____________

Saoirse

 

 

 

I must have nodded off sitting on the couch because when I came to the shower had been turned off. I loved Diarmuid’s home, his couch covered in a sheepskin rug, a single side lamp on giving the living room a warm glow.

I stood up, listening out for Diarmuid. I walked softly down the short corridor towards his room, pausing as I reached the slightly open door.

He was in there. He must have just gotten out of the shower because he stood there, hair tied back into a bun, dampness touching the edges of his hairline, the only thing on was a pair of grey briefs that clung to his round ass.

I remembered standing just like this three years ago watching him undress. He looked as he did then. Except he had more ink now, my eyes tracing the additional dark art spreading across his body.

He picked up a pair of grey sweatpants and tugged them on, turning his body so I could see his front.

Oh God. I stared at that bulge in his briefs before it was covered up by his pants as he straightened.

Now he was just shirtless. His firm muscular chest and ripped abs on display. Familiar ink across his arms and shoulders and—

There was a tattoo on his chest.

It hadn’t been there before.

He was saving that spot. He hadn’t found anything that meant enough to him to ink over his heart.

Jealousy surged through me. Who was it for? What was it?

I only realised I’d stepped into his room, drawn in by my raging curiosity, when he looked up.

“Saoirse,” he exclaimed, then took a step back as if he were scared of me. “What are you doing?”

“I just…” I edged closer and closer. Just one more step and I could make out the tattoo.

My breath caught in my throat.

It was half seal, half woman done in black ink.

A selkie.

My eyes traced the delicate lines, the long wavy hair trailing over the selkie’s shoulder.

“You got a heart piece,” I said, my words shaking out through my teeth.

He blinked, then slammed a hand over his heart, hiding her.

I stared at him, my head spinning, my heart swelling at the meaning of this revelation. “That’s me. You put me over your heart.”

“That’s…ridiculous.”

I took hold of his hand and pulled it from his chest. He let me, a large breath releasing from his lungs as if he’d just taken a heavy burden off his shoulders. Our fingers twisted together as they hung from our sides. My breath turned to lead lumps in my lungs.

I lifted my free hand and placed my fingertips on the selkie’s face. He sucked in a breath and his chest tensed under my touch, wincing as if it pained him. But he didn’t move to stop me. I traced the selkie from her head down to her tail.

“She’s beautiful.”

“You’re beautiful,” he whispered.

It all became clear now. Diarmuid’s sturdy resistance. He wasn’t worried that he was still technically married. It wasn’t about my age. Or my being one of his assignments. Not really.

He had placed me over his heart. But he was terrified to let me in.

Once I got in I could never be torn out.

Once he let me in he’d never be free of me.

I’d be part of his lungs, using me to breathe. I’d be part of his heart, needing me to keep it pumping.

Like everyone he’d ever loved in his life, I could be torn away.

I’ve always been yours. And I will never leave you. I am as permanent as the ink over your heart, as the blood in your veins.

As I gazed into his eyes—his beautiful soft eyes, eyes that studied me like I was a constellation among the stars, eyes that placed me in the centre like the sun—I whispered these things.

I saw his eyes rim with love, watched as his walls began to crumble. And like two stars in the same orbit, we crashed together.

Our lips collided. Melding. Melting. Tongues meshing. Dancing. Playing. Our bodies pressed up together as if we were one, the heat of his bare chest radiating through my thin cotton shirt, crushing my breasts between us in the most erotic way, making my body feel like a jar full of fireflies.

His arms wrapped around my back, holding me there against his heart. My fingers tugged the band out of his small bun so I could tangle my fingers in his silky locks.

It felt like breathing after being held down underwater. My heart pounded against the cage of my ribs as if trying to get to his. I knew then that everything that made up me would be a traitor if it could find a way to leave my body and join his.

I needed to get closer.

As if he heard me, his hands slid down my back, cupping over my ass. Not close enough. I leapt up, wrapping my legs around him. I must have surprised him because he took a step back and fell, his bed catching him so he was sitting on the edge, me straddled across his strong thighs.

