No one knew about that attack except Koenraad and Monroe. And, of course, Brady. And Spencer, who certainly suspected the truth, because why else would Koenraad have suddenly given Monroe a significant blood transfusion?
But that was it.
The second problem was the matter of Brady being a danger to humans. There was only one solution to that, and it was for Brady to live his life in the open ocean, far from humans. And Koenraad was more than willing to accompany Brady.
Which brought him to a third problem.
Monroe.
If they weren’t mated, it wouldn’t have been an issue. He would leave, just as he’d planned directly after the attack.
But they were mated. He couldn’t leave her.
But could he take her? Could he really ask her to spend the rest of her life living on a boat in the middle of the ocean?
It was unfair. She was human. She needed the company of other humans. Koenraad couldn’t impose that sort of life on someone he loved.
Which put him back at square one.
Chapter 10
Monroe watched as Dunphy and Theo noisily scraped up the last of the casserole she’d served them.
She’d barely touched her own plate. The storm had started an hour ago, and the sound of the wind tearing at the windows and the roof was enough to make her yearn for a nice, deep basement to hide out in.
Even though the bodyguards didn’t seem overly concerned that Koenraad wasn’t back yet, Monroe was close to freaking out. When they went outside, she was going to have nothing to distract her.
“Would you like another helping?” she offered, and she wasn’t surprised when they both shook their heads. She’d already pressured them once into eating more than they wanted, to staying longer than they should have.
They’d been taking turns going outside to check the perimeter.
The wind gusted against the side of the house, rattling the shutters. Monroe shivered. “You don’t have to go back out there,” she said as the shifters pushed back their chairs.
“Don’t worry about us,” Theo said. “The outdoors is our element. Thank you for dinner. It was delicious.”
The shifters went to the door, Monroe on their heels. The rain seemed to have slowed, but it was still a wicked storm. She watched as the shifters’ graceful bodies merged into the shadows.
Where the hell was Koenraad?
She covered the casserole with plastic wrap but left it sitting atop the stove while she filled the dishwasher.
What Theo had said bothered her. If the outdoors was their element, then it was Koenraad’s element, too. The idea that he might prefer to be out in that… It was a little unsettling.
When everything was tidy, she dug out the two paperbacks she’d picked up at the store. They’d been the only two books available in English, and neither was exactly her style. She should have had the shifters drive her to the hotel area. Plenty of books to read there.
After skimming the blurbs, she settled on the medieval fantasy. She desperately hoped that her entertainment options would improve before she had nothing left to read but the sports biography.
Maybe Koenraad would want it, though she had no idea if he liked sports.
The book wasn’t bad, and as the hours ticked by, she moved from the chair to the bedroom.
The next thing she knew, Koenraad was pulling the book from her loose fingers and brushing a kiss over her forehead. “No need to get up,” he murmured.
“What time is it?” Outside, she could hear the storm raging. The wind seemed to be trying to pry the house from its foundations and fling it into the ocean.
“A little after midnight,” Koenraad said. “I found Brady.”
Now she was wide awake. “Where is he?”
“Somewhere safe.” The way he said it gave Monroe pause. Something was wrong; she was sure of it.
“In the inlet?”
“No. Anyway, I’m sorry I’m so late. How was your evening?”
She listened to the wind and shuddered. “Fine. Ran some errands in the afternoon and, oh, I made dinner. There are leftovers.”
“I saw. It smells wonderful.”
Monroe sat up. She wanted to brush her teeth.
She freshened up in the bathroom, and when she came out Koenraad stood over the sink. He was forking up the last bits of food off a plate.
“You ate it cold?” she asked.
He shrugged. “I was hungry, and it smells good.”
She walked over and squeezed her arms around him. His body was rock solid and so very warm. Her hand slid under his shirt to brush the warm granite of his stomach. As he placed his dirty dishes into the sink, his muscles felt like satin-covered steel bands.
“Do you have to work out, or does your body just naturally stay like this?”
He poured a glass of water and turned to hand it to her. She waved it away.
“I’m pretty active,” he said. “Being a shifter isn’t magic.”
The hell it wasn’t. But Koenraad was kissing her before she could tell him that she disagreed.
His lips were hungry and impatient, like he’d been waiting for this all day.
When he eased up, she had barely a moment’s respite before he was on her again, this time with his large hands sliding under her heavy hair so that he could tilt her head and devour her thoroughly.
All the kisses they’d shared the last few weeks, and each one felt like a surprise.
His tongue licked between her lips, and she thought he was going to step away now, but to her surprise he tightened his grip.
She wasn’t sure how she ended up on the counter, Koenraad using his hips to push her knees apart. He pulled her closer against him, and she could feel the tease of his rigid bulge pressing against her thighs.
One bulge or two? She couldn’t tell, but she hoped it was two.
The sound of the howling wind faded into the background. Koenraad was growling slightly, and she was moaning, too, her pussy aching for him.
He kissed his way roughly down the underside of her jaw, down her neck, and Monroe tilted her head back, allowing him access.
