Tidal Wave (10 page)

He began to pull her to the surface but Joshua protested, his hands pointing to a hidden path behind them in the rocks. Taking air as she needed from them, the three passed from the sunlight into a tunnel lit with glowing blue phosphorus.

When their heads broke the surface of the water Joshua waited for a response from Alexia. It didn’t take long.

“My God, this is the cave. This is the place I’ve dreamed about for so many years.” Her voice rasped from a throat that must have been salt scorched.

Anthony reached for the large bath sheets hanging on the wall at the far side of the cavern, and Joshua stripped off her swimsuit before wrapping Alexia tightly in the warm fabric. He held her close until the shivers rocking her body stilled. Tucking his chin into her neck, he inhaled her scent, letting her nearness calm him until he could give back what she needed.

Seeing her attacked had shaken him to the core, and the anger under his fear burned in his belly like hot coals. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. So sorry I wasn’t there for you the whole time.” Alexia whimpered when he touched her arm, her breath coming in little shaky spurts. “Damn it, he hurt you.”

“No, I’m fine,” she denied, even as she shifted away from his touch. He pulled the towel aside and cursed at the blue rising on her arm and waist.

“I’ll kill him,” Joshua swore under his breath, his hand skimming her body as he checked the extent of the bruising. The blow must have glanced sideways off her torso, luckily for them all or it would have been a lot more serious. Dolphins could kill with a direct hit to the right spot on a human body.

“Get in line,” Anthony spat out. “I’m going to take the bastard apart with my bare hands the next time I see him.”

Alexia shook her head and stepped away from them. “Stop it, both of you. Michael won’t try anything like that again. He’s not going to stop me from taking my place as the matriarch, which I plan to assume without his help.”

Joshua caught Anthony’s eyes and the shock he felt reflected back at him. Had she just said what he thought she said? “Alexia, are you sure? Are you really accepting the position?”

She twisted her neck from side to side, massaging it with her good hand. “Why do you sound so surprised? I thought that’s what you wanted all along.”

Anthony pulled her onto his lap as he sat on the low trunk serving as a table. He tugged at the towel until it loosened and used it to dry her hair. “It’s what we knew you were meant for, but we’ve thrown a lot of new information at you in a short time. If you needed longer to come to terms with it, everyone would understand.” Placing the towel aside, his hands smoothed her skin intimately, his thumbs pressing hard on the muscles. Joshua watched his cousin drop a kiss on Alexia’s spine, his tongue flicking her skin.

“Does it look like I need more time? Shit, Anthony, I’m sitting in your lap in a room I’ve seen in dream, both of us naked, while another naked man watches us, and I’m not in the least embarrassed. I got attacked by a lawyer in dolphin form, and I spent more than an hour underwater sucking air from one or the other of you.” She glanced over her shoulder and snorted. “Either I come to terms with it quick or you need to call the little men with the white coats to come and take me away. Ouch, that hurt.”

Another shiver raced along her skin and Joshua dropped to his knees in front of them, pressing his body to hers to warm her. “You need to get dressed, you’re shaking with cold and shock.” Her arms surrounded him, trapping him when he would have pulled back.

“It’s not cold that’s making me shiver, it’s need.” Alexia’s hands cupped his face and she drew his mouth to hers, licking his lips. Her sweet flavor stole into him again, setting his heart pounding and his body tightening with desire. She tangled her legs around his hips, opening her body farther, and the aroma from her pussy rose into the air. Behind them Anthony choked back a groan but continued to massage her back.

Softly, gently, Joshua kissed her, trying to let her know what he felt in his heart with his tongue and lips and teeth. His whole world narrowed to the slide of their tongues together, her hands running into his hair, anchoring their mouths in place. Kisses and nips, strokes and caresses, her sweet body melting under his. Alexia moaned and he inhaled the sound, the small hairs on the back of his neck standing erect.

She was all he needed. All he’d ever need, and he’d been a fool not to be honest with her from the start. No matter that his intentions were good, no matter he’d been blinded by his own panting desire.

He pulled back enough to rest their foreheads together. “I love you, Alexia. How or why it happened, all I know is that it’s real. I never want to be sent away from you again, wondering if you’ll forgive me. God, I felt like such a fool, but I’d gladly have suffered more to have been able to stay with you and keep you from harm.” He dropped kisses on her eyelids, stroking away the tears hovering there. His heart ached the longer she remained silent, even though her eyes sparkled at him.

