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Chapter 1 - Chapter One

The sea did not whisper tonight.

It moaned.

Black water heaved and rolled, endless and alive, swallowing Dante whole. He floated in the dark, stripped of breath. The water was not cold. It was warm, It pulsed against him in slow, deliberate beats, like a heartbeat.

Like hers.

And then she came.

The mermaid.

Silver-blue tail gleaming like sharpened steel. Hair black as midnight curled weightless around her face. Her body was a sin sculpted in salt, breasts bare, nipples tight from cold and anticipation. Hips swayed with an otherworldly grace as she cut through the water toward him. Her eyes burned gold not human gold, but something wilder. Hungrier.

Dante's chest tightened. His throat ached with the need to demand her name, but no sound came. All he could feel was the slow, aching throb low in his body. Want raw and thick as blood.

She circled him once, twice. Close enough for him to smell her that impossible blend of brine, storm air, and something warm and feminine that had nothing to do with the sea.

"Still dreaming of me, Dante?" Her voice rippled through the water, low and liquid, curling around his cock like a fist. "Still waking soaked… and hard?"

He clenched his fists. "You're not real."

Her mouth curved into a slow, knowing smile. "Your body thinks otherwise."

She drifted closer until her chest brushed his. The soft swell of her breasts grazed his skin, sending heat spiraling through him. Her hand slid over his sternum, nails dragging deliberate lines down his hard stomach. Lower. Over the ridges of muscle. Further still.

Her fingers closed around him.

The groan ripped from his throat before he could stop it. She was slick and silken, yet firm like wet velvet stretched tight over heat. She stroked him slowly, her thumb circling the head with wicked precision.

"You always twitch for me right here," she murmured, lips grazing his jaw.

"Fuck…" His voice was a rasp. "What the hell are you?"

Her eyes glittered. "Yours."

Then her mouth was on his not soft, not testing. Teeth. Tongue. Hunger. She kissed like she meant to strip the air from his lungs. His cock throbbed in her grip as he kissed her back with savage need. One hand tangled in her wet hair, the other cupped the weight of her breast, thumb brushing the hard peak until she moaned a sound like the sea deepening.

"You want to be inside me," she breathed against his lips. "Say it."

"I want to ruin you."

"Then do it."

Her powerful tail coiled around his thighs, locking him to her. She shifted, pressing the slick heat of her parted folds shockingly human in their softness against the length of him. She rolled her hips with the tide, grinding until he was coated in her wetness.

He gripped her ass, dragged her down hard, and thrust into her.

Her head snapped back, hair fanning in the water like black fire. Her cry sliced through the sea. Her inner heat gripped him tight and pulsing, dragging him deeper like the ocean itself wanted him lost inside her. Each thrust wrung a sound from her half-moan, half-chant in a language meant only for the deep.

He drove into her harder, jaw clenched, a growl rumbling in his chest. Water whipped around them, currents bending to her pleasure.

Her nails dragged down his spine, leaving stinging trails that burned even in the warm water. Her hips met his with force, each grind pulling him deeper into a madness he could not escape. Her breasts brushed his chest with every thrust, nipples aching against his skin. He could feel her pulse between her thighs, throbbing around him like the tide itself.

Then she bit his neck. Hard.

Pain burned hot and electric. His blood bloomed into the water, red ribbons twisting between them. She licked the wound like a lover savoring her kill.

"You taste like violence," she breathed. "Like home."

"You feel like drowning."

Her smile was predatory. "Then die inside me."

And he did.

The rhythm turned brutal, desperate. Her nails scored his back. His hands bruised her hips. His mouth marked her throat. She cried out when he slammed into the spot that made her entire body seize.

Her climax hit first. Her cry was sharp, her body locking around him, holding him deep inside. She clung to him like she could drag him beneath the waves forever. Her spasms tightened around him in hard, rhythmic pulses, each one milking him closer to the edge.