Still… I needed to be closer.

I tore my lips off him, avoiding him as he chased me with his mouth.

“Wait,” I said, “let me…” I pulled away just enough so I could tug the shirt over my head, so I was straddled across his lap just in my white cotton panties. I pressed my bare torso against his.

We groaned in unison, our mouths finding each other, pouring our moans onto each other’s tongue like wine.

He trailed his hands up and down my body sending heat waves through me, his thumbs brushing the swell of my breasts, the curve of my ass, wrapping around my neck to grip my head to him.

I wanted to know what every inch of him felt like. I wanted to own his skin.

My hands adventured across his muscles, across the artwork inked onto him. But it seemed no matter how much I touched him, it only fed my hunger instead of satiating it.

I rocked my hips against him, feeling the hardness waiting for me, and shivered.

He let out a groan, then his hands went to my hips.

For a second I thought he was going to stop me, to push me off. But then his fingers dug into my skin and pulled me hard against him.

He tilted his head, demanding more of me. All of me. All that I was prepared to give. All that I was aching to give.

I slid my hand between us to find his hardness, his sign of wanting me. Years I’d wanted him to want me like this, like a woman. Now he did. Now he was truly mine.

God, I could cry with the sweet agony of relief.

He pulled my hand from him.

Shit. Too much, too fast. I scared him off.

“Wait…” he breathed, placing his forehead on mine.

I gritted my teeth. “If you tell me we have to stop, I will kill you.”

He chuckled, his fingers tracing my sides. “Impatient girl. I didn’t say stop, I said wait.” His features turned serious as he glanced at the clock. “It’s only just eleven o’clock. You’re still…”

Seventeen.

I brushed his hair out of his face. “I don’t care.” I’ve never cared. But now I understood why he did. “But we can wait an hour if you want to. Until I turn eighteen, if that makes you feel better.”

He chewed his lip. God, I wanted to taste his mouth again.

Then he shook his head and said the words I was praying for. “What difference will one hour make?”

Thank God.

An hour was eternity. I’d been waiting for him for five years. I couldn’t wait any longer.

His lip lifted up in a half-smirk as his fingers ran over the chaste trim of white lace on the leg of my panties. “Damn. This makes me feel really bad.”

“I don’t think you’re being bad enough,” I dared to say.

Our eyes locked. Hunger flared in his, dilating his pupils so they were black pools. Black pools I was falling into.

“How bad do you want me to be?” His voice was the low rumble of thunder on the horizon, warning of a storm coming. I say, let it fucking rain. I wanted to dance in it.

“Do your worst.”

His thumb brushed over the front of my panties, causing me to suck in breath.

He hissed. “You’re soaking.”

I was wet from the moment I laid eyes on his beautiful strong body. Soaked from the second he kissed me. His from the moment we met.

He traced his thumb on the edge of my panties, his other hand caressing my breast, brushing my nipple, teasing me, torturing me. God, he was cruel.

“Badder,” I begged.

His thumb slid under the panties and found my clit.

“Oh,” I gasped.

I’d never been touched there before. Not there. I mean, I had sex, technically, for less than a minute, but Kian had never put his hands on me.

It hadn’t felt like this with Kian. It hadn’t felt like this at all. I hadn’t ached for him. Burned for him.

Not like I burned now.

Diarmuid began to rub the sensitive nub in tiny circles with the rough pad of his thumb, kneading my nipple between his other thumb and finger, everywhere he touched me radiating with waves of pleasure.

My head knocked back and I let out soft cries. I found my hips bucking towards him, trying to give him more access. I had to grip onto his muscular shoulders so I didn’t collapse back.

He groaned as he watched me, his gaze burning across my bare skin. “I’m barely touching you and… God, you are so sensitive. So uninhibited. So fucking fresh.”

