But he didn’t. Instead he lowered his head to her breasts and traced her exposed flesh. She yearned for more, and when he found her nipple right through the cloth, used his teeth to nip, she wanted nothing more than to be bare. She needed his flesh against hers, his mouth with all the heat he had to offer on her skin.
When she hooked her thumbs into his shorts, he lifted his hips, and she freed him of them, which he kicked aside. As he did so, they rolled in the sand, and she ended up on her back beneath him.
He wrapped her in heat, and she couldn’t wait to take him inside her. But he seemed content to begin kissing her mouth all over again. Her lips tingled, swelled, gave him more—even as her hands found his hips and tugged him to her.
“There’s no hurry,” he whispered.
“I’m ready. More than ready,” she told him, her voice sounding needy and raw.
He nuzzled her neck and shot a shimmering thrill down her back. “We’re going beyond lovemaking.”
“Beyond?” What was he saying? Thinking was so difficult when with every breath she longed to get closer to him. She’d never known his hands could feel so good as he skimmed them over her bare shoulders.
“We can share the heat on a cellular level. And when we do, we’ll shift into another shape together.”
She couldn’t focus on his words. She only knew that if his lovemaking had been a song, it would have been her favorite. If his lovemaking had been a movie, she would have watched it a hundred times. If his lovemaking had been a book, it would have been a number-one bestseller.
When he finally removed her bra, she didn’t think her need could peak any higher. But she was wrong. He spent as much time kissing her breasts as he had her lips, and the wondrous sensations had her squirming for more of him. Her nipples tightened, and when his lips teased her sensitive flesh, a corresponding sizzle ripped through her.
Gasping for air, her skin slick, she tilted up her hips and parted her thighs, groaning as she recalled she’d yet to remove her panties. Together they made short work of them, and he returned to press against her, chest to chest, stomach to stomach, thigh to thigh, remaining careful to keep most of his weight from crushing her. Ari’s powerful shoulders had no difficulty holding his weight as he slid over her. She thought he might kiss her again. But instead, he rubbed his flesh over hers, shooting a wild flame of sensations over her skin, under her skin, through her skin.
It was as if their touching flesh crackled with tiny jolts of electricity. Wondrous but a bit unnerving, the sensation caused her muscles to tense in expectation of what would happen next.
Already this experience surpassed lovemaking. The heightened perceptions had an eerie and otherworldly impact that left her mind reeling.
“Relax. What you feel is our surface cells merging.” He rubbed his chest over her breasts. At least she thought that was what he was doing. But when she stared at him, he didn’t appear to be moving.
Oh God. It was as if the surface of her flesh were liquid and he was stirring the mix. Zinging bursts of pleasure sparked through her, and she had to remember to breathe.
“Is this . . . going . . . right?”
He nodded. “Very right. We’ll make love and merge soon if that’s okay?”
More than okay.
Surely anything that felt this good couldn’t be as dangerous as he’d claimed. She reached up and threaded her fingers into his hair and brought his mouth down to hers. His kiss upped the stakes because all of a sudden the zinging deepened at least an inch everywhere beyond the top layer of flesh. And the sensations multiplied a hundredfold.
Samantha hadn’t known it was possible to feel too good. Too much sensation. A yearning so powerful that she felt as though she was riding a runaway train. Her ears roared. Her heart pumped.
Oh . . . my . . . God. She could now feel his heart hammering inside her own chest. His sex also inside her.
Pure heat boiled through her.
Her heat. His heat.
And they burned.
Six
ARI HAD MADE love before, but never had he merged with a lover. His feelings ran the gamut from exciting and exquisite to terrifying. He’d heard of shapeshifters who’d been caught in one shape with their lovers for all time. He couldn’t even imagine the horror of failure. To be stuck in the same shape, unable to communicate with each other or the world would be a terrible fate, but even worse, he would have failed to return to help his people with the force field.
A merge followed by a failed separation would be the equivalent of complete paralysis, only with the exasperating awareness of knowing exactly how to extract himself from her without the means to communicate the process. But he’d seen no reason to share the frightening details.
Besides, he had no words to explain the process. It would be like trying to tell someone how to use their eyes to see or how to use their nose to smell, or their mouth to taste or their skin to touch. Either she would have the sixth sense to extract herself from their shape—or she wouldn’t. She had to figure out a lot all by herself.
He had the power to merge them together, but only she could extract them. And while his dream that she could shapeshift was a true dream, sometimes the women couldn’t cope with the changes of their bodies or the intimacy of the merge, and they panicked—freezing the couple in one shape. And so Ari had proceeded as slowly as possible, letting her become accustomed to the feel of their cells slipping and sliding within each other before he’d deepened the meld.
Holding back had been more difficult than he’d anticipated. Perhaps soul mates came in an irresistible custom package designed to ignite the senses. Samantha’s scent certainly drove him wild with distraction. Her sexy, soft skin blended perfectly with his. Even her accelerated pulse urged him on. His blood pumped hot through his veins, and yet when he felt her tightening—despite how ready she’d told him she was—he suspected the merging sensation had begun to panic her.
