Blazing Bedtime Stories, Volume VI

by Tori Carrington

  Still, that didn’t stop him from driving to the Newport Beach Marina, where he intended to take the schooner out and sail until he found her.

  “Mr. Morrison?”

  He was taking off his shoes and boarding the boat when he spotted the young, suited man advancing on him. “Yes?”

  “This is for you.”

  The man held out a sealed envelope.

  “Thank you…”

  As the guy walked away, Kieran ran his hand through his hair and considered the object in his hands.

  Items of this nature were never good.

  He tore off the end of the envelope and shifted out the folded contents… .

  And felt like he’d just been sucker punched.

  * * *

  DAPHNE WAS AWARE of Kieran before she saw the hull of his sailboat slicing the sea’s surface.

  She stopped her manic, aimless swimming and stared up, watching as the boat slowed.

  Was it possible he sensed her…?

  She pushed upward, aiming for a spot some hundred feet away where she might get a glimpse of him, just a glimpse, without his seeing her. She didn’t want to interact with him. She couldn’t. But it wouldn’t hurt to see him…

  She slowly broke the surface, watching as the sailboat slowed to a dead stop in the water, the motors having propelled it rather than the sails. And there Kieran stood on the deck, shielding his eyes as he scanned the water.

  Daphne ducked back beneath the waves, his instincts a little too uncanny for her liking.

  Something broke the water. She looked to see that Kieran had dove in and was swimming in her direction.

  She was shocked to the spot.

  He reached her and motioned upward with his thumb.

  She broke the surface with him.

  “I knew it was you,” he said. “I had to find you, had to see you… .”

  She was incapable of words. Incapable of movement. Incapable of doing anything but looking at his handsome face, the intensity of emotion in his expression.

  He didn’t even seem to care that while he labored to tread water, her tail allowed her to stay still with barely any action on her part.

  He didn’t seem to care she was a mermaid.

  “What are you doing?” she whispered.

  His grin warmed her more powerfully than the sun through clear waters.

  “I had to see you.”

  All at once, Daphne was reminded of their all too brief time together, the memory of which she’d planned to wrap around her on cold nights. His kiss, his touch, his softly said words…

  And now he was here, his mere presence promising that if she wanted more, it was there for the asking…

  But she couldn’t take it.

  She began turning away.

  “Please, don’t go,” he said, grasping her arm.

  It would be as simple as sinking beneath the water’s surface and swooshing her tail once to escape him forever. But in that one moment, she couldn’t have moved if her life depended on it.

  “I love you,” he said.

  * * *

  KIERAN WOULDN’T HAVE believed the words had he not heard himself say them.

  But once he had…

  “I know it sounds silly,” he said quickly. “I can’t believe it’s true myself.”

  The grin he felt split his face seemed to come from somewhere deep within.

  “But it is.”

  She was no longer trying to move away from him. That was a good thing. Wasn’t it?

  “I feel stupid saying this,” he said. “But from the first moment I spotted you… No, before then… It’s like I knew you were there. That what I was looking for, seeking…it was out here somewhere. It was you.”

  He waited for skepticism to show on her face, but it didn’t.

  “You saw me, didn’t you?” he asked, realization hitting him. “Before the night of that storm. You saw me.”

  She nodded almost imperceptibly.

  “How long?”

  She looked toward the boat, but didn’t answer.

  “How long?” he asked again, his fingers tightening slightly on the soft skin of her arm.

  “The first day you came out.”

  His heart felt like it had doubled in size, which he knew was physically impossible.

  Then again, so was the existence of mermaids.

  “Please, Kieran,” she said so softly it could have easily been mistaken for the wind. “Last night…was last night. You, me… We can’t see each other again.”

  His grin faded.

  “You have to promise me you won’t come out here again, won’t try to find me…”

  What was she saying?

  “I can’t.”

  She grasped his forearms. “But you have to. Can’t you see? We can’t be together. This, whatever happened between us…happened. And it was wonderful. But it can’t happen again. There’s no future for us. No tomorrow. Nothing beyond last night.”

  “Why?”

  Her expression was one of incredulity. She looked down at his legs, then her fins, then back up at him.

  Kieran gazed deep into eyes that were the color of uncut emeralds, his need for her so consuming, he didn’t care where they were or who might see them.

  He grazed the back of his knuckles along her jaw, then curved his hand around her nape. Kissing her was one of the sweetest sensations he’d ever known. The thought that he’d never do it again…

  He brushed his mouth lightly against hers, watching her expression go unchanged. Then he did it again, sampling the salt on her lips and dipping his tongue in for a more thorough taste.

  Her eyes drifted closed, then opened again, a soft sigh bringing the tips of her breasts briefly against his chest. He deepened the kiss and drew her closer, aware she was solely responsible for keeping them afloat as his hands boldly explored her generous curves. She felt so good. He thought he could touch her for a million years and still want for more.

  His fingers slid down her rib cage to her waist…reaching the point where skin turned to scale.