With one hand around my ribs, he pulled me up along his torso so I was kneeling. Before I could ask what he was doing, he latched his mouth around my nipple. The thumb of his other hand slid farther back, finding my entrance, playing with me. The ache in me intensified.

He rolled my nipple between his teeth and his tongue and I let out a long moan.

My nipple slipped from his mouth with a pop. “Selkie, I regret so much that day I found you with that boy.”

Oh God.

I regretted it too. I burned at the shame of the memory. Even as my body shook for more as his thumb ran up and down the wet length of me.

“Have you…? Since then…?”

I forced my eyes open to look at him. He was asking me if I’d had sex since Kian.

I shook my head.

“Fuck,” he muttered, “you’re practically a virgin.”

I chewed my lip. Shit. Did he think me a girl again? Had I stopped being a woman in his eyes?

He slid one hand around my back and up to grip the back of my neck. “As much as I want to get real savage on you, let’s go slow, okay?”

I didn’t want to go slow. We’d been going slow for five years. I wanted him to go savage on me, to fill me, to tear me apart. To fuck me hard and deep and to make me moan like they did in porn videos. But I nodded anyway. I didn’t want to scare him off.

He tilted up his chin and pulled me down onto his mouth. He kissed me long and deep, had me squirming against his thumb.

He pulled away from me with a chuckle. “You’re impatient.”

“I’ve been patient for five years.”

His features turned serious, the dueling flames of hunger and tenderness warring in his eyes. He glanced down. “Let’s get rid of these.”

He lifted me up even higher, his hands on my hips, like I weighed nothing, until I was standing on the bed, my feet on either side of his thighs, his breath heating up the front of my panties.

He let out a sigh. “White cotton panties. Fuck, you’re going to be the ruin of me.”

He tugged them down, down, down my thighs, his fingers leaving a trail of fire down my legs as he went, helping me pull them out from my feet, one by one.

I was naked.

Naked in front of him.

And oh God. His face was right there. If he let go of me I swear I’d collapse, my knees were weak from need.

He gripped the backs of my thighs and pressed his nose into my soft curls and inhaled. “Sweet girl.”

I squirmed. Not because I didn’t like it. But because it was something I didn’t know how to react to. I should have practiced with other boys. But I didn’t want to. I didn’t want anyone but him. Had never wanted anyone but him.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, his voice so sweet I could have cried.

I shook my head. I was embarrassed.

Diarmuid tilted his head as he looked at me. “Selkie, it’s me. You can tell me anything, remember?”

I remembered. He was my Diarmuid, my hero. My Irish giant. Who fought off evil men and nightmares for me.

“No one’s ever had their face down there.”

His eyes widened. “No one?”

I shook my head, cheeks flaming at my inexperience.

“I would be honoured to be the first.”

Before I could say yes or no or something, he leaned in again, holding me still with one hand and pressing apart my lips with the other, licking along my sensitive nub.

“Oh, fuck,” I cried out.

His tongue was like fire and ice, sending electricity through me with one swipe.

“You taste like fucking heaven,” he murmured against me before moving his tongue against me again. And again.

I fisted my hands in his hair, back arching, legs trembling, mumbling in tongues as I lifted my face to the heavens.

“My sweet selkie,” he murmured into the centre of me. “I can’t…” lick, “fucking…” lick, “get…” lick, “enough.”

He pushed my leg up and hooked it over his shoulder, opening me further to him, then he grabbed my other leg and hooked it over his other. I squealed from having my legs taken out from under me.

But I didn’t fall. He was strong enough for both of us. He gripped my ass against his face with one hand and my waist with the other as I tangled my fingers into his hair.

I forgot about falling over—I forgot about everything else—when his mouth clamped down on the centre of me, his tongue flicking side to side, then up and down.

I was on fire. Delirious from fever. I ached for him. Burned for him. With every stroke of his talented tongue, I shook like I was infected with sickness. And yet, I knew I would die if he stopped.

I hardly knew what was happening when my orgasm overtook me, shaking through my body as if I had been taken over by a spirit.

