Treasure of the Sea

SCYLLA

The mouth of the cave was large enough to let in the afternoon light. The water here became increasingly shallow and still. Toward the back of the cave was a sandy clearing between the rocky outcroppings.

The merman took me as far as he could in the water. Once we reached the shallows, he stopped, setting me down. My bottom landed on the sandy floor as water lapped around my waist.

All the water had soaked into my dress, clinging to my drenched body like a second skin. My pebbled nipples strained against the fabric, the white hiding nothing from view. My cheeks warmed, knowing I was practically naked in front of this man.

A warm, wet hand cupped my cheek, pulling my face up. I gasped at his striking ocean-blue gaze. He was staring so deeply into my eyes that he breached my very soul. He smelled of the sea and something distinctly masculine that I couldn’t place.

I liked it.

He continued angling my head, and I stopped moving, stopped breathing, as he examined me. He was checking me for injuries. I didn’t feel any pain, though that might have been from the adrenaline coursing through my body.

But adrenaline didn’t explain why my blood sang under my skin. That was all him.

From his firm, viselike hands roaming over my arms, lifting and turning them. From his body resting between my legs, writhing as he assessed me, pressing on the soft, intimate parts of me. From the power he exuded yet the tenderness in his actions.

While he looked over me, I took the opportunity to take him in as well.

He had an insanely sculpted chest and abs, and the green shimmer of his skin darkened into emerald near his hips, where flesh met…not quite scales, but not exactly the texture of a dolphin.

Though his tail looked like it was covered in scales, as it brushed against my thighs, it was smooth and warm.

He scooted down deeper into the water. His hands trailed over me to my legs. When his thumb pressed into a ticklish spot on my hip, an undignified squeak slipped from me. My eyes widened at the noise, and he glanced up and cocked his head, staring curiously.

I bit my lip and didn’t move. He went back to his examination, touching all over my legs for any sign of whatever it was that he was looking for.

I admired his lovely green tail as a distraction from the fact that my legs were spread in front of him, his head so close to my sex. Dark green, yet vibrant. Glimmering and reflecting light like emeralds.

Gods, he’s so beautiful.

“Ah!” I yelped as he jerked one leg above the water.

His head snapped up to me, eyes full of concern. He parted his full lips and sighed. When he looked down at my leg again, my gaze followed his to the raw, red scrapes on the inside of my thigh just above my knee.

Carefully, he passed his fingers over the wound, and I hissed. I hadn’t felt that until now. And being aware of it, I noticed the ache.

“You’re hurt,” he said. But not in my language. He spoke in a musical language I’d never heard before. And yet, when that deep, low voice came from him, I understood him perfectly.

My head nodded in answer as I tried to understand how I understood him. I shouldn’t have been able to. I only knew my native tongue. But now that I knew I could communicate with him, I had to thank him for saving my life.

Before I could, though, he grabbed my hips and pushed me farther up the shallows until my butt was on damp sand and only my feet remained in the water. The merman followed, his arms acting like legs to settle himself between my legs again.

I clenched my jaw when he lifted my leg and peered at the scrapes on it. The splinters were clear from here. There must have been dozens of shards sticking out from my skin.

Then he pressed his mouth to my flesh. His lips were soft on my injury, gently sucking at the wound. An unusual spark of heat jolted through my body, starting from my core and spreading through my chest.

My leg trembled against him as I questioned his actions. “Wait. What are you doing?”

Pulling back, he picked up on the worried tone in my voice. His brows met as he frowned. “I’m helping. I’m healing.” He glanced between me and the wound.

“With—with your mouth?” I asked.

He nodded enthusiastically.

He wanted to help me, to heal me. I knew the stories about their kind weren’t true. They were misunderstood creatures.

“Uh, all right.” I held my breath as he covered my raw skin with his mouth again, sucking on the tender flesh.

He pulled back to spit out the splinters. Then, the merman’s long, long—gods, how is it so long?—tongue flicked out to lick at the wound. Each firm press of that slippery, hot tongue over my injured skin eased the pain.

His saliva must possess healing properties.

However, another part of me burned. A coiling heat formed between my legs. Seeing and feeling this gorgeous merman licking and sucking the inside of my thigh brought a familiar haze into my mind that settled over my body.

I closed my eyes as he licked higher up the inside of my thigh. My dress bunched around my waist, exposing the most intimate part of my body, and I was too aroused to care that I wasn’t wearing undergarments.

His mouth and tongue abruptly left my skin, and my eyes snapped open.

His nostrils flared. Those sea-blue eyes whipped to gawk at me, then between my legs. The look he gave me then, accompanied by the increasing grip of his hand holding my thigh, frightened me.

My heart rate spiked, fluttering within my chest like the wings of a hummingbird, desperate to escape the flaring flames within my body.

That look in his eyes was like nothing I’d ever received from a male before. Yet, I instinctively knew it. His eyes darkened, narrowing on me with pure animal desire.

What he said next wasn’t a question, merely a simply stated fact, and he growled it in that deep musical voice.

“You’re aroused,” he said.