Chapter 10: Shallow Water

"Stay," I said.

It came out a breath, against his mouth.

"Stay with me. I want you to stay. I want you in my house and my bed and my slip, and I want you here when I'm eighty."

His breath broke.

"Marnie."

"Rule one," I said. "You stay in the slip until you're healed. Are you healed?"

"My fever is gone."

I laughed, wet and shaky, and he caught the laugh in his mouth.

There is a stone step at the back of the slip, wide as a bench, where the water only comes to the knee.

He swam us there, one arm around my waist, and I let him carry me.

He hauled himself half out onto the step, and the tail went.

I watched it happen in the lantern light.

The green skin split and folded back, copper sliding away along his thighs.

Legs formed under the water, long and scarred and strong.

He sat up with the slip lapping around his knees and his hands braced behind him.

I stood over him with my shirt soaked through.

"You can do that on purpose," I said.

"When the water is low enough." His voice was thick. "I did not want to frighten you."

"You didn't."

"Come here."

I knelt in the water between his knees.

It was cold.

I didn't feel it.

His hands found the hem of my shirt, and he stopped.

"Tell me again," he said.

"Take it off, Lachlan."

He pulled it over my head, and then he looked.

He took a long time looking, and when he spoke, the words came out low and ragged.

"You are the most beautiful thing I have seen in the sea or on land."

"You've seen about four things."

"I have seen all of them." He found the clasp of my bra and undid it with one finger. "I choose you."

My breath stopped.

He cupped my breasts in both hands, his thumbs dragging across my nipples.

I made a sound I had never made in my life.

"Louder," he said, with the first real grin I'd ever seen on his face.

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