by Jade, Elsa
Ah hell, she was supposed to be thinking about swimming, not sexing.
She let out another breath, maybe not quite so steady this time, but definitely feeling hotter. “Let’s do it then. Lift me up.”
Chapter 4
Mael was shocked that she’d given permission so boldly. While he’d only caught a few excerpts from his commander’s IDA handbook, he knew Earthers, like Tritona’s natives, used their mouths for passion play. Earthers called it a kiss, and Tritonyri had their own version.
He tasted the sweetness flooding from the glands in his throat again. If he’d been chosen to woo a Tritonesse, the pheromones released from his mouth into the deep tides would lure a willing female from the trenches. He had no doubt a drop of it could lure this Earther female into the water.
Anchoring one hand at the small of her back, he drew her closer.
“Hey.” She stiff-armed a space between them, bending back over the wide spread of his fingers. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Calm your winds,” he chided. “You said you wanted to get wet. That’s what we’re doing.”
He swung them in a tight circle so that her legs belled out behind her. In one stride, he lifted her over the edge of the basin and stepped inside himself.
She sucked in a sharp breath, half curling herself up to his body, but then she slowly straightened against him. “I thought the water would be freezing,” she said, a hint of wonder in her voice. “But it’s actually warmer than the air.”
“This area is riddled with geothermal vents,” he told her. “The fountain itself isn’t a hot spring, but it’s fed by heated waters.”
Still, she shivered a little. “Great. Now I just have to think about the black hole somewhere under us.”
“It’s not a black hole,” he said matter-of-factly. “Black holes are celestial phenomena, almost never found at the bottom of the pool.”
She grimaced but kept one arm anchored behind his neck. “Don’t let me fall.”
“You don’t fall in the water,” he pointed out. “You fly.”
“Not me, not anymore,” she whispered. “I feel myself sinking, even now. I can’t catch my breath.”
“Let me breathe for you.” He tucked the trembling curves of her body closer to his. “Do you trust me?”
She shook her head, hard enough to make the short bristles of her hair ruffle. “Why should I? Not that it matters. It’s not you, it’s me. I’m done with trusting.”
He wanted to delve into her reasons, but why would she tell him when she didn’t know him? “Then do you at least believe I can lift you up, no matter how deep the waves?”
Her grasp on his neck tightened as she stared up at him. As close as they were, the agitated thump of her heartbeat rattled him almost as much as her. “Can’t make waves in a pool of this size.”
He gave her a slow smile. “Shall we try?”
Gray gaze shifting restlessly across his face, finally she nodded.
“In my language, we call it the breath of rising desire. But in this case, it’ll help you go down, into the water.”
Her chest heaved as she gulped down air. “Breath control. So it’s like meditation or yoga?”
He paused while his translator provided a likely explanation for the unfamiliar terms. “Not really controlled. More…the opposite.”
“That doesn’t seem safe.” But she didn’t try to pull any farther away.
He stared down at her. “Is safe getting you where you want to go right now?”
Her whisper was so quiet she used almost no air to voice the words. “I’m scared.”
A pressure, as if he were a thousand times deeper than this moment, squeezed around his heart. “And I’m right here. Ready?”
She jerked her head in a nod. Slowly, giving her a chance to pull away, he lowered his mouth to hers.
The breath of rising desire would normally be diluted by the entire water column above the Tritonesse trenches. It would be too much for one little Earther female. So he swallowed most of the pheromone. It burned down his throat and flashed like brine-fire through his veins. Before the fury faded, he brushed his lips across hers, exhaling softly.
She breathed in, a little gasp of surprise. “Whaaa—?”
When her lips parted on the word, he traced the tip of his tongue under the arch of her top lip. She shivered at the slick caress, and her other arm went up behind his neck, holding him closer.
Then she deepened the kiss.
If he hadn’t known better, he might’ve thought she had her own pheromones. Anyway, some part of him was rising to meet her…
With the seal of their mouths airtight, he sank them into the pool.
The water closed gently over their heads. Beside them, the column of marble that held the statue above was unfinished. Its roughly honed edges glinted with hints of quartz veins in the pristine white. But that faint glow vanished as he angled them toward the open mouth of the well that fed the basin.
The invisible current of water was warmer here, untouched by the surface chill. He fanned his gills, filtering oxygen into her mouth. The pheromone he’d shared with her was primal, and she held her breath like a new-hatched spawnling until the positive pressure of his exhalation filled her lungs. Her eyes, which had been tightly closed as they sank beneath the surface, flared wide. Since he knew she didn’t have the capacity to see much in such darkness, he let loose a tiny stream of bioluminescent bubbles so she could orient herself in the dark.
She didn’t glance around, though. Her gaze was fixed on him. Another jolt went through him, as if he’d inadvertently released more of the pheromone. The stream of bubbles that she breathed out from her nose filled his eyelashes.
With her body still floating quietly against his—no signs of distress—he decided to risk going just a little deeper. Breathing for both of them, he angled her a short distance down the passageway to where he knew there was an air pocket.
As their heads popped up into the small opening, she finished sputtering, “—aaat?”
