Whirlpool: Forces of Nature, Book 2

by Vivian Arend

  “Sorry for what?”

  Their eyes met. The sparkling flecks within her irises reassured him she was as moved as he was. Although he couldn’t figure out why she kept laughing. He dropped his gaze to where they were still joined and spotted the reason.

  “Shit, woman, I look like a fucking Smurf.” Her body paint covered them both. Streaks of shimmering blue that had nothing to do with their natural release of St. Elmo’s fire streaked his torso.

  She bit her lip, the bright smile sneaking around it. “You should see your face. Blue looks good on you. Ohh…”

  He rose, his cock slipping from her body as he adjusted her in his arms. Now that he’d given in, there was no way he planned on letting her go any time soon. He strode upstairs to the room he’d been using, Chelsea clinging to his shoulders.

  “Shower?” she asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Hmm,” she purred, running a hand over his smooth scalp. “Or the ocean. I really want to go swimming with you.”

  “Not very environmentally friendly are you, minx?”

  “The paint is nontoxic,” she pointed out. “It’s not like I’m covering myself with lead.”

  “Covering me as well.”

  “That was a bonus. Next time I’ll use flavored stuff.” She buried her face in his neck and nibbled on his collarbone.

  “You know we still have things to talk about, right?”

  Chelsea sighed and leaned harder into him, her hands roaming freely over his torso. “Hmm, sure.”

  He laughed. “You’re fuck drunk already.” A gentle kiss to her nose was the last thing he did before ducking through the doorway.

  The biggest bathroom in the house was the master en suite, and Braden moved carefully, trying to leave as little sign of their presence as possible. They might have free reign over the whole house, but he didn’t want to spend hours scrubbing blue shit off everything in sight.

  Once he reached the safety of the tile, he lowered her carefully, pressing another kiss to her cheek before turning to face the damage.

  “Hell. I have been attacked by aliens.” There wasn’t an inch of him that didn’t have at least a streak of the fucking body paint. The mirror reflected Chelsea standing next to him, her bright smile covering her face and filling her eyes.

  It had been a long time since he’d seen her look so truly happy.

  She twirled and slipped into the shower ahead of him, part of her joy bubbling up and sneaking out in low chuckles as she adjusted the water taps. They could easily shower in the cold water, but there was something so decadent in using hot. All the merfolk enjoyed the pleasures modern human conveniences afforded them, and now that Braden had finally—finally—given in and made love with her, she planned on enjoying all the pleasures she could.

  The large shower stall grew suddenly small as he crowded against her.

  “I’m not done with you.” His big hands slid over her shoulders and down her arms, and she shivered in anticipation. “I’m going to wash you. Every single inch of you, baby, is going to get touched.” His hands paused on her hips, pinning her in place under the water spray when she would have turned to face him. He reached past her for the soap and lathered up his hands, his arms trapping her in their circle.

  The torment began. Pleasure raced ahead of his hands, his fingers, as he explored. Stroked her breasts, rubbed slow circles on her belly. Encased her thighs with his palms and dropped to his knees behind her as he reached and washed her feet. The blue paint vanished down the drain, but the blue light in the bathroom refused to diminish. His touch, so gentle, so caring, made her heart ache.

  He stood, his hands cupping her breasts, thumbs pinching the tips lightly against his forefingers.

  “Damn, woman, you are gorgeous.” He pressed his hips against her and the length of his once-again-rigid cock nudged the crease of her ass.

  She didn’t want to speak for fear she’d break the magical connection between them.

  Braden kissed the tender skin under her ear. A shiver raced down her spine and burst into a thousand electrical pulses in her sex. The slow, methodical movements of his touch brought pleasure to her body. The continued caresses of his lips, the soft words of praise muttered against her skin, brought pleasure to her soul.

  By the time he turned her in his arms and scooped her up all the tension remaining in her muscles had swirled away with the last remnants of the paint. As he carried her out of the stall and wrapped her in a towel, drying her limbs and nestling her on the bed, she sighed.