“Please,” she murmured. “When will you mate with me again?”
He made a gruff noise. “You don’t know what you’re asking for.”
“Yes, I’m pretty sure I do,” she said as he pulled her shirt up to reveal her bra.
“There’s no water nearby,” he said.
“Are you kidding? I can see the ocean from the front door!”
“You can? In the dark?”
She pushed playfully at him. “Why won’t you do it? You didn’t like it?” She started out teasing, but it turned darker.
“Monroe—”
“I’m serious! Stop making decisions for me all the time.”
Koenraad took a step back. He looked as shocked and hurt as if she’d slapped him, and she rewound what she’d just said. Her words didn’t warrant his immediate reaction, she didn’t think.
He stared at her warily. “Sometimes I have to make decisions because I have more information,” he said.
“What?” She stared at him incredulously. “What are you talking about?”
He ran a hand through his blond hair. He started to speak, then stopped.
Did he really think she was going to break in half? “You did it once before. We can do it again. I want to do it again, and I know you do, too. Stop being so worried about me.” She laughed, a little wildly. “I’m sturdy, Koenraad. I’m not going to shatter into pieces.” Not unless having crazy, forceful orgasms counted as shattering.
“No,” he said.
She slid off the counter and headed for the door. When she reached it, she had to pull hard to get it open because the wind seemed to be sucking it from the other side.
Outside, it was pouring, a curtain of water. The noise was almost deafening, and even though she still stood inside the doorway, the rain sprayed her cheeks, her toes.
“What are you doing?” Koenraad asked.<
br />
“I’m going into the ocean,” she said calmly as she shucked off all her clothes. “Come if you want. Or don’t.”
He was on top of her, roughly turning her. He fiercely pulled her to him, then they were spilling outside. She was dimly aware of Koenraad pulling the door closed. She wasn’t sure how they arrived at the beach, but underfoot, leaves and sharp fallen branches turned to wet sand that clumped and squished like mud.
Koenraad pulled away from her, briefly, to discard his sopping clothes, then his arms were around her, pulling her to him as he walked backward into the crashing surf.
Until that moment, she hadn’t appreciated what the storm was doing to the ocean. The waves were huge, terrifying, and she gasped as one slammed into them.
She wanted to run the other direction.
“We’re crazy,” Koenraad murmured. Her wet hair clung to her bare skin, and he carefully moved the soaked tresses away from her face so he could kiss her neck.
“It’s really dark,” she said. The water was like liquid shadow, like an enormous blanket someone was violently shaking.
“I can see you,” he said as he pulled her further into the enraged water. “And you’re gorgeous.”
A huge wave rolled in.
Koenraad took the brunt of the strike, but where it did hit her—her fingers, one hip—it smarted, and she gasped because it was cold.
She wrapped her arms tightly around his neck as a huge wave lifted them both. Koenraad could no longer touch the bottom, she was sure.
She wasn’t worried that something bad would happen, but she couldn’t help the fear that ran down her skin like electric chills. She would never be as comfortable in the water as Koenraad was. Not unless she had his ability to swim and breathe underwater.
The current was strong, and persistent, too. It wrenched her limbs, and it occurred to her that while Koenraad would never let her drown, if the water ripped her out of his arms and carried her away—
“Relax,” Koenraad said. Paradoxically, his grip tightened.
“It’s so…” she started. It was hard to breathe because gusts of wind seemed to be trying to suffocate her. When she started to speak again, salty water flooded into her mouth. She spit it out.
“We’re going under the surface,” Koenraad said.
She stiffened. They’d mated underwater the first time, but that had been in a perfectly calm lake, the surface smooth as glass.
She pulled her head back and looked around, but she couldn’t see the shore, couldn’t see the lights of the house.
“Monroe.”
Her eyes focused on the outline of Koenraad’s face. He was all she could see, and that was enough.
“Take a deep breath for me and hold it.” He said it so calmly that she didn’t suspect an enormous wave was about to crash over them until it hit.
Then, she realized, he was pulling her down lower.
She shook her head. She wasn’t ready. She needed more time to acclimate to this.
What the hell had she been thinking? Koenraad thought coming out here was a bad idea. Did that mean he wasn’t sure he could keep her safe?
She was burning through her oxygen; the air in her chest was starting to sting.
Koenraad’s mouth covered hers, but she wasn’t ready; she couldn’t take more air until she breathed out what she already had.
But he pulled it from her.
He knew. He knew everything. He could smell her fear, her joy, her arousal. He could sense the trembling of her muscles. He knew.
She was safe with him.
As her lungs filled, she became aware of his powerful legs working the water, bending it to his will. Her thighs, she realized suddenly, were clamped around his waist, and she forced herself to ease up a bit.
Koenraad squeezed her knees back to their previous positions. He wanted her to grip him, and she was happy to do it.
He continued to breathe for her, and her panic gave way to, well, not relaxation exactly, but now she could appreciate the rough stiffness she felt pressing into the undersides of her thighs.
She wanted to reach a hand down, to grasp his hot length in her palm. Hot lengths. Two cocks.
