A Mermaid s Kiss (Daughters of Arianne 1)

Which turned her mind to other worries. She had to get Jonah to Nevada. Into the middle of the desert, and they could only "travel by Fate." They couldn't drive a car or pay to take a bus, but had to be carried there by the kindness and motives of others. Why had Mina been so specific on that, so vague on other details? Damn it.

But right now there was this. She'd figure out the rest later. He was waiting, those dark eyes riveted on her face, so still, in a way that suggested his true otherworldly nature even in this mortal form. And he wanted her as a mermaid.

She took his hand in one of hers. Reaching out, she curved her other hand on his shoulder, at the corded juncture with his throat. Her slender thumb pressed at the base, feeling his quickened pulse as she shifted to one hip on his muscular thigh. The movement told her he was aroused, and his casual attitude about that combined with the focus in his eyes made her short of breath. She had to remind herself to use her lungs, not gasp through the useless gills.

She guided his hand around her hips, back, back. As she did, it arched her upper body up and his attention settled on the breast now tilted invitingly toward his mouth.

She rested his hand on the indentation just below the skirt of her feathery anal fin. The blue and purple silk of it rippled over him, brushing his knuckles. Her lower body quivered as he kept his gaze locked on her breast, but felt his way beneath her with his fingers, exploring that indentation, seeming to know intuitively how to move with the overlap of her scales, onto the smooth, tender dip at the crevice below the fin. He found the opening waiting there, hidden but giving way at the presence of his fingers, like the furled petals of a flower.

Jonah knew the moment his easing fingers penetrated. For one thing, Anna's lips parted, her tongue tasting them in a quick, nervous sweep. For another, the fluid, cool feel of the water in the pool gave way to the warm, viscous fluid of an aroused woman. He explored with gentle fingers, not only to feel that opening, but the tighter anal opening just above it, tucked in closer beneath the fin. Caressing them with his thumb and forefinger, he made her eyes widen at the unexpected dual sensation.

Though he was inflamed by her breathy moan, he took his time. If there was one thing an angel knew, it was that it was a sin to rush a female's pleasure.

Particularly when the exploration itself was such a pleasure. If she'd been in a human form, it would have been like laying her over a chair or table to touch her soft, wet cunt from behind, her anal entry within reach, as it was here. However, the warm, wet opening he was currently investigating was more narrow than the one in her human form. To get the same effect, he suspected he would have to have her cross her legs at the ankles, holding her thighs tightly together while he plunged into the excruciatingly snug opening.

"Holy Mother," he breathed, his cock rising hard and hungry at the thought. He'd never been like this, so carnal and demanding at once, so quickly. While he didn't want to think about what limitations his human body would force upon him, apparently one thing it managed well enough was lust. He would focus on that, rather than the unfamiliar, unbalanced feeling he'd had when he rose to cross the room to her, so that for a moment he'd been afraid he was going to pitch at her feet.

Keeping his gaze on hers as long as he could, he turned her away from him, so he could settle her more squarely between his thighs. Her head dropped back, resting on the wall, her body in a lithe crescent as he lowered her slowly onto his upright sex, taking himself into the grip of that narrow but blessedly slick opening. As he stretched her, she cried out, soft moans, making him ache even harder to take her down on him, to the hilt.

When he finally did, every glorious inch, her hips were nestled into the cradle of his, his forearm wrapped over her breasts, his other at her waist, holding her securely on him, his thighs holding her still on either side. She'd gripped his forearm in tight hands, and he could see her nipples were now sharp points, her breath floundering.

"Breathe, little one. Breathe. Tighten on me. Ah, gods," he groaned as the very command made her contract involuntarily.

He liked having her this way, knowing it was possible to join with her in the form closest to who she was. Knowing once again he was the first to do it.

Her nails dug into him, and he watched her tail undulate involuntarily, which in turn brought her down on him in an incredible sensation of motion, stroking him almost like the movement of water. Pressing his face into her neck, he put his lips beneath her ear and over her gill, that elegant slit. The inner side looked like mother-of-pearl, but was a delicate membrane he teased with his mouth, experimenting, and earned a gasp of reaction. As well as an intimate clamp on his length that made him wonder if he had the strength to move her along it. He did, and she helped with the movement of her tail, her upper body quivering, flushing, a sparkle of silver flashing across her skin, energy collecting, collecting . . .

