“So, Dylan,” she said. “Where are you from, anyway? You sound Scottish…sort of? I’m sorry, I can’t quite place that accent…” To Meredith’s well-traveled ears, Dylan did sound vaguely Scottish. But there was something even rounder about his vowels and a slightly more accentuated lilt to some of his pronunciations.
“Oh, I’m from around that area, yes. And yourself? Have you always lived in Maine?”
“Me? No. I grew up in the Midwest, actually. Near Chicago. I came to Maine with my husband; he is…well, was, from here.”
“Was?”
“He died.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Dylan said, and Meredith believed him when he said it.
“It was a long time ago,” she replied, suddenly wanting to soothe him as much as he clearly wanted to soothe her.
“Aye, but some wounds never heal,” Dylan said, bowing his dark head. It was hard to get a very good look at him in the flickering light of the fire, but Meredith could see dark hair, dark eyes, and a very fit body. Not that she admired such things, of course, but she prided herself on her keen sense of observation.
“So what brought you to Maine?” Meredith asked.
“I travel a lot,” Dylan said. “You could say that the sea’s my home.”
Meredith couldn’t help but smile at that image. Having grown up landlocked but for occasional glimpses of Lake Michigan, she’d been an instant and thorough convert to oceanside living. She couldn’t imagine waking up to any other odor but the smell of the sea, or to any other sound and scenery but the rough, crashing waves of the frigid Atlantic.
“And is that your great house then, up there?” Dylan asked.
Meredith blushed. “Yes, I’m afraid it is. It was my husband’s. I rattle around in it, to tell you the truth.”
Why did I just say that? she asked herself. That’s Teddy’s home. I love living in Teddy’s home.
“Well, I rattle around in the ocean, so together we’re like a pair of maracas,” Dylan joked, giving her a roguish wink. To her horror, she actually giggled. She covered her embarrassment by noisily slurping her wine.
You don’t giggle, Meredith! she reminded herself. Control yourself!
After swallowing another gulp of wine, she forced herself to breathe. “I do love the ocean,” she told him. “I didn’t live anywhere near the sea growing up, obviously, but now it’s become a part of me.”
“It does that,” Dylan said, staring out at the water as affectionately as a child would his mother. “But I reckon you belong close to her,” he said, turning both his attention and his liquid-dark eyes toward her.
She felt color rise to her cheeks again as she flushed hot. “Why?” She asked.
“Your name is of the sea,” he said. “Mer…like sea.”
She smiled. “But no one calls me Mer. I’m always Meredith.”
In reality, she had been called Merry, and sometimes Mer, before she’d met Teddy. Ironically for someone who always went by his own nickname, he’d forbidden her to use anything but Meredith.
You’re a grown woman, never use such a childish name, she remembered him saying. In fact, one day only a few months into their dating, he’d turned to her after she’d introduced herself to his colleague as “Merry.”
“From now on, you’re Meredith,” Teddy had said. And she had been.
“Well, as you like the sea, why not claim it as your own?” Dylan said, still favoring her with that devilish smile. “May I call you Mer?”
For a second she considered saying no, then thought that was silly. He was a stranger, after all, only passing through. What harm did one evening’s nickname do?
“Fine,” she told him. “You may call me Mer.”
“Aye, then. Mer,” he said, his eyes locked on hers. Suddenly, she felt the blood rush to her head, and she felt almost tipsy. She remembered old legends of the power of names in ancient cultures, and for a moment she believed them true. But then she shook her head, and the sensation faded.
No more wine for me, she thought, placing her tumbler firmly down, back into the pebbles at her feet.
“So what do you do, Dylan?” she asked, forcing herself to look directly at him. There was something about that hawkish nose and high cheekbones that she found disconcerting. Not to mention the intensity of his gaze.
“Me? You could call me a fisherman,” he said. “And what about you, Mer?”
“Oh, I work for my husband’s estate. He was a very important man. He left me with a lot to do to keep busy.”
“Ah, I see. But what do you do?” he asked, his anglicized pronunciation of you startling after the previously snipped vowels of his accent.
“What do you mean, what do I do?”
“You’ve told me about your husband’s work, but not about your own. What do you do, for yourself?”
“Do you mean like hobbies?”
“Aye. Hobbies, work, whatever you do for yourself.”
Meredith thought about that. “Um…I run. And I do yoga.”
“And?”
“Um…I attend functions…”
“With your friends?”
“Of course. With my friends and my husband’s friends.”
“So you go to parties?” Dylan asked.
“No, not parties, per se. They’re functions.”
“That sounds like work, not fun.”
“Well,” she said, a bit defensively, “not all of us get to have fun. That house might look grand, but it comes with a lot of responsibility. Just like that ocean might look tempting, but swimming in it has its consequences.”
Dylan had been somber talking to her, but at her words his face lit up. “The ocean?” he asked, with a cheeky grin. “The one over there?”
“Yes,” she said, feeling both exasperated and amused. “The rather large body of water in front of us.”
“Oh, that one. An’ what sorta consequences does she have?”
“You’ll die if you swim in it right now, for one,” Meredith replied.