Here, now, I was no longer the daughter of a criminal, the child of a whore.

I was absolved.

I was free.

When I floated back down to earth I was lying curled against Diarmuid’s side, his sweatpants and briefs discarded so that he was naked before me.

I sat up.

“Selkie?”

I shook my head. Nothing was wrong. I just wanted to look at him, lying out here before me. Naked.

I had never seen anything as beautiful. His long, thick body, coiled with muscle, inked like a painting. And me—his selkie—right there across his heart.

“I love you,” I said. No shame to my words.

I loved him when I was thirteen. But that was the adoration of a child. The immature longing of a girl who wanted nothing more than to grow up. To take control of her own life.

I told him I loved him when I was thirteen but I didn’t know how deeply I could love him until now. Until I was grown up.

It was in that moment that I finally forgave him for rejecting me at fourteen. For leaving. Because he had to.

Even though he left, he took me with him.

He placed me over his heart.

And he waited.

He waited for me.

Until I grew up.

Because I needed to grow up before I could be with him.

He brushed my cheek with his finger, pulling away a tear I hadn’t realised I’d shed. Then he sucked it off his finger.

“Touch me,” he said, a mere whisper, a plea.

“Where?”

“Everywhere. Anywhere. Wherever you like.”

I traced his tattoos up his arms like I had done once before, revelling at the way his skin pebbled at my touch. I affected him.

I brushed my hand across the selkie on his chest, then feeling brave, I ran my fingertips across his small dark nipple.

It hardened underneath my touch. His breath caught.

Oh God. I affected him the way he affected me.

I had his skin. And he had mine.

The power surged through my veins and the need to touch him became like a drug.

I moved my hand lower and lower until I rested in the patch of his thick dark hair.

Holy shit.

His cock was long, thick and veined, the end like a swollen red mushroom.

That was a fucking weapon.

And there was no fucking way it was going to fit in me.

I felt his eyes on me, watching me, waiting. His pupils were glossy with desperation, with need, but he was holding himself back just in case I didn’t want to continue. He’d sacrifice his needs for me. Given up his wants for me. He always had. I saw that now.

I licked the centre of my hand and curled it around his length, a rush of satisfaction going through me at the surprise in his eyes. I slid my hand up and down his length, just like I’d seen in pornos or had caught my ma doing to the men she brought home.

His leg twitched and he let out a moan.

A moan was good.

I kept going, urged on by his muttering, making sure to capture the precum beading at the end of him and spreading that over him too.

“Selkie. Your hands are like fucking silk. God, I love when you touch me.”

He needed more. I needed more.

I got onto my knees so I could use both hands, my ass rising in the air.

I felt his fingers at my pussy and I let out a cry.

“Oh, sweet girl,” he murmured. “I am going to fuck this tight little hole.” He slid a finger inside me and I jolted, losing my mind completely as he found the deepest of me.

I was lost as he slid his digit out of me, then back in.

When he added a second finger I bucked, crying out his name. How could something both satisfy me and make me hungrier at the same time?

“Don’t stop touching me,” he begged, breaking through my reverie.

His cock. My hands had stopped moving. Right.

It took a few moments for us to get the rhythm right, but when it did, God did we move like liquid.

As I pumped his length and his hips thrust up, his fingers pushed into me as I rocked my hips back. Back and forth. Like a desperate dance. We were fucking without fucking. The sweet tension began to build in me again.

His fingers left me and I let out a cry from the loss. I grabbed for him. But he brushed my hands out of the way, grabbing onto my hips and pulling me over him so I was seated on him.

We both moaned as my slick heat met his hard length. Without thinking, I rocked forward along him, letting my juices coat his erection, the head of him separating my lips when I slid forward enough. I could just rock myself into oblivion.

“Jesus, fuck, selkie, enough,” he growled.

Enough? A stab of rejection went through me.

He sat up, lifting me up with one hand on my waist again. But he didn’t push me off him. He just held me there.

