But it was too late. His need overwhelmed him and he let go, grasping her to him with both arms and feeling the water draw him down, closing over his head. He hardly paid attention, though.
Aliya was writhing against him, the lower part of her body a sleek, textured form of muscle and nerves. He felt as she felt when he slid one leg around her to hold her there, keep her with him. Her lower skin was even more sensitive than the skin he had been feasting on above water.
He could feel that his legs brushing against her were shooting spasms of pleasure through her entire body. And she had deepened their kiss. It was as if something were flowing back and forth between them, as if he had somehow begun sharing his very soul with her.
Then it dawned on him; he was underwater. Aliya was breathing for him! They were drifting free, several feet below the surface, and Aliya was breathing for him. Their bodies twined together in blinding pleasure. Thank heavens. If she could breathe for him they might go on this way forever!
His throbbing cock begged for Aliya’s body and he pushed against her. The anatomy was different from what he was used to, but none of that mattered just now. She rocked with the pleasure he was giving her by simple contact with her skin. Still, he sought a way to merge.
Suddenly he felt her stiffen. He broke off the kiss to try to see her face, but the darkness and the murky water made it impossible. Her body began pulsing and he realized she was swimming, propelling them to the surface. Damn, he didn’t want it to end.
They broke through the surface very near the boat, beside the ladder where they had begun. He noticed a dull ache in his body before he understood that it was actually Aliya that ached. Oh God, oh God! Had he hurt her?
Chapter Four
He grasped for the ladder and wrapped his free arm around her waist to support her. What was wrong? He understood this was new to her; had he been too forceful?
He hadn’t entered her; hadn’t found a place for it. But it hadn’t been for lack of trying. He’d wanted her badly and he knew it had shown.
“Aliya…,” he started, only to be silenced by one of her fingers pressed to his lips.
She smiled, the dappling of moonlight on the lake only making her more tempting. But her smile was sad.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know how it would be for you.”
She must have read the confusion on his face. He sure felt it inside, and cursed himself for not being more sensitive to her.
“Your appendage. It’s supposed to be involved more, isn’t it?”
It took half a second to understand her meaning, then he had to restrain a laugh. She’d never encountered an “appendage” before!
“Yes, I guess you do things differently where you come from.”
“I didn’t know what to do!” she said and looked honestly disappointed. “I really want to make you happy, Devin.”
“Aliya,” he managed. “What you did to me…well, I was more than happy, trust me. I feel things with you that I haven’t felt since…damn it, Aliya, I can’t even explain. This is like nothing I’ve ever felt before.”
“But there’s more. Tell me what to do for you.”
He wanted to go back underwater. He wanted to kiss her again and feel her desire spike as he rubbed against her skin. He wanted to show her there was indeed more.
Instead, she needed affirmation. Well, he could do that for her. What kind of fantasy had he created here, anyway?
“We—people, that is—have different bodies,” he began. It felt awkward to have to explain this right now, but it was the least he could do for her. “Males have this appendage, as you call it. Females have a…well, they have a place to insert the appendage.”
She contemplated this. Her sculpted face twisted into a cute little frown and she stared off into the distance as she pondered his words. Her breasts dipped below the surface and bobbed there to torment him.
Man, this fantasy was getting more and more creative all the time. How was he doing it?
“So, that’s what you were looking for? A place to put that?” she asked.
“I’m really, really sorry if I hurt you.”
She gave him a timid, but sly, smile. “No, it didn’t hurt. Far from it, actually.”
“You liked it, didn’t you?” he said, touching her again. “I know you did. I could feel it.”
“Yes, and I could feel you, too. But that was unusual for you, wasn’t it?”
“You mean it’s always like that for you? Sharing someone else’s feelings, and all that?”
She smiled and slid up to him. Her body brushed his length and the desire that had gone unsated reared up immediately.
“We live underwater where vocal communication can be difficult. It helps to be able to share thoughts and feelings without speaking,” she explained.
“Oh,” he said, as if it made perfect sense. “So I invented telepathic merfolk, did I? I’m better than I thought I was.”
“What?” she questioned.
He pulled her to him again to taste the smooth, salty skin of her neck. “Too bad I wasn’t smart enough to think up something to fix that no-place-for-my-appendage problem.”
But she pushed away to look at him. Her big green eyes were wide and full of questions.
“I’m not certain what you’re saying, but it feels to me that for some reason you think I’m not entirely real?”
He didn’t know what to say. Was he supposed to humor her, his own imaginary mermaid? Maybe his subconscious was struggling to hold on to any last shards of rational thought. That must be it. He was creating dialog to justify having sex with a nonexistent fish-tailed virgin.
She must have heard his thoughts. Maybe he shouldn’t have made her telepathic. Dumb idea. She pushed away from him.
“You don’t believe this is true!”
He reached for her and sank to his earlobes when his hand slipped off the ladder. His body was still too taut with desire to be able to tread water with any reliability.
