Wet and Wilde (2 page)

She is? I thought only porn stars and strippers did that.
“I don’t care.” She shoved an oversized t-shirt at her friend. “Wear this or I won’t leave this locker room.”

“Okay.” Diana slid it over her head and poked her arms through the holes. “Whatever it takes to get you in the water.” She tossed her head, sending her gold hair cascading down her back and shoulders.

Yep, Jane hated Diana…sorta.

They padded through the shower room toward the glass door at the end, Jane’s flip flops striking the tile floor with an obnoxious
slap-slap
sound. Maybe she could have skipped them, but she’d read about the dangers of fungus. This place had to be a breeding ground.

Diana pushed the door open, and Jane scanned the crowd before stepping foot in the huge room.

The first thing she saw, lots of little kids, some in the pool suspended by orange balloons on their arms.
Did those come in adult size?
They looked pretty handy.

Other kids were kicking their way across the deep end of the pool—my God, their parents put them in twelve feet of water!—with the aid of a white foam board. A couple of young women stood on the side of the pool, whistles caught between their teeth, arms crossed over red t-shirted chests. The whistles sounded, the ear-splitting whirr ricocheting off the concrete walls and high ceiling. “Time’s up. Out of the pool.” The kids, who all made it to the opposite end of the pool, thank God, discarded the foam boards and hauled themselves out of the water.

“Our class starts in a few minutes.” Diana stood by Jane’s side, leaning casually against the wall.

“Gee, I can hardly—” Jane’s breath caught in her throat, trapping the rest of the sentence with it.

Who the hell was that? Staring at her? Blond, tall, built like a god. Holy shit! Her gaze slid lower, taking the bumpy road over bulging chest muscles and a rippling stomach…and lower to a very defined lump housed in thin spandex. No human being deserved to look so…
Damn!
…to be hung like that.

“What’s wrong?” Diana asked. “Oh.”

Someone slugged Jane’s arm, but she didn’t care. She let her gaze travel down smooth skin housing bunched quads. Dark, and devoid of hair, his skin looked like it belonged to a water creature.

She could spend all night oiling that body.

She forced her gaze past that glorious sight between his legs—what a crime!—and continued back to his face. His gaze was volcano-hot, dark and penetrating, and riveted to her. Her oxygen-deprived brain screamed at her to take a breath.

She gasped.

He took two long strides toward her, and before she’d filled her lungs completely, he stopped inches away. Staring down from impossible heights, through eyes fringed with lashes of impossible length, and giving her a smile formed by two impossibly perfect lips, he said, “Hi.”

She tried to speak. There was no air.

Someone smacked her in the back, and her brain switched back on.

Her lungs filled. “Hi.”

“Josh, this is my friend, Jane Wilde.”

His eyes flashed as Diana said her name. “Wilde, eh?”

She felt a blush spread over her face. “I’m not, really, but I could be. Er, I could try—” Shit! Had that just come out of her mouth? “I meant to say—”

“Not Jane Wilde?” he asked, that smile still in place. Perfect white teeth flashed bright against his suntanned skin.

“No…I mean, I’m not really wild.”

She’d thought it impossible, but that gaze of his just got hotter. She was sure she’d burn up if she didn’t glance away.

“For some reason, I don’t believe that.” His voice was so low and smooth it seemed to vibrate inside her body. A crazy charge shot down her spine and settled between her legs. Her pussy was wet. Just like that.

“Don’t believe a word she says,” Diana half-spoke, half-laughed. “Well, are we ready to jump in the pool?”

“I am.”
Anything to cool off. I’m going to combust
. Jane was burning from the inside out. Her blood was literally boiling. Her muscles tingled. Her crotch thrummed. Her tits stood at attention. What man did that to a woman with just a look?

She walked to the side of the pool and glanced down.

The heat evaporated from her body, and she shivered. That was a lot of water!

“Diana told me you’re phobic.” His voice caressed her jittery nerves, instantly calming them. How the hell did he do that?

She turned around. Bad move. He had one hell of a fuck-me look! It took every ounce of her strength to remain composed. There were children about. If she were alone with him, she just might throw him down and make him pay for that sexy stare…

Her pussy clenched. Hot juices puddled in her bathing suit bottom.

He licked his lips, and she felt the sudden urge to do the same. She tasted something. Salty, musky. He smiled.

She was losing her mind! Fingertips materialized out of thin air, tiptoeing over her body, up her spine, down her arms, down her neck.

What the hell?
No one was touching her.

Oh, yeah…
The unseen fingers teased her nipples through her bathing suit, making small circles and then tugging them to aching erection. Others skittered down her stomach and over her mound.

Mmmm. If only they’d move a little lower
. They did, and her knees turned to marshmallow.

She sat; her feet dropped into the pool.

Ahhh…

“Look at that! She’s got her feet in the water. That’s more than I’ve ever seen her do outside of a bath tub.” Diana sat beside her. “How’re you doing?”

Still confused by the strange and wonderful sensations humming through her body, she simply nodded.

“I’m so proud of you for doing this.” Diana gave her shoulders a squeeze.

She looked up from the cold blue water. There were other people all around. Where had they come from?

“Okay. Time to get started.” The god—what was his name? Joe? No, Josh. Yes! Josh—gripped his whistle in his fist. “Everyone in the pool. I need you lined up on this side.” His leg brushed her shoulder—satiny smooth. She leaned against it. “You, too, Jane.”

His voice hummed in her head and between her legs. Her pussy throbbed. She slid into the water, thankful for the chill on her skin.

“Look at you! You’re doing it.” Diana slipped into the water beside her, giving her an encouraging smile. Then her brows drew together and her eyes squinted. “Have you been lying all this time?”

“No. I’m scared to death of water.”

“Well, you’re neck-deep in it.”