She kissed him. On the forehead. On the nose. On his lips. She dropped her mouth to his throat and her warm mouth suckled at his skin. The blue of St. Elmo’s fire flashed over them, igniting his passion higher, and it was all he could do to restrain from lining up his cock and driving into her until there was nothing separating them ever again.

She let her lips caress up his neck until she whispered against his ear, her voice soft and intimate, just for him. He was aware of Anthony mere inches away behind them but it felt like they were all alone. “Joshua, I was angry this morning, but more with Gram than with you. We may never understand why we’re connected but the truth is we belong together. That’s why it hurt to know you weren’t honest with me.”

“I’m sorry—”

“Hush, I’m not looking for you to apologize anymore. I’m trying to tell you I understand why you did it. Anthony and I talked this morning after you left, and the depth of the whole emotional connection between water shifters is, well, it’s not like anything I’ve ever heard of in the human world.”

She touched his mouth tenderly, her thumb rubbing at his lower lip. He let his tongue touch her skin, licking at the salty and sweet essence that was Alexia. “You and Anthony…talked?” He glanced over her shoulder to meet his cousin’s gaze. Understanding, longing, passion for the special woman in their arms passed between them.

“Among other things.” Her body shook again and Joshua cursed, grabbing at the towel on the floor. Alexia laughed as he tried to force Anthony’s hands away to wrap her up. “Joshua, I’m not cold.”

“Bullshit. I’m taking you upstairs and you’re getting into bed. There’s a tunnel connecting the cavern with the shed outside your house.” Her giggles continued and Joshua worried it had all been too much, that she was growing hysterical.

“Now you’re talking sense. Bed is exactly where I want to be. With you. And Anthony. But I don’t want to leave the cave yet.” Her lips were on his neck again, hot moisture igniting his blood to boiling.

Anthony waited impatiently as they spoke. There was nothing he could have added to their conversation, other than wishing he too could share with Alexia how much she meant to him. It wasn’t his place, and he wasn’t going to assume anything.

But right here, and right now, he knew what she needed. And he was more than willing to make sure it happened.

He rearranged the cushions to form a nest on the grass mat, and Joshua deposited Alexia, trying to cover her with the heavy comforter. She continued to laugh and resist his attempts, Joshua wrestling with her.

“Alexia, you need to rest. Lie back and we’ll warm you up. It’s all been too much, hasn’t it, sweetheart? Maybe a nap would be good,” Joshua said.

His cousin’s heart was in the right place, but his brain must have melted from too much time in his fire form. Anthony planted a hand in the middle of Joshua’s back and shoved, knocking him to the surface of the bed next to Alexia who willingly wrapped her body around him like an octopus. “Stop fussing. She’s not shaking from the cold or from shock. Listen to her, she’s telling you what she needs. I don’t think it’s a nap, is it, Alexia?”

“Hmmm, no nap. Just you.” Alexia licked the side of Joshua’s neck as she forced him onto his back in the middle of the bed. She straddled his waist and turned to face Anthony. “And you. Both of you.” She reached out for him and Anthony went willingly to her side, taking the kisses she offered, giving back his own worship of her lips and tongue.

The woman had him tied up in more knots than he’d ever believed possible. He was someone who tried to walk the quietest route possible most of the time. Alexia released all the darkest and most passionate parts of his psyche. Emotion swept him along, needy and deep, and he knew he could no more stop the next events from happening than he could stop the tide from turning.

His kisses grew hotter as Anthony took control and plundered her mouth. The fear that had covered them during the attack transformed into something more earthy and primitive as Alexia raked her fingernails down his shoulders and he growled. “God, yes. More. Give it all to me, to Joshua and me. Light us on fire. Burn us with your fire.”

Alexia’s eyes flashed blue within the brown, hunger and lust spilling over like a tangible force.

He lifted her, pushing her legs to the side so she knelt above Joshua’s body. Anthony looked at his cousin and saw the barely controlled heat in his eyes, the same dark desire rocking his own body.

“Joshua is going to go down on you, love. He’s going to eat your pussy until you’re not able to move.” He watched Alexia’s eyes grow wider and wilder as he spoke. What she needed called to him, but she wouldn’t say it. He sensed it, knew the words were impossible for her to say even after knowing them intimately.

So he said it for her.