“Aliya, wait,” he called. “It’s not that you’re not real to me. No, I promise this is the realest thing I’ve done in two years.”
“But I can’t understand your feelings. You want me, don’t you?”
“Oh, hell yes!”
“But you don’t think I am real.”
She seemed to think on this for a moment, but then a brilliant smile returned to her face. She came closer to him, gently pushing him with her body as she scratched her fingers through his hair. He bumped up against the ladder again and grabbed it. Her breath hit him like sea spray.
“Perhaps I’m not real, Devin,” she said and came up to kiss him on the lips. “Perhaps this is just a dream and you won’t remember any of it in the morning. So we can enjoy ourselves now and forget everything else.”
Yes, that would be perfect. He kissed her, tasted her, traced the soft contours of her body. Damn, when he dreamed he sure did it right. If only…if only he could have more. Again he felt that desperate wanting, that longing for more than imaginary kisses.
He blocked the thought from his mind and held her tightly, searching her mouth with his. Searching for what? For his soul, he assumed. That’s what it felt like. Moments ago Aliya had given him life with her very breath. Now he wanted more. Needed more.
He cupped her breast with his hand, felt the nipple grow tight between his finger and his thumb. The waves of her own emotion and need swept over him as it had before. She was as desperate for him as he was for her. Still their mouths possessed each other.
His hand slid from her breast down to her hip. He studied how her skin changed, smooth as silk going down, but with tiny scales when he brought his hand upward. He stroked her there, up and down, and rode the thrills of sensation with her. His erection danced with the tempest of near ecstasy inside him.
He wanted her so badly and she was so willing, so very giving toward him. It was nothing short of cruel that they were so different and he could not thrust himself inside her as he ached to do.
He would plunge into her for all he was worth, driving to the core of her being. She would take the full length of him if she could, he knew it. And she would know that this was more to him than the shabby one-night stands he’d been trying to hide behind.
He groaned and almost came. But he stopped himself, moving away from her enough to calm the flaming sensation in his loins. He had not found a way to pleasure her fully yet and he was determined to do that.
“What is it?” she murmured.
“I want to make you happy, Aliya. How can I give you pleasure?”
He stroked her lower portions as he said this, running one leg up and down her side as his hand followed the line where human became fish. And he knew the answer in his own body.
“Like that,” she breathed. “What you’re doing. It’s wonderful.”
So he continued, and kissed the side of her neck where she had shown particular reaction before. Again she arched toward him and her head fell back, draping his arm with her flowing hair. He wished for special powers to be able to let go of the boat and devote himself fully to serving her.
She was so responsive and so honest about how he was making her feel. He let himself feel it all with her. It was like no sex he’d ever had before. Touching her, experiencing her, was breathtaking.
Giving over to temptation, he let go of the ladder and let his body slide down into the water, keeping as much contact with her special skin as possible. She twisted in his arms, at first resistant to seeing him disappear below the surface, but then welcoming his ministrations.
Running on sheer adrenaline and force of will, he ignored his body’s craving for oxygen and let his hands and mouth have free run of her remarkable body. He noticed that her reaction was strongest just below her waistline, where the tender skin of the woman transformed into the satin skin of the sea creature. He kissed her there, nipped carefully with his teeth.
Then both hands found their way back to her breasts, and she was undone. He felt her body writhe and her emotions soared above the mountain of sensation to come crashing down into the lake. She thrashed once, twice, and their physical contact was broken. He was shoved away from her, into the darkness of the water.
But he didn’t have time to worry for his own safety. In a heartbeat she was against him, cradling his head and finding his lips with hers. She gave him the air his blood cells were crying out for and again they were sharing their very existence. It was more than just breathing or staying alive. This was being alive deep down, all the way into his dark soul where he had felt dead for so long.
She swam them to the surface. He came up into the night air gasping, aching, and too amazed for words. He had felt her come, lived her orgasm as clearly as if it had been his own. But as her body brushed against him he was fully aware that his own need had not been satisfied.
He was still as hard as a rock and aching for fulfillment.
But she sagged against him, weak and drained. He held her to him as a lover would. He kissed her head. In that instant he felt full. The emptiness was gone; the pain that held him prisoner was released. His body was straining from desire, but his heart was free.
“I have never known such a thing.” She sighed, contented.
“Me neither. Nothing like that.”
For minutes he held her, controlling his breath and waiting for the pulsing ache in his own body to go away. It was hard to concentrate on not being aroused when her body was nestled so tightly against him. The surge of afterglow in her body was coursing through his and only serving to keep his senses on high alert.
He’d been truthful. Never had he known such a thing as these few minutes with this woman.
Finally she lifted her head and smiled a dusky smile for him. “You are waiting for something.”
He knew it was time for another biology lesson. But how to explain what was going on in his own body without making her feel in any way inadequate? She had been perfect. He had gotten so much pleasure from seeing her, feeling her reactions. It was so nearly enough.
“Honey, you’ve got me so hard and so hot, I can’t seem to quit wanting you.”