While he’d had a lifetime to prepare to give up his identity in the merge, Samantha had had only one day to come to grips with the idea of shapeshifting. He had to pull back.
Slow down.
Cool his motor.
But every primal instinct to mate burned through him. Her incredibly silky skin bewitched, compelled, taunted. Her courage drew him as much as her bold sexuality—because she hadn’t once asked him to stop.
Gritting his teeth, he pulled out of her. She gasped as if insulted, but he had to allow her time to understand that after she merged she would once again be her complete and independent self.
“What’s wrong?” She lazily trailed her hands over his buttocks, and the tingling pleased him.
“How do you feel?”
“Uncertain. Impatient. Edgy.”
“We don’t have to do this all at once.”
Her beautiful eyes narrowed. “We began to merge, didn’t we?”
“Yes.”
“Did I do something wrong?”
“Why would you think that?” he countered, not wanting to point out that she’d tensed up on him. He certainly didn’t want to sound as if he were criticizing. He wasn’t. Only he wanted her so badly that stopping had left him with a walloping ache in his groin. “We’re doing great.”
“Then why did you stop?” She sounded confused and needy, but he heard a thread of relief, too.
“We don’t need to rush. And there’s more pleasure if we don’t force—”
“I am a little anxious. But surely that’s to be expected?” She looked straight into his eyes, obviously searching for an honest answer.
Never had she seemed as brave as when she faced her own fear with head-on directness. His heart twisted, and he gathered her close. “We should let you become accustomed to the merge before we go all the way.”
She wriggled against his hardness. “What
about you? Don’t you need—”
“I need you to feel at ease with me.” He tried not to let pure desire color his tone hot red. “I need you to want to continue. Any time you want to stop, up until we totally merge, I will break off.”
“All right then.” She lifted her head to kiss him, and he lazily ran the tip of his tongue over her top lip. She opened her mouth, welcoming him, and he kissed her long and hard and deep, until her hands clenched his back and urged him to continue to make love once more.
Ari took his time, grateful that he was no longer an impatient lad in his teens. And finally when flesh once more slid into flesh, he felt no tension in her. She seemed as relaxed and ready to go as far as he was, maybe even eager to see what happened next.
And as his hips pumped into her, as he thrust deep within her body, their surface skin again blended until he couldn’t tell where his skin ended and hers began. Ari had shapeshifted many times, but he’d never combined his cells with another living being. It was the most erotic and intimate sensation he’d ever encountered.
Samantha’s softness seeped into his hardness. Her warmth combined with his, and together they stoked a fire. Bones shifted, slid, melted into one another.
And all the while, the sexual tension inside him grew. He breathed in ragged breaths, reached down to touch her sex to find that he’d become so much a part of her and she a part of him that using his hand to arouse wasn’t necessary. His flesh had melted into her heat, encasing her sweet spot, tickling, taunting, teasing.
“You feel so good,” she murmured. “I want more.”
He gave her a little more and watched her eyes dilate in wonder and need that made him feel special.
She hung on tight. “I feel . . . You feel . . . like part . . . of me.”
“Soon, we will be one.”
She tensed. He stopped moving. His words might have been a mistake but better to back out now than push too soon. He’d been so close. Stopping this time . . . hurt. His balls ached. His sex felt uncontrollably hard, stiff, and excruciatingly full.
His pent-up needs demanded release. Just a few more seconds, another few inches, and they would have been . . . complete. They would have literally been one heart.
Knowing what was at stake—no less than their lives—pulling back still took every ounce of determination he possessed. Damp with perspiration, muscles on edge, his entire body ordered him to finish. Now.
Sheer willpower alone allowed him to rear back and pull out before he lost himself in her forever. Chest heaving, muscles straining, he forced himself out of her body and away from her touch.
“Oh . . . this is . . . sweet . . . torture.” She panted the words in time to the waves lapping the beach as if the sea’s rhythm had become her own. She reached out a hand to him. “Come back. Please.”
“Give me a moment.” His body trembled, and he fought for control.
“Can I . . .” She hesitated.
“What?”
“Can I be on top?”
He shook his head. “I have to be in charge of the merge.”
“Can’t you do that from under me?” she asked. “I’d feel less trapped if I could control the speed of our merge.”
Her suggestion rocked him. He’d never thought about it, but her request made sense. He could open the door and then let her decide how quickly she wanted to walk through—if he could hold on that long. “We need to crest together to finish the merge. I may not be able to hold on if you are—”
“I trust you.” She grinned, rolled over, and straddled him. “Ah . . . so . . . much better.”
SAMANTHA WAS accustomed to running a company. And she much preferred to be the one to decide exactly when and how far they would merge. The entire process was so strange. For a moment there, she’d felt as if Ari’s heart had been beating for her, that his lungs had breathed for her.
The sensation had been nerve-wrenchingly intimate, yet the sensations had left her with a startling euphoria—as if her body had been created to give both of them pleasure she hadn’t imagined. Putting the sensations into words was like trying to describe hot and cold. The intensity had overwhelmed her, but now that she had a better idea of what to expect, she planned to push through and keep all doubts at bay.