  She caught her breath, her eyes watchful. He held her gaze as he skimmed his hands lower…

  He wasn’t sure what he’d expected. He was a lifelong fisherman and knew the texture of many different species of fish. But this, her…

  So silky…

  So smooth…

  So inviting…

  He grasped her hips, marveling at the toned muscle, the fanning of her scales, even as she moved to keep their heads above water.

  Then his touch grew bolder still… .

  * * *

  DAPHNE GASPED, GOING still as Kieran probed areas she’d never dreamed he’d dare… .

  They both dipped under the waves before she caught herself and brought them both back above the water. She expected to see panic on his handsome face at going under. Instead, he gazed at her with the same warm, sexy intensity, completely trusting her as he kissed her again.

  She moaned deep in her throat, threading her fingers through his wet hair and launching a hungry assault on his mouth. His hands explored and stroked areas of her that weren’t human, igniting sensations that were so entirely new to her, she was forced outside her normal boundaries of control.

  He wasn’t…

  There wasn’t a chance…

  No way was he…

  His fingers stroked her most delicate parts and she went completely boneless against him, somehow managing to keep them afloat but having no idea how since she completely surrendered to his intimate touch.

  That he would want to feel her like this touched her in ways that transcended the sexual and demonstrated the velocity of the sentiment he’d declared.

  Then he was entering her…

  She was incapable of movement, marveling at the way he filled her in her current form. If last night had been beyond phenomenal, this…

  This…

  He moved his hips, stroking her.

  “So beautiful,” he whispered into her ear.

/>   Everything Daphne had ever believed suddenly went up in smoke. Her internal muscles clutched him, her external body trembled and shook…

  The low, animalistic sound that erupted from his throat communicated his own climatic state.

  She held him tightly, her body going rigid.

  They slid beneath the waves, a single entity rather than two, completely joined, together.

  And she knew she was now bound to this man in a way that had nothing to do with physical ropes, but with all-encompassing love… .

  * * *

  “I’M WILLING TO DO whatever it takes to make this work…”

  Kieran’s words were barely audible to himself over the sound of the waves gently lapping against their spent bodies.

  He hadn’t known a moment of fear as they sank into the water, joined in a way he suspected not many would ever achieve, the sea around them throbbing with life.

  Then she’d brought them to the surface again and they held each other tightly.

  “I can’t imagine never touching you again,” he said. “Kissing you…”

  He pressed his mouth against hers.

  “Making love to you…”

  She made soft sounds as they kissed.

  He reluctantly drew back, holding her gaze.

  “Please tell me there’s a chance. I would do anything…”

  She didn’t say a word for a long moment. And he found a glimmer of hope there.

  “Anything…”

  * * *

  I WOULD DO anything for love, but I can’t do that.

  Hours later, Kieran stood on the deck of his gently swaying sailboat staring off into the sunset, for the first time not staring at the water, or the horizon. Not seeing much of anything at all, really.

  Marriage…

  He tried to make sense of his conversation with Daphne. The one they’d shared just a short while ago right where he was standing. Where she had agreed to join him when he could no longer tread water. She’d remained in her natural form, her breasts covered by her burning red hair, her tail shimmering in the golden light.

  She’d said something about confirming her commitment to the sea…and the only way out of it was to marry before next week.

  It would have been easier if she’d told him the moon was about to sink into the Pacific right where his boat was.

  Marriage…

  So much for being willing to do whatever it took.

  The corner of the envelope he’d been handed earlier flapped in the light evening breeze. He edged it out from the brass paperweight holding it under the steering wheel and took out the papers again.

  At first, he’d believed it was his final divorce decree, come a few days early.

  Instead the documents informed him that his partner was suing for control of the company, on the grounds of Kieran’s mental incompetence.

  That made twice in six months that two of the people closest to him had betrayed him. He couldn’t trust anyone.

  So how could he possibly marry Daphne?

  He wasn’t sure how long he stood there, contemplating everything that had transpired in the past twenty-four hours, questioning his sanity as surely as Mike had, contemplating his life up until this point.

  It was dark and the moon was high in the sky by the time he finally turned to head back into port. He was no closer to making sense of things than he had been three hours earlier. And he harbored the deep sensation that he wouldn’t understand much anytime soon.

  8

  “WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY THIS?” Kieran slapped the tattered legal documents on his partner’s desk at Morrison and Dunlop five days later.

  Mike sat back in his chair. “Finally, a reaction.”

  “Piss off.” Keiran paced across the well-appointed office in San Clemente with the view of the Pacific but too far away to smell it.

  The ultimate in ironies.

  He’d barely slept, barely eaten, and had all but pushed his parents aside, leaving them to entertain themselves for the most part, incapable of more than coffee with them in the mornings and after dinner. And even then, he’d been so zoned out that even his mother had taken a break from her usual obsessing to obsess over him.

  He was a mess. He shouldn’t even be here. He’d told himself he wouldn’t confront Mike until he’d reestablished his equilibrium. Got some sleep. Put himself back to rights.