With the limestone of the passageway barely clearing the tops of their heads, he stayed submerged up to his chin, letting his gills filter breathable oxygen from the water. He loosed another stream of bubbles to light the small space.
Still clinging to him, she glanced around at the tiny glowing orbs floating on the riled surface. “Did you just fart glitter bubbles?”
His universal translator served up a suggested explanation from a sub-dictionary labeled twelve-year-old Earther male. He snorted. “That would be so cool. But no. The bioluminescence is a semi-voluntary skin response to low-light situations.”
“Man, and my dive skin was only good for anti-chafing and UV protection.” When he opened his mouth to explain that it was his skin that produced the effect, not an artificial diving apparatus, she tightened her grip on him, squeezing away any lesser conversation. “How far down are we?”
“Just a bit deeper than that fish-girl statue is tall and about that distance down the tunnel system.” He studied her eyes, which glittered with the reflected bubbles. “How do you feel?”
“Drunk. Like some of this glitter fizz is in my blood. But not the bends. I feel…” As she wriggled against him, her thin white shirt floated up. “What did you do to me?”
He had some other semi-voluntary responses going on right now as her restless motions stirred the water—and his blood. “The breath of rising desire isn’t inebriating.” Certainly not the barest taste he’d given her. “It enhances blood gas levels to increase speed, strength, and stamina in the water. It only triggers sexual disinhibition during the mating season.”
“Mating… What?” In the confines of the air pocket, her incredulity echoed off the limestone. “I’m not sexually disinhibiting anyone, at all.”
A twist of disappointment—and disquiet at the unexpected regret—loosened his hold on her. “Right now is not the Tritonyri mating season either,” he reassured her. “When is yours?” Maybe their sensitiv
ity to the pheromone was being affected by the difference in time zones since Tritona was a long way from this Earth.
She scowled at him. “I’m not a bitch in heat,” she sputtered. “I’m not having sex with you, not here, not now, definitely not when you drugged me to trick me here.”
“The breath of life isn’t a drug,” he snapped back, offended. “It’s one of our sacred rites, and I shared with you because you said you wanted to return to the water.”
Her fingers spasmed on his shoulders, alternately splaying wide as if to push him away and clenching hard, digging into his muscle. “Well, I did it, so get me out of here,” she demanded, her voice rising again. “Take me back. Now.”
In response to her growing agitation, his skin prickled. Though most of him was veiled in the additional black clothing he’d taken from the ship’s stores, under the water, his hands on her hips pulsed with a pale glow. The bioluminescence was a warning to passersby to stay away, that he was roused and dangerous.
But her gaze was locked on his. “Your eyes…” she murmured. “How are you—? What are you?”
“Tritonyri,” he said impatiently. Even if Marisol Wavercrest had shared only a portion of her IDA contract with her household attendants, certainly the alien part of the alien mail order bride bond should’ve made clear there would be some differences between them.
Ridley Blake looked at him as if she’d seen a phantom of herself. Which she probably had. As his protective instincts kicked in, his nictitating membranes fell into place, brightening and sharpening his view, and he knew the nacreous lens would be reflecting her image back at her.
“What the hell.” She shoved away from him with unexpected strength.
Since he’d been holding her lightly in respect of her annoyance, she broke free of his grasp. The air pocket was too small for her to go far, so of course she thumped her head on the rocks behind her. She winced, ducking, which put her face under the water. Scrambling to hold herself against the slick limestone, she succeeded only in dunking herself again. When he reached for her, she twisted to evade him, going under for a third time.
Alarmed, he clamped his hands around her waist and levered her up, holding her clear of the rough rock. Good thing, because she flung her head back again, spewing water. Her mouth twisted—in fear or fury, he couldn’t quite tell.
“Out,” she heaved. “Now.”
“Very well,” he said in a low voice. “Calm down. Catch your breath—”
“Never in the history of calming down has telling someone to calm down ever calmed them down,” she seethed. She strained against him although there was nowhere to go. “Get out now!”
“We’re going,” he assured her. “But we have to do it together. We have to breathe together.”
“That wasn’t a breath control lesson,” she accused. “That was just a kiss.”
Just? The ridiculous lance of hurt at her dismissal would’ve made him release her—except he’d told her he wouldn’t let her go.
That had been a mistake. He’d shared the breath of rising desire with her to give her what she said she wanted—and to show her the powers of a Tritonyri mate. Not him, specifically, of course, since he didn’t have the rank. But if she joined Marisol Wavercrest, she’d be helping bring new life to Tritona.
He gritted his teeth against the unreasonable ire. He should never have attempted to entice her with his offerings. Just another hopeless battle he’d lost.
“It’s too far for you to hold your breath on your own,” he told her. “You need my help.”
Her explosive bark of laughter blew in his face, all sweetness from the pheromone gone. “Help? No one has ever helped me. I’ve clawed out every step myself.”
He gave her a hard look. “You can’t claw your way out through limestone. And there are no steps here, just swimming. Do you want to drown?”
Her stricken look pierced him like the barb from a hydranemones tail. “Maybe I would,” she whispered. “Better to drown in what I used to be than live with this shallow shadow I’ve become.”