“Fiddlesticks,” Dylan said. “I swim in her all the time.”
“No you don’t,” she said. “Nobody can swim in that sea, especially now.”
“Fiddlesticks,” he repeated. “I tell you, I swim in her all the time.”
“No you don’t.”
“Aye, I do.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Aye, I do. I was just in there, matter of fact.”
“Dylan!” she barked, finished playing. “There’s no way you were just swimming in that sea. Just stop it now.”
“Stop what? I’m only telling the truth. In fact, I can take you with me, if you like.”
She blinked at him. “That’s absurd.”
“Are you chicken, then?”
“I’m not chicken, Dylan,” she said, feeling as exasperated with herself for entertaining such nonsense as she was with him.
“Then why don’t you come swimming with me?”
“Because it’s freezing. Hypothermia freezing. And I don’t even know you.”
“Have you never done anything impetuous, then? Something you were afraid of, but you did anyway, and it was glorious?”
Meredith remembered lots of things like that—Merry had been a devilish girl—always quick to take a dare, perform a prank, or instigate trouble.
But Merry’s gone, and Meredith doesn’t do such things, she thought.
She stood, gathering her blankets around her.
“It was nice meeting you, Dylan,” she said. “But it’s time for me to go inside. I’m assuming you’ll have moved on by the time morning comes.”
Dylan stood with her, cursing his impetuousness. You shouldn’t have pushed her, he told himself.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve offended you.”
Meredith stood there, suddenly feeling silly again for having reacted so powerfully. Why was this stranger making her so dramatic, like some teenager in an afterschool special?
“No, you haven’t offended me. I’m
just tired. And, to be honest,” she continued, deciding to speak the truth. “I rather resent your offering me a swim like that. That’s always been a dream of mine, and to have it…well, I feel you sort of stepped on that dream, just now.”
“Oh, Mer,” he said. “It’s not a dream.”
Dylan hated using his magic to coerce humans, but when he saw Meredith’s face set back into its usual mask, he knew he’d never get under that armor she’d built around herself. And so he used a very, very slight nudge. Not enough glamour to actually change her mind, but just enough to open her up to new ideas, just a little bit more than she was now. He still left the choice up to her, but he made choosing his offer less mad than Meredith clearly thought it.
“Mer,” he repeated. “I really can take you swimmin’ with me. If you’ll trust me.”
Her eyes were still hesitant, but they were no longer staring at him like he was an enemy.
“How?” she asked, her voice small as a child’s. He’d sensed her affinity with the sea, and she’d obviously been telling the truth when she’d said swimming in the rough, frigid waters of the northern Atlantic was a fantasy of hers.
“What if I said it was magic?” he asked, again using his glamour to ask her to trust him.
“Magic?” she laughed, clearly not believing him. But there was an edge of sadness to her otherwise cynical tone. “Magic doesn’t exist.”
“Fine, then. We’ll call it science. Skill. Luck. Whatever you want, as long as you trust me.”
“This is insane,” she said.
“A little, perhaps,” he replied, grinning. “But why not give it a try? We’ll go slow, and if at any point you feel bad about it, we’ll turn around.”
Meredith’s thoughts were racing a mile a minute. She knew what this stranger wanted was ridiculous, and a part of her brain was screaming at her that he was probably some sadistic serial killer who talked his victims into letting him drown them. But another part of her brain trusted him for some unknown reason, and that part of her brain was ganging up with the part of her brain that still remembered the little girl, Merry, who had believed so powerfully in fairies, and Narnia, and magic…
She’d thought that little girl had finally been silenced by lupus, but there she was—all excited and curious and eager to be let out from the corner of Meredith’s brain where she’d been shunted.
“Okay,” she heard herself whisper, much to her own horror. “We’ll try.”
“Good,” he grinned, the joy of his expression nearly taking her breath away.
Why does he care so much? she wondered. And about me?
“Right, then, off with your kit,” he said, and suddenly he was standing there wearing only jeans, his powerfully muscled chest with its smattering of fine dark hairs gleaming in the moonlight. She had no idea how that had just happened, but the suddenness of it was no more disconcerting than all his smooth flesh suddenly on display.
“I can’t get naked,” she said shrilly, suddenly realizing what she’d gotten herself into.
He grinned. “Then don’t get naked. But you can’t go swimmin’ in all of that,” he said, gesturing broadly to indicate the full extent of her blanket, sweater, skirt, and boots.
She frowned back at him, then made up her mind. Tights and the turtleneck will be fine, she thought. And I won’t freeze to death or look completely ridiculous walking to the water, where all of this will turn out to be some bizarre hoax on his part.
“Fine,” Meredith said. “But if this is some scheme to see me in my lingerie, you’re out of luck. I don’t own any.”
That’s a pity, he thought, as he watched her fold the blanket onto the chair she’d just vacated, then pull of her sweater, undo her skirt, and finally take off her boots. The sweater and skirt joined the blanket in a neat pile on the chair; the boots were stowed underneath. Then she turned to face him.
A pair of thick woolen tights and a long-sleeved turtleneck were hardly the raciest things he’d seen a woman wear during his long life, but Meredith still took his breath away.