  “Braden?”

  He nuzzled her neck with his lips, wrapping his body around hers and tugging them skin to skin.

  “Hmm?”

  She stared up into his dark eyes, brushing her knuckles against his cheek. “I’ve wanted you for so long.”

  “I’m sorry.” He rubbed their mouths together, licking a slow draw over her bottom lip. “I was…afraid. No, that’s the wrong word. I was confused and really trying to do what I thought was best. I knew how much you wanted to go away to school. I didn’t want anyone to steal that opportunity from you, not even me.”

  A shot of pain went through her. It wasn’t the time or place to explain the real reason she hadn’t gone.

  “I still want to go someday.” It might seem impossible right now, but there had to be a way to earn the money. Maybe it would take another year, but if that’s what it took…

  Braden rolled to his back and pulled her on top of him, arranging her like a blanket over his heavily muscled chest. “I’ll do what I can to help you. You don’t have to give up your dream. The part I’m sorry for is that we could have been together for a long time.” He lifted her chin. “I know this is going to sound strange, but I was worried about having to share you with any of the merfolk. I’m still…uncertain.”

  “Share me? Is that why you were chasing away the rest of the guys?”

  “I still don’t think I can handle seeing you making love with another member of the pod. I know that it’s not right for me to feel jealous, but it’s a reality.”

  Chelsea sat up, straddling his hips. Was he serious? She’d never dreamed that would be an issue. “Thank you for telling me, but I’m not looking for another lover.”

  “Not right now, but you will. It’s normal, Chelsea, it’s a natural part of the urges you have as a merfolk. My reaction is the one that’s twisted and wrong. Tell me you’ve never had two lovers in your bed—”

  “I haven’t.”

  “—ah.” Braden choked off in midsentence.

  Chelsea leaned over and stroked his chest, loving the feel of the ridges of muscles under her fingers. “I wasn’t a virgin, but when I said you were the one I desired, I meant it. I’ve watched and waited and downright hurt with wanting you.”

  “Never?” He looked stunned. “You’ve never…”

  She smoothed a finger over his lips. “Shh. You’re right, I might need someone else at some point, but for now you’re more than enough.”

  She shifted slowly. The friction between their bodies heated her up and drove her crazy at the same time. Lifting her hips she reached between her legs to grasp his erect shaft, fondling the tender skin covering the head.

  “Oh damn, baby. That feels freaking marvelous…holy shit.” Braden fell back with a groan, his head crashing onto the pillow.

  Chelsea closed her eyes as she sank onto him, the thick girth of his cock stretching her passage. She rocked downward again and again, each motion bringing him a little deeper. Their skin rubbed together with an erotic flare, her nerve endings sensitized, and she craved more. She switched to long, smooth strokes—savoring the fullness, the sensual pressure and heat. Each propelled pleasure into her core. Braden cupped her breasts, teasing her nipples to hard points then making endless circles with his thumbs over the aching peaks.

  Nothing but physical sensation remained. Her climax approached leisurely this time, the languorous pulses of her hips prolonging her building excitement. She wanted to savor every s
econd.

  “Look at me.” Braden clasped her hips to hold her still. “I want to watch you. I need to see you come this time.”

  She stared down into his face. He released his grasp and let her resume control. They watched each other draw closer to climax. The room filled with the light of a million fireflies as all their tightly held emotion streamed out. Pleasure wrapped around them and tied them together until it burst in a blaze of energy. She cried out his name and he smiled, a second before his eyes closed and he came, his cock jerking within her sheath. The rapid pulses of her orgasm rolled in waves, drawing out his pleasure, setting off another series of reactions within her.

  They both took deep breaths at the same time, and Chelsea laughed. She rolled off and curled up at his side.

  “You going to be okay if I stay here? I’m kinda still in shock. I keep thinking I’m going to wake up and this is going to all be a dream.”

  Braden tucked her closer, the heat of his body enveloping her as he tugged the sheets over their naked bodies. “You just try to get away. It’s not happening.”

