MakeMeWet (2 page)

Fact…

Fuck a bunch of facts.

Liquid diamonds decorated skin pale as moonlight, quivered
on full breasts that swayed gently as she leaned over him. Ronin’s tongue
twitched between the vise of his teeth.

Women never leaped naked to his rescue. But the past three
centuries had confirmed that what women would do was an ever-changing mystery.
May
the Goddess grant that aspect of the feminine never change.

He savored the moment, watching from beneath his lashes as
she bent, hair trailing like damp fingers over his skin, the crescent of her
ear branding his chest. Her sigh released in a rush just before she lifted her
head.

Goddess, she was more than beautiful. A lean swimmer’s body,
with the exception of those buoyant breasts. Midnight hair—a tumble of wild
waves he wanted to twine around his fingers while he mounted and rode her
through the night.

Nervous as a sandpiper, she reached to touch then drew back,
hands alighting on his ribs and taking off again in a flutter. He didn’t dare
breathe for fear of scaring her off. Luminous gray eyes assessed him. So intent
was her inspection it was as if she were touching him physically when her gaze
brushed his face, a lingering caress over lips, over eyelids and holding there.

Still holding there. Holding there a bit too long for
comfort.

She’d caught him peeking. Nothing to do now but stay the
course. When she leaned in again, his fingers dug furrows in the wet sand,
curled to fists around soggy clumps as he fought the urge to capture those
hypnotic breasts.

Ronin continued holding his breath. He’d hold it into
eternity to bring her closer. The scent of her was a blend of wild and feminine
that ignited desire like whiskey poured on a banked fire. There was no holding
back the surge of blood and heat thickening his cock. But his shy little
sandpiper found her courage. He nearly swallowed his tongue when her lips
closed over his to steal a kiss.

It was so easy. Too easy?

Slick, sexy curves surfed his skin. Soft female sounds—more
seductive than a mermaid’s song—quivered in her throat. His hands found her ass
and squeezed, turning up the volume on her love music. Trailing one hand up her
back to cup her head, he deepened the kiss.

She tasted fragile, an aura of the earlier tears lingered.

He tried to slow her down, ask her name, but his tongue
tangled with her hers and it came out like a sea lion grunting.

The initial stage of getting acquainted couldn’t be rushed.
His last intended had zapped him with a Taser when he’d tried to join her via
her bedroom window. She dialed the police while he twitched like a beached cod
on her bedroom floor. Mercifully, the Goddess Mere intervened. If the word
mercy could be applied to anything she did. Before the call had gone through,
her spell cast him back to the bottom of the ocean.

Her intervention canceled his shore leave before it had
gotten started, sentencing him to fourteen years without a woman rather than
the customary seven. He wanted inside this woman with a desperation that wasn’t
good for either of them.

The last mistake had harmed no one but Ronin. This time a
mistake could break his intended. There’d been too many broken women in his
worthless life.

Ronin needed to get control.

Of the sex.

And the magick.

Slow hands were happy hands, which lead to happy parts in
other places. But happy parts and happy places were not something their sand-
and salt-crusted bodies were going to deliver.

He broke the kiss, nuzzling her neck as he rolled her under
him.

The world went into a tumbling spin, as if a wave had
scooped them up. Only that wasn’t possible, because above the roaring in his
ears he could make out her voice chirping panicky commands.

“Are you okay? Talk to me. Open your eyes.”

Opening one eye revealed the world still retained its
nauseating spin, a lingering side effect of his head connecting with a rock
during their swim.

Ronin pressed his forehead to hers and the spinning
subsided.

Concern turned her volume up a notch. “Say something. What’s
your name?”

Small hands bracketed his face. He covered her hands with
his, hoping the squeeze he gave them projected confidence rather than the
desperate clutching at consciousness it was.

“I’ve got you, sweetheart,” he mumbled. “All’s well.”

“Got me?” With surprising strength she forced his head back
to inspect him. “You look ready to pass out.”

Well then, she’d completely missed his sexy-confident-take-charge-protector
projection. He went for love-drunk-fool-who-is-also-confident-and-sexy instead.

