Happy Happy Happy Ending!

Here is the first "happy ending to the happy ending" of Seduced by the Sea Lord, book one in the Lords of Atlantis series: "Lucy's Honeymoon Surprise."

You should have already read Seduced by the Sea Lord. It's **FREE** with Kindle Unlimited and I frequently have sales. Did you get it yet? It is available here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06X1F1MD8.

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This is exclusive to newsletter subscribers, so please do not share it. Also, you should really read Seduced by the Sea Lord first. This story contains massive spoilers! It is a cute, sweet, steamy scene of Lucy and Torun the morning after their wedding.

Epilogue for Seduced by the Sea Lord

"Lucy's Honeymoon Surprise"

Crash!

Lucy bolted upright. The bed was empty. A body shape beside her showed where a large, sexy male had recently abandoned their warm sheets.

She swung her legs out and rested her feet on the familiar, worn slats of her bedroom floor. “Torun?”

He didn’t answer.

Ker-rash!

Did someone’s fist bash a cabinet full of glass? She pushed out of bed and hurried to the top of the steps. Below, the main floor of her parents’ house was in shadow.

She raised her voice. “Torun?”

“Stay where you are, Lucy!” His deep bass reverberated in the old, converted lighthouse. “Do not approach.”

Crash! Crash, crash!

She clutched her white cotton nightdress to her neck. “Are you sure?”

“Return to the bed this instant.”

She hesitated. He needed help.

“Now,” he demanded.

Lucy stopped at the bathroom on her way back, brushed her wild, brown hair and scrubbed her teeth of the previous night’s champagne.Crashity-crash!

Ignore the noises.

She flopped onto the old wooden frame bed and snuggled into the warm, fluffy blankets on Torun’s side, burying her nose in his pillows and luxuriating in his scent. They held his warmth in the morning sunshine.

This was how her husband smelled. Of sunshine and cinnamon. She breathed deeply.

Only a few days ago, she had introduced Torun to her parents. Neither had quite known how to feel about their new, tall, blue-tinged, covered in gold tattoos son-in-law. Her mom had started toflay Torun for disappearing with Lucy beneath the ocean for two weeks, but she kept getting interrupted by Lucy’s dad, who kept having to hide his head in his checkered flannel jacket while they all pretended he wasn’t crying.

Now, in their old family kitchen, she hoped that Torun wasn’t receiving the wooden spoon beating her mother had practically threatened.

“The women are fierce in your family,” he’d said after that first evening’s dinner, straightening under her mother’s lingering gaze.

Lucy entwined her hands with his. “Stay good and you’ll be fine.”

“I hope I am good.”

She leaned into his ear and whispered, “Later, I hope we’ll be naughty.”

He kissed her forehead and made secret promises just for them. Which included last night. When they’d been married.

Lucy rotated the simple wedding ringaround her left ring finger. Strong wires encased a tiny Sea Opal. Torun had fashioned it himself, with a Sea Opal shard he had found lodged in her cell phone case after their return to the United States. He had claimed it for her, from the shards of the one her ex had stolen from the submerged sacred church.

She stroked it. Lucy would never let it go.

The marriage ceremony was Torun’s idea. Their union was sacred under the water, and ever since she’d brought up marrying him human-style, he’d been obsessed with it. He wished for her to feel the same officialness from her home traditions that he felt because she had performed his.

Of course, neither marriage ceremonies had been legal. Underseas, he had broken tradition by stealing her from outside of his tribe’s abandoned sacred islands.

Above water, their marriage was illegal because the United States and other countries still hadn’t decided how to identify a male who spent most of his existence in the ocean, without a real central government or drivers licenses or even pockets, and also transformed partly into a fish. Was he even human? Aya promised Van Cartier Cosmetics would help the government make everything work out.

Anyway, so long as they could remain together, and keep a low profile, it was good enough for Lucy.

Torun appeared in the hall.

She sat up. “What have you got for me?”

“Many things.” Her gorgeous warrior filled the bedroom doorway with his rippling, muscular physique, tapered waist, and powerful legs. He ducked under the door jam.

Today, he wore long Bermuda shorts and an apron. His face and body were smeared with ingredients and he was dusted with flour, muting his iridescent gold tattoos.

She had bought the first Bermuda shorts because that was handy on the streets of Cancun. He had latched onto the design, decking himself out like a surfer on their cross-country trip through places like Ohio and Idaho. Everything inland interested him deeply. The endless bus journey held so much more meaning because they had experienced it together, him with wild-eyed wonder, and her because she was secure and wrapped in his immutable love.

