pale hair floating in the breeze, her husband at her side. The lady of Farness. A wave of yearning for what had been, for what
never was, swept through him.
“The first year . . .” Elizabeth‟s voice faltered.
His attention sharpened. She was no more prone to faltering than he was to introspection. “Go on.”
“After Ben died, I was angry with him for leaving me. Leaving us.” Her throat moved as she swallowed. “Even though his
death wasn‟t his fault, even though I knew my feelings were part of the grieving process, it took me a long time to forgive. But
until I got past the anger, I couldn‟t get on with my life.”
Her words struck him like stones. Were they still talking about his sister and her dead husband? “I was angry with him for
leaving me . . . It took me a long time to forgive.”
“And did you?” Morgan asked, braced for her answer. “Forgive?”
She nodded so that her hair brushed his collarbone. “I remembered how much I loved him, and how he loved each of us. I
thought how much richer my life was because he was in it even for a little while.” Compassionate and direct, her gaze sought
his. “And I realized that I would rather have loved him and lost him than never to have had him in my life at all.”
He lay beneath her, mute and stiff.
“You say you live in the moment. Maybe,” she suggested softly, “you should let go of the past.”
Could he? His emotions churned. His revelation earlier today must have turned her world upside down. But she had turned
him inside out, leaving him uneasy, aching, raw.
“I never told her that I loved her,” he said abruptly. “My sister. I gave her all the reasons in the world to stay but that.”
Elizabeth cupped his jaw, her touch indescribably tender. “Maybe she knew without you telling her.”
He met her steady dark eyes. “I cannot promise you a future, Elizabeth.”
“Then I‟ll take now.”
He covered her hand with one of his own, holding it to his cheek. “Take me.”
“Yes,” she said.
He wanted her again. He would always want her.
He pushed the fear aside. He dug in the drawer for another of the damn sheaths and put it on before he rolled with her,
deliberately overwhelming her with his strength, shoving into her without foreplay or finesse. She was still silky, soft, wet.
With a moan of welcome, she opened to him, wrapping her legs around his hips, her arms around his ribs.
“That feels so . . . Oh.” Her tremor shook them both. Yet she craned her neck to look at the clock. “I don‟t think we have
time.”
No time , he thought.
Nothing lasts forever but the sea.
“I do not need long,” he said and set out to prove it, stroking into her fast and hard, hammering into her over and over in a
push toward forgetfulness, a rush toward release. But she met him, matched him, tilting her hips to take his thrusts, twining her
fingers in his hair, her legs around his legs, Elizabeth in every pulse, push, breath. He felt her around him, inside him, part of
him, and when she cried out and came, her orgasm took him like the sea, changed him in his heart and the marrow of his
bones.
He lay on her, listening to the rain drum on the roof and drip through the trees.
Beached.
Bewildered.
Changed. He would never be the same, never be himself again.
Outside, a car crunched over gravel. Headlights sparked on the glass and arced away.
“I have to get dressed,” Elizabeth kissed the side of his face, shoved at his shoulder. “It‟s getting late. You have to go.”
He lay unmoving, his body as heavy as stone, her words trickling through him as cold and inescapable as water.
He had to go.
Sooner or later, whether he took the boy or not, he was warden of the northern deeps, with duties in the sea and on
Sanctuary. He was lord of the finfolk, among the last blood born of his kind. He could not stay.
Could he?
Dylan had. But Dylan was both selkie and human, bound to land by his sealskin, anchored by a human life and human
responsibilities.