R&R please!
She nodded, blushing and smiling shyly. He led her to the spacious
cabin. It was lavishly furnished and piled with gifts. Once the door was
closed and securely locked, Eric gathered his bride into his arms for a
passionate kiss. She responded expertly, warm soft lips flavored with wine,
tongue darting like a tiny fish amid the coral shoals of his teeth.
Ariel could tell immediately that Eric had never been kissed by a
mermaid before. His eyes flew wide, then closed in rapture. She let her
hands drift like waving strands of kelp over the sides of his face, the
strong line of his jaw, running her fingers through his hair.
When she released him, he blinked at her, then grinned. "You didn't
kiss me like that before."
She lowered her head and gazed up at him from beneath long silky
lashes. "You weren't my husband before."
"If I'd known it was like that, I would have married you the day I
found you on that rock, wrapped in sailcloth."
She giggled and kissed him again. This time, he slid his hands up
the brocaded fabric of her bodice to her full bosom.
"Do you still wear seashells under here?" he murmured against her
mouth.
"The dressmaker wouldn't let me." She squirmed against him, giving
him more access. "Actually, this is really uncomfortable."
Eric's grin widened. "Why don't you take it off?"
"Undo me?" She lifted her hair over one shoulder and turned her back
to him. He began unfastening the dress, his fingers clumsy on the tiny pearl
buttons.
"Damn! How many are there?"
"Half a hundred," she said, frowning. "And half a thousand on the
skirt. So many oysters died to make this dress, which I'll wear only once."
"Don't think about it," he said, caressing the milk-smooth skin of
her back. "Think about you and I and how happy we will be."
"Mmmm," she sighed.
He fumbled another few buttons open, then muttered an oath and
seized the sides. He pulled. The dress came apart with a rapid patter of
pearls hitting the wooden floor.
"Eric!" she gasped, pretending shock.
She shrugged out of the gown, loving the feel of the cool sea air on
her skin. She was completely bare beneath the gown. The dressmaker had
argued for complicated undergarments, but she disliked the confinement. Her
breasts needed no uplift. Her legs were long and smooth, utterly free of
scars and blemishes. Her waist was almost too narrow, her hips sweetly
flared, her bottom firm and cute with one dimple on the left. She had spent
many hours surreptitiously studying human women, and knew herself to be
quite appealingly shapely.
Eric's reaction confirmed it. He admired her as she stood proudly,
turning this way and that.
"I was afraid you'd be shy," he said, laughing a bit at his own
foolishness.
He peeled off his shirt as she watched intently. When she'd rescued
him, his shirt had torn, and she had thought there was something strange
about his chest. Now, as it was revealed, she saw that she was right. There
was a patch of short curly hair in the center, spreading out in a fan shape
between his nipples.
"You have hair here," she said, touching it. "How funny!" A
narrowing line of it went down toward his waist. She traced it, feeling the
muscles in his stomach jump and flutter under her fingertips.
"You have hair somewhere else," he said, dropping his gaze boldly.
"Well, yes, there for some reason." She shrugged. "It was like that
when I became human. Do you have hair that low?"
He nodded. "That and more."
"Show me! All these clothes are so unnatural."
Eric sat on the edge of the bed. Ariel sat beside him, watching as
he tugged off his boots. The sight of his feet made her want to giggle. Feet
seemed silly to her, even her own. No wonder humans wore shoes so often.
With his boots off, Eric stood and removed his tight trousers. She
saw that even his legs had hair on them. He straightened, and her jaw
dropped. There was something odd between his legs, a pale column of flesh
sticking out of a curly thatch of black hair, and a wrinkled pouch behind
it.
She covered her surprise before he saw it, not wanting him to think
her ignorant. There had been enough of that already, when she had used a
fork to comb her hair or thought Grimsby's pipe was a musical instrument.
Surely whatever that thing was belonged there, and she wasn't about to act
the guppy.
Except for the hair, he was as handsome as any merman from the waist
up. Her many sisters were jealous. They were all older and plainer, and
while they had schools of suitors because they were princesses, none of them
had found true love.
"Well?" he asked, turning as she had done. "What do you think?"
"The statue didn't do you justice." She held out her arms. "Come and
hold me. I want to feel your skin next to mine."
"No, not shy at all!" He threw himself on the bed and pulled her
down with him. They rolled over furs and satin pillows, laughing, kissing.