Standing out of the firelight and under the moonlight that washed any color she wore to blacks and grays, her white skin stood in stark contrast to the darkness of her clothing. She was long and lean, but without the bulk of all those clothes he could see how curvaceous she was in the hips, thighs, and breasts. Despite all her running, he could see she still had a sweet, soft belly, his favorite part of a woman’s body. He imagined stroking her there, before setting his teeth gently to her soft flesh, and he felt himself grow hard. Dylan forced himself to look away from her stomach, his eyes trailing up to the dark cap of her hair. But he only felt another ache in his cock as he imagined undoing that long, sleek mass and running his fingers through it.
“C’mon then, lass,” he said, his voice rough. “Down to the water we go.”
Meredith watched Dylan stride off, her heart in her throat. The way he looked at me, just now… She didn’t think she’d ever been looked at like that. Certainly not by the handful of high school and college boys she’d dated before Teddy. And never by Teddy, either, she admitted, but refused to dwell on that thought.
“C’mon!” Dylan called, “Chicken!”
That brought her out of her dreaming. I’ll show him a chicken, she thought, as she walked toward the large, dark figure standing at the very edge of the water.
Chapter Three
“You’ll have to take my hand, lass,” Dylan said. “At least for the now.”
Frowning skeptically, Meredith tentatively extended her arm toward him. The fingers that grasped hers were warm, dry, and strong. She shivered at the feel of his calloused palms against hers as he entwined their fingers, clasping her hand in a firm, oddly comforting grip.
Nevertheless, when he tugged her down toward the water, she froze.
“It’ll be freezing,” she said. “Really freezing. This is stupid…”
Meredith started to pull away from him, but he wouldn’t let go of her hand.
“Trust me, Meredith. Just trust me. Please.”
Her eyes shone wide in the moonlight, her fear and anxiety beating against him. He held back from amping up his glamour; he wanted her to want this, and fully to experience the range of surprise and pleasure he had planned for her. If he glamoured her now, she’d never really want him.
Her dark gaze darted between him and the sea, and he could feel her start shivering. It wasn’t entirely because of the cold.
“This is crazy,” she whispered, but there was a note of pleading to her voice.
She wants this to come true, he realized. Aye, she thinks it’s daft, but she also wants to believe…
“It’s not crazy, lass. It’s magic…” And with that he used his considerable strength to pull her toward him. She cried out, crashing into his chest, and before she knew what had happened, he flung them both into the water.
Instinctively, Meredith held her breath, swearing mentally as she felt them plummet into the sea. She tightened all her muscles, squeezing her eyes shut, as she braced herself for the freezing cold temperatures of the Atlantic waters.
Instead, she found herself floating in what felt like…pleasant bathwater?
Very slowly, she cracked one eye open, and then another. Dylan was holding her at arm’s length, his strong hands gripping her elbows, watching her intently. They were floating underwater, somehow far enough out to be fully submerged. Meredith stared in awe as his hair moved gently like dark, silken seaweed—evidence that they were, in fact, in the ocean.
That thrill was so great that she never questioned how she could see anything in the dark of the night waters.
Instead, she moved her own hands squeezing his upper arms gently as if to make sure that he was really there, that she could really feel, that this wasn’t a dream. Dylan moved his own hands to Meredith’s waist as she paddled her legs, looking down at them. Next, she let go of his forearms for just long enough to paddle her hands.
Aye, he thought, enjoying her childlike
reaction. It’s really wet, lass.
She clutched his forearms again, and he knew she wanted to talk. And as he didn’t want to shock her any more than he already had, he took them both up to the surface.
When their faces breached the waves, she gulped in air and then started babbling excitedly.
“How did you do that? How are we here? How is this possible? What did you do?” she gasped. It wasn’t easy to hear her over the din of the waves, but he could read her lips.
“I told you, lass! It’s magic!” he shouted, smiling widely at her.
“There’s no such thing as magic!” she replied, automatically.
“Then, c’mon,” he said, laughingly, as he moved to take both her hands in his. “Let’s enjoy the not-magic.”
She pulled a face at him, but kicked out her strong legs as he took them farther into the water. He’d already used a combination of his power and the currents to get them well into deep water, but now he’d let her help.
He let go of her right hand, still keeping her left, and together they swam. First they paddled near to the surface, riding the waves. Meredith turned out to be a strong swimmer, so he needed to exert very little power to keep her afloat. And soon enough, she was happily plunging downward with him, taking longer and longer dives down into the night-black water. On such dives, Dylan constantly kept one eye and at least one hand on Meredith, watching for when she started to look like she needed to breathe. In fact, she didn’t need to—not when she was with him—but he was pretty sure he should roll out the surprises one by one, rather than hitting her with them all at once.
It’s enough to get her in the brine, he thought, reveling in the joy that suffused Meredith’s lovely features. Her face is going to be sore from smiling so hard, so long.
Of course, if Dylan had his way, after tonight Meredith would know other sweet aches from muscles long underused.
He and Meredith continued to play, diving deep, then coming to the surface to ride the waves. He sensed she was growing a little tired, so he held her in his arms as he kept them afloat with their heads above the waves.
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