“Maybe you’d rather. But I lost too many fighters to bad faith and bad luck to let you die of stubbornness.” He plunged his fingers into her short hair, holding her fast though she strained away. “You’ll take this breath and you’ll dive and you’ll live,” he snarled. “And once we’re back under the stars of the night sky, you can tell yourself you didn’t have a choice. But know that you did, and you chose fear.”
She choked out a wordless sound of rage, and in that moment he hated himself. The Tritonesse council and Coriolis had chosen poorly in him—but he’d already known as much. This was just a cruel reminder of everyone he’d failed, not just on one planet now, but two.
Surging up out of the water, he crashed his mouth down on hers.
He was still too insignificant to be chosen by the Tritonesse to seed their waters, but somehow his reserve of pheromones had recharged to full strength. Shocked at the unexpected power, he choked down half a mouthful, but the rest he inadvertently passed to her.
Her hands skimmed up to cup his face, her thumbs coming to rest on his cheekbones just below his eyes—reflective Tritonyri eyes that had made her flinch…
With a feral growl, she bit his lip, and he released her with a startled oath. But she tangled her fists in his hair and slammed her mouth back over his.
This was no teasing lure to bring a Tritonan female up from the trenches. This must be an Earther kiss, fierce and consuming. Though he’d told himself he was done with war, the violence of sensation called to some other part of him—a part that knew some battles were still worth fighting.
He shifted his touch to the edge of her jaw, angling the hungry slant of her mouth. The sweetness of the pheromone deepened to the rich, lush flavor of the liqueur distilled from Tritona’s rare subterranean flowers.
Locked mouth-to-mouth, he sank them into the water and pushed off toward the vertical well opening. He winced as her fingers braided into his hair and gave a sharp, demanding tug. But her tongue tangled around his own in a subtler, more seductive dance.
The pheromone was affecting her too much, more than seemed likely for two such disparate species as Tritonyri and Earthers. And if he were being honest in the roaring silence of his own head, it was affecting him too. His whole body felt luminous from the inside, as if the glitter bubbles she’d mentioned earlier were lighting him up from his very bones.
Though the distance he’d brought her was inconsequential, time elongated, and for the first time since his virgin battle, when all the oceans had seemed to spin out of his control, he couldn’t have sworn which way was up.
Fortunately, the hematite sheen of the night sky refracting through the basin water called him to the open air, though every muscle in his body yearned to hold her under, keep breathing for her until… Until what? He had no claim to her, not through the IDA nor any other bond. Every part of him told him to keep fighting, but the battle was lost, and he rocketed toward the underside of the pool as the irresistible charm of the pheromone faded.
A handspan from the surface, her gray eyes opened wide, fixing on him from that intimate distance. Too close.
She jerked away, breaking the seal of their mouths. In an instant, water flooded past her tongue, so recently entangled with his. He lunged forward to reestablish the kiss, but her eyes rolled back in panic. Her hands slipped off his shoulders, reaching for the night sky above, and her gargling scream only choked down another mouthful of water.
Desperately, he powered upward, dragging her into the air. She was a deadweight, limp and unmoving.
A brutal chill—a thousand times colder than the night—sleeted through him. No, she couldn’t have drowned on one breath. She was too tough for that. Panic had taken over, short-circuiting even the basic impulse for self-preservation.
Instead of helping her, he’d made her fear worse.
He braced her against the edge of the marble basin, poised to flush the invading liquid from her lungs.
Water sluiced away from her skin, leaving the thin shirt clinging to her breasts and the shadow of her navel.
But as another flush of water pooled in the hollow of her throat, his focus shifted sideways, beneath the shell of her ear.
To the delicate, bloodred fringe of gills.
Chapter 5
Ridley woke to the pearly, shadowless light of a cloudy day. She had half a heartbeat to recollect she was in Montana, not sunny California, before the memory of drowning flooded through her.
With a wrenching gasp, she jolted upright out of the unfamiliar soft bed, throwing back the expensively soft sheets.
Wavercrest Hall. The mermaid guarding the bottomless fountain. The man, Maelstrom…
The kiss. Her lips, her cheeks, her whole damn body burned, canceling the touch of chill in the air.
Chilly because she was damn naked.
She yanked the sheet up around her neck. He’d kissed her, somehow drugging her with his mouth so she’d follow him into the water, and then he’d almost drowned her.
Where the hell was he? Because she was going to kick his ass for two of those three outrages.
Dragging the sheet with her, she stomped around the room. She’d been pleased with the luxury accommodations when Marisol had offered them last night, but now the spacious room felt too exposed, indefensible. At least she was alone. She made sure the door was locked and the window latched. Her view from the back of the house was only of a rolling sweep of empty lawn out to the tree line, not toward the fountain with its hidden abyss…
Stomach churning, she spun away from the window. A rectangle of bright color on the bedside table jarred with the anonymously elegant color scheme.
The paperback pirate romance she’d been looking at before he came into the library.
She hustled into the bathroom, locking the door behind her.
And froze at the sight of her damp pajamas hanging over the shower curtain rod.