I peered across the settee to where Tadhg lounged, staring up at the ceiling. “You know fire, right?”
He angled his head slightly to look at me. “I’ve heard of it.”
“She just . . . every time she touches me, it’s like flames licking my skin.”What would it be like if Aveen actually licked my skin?
“Who are we talking about?”
“No one,” I muttered into my glass, the sound echoing.
“Ah, yes, of course.”
I finished what was left but couldn’t bring myself to pour any more. “When I kissed her . . .” I would never recover from the utter devastation of her lips. Tadhg wouldn’t understand. Not when women threw themselves at him left, right, and feckin’ center. And he didn’t have a psychotic mother waiting in the wings to rip out their hearts.
Every day I spent away from Aveen made it a little harder to breathe. To put one foot in front of the other. To open my eyes knowing they would never again behold her smile. I’d become a simpleton, and there was no end in sight.
“If you’re so smitten, then why are you still sitting beside me, drinking my liquor, nattering on and on about shite I care nothing about?” Tadhg asked.
“What am I supposed to do? Go to her?” Could you imagine? Me evanescing into her room to ask her to put aside her own safety, to give up her life for an empty shell? What could I possibly offer her besides misery and a bounty on her head?
No, no. This was better for everyone. Until I could end the Phantom Queen and her hold over me, Aveen was better off on the other side of the island.
What I needed right now was to rid myself of her.
Tadhg called after me when I stood, but I ignored him.
Crossing the uneven stone floor was like rowing a dinghy through a stormy sea. I tripped more times than I could count on my way to the front door.
“Muireann!” My shout echoed off the stone ramparts. It was night. Or morning. Hard to tell. All I knew was that, with the courtyard blessedly empty, no one could see me stumbling forward, catching myself on the edge of the fountain, or letting the glass slip from my fingers to shatter on the gravel.
I smacked the fountain’s cold water, which came straight from the sea.Bubbles of air rippled the surface, and Muireann emerged like a goddess, pointed chin raised to the starless sky, droplets rolling down her blue-tinted skin, between her bare breasts.
“Need I ask why ye were callin’ fer me, or shall I hazard a guess?” The salve of her siren’s voice was nothing compared to the feeling of her long, thin, webbed fingers sliding up my thigh.
“You’re getting my breeches wet.”
She grinned, revealing two rows of razor-sharp teeth. “Isn’t that the point?”
She was right. It was the point. Aveen had found me. And now all I wanted to do was get lost again. Expert fingers unfastened my belt. Popped the buttons on my breeches. Reached inside and clasped a hand over me.
I watched her the way I always did. Wouldn’t put it past the fish to tear my throat out with her teeth.
“Am I the only one playing tonight?” The sweetness in her voice shifted to a grating whine.
I kissed her neck dutifully, but her skin felt like a corpse’s, reminding me of the night I almost losther. She tasted like salt and seaweed. And her breasts were too small. I couldn’t pretend she was someone else when everything about her felt wrong. I tried shutting my eyes, but my lids had barely closed before they popped open again.I caught her wrist and threw her hand off me. It wasn’t Muireann I wanted at all. Not her hands or her mouth or her body. It was someone else’s. Someone I could never have.
I left the merrow ranting on the edge of the fountain and evanesced to my room, my cock still as hard as the stone wall.I only closed my eyes once I was alone. And the moment I did, I sawher.
Laughing as she danced. Scowling when I said something “improper.” Those soft, supple lips swollen from mine. Utter perfection.
I steadied my forearm against the wall, dropping my head against the stones, wishing their coolness would douse the fire roaring in my veins as I imagined her body beneath me, both of us stripped bare.
I tugged down the front of my breeches, gripping myself in my fist.
How she would feel. The sounds she’d make. How she’d whimper and writhe. A sheet of golden curls spread across my pillow. I’d work for it.
Fuck, I’d work.
Pumping my fist hard and fast, exactly how I would take her, I imagined the screams I could tear from that lovely, lovely throat. I came like a feckin’ teenager, her name on my lips where she’d never be again.