The pulsing grip around him yanked him over. He came deep, spilling into her in thick, hot waves, groaning like something broken. The water spun around them, endless and weightless, cradling them in its dark embrace.

For a moment, everything stopped.

Silence.

Breath.

Then her hand rose to his jaw, holding his face close. She looked at him as if she had known him for centuries, as if she could see every sin he had ever committed. Her lips curved faintly.

"You belong to me now."

His pulse stumbled. She smiled wider.

"You think this is a dream. But I am real. And I am coming."

Her final kiss was slow, rich with salt and hunger, sealing something he did not understand. Then the sea split beneath him.

He fell.

Dante woke with a gasp, muscles locked. Sweat slicked his skin. Cum dampened the sheets tangled around his legs. His heart hammered like gunfire.

The taste of her still lingered salt and hunger.

The air in his bedroom felt heavy, damp, as if the ocean had followed him home. He could still feel her body, still feel her teeth at his neck. The sensation pulsed in time with his heartbeat, each throb making his cock twitch again.

He rose unsteadily and moved toward the mirror. His neck was unmarked, yet the ghost of her bite burned there. The man staring back at him was not the man who had gone to sleep. His eyes were darker, hungrier. There was something feral there now, something the mirror could not hide.

A flicker in the shadows made him turn sharply.

Nothing. Just his empty room.

The sound of the waves was gone, yet he swore he could hear water dripping somewhere in the walls. A faint trace of salt clung to the air, as if she had breathed it into his space.

He crossed to the easel and yanked the cover away.

Her face stared back in oil and darkness. Wet lips. Glowing eyes. And smeared across the bottom, a fresh stroke of deep red paint he had not put there.

One word.

Mine.

The hairs on the back of his neck rose. The paint was still wet.

A knock rattled the door.

"Boss," Matteo called from the other side. "The shipment was hit. You need to see this."

Dante did not move. He stared at the painting, his breath heavy and uneven. He could still feel her in his blood. He could still hear her words.

She was coming.

And he did not know whether to run… or beg.

His cock still throbbed, soaked with the phantom slickness of her. That breathless moan, her tongue against his, the drag of her inner thighs around him every sensation was still imprinted into his flesh.

He gritted his teeth, trying to steady his breath. But his body was a live wire, trembling from the echo of a climax that hadn't come. That always stopped just before the edge. A cruel, addictive tease.

He shoved a hand into his hair and looked at the clock.

4:03 a.m.

Another night without rest. Another night of her.

The woman from the water.

Not just some faceless wet dream. She knew him. Touched something feral in him. She owned him. Her voice, the way she gasped his name without lips, the pull of her hips grinding into him beneath moonlit waves she haunted him with a hunger he couldn't satisfy.

Still rock hard.

He rose without shame, naked and tense, his muscles stretched and coiled like a predator mid-stalk. Crossing the cold floor to the bathroom, he splashed water on his face, but it didn't cool the fire licking through him. His reflection stared back shadows under his eyes, jaw tight, body chiseled and desperate. His cock twitched again, still wet at the tip.

He should have fucked someone last night. Anyone. But none of them were her.

Towel slung around his hips, he moved to the studio. The canvas called to him like her voice low, urgent, wet with need.

He dropped the towel.

Paint. Brush. His hand moved without thought, driven by the ghost of her mouth on his neck, the way her breasts had dragged over his chest, slick and soft, the sting of her nails clawing down his abs while she whispered in a language older than the sea.

The canvas bled under his touch.

The curve of her ass, round and firm, glistening with seawater. Her nipples, tight, dark, pebbled with lust. That impossible tail, scaled and strong, wrapping around his thighs while she rode him. Her hair long, jet black, clinging to her naked skin like silk.

And those eyes.

Drenched in the abyss. Ancient. Wicked.

His breath turned ragged again. His cock ached, fully erect, veins hard against his skin. He gripped the brush tighter, but every flick of his wrist felt like her tongue teasing him. He nearly groaned when the knock came.

Once. Then again, sharper.

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