Now, he rested the tray on her knees. On the dishes, he had placed a piece of bacon, a runny egg, and a piece of blackened toast. Also, a slab of what might be butter, a dollop of mayonnaise, and a scoop of shredded tuna fish.

“You cooked.” She examined him for injuries. “With fire?”

He covered his hands, certainly hiding cuts and grease burns. “You cooked many times. This time, I will provide.”

“You provided at your castle, underwater.” A place wherefire didn’t exist, except when burning magma erupted from undersea volcanoes.

“We are not underwater now.”

She poked the solidified bacon. “How did you know these are my favorites?”

“Your mother assisted. Only at first. She left before the tuna can, so, I owe your family another knife.”

“You opened the tuna can with a kitchen knife?” She chewed the watery shreds.

“Aged tuna was your favorite food at our castle, so, I wished you to enjoy the same food here, in your family home, on your first morning as my wife.”

She stopped chewing.

He gazed so clear, so steady. Words she tossed off and forgot about, he collected to his heart as treasures.

“Torun.” She set aside the fork and put both hands on the injured ones he tried to hide. “This is a feast.”

His chest swelled and his smile mellowed.

She couldn’t see the “brightness” he or the other mer saw in her, but she sensed her words had touched him. His efforts to give her the best food in a foreign environment, despite all his disadvantages, simply because he loved her, had not been in vain.

She squeezed his manly knuckles, and then she picked up the fork again and enjoyed her first breakfast as a wife, hardly tasting a thing.

“Where did my mom go?” she asked, crunching the bacon. “Is she picking up a cake for the reception?”

“She said something about giving us privacy, and took your father out on their boat.”

How kind.

Actually, her parents had done great. They were so happy she had emerged from being missing at sea for two weeks, and so shocked at the unconscionable actions of their former son-in-law, that facing a big, tattooed merman as Lucy’s new husband barely caused a ripple. Everything else had already blown their minds.

Of course, it helped that Torun told them Lucy was special, the most powerful woman in recorded history, and recognized as their queen.

Every parent wanted their child to grow up, go out into the world, and be loved and treasured. That hadn’t worked out with Lucy’s first husband. The second one more than burned away the dark wounds in her soul. Even if Lucy still couldn’t give him the children his endangered, male-only species needed to revive.

She rubbed the Sea Opal. Its inner light resonated with her soul and cast a healing balm on her heart.

Torun rested his elbows on his knees. “Should I summon your parents to return?”

“Huh?” She replayed the conversation. “Oh, no. I was just thinking it’s too bad the original Life Tree was destroyed before it could heal me. I wonder if we’ll ever be back to see the new one, or if your Council will still be out to get us when I’m old.”

He stroked her cheek. “You will be welcomed back as a queen.”

“Someday.”

He watched her eat. Peaceful, and strong, and satisfied being with her. Whether they were rich or poor, or whether they lived in the ocean or above it, he put her heart at ease. Everything would work out. Their souls had resonated. They were together.

But she still wished the Life Tree had healed whatever was wrong with her. Doctors had never identified the source of her infertility. She was functionally like any other woman, except she couldn’t get pregnant. She’d wanted kids long before she met Torun. Now, having them would be extra fitting.

He sensed the downturn of her thoughts again. He rubbed her idle hand between his two wide, powerful palms. “I went out with your father yesterday. He took me to every confluence of current.”

“You went in the water? That must have been cold.”

He smiled. Yes, Oregon in comparison to Cancun, despite that it was summer, didn’t really compare. “We found an echo point.”

She stopped chewing. “Did you hear news of your city?”

He shook his head. How the new King Jolan was doing, or whether Torun’s obtuse grandfather on the old Council had forced anyone into exile like he had tried to force Torun, or anything, they all wanted to know.

“A large force composed of many different cities stormed the prison trench and freed Kadir, the young warlord who inspired my rebellion. He will lead the force to rebuild the city of Atlantis.”

Her heart lifted. More women like her would have an opportunity to drink the elixir, gain mermaid powers, and join with warriors who treasured them and their power. The oceans would be filled with equals and not simply mermen who took on human surrogates to be kicked out after they produced kids.

“Someday Sireno will see you were right,” she said. “Women who choose their destiny will change everything. Your oceans will thrive.”

He smiled and let her finish eating. “Perhaps your friend Elyssa will soon have her opportunity to meet Kadir.”

“That’s good.” Lucy texted the eager woman Torun’s news and turned off her phone. “She’ll be their staunchest champion.”

The world was changing now the mer had been discovered. The shock of discovering just how much humans didn’t know about the bottoms of the ocean had been replaced by reactions from curiosity to xenophobia, and everything in between.