She could merge with Ari.
She wanted to merge with him—not to get her off the island—because being with him gave her a sense of rightness, as if fate had brought them together for a good reason. Also the experience of merging, of giving herself to him had changed her deep down in her soul.
Samantha had finally recognized that part of what drove her, part of why she worked so hard, was to escape a loneliness that had always been so much a part of her—so much so that she’d thought it normal. And she’d plugged the empty holes in her life with work.
But Ari didn’t merely show her that he could fill the barren parts of her soul, he colored them with a spicy palette that lifted her spirit in a way she had yet to acknowledge or comprehend. If she’d been back in New York, safely ensconced in her own world, she would still go through with the merge. Because she wanted to see what she could do, because Ari had earned her respect by yielding to her wishes when he could, and because merging wasn’t giving up her identity, merging with him was adding another half to her own to make one whole.
Samantha lifted her hips and took Ari’s sex inside her. Her mouth found his, and she began to move over him. With his hands on her hips, he helped without trying to take over. As her confidence grew, she scraped her nipples over his chest, rubbed her belly against his, ground her pelvis into him.
And this time when her flesh melted, she welcomed the unity. Reveled in uniting their flesh, their blood, their hearts. She took him deeper, and well-being suffused her. Desire erupted and frothed in a raging river, poured into a welcoming sea, where the waters whipped into a frenzied wave that crested higher than she’d ever imagined. And when that crest broke through her, when all of his desires fused with hers, she shattered into a billion fragments, taking him right with her.
The merge was complete.
She could no longer tell what part of her new shape had come from her and what had once been part of him. Where they’d been two separate beings, there was now only one. The joining, total and complete, was done.
But what had they become?
She wanted to speak, but she didn’t have a mouth or vocal cords. She didn’t seem to have hands or feet, either, but instead, thick stubs that thrashed the sand. Her eyes seemed hooded, and it was very dark, but then she flexed her neck and . . .
Oh . . . my. She was on her belly. Heavy. Low to the ground. She moved her front flipper-like stubs, very sensitive flippers that felt every grain of sand, and rear legs that shoved her massive body forward in an awkward yet oddly powerful movement.
She could hear the low vibrations of the lapping waves and concluded she had ears. And while she possessed eyes, she was quite nearsighted and colors were odd, violets and blue green instead of grays and blacks.
Whatever animal Ari had turned them into was massive. And she longed to immerse herself in the sea to feed. Only a small part of her mind remained in the creature. The rest was in the Inf, but as Ari had promised, she could tap into her thoughts.
Yet, the creature’s body drove her forward toward the sea in search of food with a primitive urge she couldn’t deny. Heavy, full of hard cartilage, Samantha pressed to the sea and the promise of filling her belly.
Slowly, she crawled forward, her walk steady and ungainly. When the full moon came out from behind a cloud, she glimpsed her shadow, startled to see that she and Ari had become a giant tortoise.
Seven
SAMANTHA DIDN’T know much about sea turtles or marine biology, but the moment she lumbered into the ocean, she felt as though she’d come home. Her nearsighted eyes could see just fine in
the clear, dark Caribbean Sea, and she suspected her sight was in the ultraviolet range due to the odd green-violet colors. Her sense of smell acute, she inhaled the sweet scent of shrimp through a pulsating movement in her throat. Mouth open slightly, she drew in water through the nose and then immediately emptied it out again through the mouth in a motion as natural as if she’d been breathing in her human form.
Samantha sensed Ari was with her and wished they could communicate. But they wouldn’t be able to speak until they returned to human form, shapeshifting back into their bodies. And as much as she wanted to make sure she could once again become herself, the yen to swim, eat, and explore the new underwater world of night fish, coral reefs, and spectacular sea creatures pulsed stronger than any desire to return to shore.
She had no idea if sea turtles possessed natural enemies. But when she spied a shark hovering over a school of silver-scaled fish, its ominous dark shadow menacing, she shuddered and swam the other way. Her flippers, which had been short, clumsy, and inept on land, now powered her swimming with tireless ease.
And when she spied sweet shrimp on the bottom, she feasted hungrily. Belly full, thirst quenched, she circled the magnificent coral reef that formed an atoll around the island. Sea urchins, their black spines like the quills of porcupines, dotted the sand along with sea crabs and lobster. She noted a huge variety of fish swimming in and out of her submerged airplane and wondered how many years it would take for the metal to become part of the coral reef ecosystem and was pleased to see no fuel spillage.
But most of all, she thought over the puzzle of how to reverse the shapeshifting process. Ari had told her if she didn’t panic, she would succeed, but he hadn’t given her detailed instructions. And so eventually, as she headed back to the island, she made a nonspecific plan. She would begin by trying to do what he’d done—in reverse.
At least if she didn’t succeed right away, they would have the freedom to swim and eat. She was grateful he hadn’t turned them into a rock or an ice cube.
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