They didn’t even speak when she got to him. She pushed herself out of the water and threw her arms around him. She was cold from the water, and when his arms wrapped around her back, they felt hot against her skin.

He held her tight to him and kissed her more fiercely than he’d ever kissed her before. There was this panicked insistence to it, like he couldn’t kiss her deeply enough, and Gemma loved it. She put her hands on his neck, pulling him closer to her.

He was lifting her out of the water as they kissed, and her tail pressed against his legs and stomach. Gemma clung to him desperately, and she never wanted to let him go.

Eventually they had to stop so they could breathe, but Alex still held her close to him. He rested his forehead against hers, his eyes closed as he breathed her in.

“I missed you,” he murmured, and kissed her on the mouth again, more gently this time.

“I missed you, too,” she said, wanting to sob. She’d been so certain she’d never see him again, and now she was afraid that she’d never be able to let him go.

At that thought, she returned to kissing him frantically. In the back of her mind, she knew the sirens were nearby in the house, and Alex would have to leave very soon if she wanted him to live. So if she only had a few moments with him, she had to make them count.

His hand moved down, pressing against the smooth scales of her tail, which rose up to the small of her back. Nobody had ever touched her tail before, and the warm touch of his skin sent pleasurable shivers down to her fin.

“Wow.” Alex stopped kissing her so he could look down at the iridescent scales, which shimmered in the early morning light. “So … you really are a mermaid now?”

“Yeah.” Gemma laughed and looked him in the eyes. “I kinda am.”

“So you two are done making out now?” Harper asked, and Gemma looked over Alex’s shoulder to see Harper standing behind him. She’d been so excited about Alex that she hadn’t even noticed her sister there.

Harper had gone out far enough so the water was just lapping against her feet, and Daniel was standing a bit farther back on the shore, looking uncertainly from Gemma to the stark white house on the beach behind them.

“You have to go,” Gemma said. Seeing Harper and Daniel’s unease had snapped her out of her romantic notions, and she realized how dangerous this could get.

“Alex gets a kiss, and you tell me to get out of here?” Harper raised an eyebrow. “No way. We didn’t come all this way to leave you behind.”