“When you’ve come so many times you’re ready to collapse into a puddle he’s going to fill you with his cock and I’m going to take your sweet ass and together the two of us are going to give you what you need. We’re going to cover you inside and out with everything in us. Our seed, our bodies and our hearts.” Anthony leaned in and kissed her open mouth as she gaped at his words. Just a touch, then he drew back and watched her eyes flutter shut as Joshua closed his mouth over her.

As heat swept through her body, an innate sense of rightness came with it. Joshua lapped at her tender labia, his fingers separating her to let his intimate caresses reach where he directed them. With her eyes closed, all she felt were sensations, tingling and electrifying every nerve in her body.

Anthony rubbed her neck, his fingers dragging into her hair the only warning before his mouth descended and took the very air from her lungs. Any of the slow tenderness he’d shown her through their lovemaking the previous night was erased as his body vibrated with sexual tension next to her. Something dangerous that had been caged within him was loose, and she was the one who would be the hunted, the one his passions took to the next level.

Mouths joined, tongues mated, Anthony adjusted her head to another angle and drew her closer, all the while making sure she stayed suspended above Joshua’s talented mouth. Her heart swelled as she received from them, took what they wanted so badly to give her. Anthony’s words describing what he planned for them had brought her to the edge of orgasm, and a ripple of satisfaction started to flow through her body, the thrusting of Joshua’s tongue against her sensitive tissues enough to make her come.

Anthony growled and tore her from her position, his green eyes dark with restrained passion as he arranged her to his liking on her hands and knees, her bottom thrust into the air.

“Enough. I can’t wait to taste you. To feel you around me.” His voice scratched at her ears, low and husky, and another shiver knocked her off her hands to her elbows, opening her even wider to where Anthony waited behind her.

A soft chuckle in front of her made her open her eyes to see Joshua smirking at his cousin. “Changing the game plan in mid-throw, are you? Damn impatient asshole, I wasn’t done with her.”

Anthony’s warm hand covered the cheeks of her ass, his fingers tracing the open seam between them slowly until he slipped one thick digit into the wetness of her pussy. “Sorry, Joshua. Deal with it.” His concentration was completely on her, and she swore his gaze burned into her backside as one hand caressed and one hand dipped into her depths again and again.

A gentle touch landed on her cheek, and Alexia looked up to see Joshua smiling at her, his cock in hand. She turned her head to lick at the moisture beaded on the swollen crest, and he rewarded her with a primal groan. She willingly opened her mouth and sucked him in, his flavor bursting over her tongue and relieving some of the dire need she’d felt build and rebuild ever since taking the medallion.

Joshua cradled her head, supporting her as he rocked his hips forward and back, his heavy cock stretching her lips wide. She sucked as he withdrew and his hiss of pleasure echoed in the room.

Behind her, hot moisture covered her pussy as Anthony feasted on her. His tongue laved the entire length of her slit rising to the puckered hole hidden between her cheeks. He brought her to another climax with his tongue and fingers on her clit, the pressure high and hard, while Joshua fucked her mouth with his cock. The tremors were smaller this time, the pressure within her continuing to rise instead of releasing. Anthony lapped at her, rimming the sensitive tissue of her ass until she was shaking hard enough to fall over.

Anthony moved her again, this time returning her to the original position she’d taken straddling Joshua. Wordlessly she gyrated over him, rubbing like a cat in heat over his cock, dragging it over her erect clit and purring with delight at the sensations.

“Put him inside you, Alexia, and let me get you ready. You’ve done this before, haven’t you?” Anthony’s hand stroked her ass and she had to concentrate to be able to respond.

“A few times. I like it, but…” She stared at Joshua. “Not while I had another man in my pussy. It’s going to be too much.”

Joshua ran his hands up the sides of her body, avoiding her bruise, skimming the rounded edges of her breasts. “You’ll be full, but it won’t be too much. It’s going to be wonderful. Anthony’s right, you need this to be able to make the transformation.”

“Screw that.” Anthony barked and he clasped her neck and planted another barely controlled kiss on her lips. He pulled back leaving them both breathless. “This isn’t so you can transform, Alexia, it’s because I fucking need you. I need to be buried inside you so far you forget we’ve ever been apart. Ignore Joshua. He needs you too, but the bastard is too stupid for words and can never manage to say it properly. Did we tell you I let him copy all my test papers in school so he’d pass?”