Was she conscious of it? Had she thought that was why he was doing this, another healing session of Joining Magic, getting Mina's daily prescription out of the way? It didn't sit well with him for her to think that, but as the energy closed in around them, he couldn't stop it. It stimulated the senses, pouring into his muscles, increasing the rapid pounding of his heart, enhancing his vision and strength, healing things that were not present in this body but waiting just beyond sunset.

The flood of magic surged through him as he held her against him, realizing he might very well be using her fragile body as an anchor against the poisons drawn up in a vortex inside him at the incursion of energy.

He didn't want the magic to remind him of who he was, even as he cursed being human. He only wanted to embrace her. She was the only thing that made sense.

"Stop, Anna," he muttered, thrusting into her hard, feeling her shudders. Reaching up to grasp her throat, he held her head alongside his, her hair brushing his lips. "Give me your cries. That's all I want. Let me hear your pleasure."

He didn't know if she heard him or not, for almost as the words came from his mouth, she shattered, surging out of the water, her scales glistening the way he knew her folds would be if he could see them instead of having only the aching glory of fucking her, rising, falling, stroking, demanding, until . . .

His body spasmed, gripped in two opposing forces, the physical realm of his body and the surge of heat energy that crashed around him, through him, rippling like electrical current. He didn't want the magic, only her, and so he threw up a block, a magical ability that apparently his human form hadn't taken from him, though it was a clumsy, cumbersome effort.

Too late, he realized what a shield recklessly thrown up to reject a surge of healing energy so far along might do.

Anna's cry of pleasure escalated into a scream, and her body thrashed, only no longer in pleasure. Clouds of steam billowed from the water as fire licked over his skin and hers.

No. He shoved her beneath the water, dislodging himself from her, holding her under as the fire roared over his skin. Though he knew how to conduct energy, he had no idea what power this mortal form had to absorb or channel it, but he made a fierce effort now to seize it back, bring the crush of the thwarted purpose back on himself, swallow the detonation of it.

He forced himself to reverse his reaction, accept the magic he didn't want, ameliorate the negative effect of his initial rejection. As he did, the human skin blackened on his forearms and began to fall away. Now he cried out at the pain, even as new skin began to regenerate at once, for he was still immortal when all was said and done. He struggled through the agony to keep his focus on the woman bucking beneath his hands.

&nb

sp; Though she could breathe beneath the surface, he felt her panic, so he pulled her up though the air stank of blackened flesh and steam still rose from the water. Mercifully it occluded her expression. He was sure it reflected her confusion and fear, things he'd caused. He cursed his cowardice, but even feeling those emotions from her was more than he could bear.

With an oath, he erupted from the pool, stumbling out of it to stand, dripping and gasping for air, several feet away, turned away from her. If he'd hurt her . . . Gods, how long had he known how to manipulate energy? Easy as breathing, but he'd panicked over an attempted healing, let it take him over so he reacted like a youngster in need of a mentor to protect him. Or protect others from him.

She'd shifted back to human form and was sitting on the edge of the wall, her hair draped forward but her eyes on him, worried. Worried for him. But she was also trembling, in pain.

In two steps he was to her, kneeling and tunneling his fingers through her hair. Searching her face, the front of her body. Pale, un-marred. Either he'd done better than he anticipated, or . . .

Tightening her muscles when he tried to turn her, she attempted a smile. "I'm fine, my lord."

He rose and looked over the top of her head. Her back was scorched, the skin already a deep red, with several seeping welts.

It could have been worse. He told himself that even as he felt impotent fury at her pain. In his usual form, he could incinerate her with no more than a thought. Only his ineptitude and this limited human shell had saved her life, or at least protected her from more damage.

"I can heal you . . . tonight." He'd retained a substantial arsenal of his magical ability, and yet his healing power was denied to his human form. A cruel joke. Sunset was hours away, hours while she'd suffer. "You won't have any scars." It sounded pathetic.

He turned away, unable to bear it any longer. "Why didn't you just let me die?" he snarled. She flinched as if he'd struck her. Snatching up the jeans, he left the room, afraid of what he might do, enraged by what he couldn't do, enraged by all of it. If she'd left well enough alone . . . He'd been buried so deeply in her, and that was all he needed, wanted. To stay in that moment.