For a moment she considered his words, maybe even considered his thoughts. He knew she could read them. If she thought he was in any way displeased with her…
But she smiled. “I see. Your mind tells me what you want.”
“It’s going to take me a while to get used to you reading my mind.”
He wouldn’t be surprised if she swam away in terror, reading his thoughts right now with all the erotic images flooding his brain. He wanted her every way possible, ways that the both of them knew she wasn’t capable of. Damn, but if she were, he’d have her up against that smooth hull and plunge himself so deeply into her, riding her with every wave until they both ended up begging for mercy.
Her breasts were just so damned full and round, and that sexy little dip in the small of her back called out for him to grab her and pull her up tighter against him. And that mouth…with those red, pouting lips…
“I can read your mind, Devin,” she cooed. “And perhaps I can help you.”
Silently she dipped below the water, letting her body glide against him. He felt her breast graze his penis, then felt her hands on him. She took him gently, studying him. He drew breath in through his teeth as he realized just how much that added to his arousal. She liked what she was finding there.
She touched him carefully, trailing a finger from the thick base of his erection out to the end. She was getting him so out of control he worried he might slide right into the lake. To prevent that, he hooked his arms behind him over the closest rungs of the ladder.
It was just in time. Without warning, Aliya had taken his cock into her mouth. By God, she could read his mind. He stifled a groan. The pleasure she was giving him just from the slightest touches was almost unbearable.
He sank as low in the water as he could, just barely able to breathe. He closed his eyes to block out any unnecessary stimulation. All he cared about right now was Aliya and what she was doing to him below the surface.
Her lips closed around him and very slowly she began drawing her tongue in circles around the head of his penis. So good, so perfect. He could die a happy man from torture like this.
Then she was timidly sucking. Oh God, that was going to do him in. How could she know to do this? He was helpless to stop her. With his arms wrapped around the ladder and the rest of his body floating below he was completely at her mercy.
But she took none. She must have been able to tell what she was doing to him because her efforts intensified. She wrapped two fingers around the base of his penis and gave gentle pressure there. All the while she was still holding him in her mouth, sucking in earnest.
Then he could feel her in his mind. She was loving him in his mind, holding his emotions, tending to the old wounds, seeping into the places he thought no one could ever go again.
And he came.
The force of it was startling. He jerked his arms free from the ladder and sank beneath the water. He knew she had dragged a scream out of him and he was determined to muffle it under the cool, dark water. If he drowned tonight it would be okay.
But she was holding him, keeping him from sinking deeper. In her hand she still cradled his penis as it continued the spasms she had evoked. Her other hand was buried in his hair and brought his mouth to hers. Air. She was bringing him air.
He gasped for it, sucking from her just as she had done from him. She was keeping him alive.
No. She had made him alive. For the first time in two years he was alive again. He relaxed in her care and let her take him to the surface again.
“That is what you wanted,” she said quietly.
“My God, Aliya,” was all he could get out.
“You taste sweet,” she said, licking her lips.
He had about an ounce of energy left and used it to latch onto the ladder again and clasp her to him.
“That was incredible. I don’t care what happens now.�
��
She smiled at him. “Then I’ve made you happy?”
“Amazingly happy,” he said and kissed her.
“Then you should sleep well tonight.”
“Hell, I’ll probably sleep for two days after all that,” he said.
But it dawned on him that she would not be there. He would go to his bed without her. He would go back to his reality, and she would not be there.
She knew what he was thinking and touched his face.
“We each have our own world to go to, Devin.”
“Damn it, Aliya.” He sighed. “I don’t want to go back to that world. I like this one.”
“But you’re a creature of the dry. You need the air. As much as I hate to see you go, you know you have to.”
He knew she was right. He hated it, but she was right. Tonight she had given him his life when for so long he had given it up. He wanted to sink under that cool, clear lake and just fade off into eternity with her, but he knew he couldn’t. He had to get up on that boat again.
“I can come back,” he said. “I can come back here and imagine you all over again.”
She kissed his chest and stroked the curling dark hair that grew there.
“You didn’t imagine me, Devin. Can’t you believe that? This is real. I’m real. And now we have to say good-bye.”
“No, damn it!” He grabbed her and kissed her mouth, seeking the same connection they had shared underwater. But she turned away from him.
“No, I’ve stayed too long with you. It’s not allowed; they’ll find out. There are rules about this sort of thing, Devin. There are forces you don’t know about. We have to go.”
“But you’re not even real. Why must you go?”
“Hush. You know every dream comes to an end.”
He opened his mouth to protest, but suddenly she was listening to something in the distance. She held up her hand to silence him, then slowly turned her face back to his. He knew it was pointless to argue.
“I have to go,” she said.
He released his hold on her. She slipped away from him, sliding deeper into the water.
“Will you be all right?” she asked, though he wasn’t certain if it was aloud or in his mind.
Kissed by the Wave: A Forbidden Realm Novel Page 4