Angling his head—carefully—he pressed lips against the pulse
in her wrist, summoning a bit of magick to soothe. He let his eyelids droop
again. “Aye, you have my head spinning.”

He paused long enough to take in her reaction. Saltwater
dribbled from his hair to her skin. Passion misted her eyes. The slowing beat
of her heart under his, a positive sign the selkie pheromones were working
their magick.

She asked again, a doubtful pitch at the end of the
question, “You’re okay?”

“More than okay.” Bending his head to his lover again, he
licked and nipped, collaring her with a trail of kisses. Sealing magick into
her skin while she sighed and squirmed, binding the spell that would render
them inseparable as sea from shore until the dawn.

She whimpered again, turning her head from side to side in
the swirling shallows, thrusting hips against him. He planted the last kiss on
her nape as the water receded, completing the circle.

Her hair fanned out around her, a dark halo riding the
currents. Manacling her wrists above her head with one hand, he gathered that
luscious hair. Reeling in thick tresses, he angled her head to catch moonlight
and get a better look at her. Her wild aquatic beauty and soulful stare
threatened to unleash the beast in him. Her skill and grace in the water had
been that of someone born to it, a child of the sea. A loner too, he’d wager.
Kindred soul. Goddess, but he wanted her. Now.

Now wasn’t possible. Waves could be gauged by their tone on
a scale. One rolling toward them had a deep base that promised height and
volume. A wave big enough to submerge them. Too close for escape.

“Hold your breath,” he ordered.

Without glancing toward the surf she drew a breath and
closed her eyes as his mouth covered hers. Trust given on command. Delicious.
Kissing her under the water. Purely erotic.

The fact that she instantly caught the knack of letting him
feed her air made him wish he dared to have her there, in the rolling
surf—fucking where crests tossed them high and curls caressed their bodies with
sandy fingers as they rocketed through the barrel, only to be lifted again on a
new swell. That, unfortunately, was not a game mortals could safely play.

He anchored her, pressing her into the sand as the receding
wave pulled at them.

When he opened his eyes, her gaze met his without fear or a
hint of the shyness he’d detected in their first kiss. But the heavy-lidded,
half-drugged haze had faded. In its place a probing awareness, curiosity maybe,
even as her body undulated under his.

He should say something. Even before he’d spent the better
part of three centuries without the power of speech, he lacked the gift of gab.
What etiquette applied?

Taut nipples distracted, had his head dipping to deliver a
little teasing from his teeth.

A frustrated moan resonated in her throat as he lowered his
head. Her sigh welcomed him when his teeth caught a nipple. His cock twitched
between the slight parting of her thighs, nestled against the heat of her slit
like a compass needle seeking north.

“Please…” Her answering whisper was so full of longing that
he knew she was just as aware of his rigid cock. Crisp curls tickled his length
when she wriggled. The kiss of her heat drove him to the edge.

Slow down. Slow hands.

He released her hands. It was harder, but he managed to will
his teeth to part and let her nipple free. Talk. Talking was the only way to
get past the craving that demanded he go right back to what he was doing.

Propping himself on his elbows, he reined them both in.
“Forgive my bad manners.” He paused to kiss the end of her cute little nose.
“I’m Ronin Brennan. You?”

He knew the answer, could pluck the name from her thoughts.
Not as easily as he could with most humans—her thoughts came to him through a
fog—but the answer was clear. Maille Shane. He waited for her to say it.

“Maille Smith.”

Really? Trusted him with her breath but with only half her
name. Surely she had a bit of her own magick if she could hold on to caution at
this point.

Good. He loved a challenge. He dropped a line of nips and
kisses from her breastbone on down to her belly.

“Well then, Maille Smith, I’d like to thank you properly.”
Her bellybutton snagged his attention. His tongue found and circled the hidden
nub with the same care and attention he intended to deliver farther down.

“Goddess,” she gasped.

Water lapped and swirled around their bodies. He scooted
lower. Parted her heated lips with his tongue. Blew a teasing stream of heat
over her clit that brought it to full attention. That brought her up too,
almost to sitting.