For now, Lucy’s powerful husband Torun collected the finished breakfast tray. Lucy flopped back on the bed. Her parents had replaced her childhood mattress with an adult-sized guest bunk, and it was just perfect for herself and her Torun.

She rolled onto his side and wiggled in the fluffy comforter.

His deep voice carried his amusement. “You are resting on my side.”

“It’s the best side.”

“You are welcome to switch.”

“No way.” She rolled over and teased him. “The fact that it’s yours is what makes it good.”

“I see.” He unfolded his long body on top of her comforter, pretending to squish her beneath it. “Oh, I am becoming so tired. I guess I will go back to sleep. Is something wiggling on my side of the bed? No matter, I will sleep on it anyway.”

She giggled. His weight shifted to his elbows on either side of her, hemming her in. “Torun!”

“Oh, Lucy! I did not realize you were there.”

“Mmhm.”

Thank goodness he could joke with her so easily and carefree. When they first met, he had been desperately serious. His race was dying out, and he broke his laws to find and speak to her.

They still had very serious problems, uncertain futures, and his Council would castrate and exile him if they caught him. But Torun could lie with her on a fluffy bed in her parent’s house and laugh, and smile, and tease? Yes. They had come a long way.

His smile turned wicked. “What shall I do to you?”

Remembering what they risked to be together made her value their time together even more. Her heart thumped. “I have a few ideas.”

He reacted to her serious tone. His nose nuzzled hers. “I am listening.”

She reached up and kissed him.

Her lips touched his and started an engine fueled by liquid desire.

He opened to her. Their tongues tangled. He tasted deliciously familiar, and she could never get enough of him. Her body rose to awareness. Her breasts swelled and her nipples pearled with tingling aches. Her heart beat hard, flushing her body with warmth, andneed twisted between her legs with a pulsing, pounding hunger.

He threw the comforter out of the way and descended upon her with single-minded conquest.

His hands cupped her cheeks and his tongue plumbed her mouth, filling her. His elbows held his weight on either side of her breasts, resting on the mattress. His hard pectorals pressed her down, and his tapered waistfit perfectly between her parted thighs.

She canted her hips and rubbed against his growing hardness.

He groaned. “Lucy.”

“Now,” she gasped. “Please. Now.”

He pulled up her soft white night dress and trailed fiery kisses along its rising hem until his mouth found her inner seam. He spread her to feast on her need.

Pleasure throbbed in her center. She writhed. His delicious gift built her hunger and made her crave more. Her body tingled, rising on thewelling tide of a powerful orgasm.

She tugged off his apron and forced down his Bermuda shorts. His passion-filled eyes burned on her body. Although she had not lost all the weight and recovered the size she’d worn when she’d last been confident, in his eyes, she felt a deeper acceptance of herself. He saw her true beauty.

And she saw it, too.

He pulled the nightgown over her head.

Every muscle rippled in shiny perfection. His tattoos glimmered, swirls and circles, iridescent. The colors trailed all the way down to his large arousal.

She gripped the hot shaft in her hands. The gold-swirled member pulsed.

“Lucy.” He breathed hard and pressed his forehead to hers. “You are sexy.”

It was a new word she had taught him. Beautiful was good for most women, and gorgeous was perfect for a new haircut or outfit, but sexy was how his wife wanted to be called when she was naked and pressed against him in bed.

Lucy rewarded his memory by wetting her hand and stroking his long shaft. He quivered. It was a reward for both of them. She loved the weight of his hard length in her hand.

He dropped his mouth to her rosy nipple. His hand massaged the other sensitive tip.

Need squeezed between her legs. Her body throbbed in readiness.

She positioned his smooth head at her wet entrance.

He rested on his elbow and eased in, careful of his girth, controlling his power. He filled her to the top. She shifted her hips to take him to the place of rightness. He pressed his hard tip against her pleasure spot. She moaned. He could hold himself perfectly still and she’d eventually orgasm, an incoming tide that rose imperceptibly until it closed over her and shook her to fulfillment.

But she liked it a little faster and a little wilder.

She writhed against his body, rubbing her sensitive nipples against his chest. His aquamarine eyes burned and his teeth clenched. He fought to hold onto his control while she worked against him, pumping their bodies together.

“Lucy.” A ragged edge to his delicious bass made her shiver.

She grabbed his flexing buttocks and squeezed.

He thrust harder. The pleasure tide rose, white water, higher. Tingles spread across her body, hot and unstoppable. She gasped. He groaned and pounded into her sweet glorious wonder. She kept her mouth above the water line, and then he lifted her bucking hips and poured himself into her, shouting with release. Pleasure grabbed her ankle and dragged her under.