She’d seen them many times, but it was still something that brought her up short. Right now, that was far more astonishing than the fact that she was submerged with him and he was breathing for her.
Apparently, normal was relative. Maybe, with time, it wouldn’t feel like magic anymore.
But somehow she doubted that.
Chapter 11
Koenraad could barely control himself.
Monroe wasn’t ready for penetration—he would need some time to prepare her, to loosen her muscles—but his spurs wanted out, and his cocks demanded to be inside her.
They were so swollen they throbbed painfully.
Being near Monroe, making love to her… It didn’t compare with the animal mating that he needed. Sex in a bed was a tease, a stopgap.
And he’d been teased many times a day for the last week.
During the drive over from the aquarium, all he’d wanted was to lose himself in deep water. To be fully immersed in something that felt unequivocally right. Or as right as was possible with the sick in the ocean.
And when Monroe had snapped at him, he’d thought for a moment that she somehow knew that he’d put Brady into a tank. That she blamed him for having trapped her on The Good Life for the last week.
He’d looked in her eyes and thought he saw scorn and disgust.
But she’d been frustrated, that was all.
Still, for a brief moment he’d had a glimpse of what it would feel like if she ever got tired of life with him, of the limited existence that he could offer.
All he seemed to do was bring misery to the ones he cared about. If taking her into the ocean, which he craved anyway, would make her happy, he’d do it.
He’d do anything to make her smile.
Her soft curves were pressed tight against him. As wild as the ocean was, he could smell her intoxicating arousal.
His cocks throbbed. His balls were full and heavy.
Monroe felt surprisingly relaxed in his arms. It made him wonder if she’d been practicing breath control and meditation while he was off searching for Brady. She wasn’t using much oxygen at all. In fact, she seemed as efficient as she’d been a week earlier, when her veins had been full of his blood.
He needed to go deeper underwater, until the storm above was forgotten, and so he did.
Down here, it was calm. He wished he could take her deeper still, but she would need protection from the cold and the crushing water pressure.
Too bad. He would have wrapped his body around her and taken her to the deepest parts of the ocean if he could. He would have shown her things humans knew nothing about. He wanted that, to expand her world. Pretty much the opposite of keeping her on a boat or in a secluded house.
The scent of her arousal was stronger than ever, and it was wreaking havoc on his control. As if she knew what he was thinking, she reached a hand between their bodies.
For a moment, her soft hips pulled away from his. His natural instinct was to press forward, but then Monroe squeezed her fingers around his shaft.
Gritting his teeth, he stubbornly clung to the thought of how much it would hurt him to hurt her.
She squeezed his shaft, jerked him, strangled him.
She was trying to make him lose control. She wanted both his cocks, and she wanted his spurs anchored inside her while he emptied into her silken heat.
And she knew that violent foreplay was his weakness.
If he let her keep doing what she was doing, she was going to get her way.
He was a shifter. He wasn’t supposed to be fighting this, not when his mate wanted him. It was against his nature. The urge was supposed to overwhelm him. It was meant to be violent.
And then Monroe’s feet slid around the backs of his knees as she wrapped her legs around his. She unhooked her other arm from around his neck
, and she plunged her other hand down, to grab his second shaft.
He threw his head back and groaned. The spikes were pressing just under the skin, now, and—
He ripped her wrists away from him moments before the spurs burst free. Monroe’s smile was triumphant.
His mate was utterly insane. Tempting a shark like this…
She needed air. His mouth crashed over hers, and he kissed her like he couldn’t get enough. Because he couldn’t.
He would have preferred to prepare her, fore and aft, for his cocks. But now the spurs were out, and he couldn’t make them go back in without an orgasm.
She’d made her bed, and now they were both going to have to lie in it.
He yanked her hips toward him. The smooth head of one erection sought her slick wetness. She would gasp, lose air, so he kept his mouth over hers while he fed one rigid cock into her channel.
She gasped as predicted. Her nails clawed into his biceps, and it felt so good that he nearly thrust recklessly into her ass.
He’d had no time to fill her bloodstream with endorphins, and that was his fault. He should have predicted that she’d get her way. Should have had time to prepare her with some thorough fucking and a whole bunch of orgasms.
He went deep, all the way inside her pussy. He didn’t pull his hips back because he didn’t want to cut her.
His other cock, however, was doing damage at the moment. Koenraad could smell the sweet scent of her blood as his cock ripped against her soft thigh, her buttocks.
She was cringing a little.
This wasn’t a situation he’d ever anticipated being in, but there was only one course of action to follow.
He wrapped his hand over his second cock. There. Now she was protected from him. Well, except for the cock buried in her pussy.
She was silken and welcoming around him, and even though he was barely moving, he felt her pussy start to tighten.
He wanted to fuck her.
But instead, he realized he’d have to do something else. Because he couldn’t tear up her body, not without the endorphins. Otherwise she’d be in agony until the aphrodisiacs in his spurs kicked in. They’d only mated once before, and he needed the first few times to be perfect or he’d put her off it forever.
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