“Please,” she panted.

“With your permission, of course…” He paused, swirled his
tongue over her clit and added, “I’d like to thank you somewhere more pleasant
than a beach.”

“Please…” She trailed off on a breathy whisper laced with
erotic longing, fingers running through his hair, catching hold of his ears,
dragging him down into her fragrant heat. Into heaven.

He caged her clit with his teeth, used his thumbs to massage
the sensitive muscles just between thighs and the heat of her begging pussy.

“Please…finish. F-f-f—” She tried to twist free. Her
struggle didn’t hide the thoughts from him. He caught it vibrating loud and
clear.

Fuck me. Fuck me hard. Fuck me long. Fuck me and don’t
ever stop.

Words he’d longed to hear these past fourteen years. Only
the timing was off. Or, more accurately, the location. Baritone notes riffing
toward shore demanded action. Drowning his intended was bound to annoy the
Goddess.

Scrambling to his feet, grabbing her hands, he pulled her up
beside him.

Annoyed. Proud. She shook him off and took a step back.

Damn, but she had a will of iron. Fighting magick
and
hormones. Succeeding to a degree he’d never encountered.

The wave flattened her.

That was bound to be a mood killer.

Her hand bumped his ankle then both grabbed tight. Ronin
scooped her up before the current could pull her loose. The tide was coming in,
and the goings-on up at Shadowling Manor weren’t doing anything to gentle the
waters. He hugged Maille tight. She was his and nothing was taking her from
him. For now.

Rubbing at her eyes, Maille turned her face into his chest,
still coughing, still gulping air. Each inhale would carry more pheromones into
her system. He regretted that aspect of his enchantment. He wanted to believe
his skill and her hunger for his touch would bring what came next.

He nuzzled her cheek, felt her hunger for love in every cell
of his being. He wished he could linger and be the one to satisfy the longing
in her heart as well as the fever in her blood. He wished… What?

To be her hero. That bashing his head took must have
scrambled his brains. A selkie was as far from a hero as a man could get.

Her coughing eased. She looked up at him.

He tried to fix his lips into a reassuring smile. He was
human so rarely he’d lost the knack. He must have managed well enough because
she smiled back.

“Tell me which way, love, and I’ll get you home.”

“I can walk—”

“Forget it.”

The human form he took when coming ashore was always the
intended’s fantasy man, a vision straight out of her wettest dream—guaranteed
to make her weak-kneed and pliant. For Maille, a man big enough to carry her, a
strong take-charge type to look after her, was part of that fantasy.

She pointed toward a cottage up the beach, near the rising
wall of cliffs.

He marched between dunes and skirted saw grass. The scent of
trampled beach heather mingled with the breeze. Something in a circle of dunes
just the other side of a tide pool caught her attention and he had to scramble
to keep from falling when she twisted suddenly in his arms.

Ronin felt telepathically, rather than by any scent or sign,
the presence of a mare. A stallion, atop dunes farther down the beach, stood
guard. And while Maille was too far off for human ears to catch the greeting,
Ronin was certain the quick tilt of Maille’s head in that direction meant the
stallion’s welcoming nicker hadn’t escaped Maille’s notice.

The stallion’s attention on Maille sent Ronin hustling
through the loose sand. Like the wolves up on the cliffs, the stallion was a
shifter. Shifters should be expected, he supposed, with Shadowling so close.
They could take those seductive greetings elsewhere.

The cottage sat on a rocky shelf in the shelter of the
cliff. Maille directed him toward the backyard, rather than up the wide porch
at the front. In the midst of a well-tended herb garden, a redwood structure
with a stained-glass dome ceiling sat in the center of tiled paths.

Maille squirmed and he put her down.

“This is the sauna,” she said matter-of-factly. “There are
probably fresh towels and robes just inside the door. There’s a lovely shower
room behind the sauna, just follow the path around the back.”

A sauna?
It had the feel of a church or temple.

Probably towels and robes? She didn’t know?

She reached for the wrought iron latch on the door, but her
hand stopped short. Her fingers curved over an emblem of a cresting wave carved
on the door.