The orgasm burst over her. She gripped onto Torun, the pilot of her body. They both jerked and shuddered. Waves of pleasure slapped her, wringing her with goodness.

When it was all over, and the last intoxicating wave passed out of her body, she threw her arms around him and held him close to her heart.

Their bodies eventually cooled and their heartbeats returned to normal. She stroked the well-muscled back of her loving husband as he shifted his weight to her side, curving around her protectively.

“I want to go out with you,” she said. “The next time you go out.”

“It is cold.”

“You swam in it.”

“Yes, like jumping into a cold shower. It is invigorating.”

“I want to show my parents my transformation.”

“The water is thick and dark. You would do better to transform on their ship.”

Her transformations were not going well. She could still only get half of one foot to flatten out like afin. It wasn’t the front half. It was the right half, her pinky, second, and third toes. It looked like an acme anchor had fallen on just the half. Not impressive or mermaid-like at all.

“Still, you should enter the water. You will see through a bright green lens. It is similar to a vast alpine meadow, like the ones we saw in your Rockies.”

“I want to go.”

He rose and stretched. “Then, get dressed. Your parents are ready as soon as we want to go out.”

Lucy’s stomach lurched. “What? Why didn’t you say that sooner?”

“Because your mother told me to take my time.” He smiled at her lazily. “I took my time.”

“Oh, you….”

He enfolded her in his arms and dizzied her with his sweet, loving, satisfied kiss.

Then, he patted her bare bottom. “Get dressed.”

They met her parents down on the dock, at their sailboat. Her father greeted Torun gruffly. His salt-and-pepper hair blew in the late morning sun, the air cool enough to merit his patched red and black flannel coat.

Lucy’s mother enfolded her in a warm hug. Her dark eyes glimmered behind her familiar beaded glasses. “How was breakfast?”

“Delicious,” Lucy said.

Torun beamed.

“Oh, well, then maybe you don’t want this.” She indicated the plain box of pastries she’d picked up from their favorite local bakery and two well-insulated hot chocolates.

Lucy snagged a crunchy bear claw. “Don’t worry, I’m hungry again.”

“Lucy-Boo!” Her dad called from the wheelhouse of their intimate family daysailer. “Cast off!”

She assisted her dad, the pastry clenched in her teeth, and she also taught Torun.

They were about half way to the echo point, enjoying a beautifulday, when she suddenly got ill. She lost her pastry and hot cocoa over the railing.

“What did you put in those runny eggs, Torun?” she asked, only half joking.

Torun stroked her back. “The horizon can disorient even the mer.”

“Mermen can get seasickness?”

“On a rough sea. We do not linger near the surface.”

“No kidding.”

But her parents were both staring at her with wide, shocked eyes.

“Boo,” her dad said, reverting to his childhood nickname for her. “You never get seasick. Are you sure it’s not something else?”

“Maybe.” She wiped her mouth and sent Torun to open a soothing, fizzy soda to wash the taste out of her mouth. “Actually, I think it’s a flu. I’ve been feeling weird every morning this last week. I threw up on the bus ride here, too.”

“Only in the mornings?”

“Yeah. It wears off.” She shrugged. “Maybe I picked up salmonella at that one super nasty roadside cafe. The one with the vending machines instead of food.”

Torun nodded at her analysis. “You felt ill immediately after eating that food.”

“Yeah. It didn’t really hit me until the next morning, though. And then, ever since, it goes away by mid-afternoon.”

Lucy’s father made a puffing noise of disbelief.

Her mother went to his side and put a calming hand on his arm. “What your father is trying to say is that we both noticed you seem to have an extra glow.”

Lucy took Torun’s hand. He had brought the glow of her soul back to life. Her parents had noticed.

“So, maybe there’s something you want to announce to us.”

“Announce?”

Her father squared his shoulders. “I’m ready.”

Lucy’s mother patted his hand.

So much had happened in these last weeks. They’d met and survived the disaster at Sireno. Lucy scratched the back of her head. “I got a job offer from Van Cartier Cosmetics. It’s for way more money than they paid me before, but I think they might go even higher, so I’m thinking I should hire a lawyer to negotiate—”

Her mother interrupted. “We’re wondering if you’re pregnant.”

The word fired like a gunshot.

Lucy twitched. “Pregnant? But I can’t have kids. The doctors said.”

“They said that because you didn’t get pregnant when they did all the medical things to you. Not that you couldn’t.”

“Well, yeah. We tried everything.”

