaia followed Sam up the windswept walkway to the cottage and, following his example, grabbed an armful of wood before trailing him inside. They dumped the wood beside a hulking black shadow she took for a wood stove in the center of the living area. A slender tabby gave a chirp as it jumped down from the kitchen counter while Sam held a match to the wick of an oil lantern at the kitchen table.
“Well, hello,” Kaia said to the cat, bending to pet its silky head. It mewed loudly in approval. “What’s your name?”