Her eyes dropped, skimming over the surface. “Oh God!” She felt the first blade of panic pierce her brain. Her legs stiffened.

“Jane,” Mr. Perfect said. “Look at me.”

She looked. Hell, she couldn’t
not
look.

There was that mind-melting gaze again. Dark and deep. She felt like it was digging through her brain, rummaging through her secrets. Her body tingled all over. Her limbs came alive. He handed down a white foam board. “Hold this in front of you and swim across the pool.”

A gift? For her? His first gift. She sighed, hugged it to her chest, and smiled.

He laughed, and she snapped out of her daze. Her face this close to bursting into flames, she turned from him. And holding the foam board in her hands, she let her body float for a moment, absorbing the chill into her core. It was a strange feeling, hot and cold. She kicked her legs.

That felt different, too. The water slithered around her ankles as her feet moved. She kicked harder, and the water moved across her stomach and chest and along her sides.

Before she knew it, the opposite pool side was in front of her. She gripped it, bewildered. Had she just swum across the pool?

Diana floated at her side. “My God! You did it! I’m so happy for you!” Her face was alight with a bright grin.

Pride and surprise shot through Jane’s body. “I didn’t even realize what I was doing.”

“See? It isn’t so bad, is it?”

She glanced at the man who’d somehow talked her into swimming without saying more than a handful of words. He smiled at her.

Her heart did a little jig. She had the overwhelming urge to return to him. She had to be near him. She gripped that foam board in her hands and pushed her feet against the slick pool tiles, propelling herself forward. Her gaze remained on his face as she kicked her way back across the pool.

“Very good, Jane.” His voice thrummed through her body as she stopped before him. “You’re a natural. You’ve taken to water like a regular mermaid.”

She felt a silly grin spread over her face. “Well, I never expected it to be so easy.”

“Neither did I,” Diana said from behind her. “My God, she wouldn’t get near a birdbath before today.”

Jane didn’t appreciate that stab, especially when it was said in front of Mr. Tall, Dark and Sexy, and set out to prove just how brave and able she was. She tossed the board aside in favor of a smaller pool noodle, turned back around and took several more laps across the pool just to show her. She was no chicken!
Birdbath, my ass!

“Jane, you must get out of the water now.” His voice hit the pit of her stomach.

“Just a minute more.” She flung her arms over the noodle and kicked away from the poolside. But, when she was almost halfway across the pool, someone bumped her, knocking the noodle out from under her chest, and she slipped below the surface. She thrashed, seeing white everywhere. Noise exploded in her ears, magnified to deafening volume by the water.

She gave up and drifted lower. Her lungs screamed for air, and she swallowed against the urge to inhale. Her feet hit the scratchy concrete bottom, and she pushed up, her arms reaching toward the silver, shimmering surface above. No sooner did she break through it then she was back on the bottom again.

Suddenly, he was there, and every nerve ending charged to life. He looked her in the eye. “You’re okay. Don’t panic.”

Had he just spoken to her? How?
Get me the hell outta here before I die. This is no time for hallucinations.

He chuckled in her head.

How the hell did someone do that? The sounds vibrated through her whole body, to her toes and eyelashes. Her stomach and fingertips. A warm throb settled between her legs.

She was getting horny? At the bottom of a pool? What the heck was that all about?

Chapter 3

Without the chase, the prize would be as meaningful as mud.

This was the one. She would be a perfect mate. His gaze settled on her face as he calmed her and enumerated her attributes. She had beautiful, classic features that would set the goddesses afire with jealousy. Impossibly long eyelashes fringed eyes the color of milk chocolate. Her nose was pert but slender, raised at the tip to give her just enough sass to amuse him. Her lips…those lips. He already knew they tasted of the sweetest nectar in paradise. How he wished to kiss them now!

Yet, he resisted. This woman—this human—possessed a fiery will, and would need some coaxing before she would fully submit to him.

He would settle for nothing less than full submission—of body, mind and spirit.

Besides, there was much to appreciate in the chase.

He mentally murmured more soothing words to her, taking full advantage of his powers over humans. Thankfully, she calmed, allowing him a brief but welcome opportunity to see her as she might be in his world—not that he’d ever expect her to follow him there.

Selkies had mated with humans for ages, but the hazards of falling in love with one was well known. It was much safer this way—to mate and leave. The land dwellers would raise his child until he was old enough to join his father in their world below.

But, as he watched her chestnut hair drift around her face and over her shoulders, flirting with breasts so ripe and firm they beckoned his touch, he found himself wondering if it might be possible…

Her panic sliced through him, cutting that thought off before he’d finished it.

Perhaps not.

Testing her powers of intuition, wanting to sense whether she felt the connection between them, he reached out, touching her between those luscious breasts. Her heartbeat, jackrabbit quick, increased in response to his touch.

Yes, very good. Her body was willing, even if her mind was not yet ready. His own reacted in a primal response, blood pumping through his body in hot waves, pooling between his legs until his erection pushed against the containment of his swim trunks.

Hush, love. You’re safe. Can you see how magical this place is below the surface? You came from water. It’s a part of you
. He palmed her cheek before letting his hand slide lower to grasp her neck. Her hair twined around his fingers, dancing upon the shifting currents like tiny fish.

Get me the hell outta here. I’m no more water than you are frickin’ gold! And how the hell are we talking?

He let his fingertips stray lower and to the left, tracing the line of her collarbone before dipping between her tits and skirting the fullness of a breast. Then it continued down, following the line of her torso. Damn, she was perfect! Her body was soft, as a woman’s should be. Her skin was smooth under his touch, velvety. Her energy, and the unique taste of her filled the water surrounding them, sending his nerves aflame. His groin ached, his cock throbbed, and only one image played through his mind—bending her over and fucking her until he dropped dead away.