“Honey, you come from a line of determined women. Your great-grandmother carried your grandma for an extra two months so she could be born in peace. And I was so worried about raising a baby alone that didn’t get pregnant with you until exactly nine months left on your father’s Coast Guard contract. We weren’t trying to abstain. He left his retirement party to meet us at the hospital. Some part of you knew Blake was bad, so your body refused to become pregnant. Not until you met,” she drew breath and indicated Torun, “a better man.”

Aw. Her mother’s complete acceptance of her new husband made Lucy all mushy inside.

She threw her arms around her mother. “Thank you so much.”

“You’re my daughter,” she murmured, patting Lucy’s back. “You’re my kid.”

“Well?” Her father turned red. “Then, are you?”

Her mother unwound herself to comfort Lucy’s father again. “Hon, they don’t know. And that’s fine. We’re fine not knowing.”

Her father did not look like he agreed.

Lucy turned to Torun. Could she, actually, be pregnant?

He looked right back at her, equally mystified. “Do you not know?”

“Why would I?”

He tilted his head.

Oh, jeez. He was a merman raised in an all-male society. As if he would know whether the Life Tree had healed her, and she was carrying their child.

She rubbed her head. “Wow. I didn’t even think it was possible. I mean, I just assumed I never would be. It’s not like I have a tester on me.”

“You can perform a test?” Torun reached out and held her hand. His own was damp. Excited, but trying not to seem so. “That is a useful invention.”

“Tell me about it.” She ran her free hand through her hair. Suddenly, she couldn’t stand still. She wanted to jump into the freezing cold water with all of her clothes on, swing off the mast like a monkey, or howl at the sun in the bright blue sky. “Gosh. I wish I’d thought of this on the mainland.”

“I can turn this boat around,” her father said.

“Nah. I mean, most likely I’m not. I don’t want to get all excited for nothing.”

All the times she had gotten excited about nothing piled up against her memory like stones, trying to drag her spirit down. All the tests. All the disappointments.

Blake had only wanted a baby so he could swindle her parents out of their charter company. Even so, Lucy had really wanted a baby. She wanted one even more now, shared with Torun.

“I can turn around,” her father repeated, tapping his foot. He looked even more anxious and excited than she felt.

“No. No….”

Torun sensed her indecision. He wiggled his brows. “Well?”

She giggled and threw her arms around him. “Well…hmm.”

“Well, if you’re going to turn around anyway, then here.” Her mother dragged a pregnancy test out of her reading bag and slapped the carton on the table.

They stared at her.

“Lilith,” her father murmured.

“I didn’t want to pressure her,” her mother said, “but I thought it might come in handy. No reason to turn around and cut short a perfectly wonderful day of sailing.”

Lucy’s heart swelled.

Her mother understood too that if the results were negative, Lucy could distract herself with a polar bear plunge, and hide her tears in the dark, dense Pacific Northwest ocean with her husband, in private.

“You can do it if you want.” Her mother leaned back on her seat cushion and pulled out the newest Nora Roberts. “If you don’t, I don’t want to know either. Call me in nine months.”

“I think you’d know sooner than that!” Lucy snatched the small box.

Her heart pounded in her throat. She went into the tiny shipboard bathroom and read all of the instructions three times before she built up the guts to open the plastic.

Every kit was different, after all. It would be dumb to do this one wrong and receive an indecisive answer. Then, she really would make her dad go back, and ruin the afternoon, and they’d all miss out on sailing. Her morning sickness what was probably just a cold. It was probably nothing. It was nerves, or salmonella, or—

“Lucy? Hon?” Her mom tapped on the door. “I’ve got three more kits in my bag. If anything goes wrong, you just come on out and grab another one.”

Tears leaped to her eyes. “Mom? How come you know exactly what I need to hear?”

“I’m guessing. But you’re still, always and forever, my little girl.”

She sniffed.

“Come on out when you’re ready.”

“Okay.”

Her mother’s footsteps receded.

Lucy ripped open the plastic on the tube and took a deep breath.

Minutes later, she walked out of the tiny bathroom and approached her loving family. Her dad braced himself. Her mother looked up casually from the book, although it appeared she had not moved off of the very first page. Torun simply rose and looked at her, the knowledge already burning in his tender gaze. Their connection would see them through anything. Any tragedy, any triumph, and any ordinary day in between.

“Mom.” She swallowed. “Dad, Torun. You will never believe this. I’m—”

Her mother screamed and tossed the book over the railing. Her dad staggered and had to sit down. Torun smiled at her, steady and proud and in love.
Lucy’s announcement rang out from that small boat, where all of the people raced to her and danced her around and hugged her and cried, and crossed the entire ocean, all of the oceans, and changed the world.