“I can’t wait any fucking more,” he growled. “You’re going to make me lose my damn mind.”

With his other hand, he leaned over to his bedside table, pulling out a condom from his drawer and tearing it open with his teeth. In a second he’d rolled it down over him as I hovered there, waiting, my nerves tingling with anticipation.

His hand went back to my waist as he palmed his cock, directing the tip of it to my entrance.

I let out a whimper. Not because I was scared. But because I couldn’t believe this was finally happening.

A flash of concern went across his face.

I wanted to reassure him, but I’d lost the ability to speak, utter need choking me. I just arched my back and rocked my hips so my pussy slid over the tip of him, wetting him with my soaking lips.

He hissed and all concern dissipated, replaced by a hunger, tenderness and love underneath it, the way it’d always been.

“I need you to slide down onto my cock. Slowly,” he said through gritted teeth. The veins stood out on his neck as if he was holding himself back. “Get used to me. I’m going to stretch your sweet little pussy. But I don’t want it to hurt.”

I did. I wanted it to hurt so fucking bad.

But he’d never forgive me if I just impaled myself on him.

I had waited five years. What was a few more minutes?

I did as he asked. For him. Always for him.

With every millimetre that I slid down, I felt him pushing into me, stretching me apart. My walls resisted at first, a hint of burning waving at the edge of my need for more. But that sting soon ebbed away, pleasure swelling until it was all that I was. I slid down right to the base of him, fuller than I’d ever been in my entire life.

Our groans echoed throughout his room.

He was inside me. Where part of him had always been.

“Selkie…” he begged, his fingers gripping at my hips. “Please. Move.”

“I…” I didn’t know what to do, struck motionless with inexperience. Watching two people having sex and having sex were two different things.

How could I even admit this to him?

But he seemed to understand what I needed. The way he always understood.

He rolled me onto my back so he was on top of me. I groaned, the weight of him pressing apart my hips, spearing into the centre of me like the sweetest prison.

“Fuck me, like I’ve always wanted you to fuck me,” I whispered.

“Dirty girl,” he hissed.

He slid out and thrust in smoothly, not slow but not fast. Perfect. Just like he was. Just like this moment was. He thrust again and pleasure swelled in me, as did my heart in the cavity of my lungs.

“This is your first time,” he growled.

“Yes.”

“There’s been no one else. Will be no one else.”

“No one,” I cried, my hips raising up to meet his.

There was no self-consciousness anymore. No thought that he had a decade more experience than me. He moved and my body reacted. He demanded and I obeyed. He took and I gave. Like an ancient song of the ocean. The steady crash of waves. The ebb and flow of the tide. The rise and fall of the moon over the sea.

“Oh, God, Diarmuid.” I was pushed to the edge of my second orgasm, my pussy clenching so hard around him I thought I’d break him.

His control over himself gave way. The humanity in his eyes fled. He fisted his hand in the hair at the back of my neck, tugging my lips against his mouth.

He got savage with me. Real savage. His tongue warring with mine, his hips slamming against mine like he was trying to break my back.

Pleasure thundered through me and I screamed. He cried out my name as he found his release.

He collapsed, spent, holding part of himself up on his elbows so he didn’t crush me. Even though he was probably numb from his orgasm, he was thinking of me. Like he always had.

Our breaths mingled, like two sea currents swirling against each other.

This was contentment. Here was peace. Love.

I had waited for it and now I had it.

Diarmuid was mine. And I, his.

Diarmuid rolled off me, disposed of the condom in his wastebasket. Then he tucked me against his warm, hard body, my head on his chest.

I sighed, my fingers tracing my keepsake over his heart.

He glanced at something over my shoulder, then smiled at me.

“What is it?” I asked.

“It’s just ticked past midnight. Happy birthday, selkie.”

I grinned through the curtain of sleep over my eyes. “Best present ever.”

It was.

I’d gotten him.

And yet, a part of me, deep down inside, was just waiting for it to fall apart, breaking me with it.