  The problem was, he was starting to believe he was never going to achieve that.

  He faced his onetime friend. “Explain.”

  Mike grinned. “Are you going to sign off on those papers?”

  “Are you out of your damned mind?”

  Mike got up and rounded the table, extended his hand. “Hello, Kieran. Good to see you again.”

  He took the hand but squeezed it to the point of pain. “I’m about two breaths away from laying you flat.”

  “Good.”

  He released Mike’s hand. “Stop with the riddles and tell me what’s going on.”

  Mike slapped him on the back and led him toward the small conference table in the corner with a killer view. “What’s going on is that I’ve been waiting for you to snap out of this miserable state you’ve been in for the past six months.”

  “This has nothing to do with my divorce.”

  Mike offered him coffee but he refused. His friend poured them both a cup anyway, handing Kieran one as he sat down at the table. “It has everything to do with your divorce.”

  Kieran rubbed his forehead absently. Nothing made sense. It didn’t help that his friend was being as clear as the coffee in his hand.

  “She’s not worth it.”

  Kieran squinted.

  “But this really isn’t about her, is it? This is about what she did.”

  “And what you did.”

  “What did I do?”

  “You betrayed me. Just as surely as she did.”

  “No, buddy. I didn’t betray you. I did what I had to do to bring you back from the brink of whatever you were ass-deep in the middle of.”

  Kieran thought back to the time when Clarissa had first left him. When he’d made radical changes in his life.

  Had he been depressed?

  Despondent?

  “You didn’t even offer up a token fight,” Mike said, leaning back and crossing his ankle over his knee. “That’s not the Kieran I know.”

  He grimaced and took a sip from his mug, although he remained standing.

  “The guy I know would have raked her ass over the coals but good.”

  He considered him for a long moment. “And that’s what you want me to do with you? Fight you?” He nodded toward the papers sitting in the middle of the desk.

  “In a word—yes.”

  It made a backward kind of sense. Present him with a challenge, a violation of trust, in essence bait him into a fight.

  “And if I hadn’t fought?”

  The smile disappeared from Mike’s face. “Then we would have had a problem… .”

  “You would have gone forward with the action?”

  His friend fell silent for long moments, pondering the question. “I don’t know. I really hadn’t thought that far ahead.” He met his gaze. “All I knew was I had to do something.”

  Neither of them said anything, merely stared at each other.

  “I felt like I was losing you, brother.”

  Mike’s quietly said words hit him more profoundly than any physical punch.

  Kieran felt himself smiling. “So, I guess I should be thanking you for serving me court papers, then?”

  His friend threw back his head and laughed. “Yeah. I guess you should.” He stretched out a leg and pushed out the chair in front of him. “Now, sit down and tell me if you’ve seen this mermaid of yours again…”

  * * *

  DAPHNE WAS MERE hours away from confirmation and was overcome with anxiety.

  She swam aimlessly and then traded her fins for legs, visiting her old house on the shore one last time.

  At least
, that’s what she told herself. Her motivations went much deeper.

  Kieran hadn’t been back…

  Pain so acute it was nearly impossible to breathe shredded her insides as she recalled her last conversation with him on his schooner.

  “I can’t…”

  Those two words echoed through her mind again and again until she was sure she would go insane.

  She had never intended to share Magda’s words. Share her own misgivings about her confirmation decision. But he had been so earnest when he’d jumped into the sea after her. When he’d held her as if afraid if he let her go, he might never see her again.

  When he’d told her that he loved her…

  Her heart beat an ache so consuming it robbed her of thought.

  A car horn sounded.

  She looked up, hope swelling, from where she fingered the scalloped lace edge of the living-room curtains. She’d found them at an antiques shop, and had fallen in love with them on sight. But she intended to leave them with the house. After all, what would she do with them in the sea?

  But it wasn’t Kieran: it was her mother.

  She’d known Cecelia was coming, of course. In fact, she herself had arranged for what amounted to her final celebratory brunch.

  Still, she couldn’t help wishing it were Kieran…

  “You look pretty,” her mom said, taking in her simple linen skirt and jacket.

  “Thanks,” she answered absently as she climbed into the car and closed the door.

  “I was thinking we’d hit that place a little ways up the coast. The one that specializes in crepes?”

  Daphne nodded.

  She stared through the window at the rolling waves, the never-ending sea of blue, feeling detached somehow…not a part of it…

  Not a part of anything.

  “Your dad will be meeting us there.”

  “Huh? Oh. Good.” She tried for a smile.

  She knew what she was looking for. And as they neared the Newport Beach Marina where she knew Come Sail Away was docked, she couldn’t help seeking out signs of Kieran. She saw none.

  “So today’s the big day, huh?”

  She looked at her mother. There seemed to be a delay between whatever she said and Daphne’s ability to process it.

  “Yes,” she said finally.

  She looked away from Cecelia’s probing gaze.

  “I wish your father and I could attend.”