“Well, are you going to open it?” Mark asked. I could see his face in the hazy yellow glow of the streetlight, could tell that he was smiling. But it was a crooked half smile at best, the dimples that signified true happiness or amusement nowhere in evidence. Obviously, in jumping to conclusions, I’d screwed this up for him too.
“Yes. Of course.” I pulled gently at the ribbon, watched as the bow unraveled. Then lifted the lid and pulled out a long silver chain with thin interlocking loops. Attached to three of the loops were intricate glass beads in varying shapes and shades of purple.
“If you don’t like it, I can take it back. Get you something else.”
“Are you kidding? It’s beautiful,” I told him, lifting the beads up to get a closer look at them. The necklace was long—really long—and would probably be a hindrance in the water, but it was still a lovely gift. One I would cherish. “Will you put it on me?”
“What, now?” He looked confused.
“Of course. I want to wear it.” I turned my back to him, lifted my ponytail out of the way.
Mark started to laugh. “It’s a belly chain, Tempest, not a necklace.”
“Oh. Right.” I felt my cheeks flame.
“It’s made of platinum, so you can wear it in the ocean. I thought a necklace would just get in the way when you were swimming, and I know you hate wearing things around your wrists.” He cleared his throat. “An anklet was out of the question for obvious reasons, so I decided a belly chain would probably be the best bet.”
“It was. I mean, it is. It’s perfect.”
He pulled me against him, my back to his chest, while his fingers burrowed under my sweater and gently stroked my waist. “Still want me to put it on you?” he whispered in my ear.
“Y-yes.” My breath hitched at all the crazy things his touch was letting loose inside me.
“Good.” His fingers glided lower, dipping inside the low-rise waistband of my jeans to trace the top edge of my hipsters.
It felt good, really good, and I gasped a little. He stopped right away, his warm, callused fingers resting just below my navel. “Too much?”
Was it? I could barely think past the pounding of my heart. “No.” But my voice sounded shaky even to my own ears.
Mark exhaled then, a long, low breath that tickled my ear and only ratcheted up the tension inside of me. I squirmed against him, wanting closer, wanting more, but he gentled me with soft kisses across my jaw and up to my temple. Then he just stood there for long minutes, arms around my waist, forehead resting against the crown of my head. Nothing had ever felt so right. Even the cold slap of the wind didn’t bother me while I was in his arms.
Eventually he moved, fumbling the chain out of my hands and draping it around my waist. It fit snugly but not too tightly, and while the jeans kept it from settling into place, I knew the second I got undressed it would find the perfect spot, right above my hips. Right where my torso ended and my tail began.
I couldn’t resist tracing the chain, any more than I could stop myself from playing with the beads. They were so beautiful, so delicate yet strong, that I couldn’t wait to get a better look at them in the light. Even in the dark they were more intricate than any I had ever seen before.
“Where did you get the glass beads?” I asked him, thinking I might buy one for Mahina, my closest mermaid friend.
“Do you like them?”
“Of course. They’re gorgeous.”
“I’m glad. It took me a while, but I finally found a glass-blower in Coronado who was willing to do what I wanted.”
“You designed them?”
“I did.”
“So all that stuff about returning it if I didn’t like it—”
“Was a load of bull. I would have been crushed if you hadn’t wanted it.” His fingers moved to the first bead on the chain, which currently rested just to the right of my left hipbone. “This one is made of sand from that beach in Del Mar.”
“Where you took me on our first date.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yes.”Tears filled my eyes, and I tried desperately to blink them back. I didn’t want to ruin this moment by crying, even if it was from happiness.
He moved on to the second bead. “This one is from Trestles, near San Onofre, where—”
“You kissed me for the first time.”
He nodded, picking up the third bead and rolling it between his fingers. “And this one … This one is from right out there.” He tilted his chin toward the beach in front of us. “That way, no matter where you go, you’ll always have a tiny piece of land with you. A tiny piece of home.”
“And you. I’ll always have you with me.”
I felt his grin against my hair. “That was the plan.”
I couldn’t help it. I started blubbering like a baby.
“Tempest?” Alarmed, Mark whipped me around to face him. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.” I could barely choke out the word. “It’s just, it’s a really good plan.”
“Then why are you crying?”
“Because I love you. I really, really love you.”
And just that easily, the air seemed to go out of him. He sagged against me, and it was my turn to put my arms around him, my turn to hold him up. As I did, I realized he was trembling more violently than I ever had. “Mark?”
“I really love you too.”
And then he kissed me and it was as endless as the ocean.
As extravagant as the star-painted sky.
As perfect as that first kiss all those months and years ago.
I never wanted to let him go.
Chapter 5
We stayed on the beach until my fingers and toes felt half frozen and my teeth were chattering—another side benefit of being a mermaid out of water. Mark had tried to get me to go in earlier, but it felt so good—so right—to be with him, that I never wanted this night to end. But eventually the cold grew to be too much, and though I might have braved it for a few more minutes with him, Mark would have none of it.
“You’re going to freeze to death,” he told me, ignoring my protests as he moved me up the beach.
“Not if we went in the water.”
“No, then I’d be the one to freeze to death.” He kissed the tip of my nose. “Besides, we’re supposed to be back here in four hours.”
“I don’t want to leave you.” Even as I said the words I knew I was talking about much more than this moment.
Mark understood too, because his voice turned fierce. “Then don’t. Stay. There’s no law that says you have to go. That you have to be mermaid.”
He was right; there wasn’t. But there were a lot of people, a lot of creatures, depending on me, and I couldn’t just walk away from them. Not now, when their fate hung so precariously in the balance. Not when leaving meant I handed them over to Tiamat on a silver platter.
“It doesn’t work that way.”
“It should. Otherwise, what’s the point?”
I didn’t answer him. Not because I didn’t know what to say, but because I didn’t want to get into it now and ruin this wonderful night. I knew my duty, was fully prepared to do what had to be done. But that didn’t mean I had to let it intrude now, not when I knew it would cause a fight between Mark and me.