The Mermaid and her King by Scarlet Wolfe

touch and taste all of your perfect body. I’ve been trying for two weeks to resist you.”
    “Please, don’t,” I whisper.
    “I ca n’t have you, angel.”
    And just like that he’s gone, leaving me all alone in his room. That arrogant ass. I gather my stuff and storm downstairs, finding him on his patio.
    “Don’t ever speak to me again,” I say before I angrily tread back through the house and go out the front door. I need to go back to Cali. The loneliness I feel on this damn island is killing me. A paradise for romance, my ass.
    Then Bud leaves me right before we get to be together again. With him being three years older than me, you’d think he wouldn’t have given me the time of day, but he dragged me around with him everywhere when we were kids.
    Being even a couple of years older than Bud, Lee thought I was a pest, but not my cousin. I cried for a month when he moved here. He told me I could move to Hawaii, too in three years, but that’s an eternity when you’re fifteen and miss someone. Bud was my everything, and I’m so angry at him for dying on me because of his drug addiction!
    After slamming my front door, I throw myself onto my couch and cry for all the loss and rejection I’ve been dealt. My strength is crumbling.
    ***
    A knock at the door wakes me. I don’t know how long I’ve been sleeping. No one visits me, so I’m instantly alarmed. Please don’t be the military, please don’t be the military. I can’t survive another loss. I slowly open the door and see that it’s Chase.

Chase
     
    “Hi, can we talk?”
    “No.” She starts to shut the door on me.
    I s tick my hand out and catch it. “Please. I need to apologize.” She looks sad. Her eyes are swollen and red. I hate myself for making her cry.
    “Outside,” she says before she pushes past me and sits down on her porch steps. I sit next to her.
    “Um, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have kissed you like that.”
    “You’re sorry you kissed me?” she asks, looking straight ahead and sounding even angrier.
    “No, but i t wasn’t fair for me to grab you like that. I slept next to you, and I … I haven’t been with a woman in a long time, and you’re a very attractive woman, Skyla. I couldn’t take it any longer.” I turn toward her to see her expression. She blushes and peers up at me.
    “I don’t regret you kissing me. What I regret is how you keep giving me the impression you’re interested, only to turn right around and push me away.”
    “I shouldn’ t be coming on to you due to the shit I’m dealing with, but I selfishly want you around. I came to apologize because I have no business trying to keep you to myself when I know I can’t get closer to you.”
    Her eyes flash back up to mine. “You want to keep me to yourself?” she asks softly.
    If she only knew how badly I want to lock her in my room and kiss those juicy lips again. “Yes, but I need to leave you alone. I came to explain, so you don’t think I’m a total jackass. I’m not trying to play some kind of game,” I say as I stand up.
    She stands, too and looks pissed. “How can you do this?”
    “Do what?”
    “Ho w can you feel that way but never plan to see me again?”
    “Skyla, I don’t need to get to know you better to tell how great you are. I don’t deserve someone like you. I’m not a good person.” I look away from her.
    “I don’t see that . You rescued me from those guys on the beach, you doctored my arm and said you’d pay me when I didn’t work. You fed me lunch. You saved my ass at that bar, and you came here to apologize for kissing me without permission. You’re not bad, so why can’t you see that?”
    She runs her hand up my neck, her fingers sliding into the back of my hair, but it’s as if I can feel her touch over my entire body. I feel powerless gazing down at her. Don’t give in.
    “I have to go, S kyla. You deserve better.” I jump into my car and leave. Once again, she’s left standing alone. I’m a dirt