  She settled in and relaxed, staring contentedly at his face until the lights of the room faded and she fell asleep.

  Chapter Six

  Jamie watched in a daze, uncertain if his blood pounded from racing up the stairs or from the sight before his eyes.

  He’d left the bar as soon as he discovered Chelsea was gone. His groin ached, his body on fire ever since she’d stepped out on the stage in that excuse for a bikini. When she’d centered her attention on him, it had been enough to break him. Screw trying to make Braden jealous, he wanted her for himself. He’d slipped backstage only to find she’d already disappeared.

  Finding her car in the driveway of the house was reassuring, but when he heard raised voices behind the door and couldn’t find his fricking key, he panicked. He flew around the back and up the stairs, ready to break in when he spotted Chelsea and Braden glaring at each other across the living room. Their shouted conversation confused him and he was ready to put a stop to it when everything changed. Chelsea stripped off her clothing, and involuntarily he took a step forward, drawn with a magnetic force. Shimmering blue paint covered every inch of her body and he longed to touch her, to see if a cloud of blue dust would envelop them as he buried himself in her body, burying the ache in his soul.

  Then the tableau changed as Chelsea and Braden kissed and his hopes died. He knew he should turn away, leave the lovers in privacy as they wrapped around each other more and more intimately, but something held him.

  He’d never thought of himself as a voyeur. His sexual escapades were tame by some standards and actual live sex shows weren’t his thing. But this, this was more than mesmerizing. Jamie slipped into the shadows, all the while his gaze fixed on the increasingly intimate performance on the opposite side of the glass. When they joined together, he swore he felt it in his own body and finally forced himself to turn away.

  The journey to his car took forever, the rock-solid length of his erection making each step torturous. The drive back to the condo passed in a blur. He stumbled up the stairs, into the apartment, dropped his keys to the floor and swore, long and hard.

  Damn, damn, damn. Ignoring the need pounding through him was impossible. He opened his slacks and released his aching cock. He stroked from root to tip, swiping his palm over the head and rubbing the moisture already leaking from his shaft. He couldn’t even make it as far as the bathroom, not with the images racing through his mind.

  The full tantalizing rounds of Chelsea’s breasts—what he wouldn’t give to be able to weigh them in his hands. To suckle the tips like he’d watched Braden enjoy. Jamie tugged harder, wishing it had been him she’d enveloped with her wet heat. He let his head fall back against the wall with a thud, all his blood pooling in his groin. He dropped his other hand to cup his balls, tightness spreading as he increased the speed of his motions. He pictured Chelsea’s hips moving over him, her body pressed up against his. The sweet taste of her lips. Jamie angled his hips higher and thrust harder into his hand, urgent need overtaking him. His balls tightened, his total concentration on the endorphins spreading in a rush through his whole system. Release came and he groaned out her name, his seed spraying from the tip of his cock to land on the floor and his shoes in sticky strands.

  When his ragged breathing faded back to normal, he glanced down in disgust.

  “Ah, fuck it, teenagers have more control.”

  He grabbed a cloth and cleaned up the floor, stomping to the bedroom, repulsed with himself. All his exhaustion disappeared by the time he’d washed up and redressed. He felt like he’d sucked back espresso shots, his body buzzing with adrenaline. The thought of what Chelsea and Braden were doing at that very moment started another reaction he desperately needed to bring to a halt before he ended up jerking off all night long. Jamie cranked open his laptop and began the arduous task of transferring information from his latest set of notes to the Excel spreadsheet.

  Shit, even the sight of her beautifully curved handwriting made him react. He put down the notebook and paced to the French doors to stare out into the night. The ocean undulated with the rhythm of the waves. The harbor to the left glowed with an eerie haze, pale greens and blues reflecting off the water as a light mist rolled in from the sea.

  The azure tones reminded him of the body paint Chelsea wore and this time his cock didn’t leap to attention. Ever since she’d walked out on the stage something had bothered him, something other than how dire his need to fuck her had become. A faint memory tickled the back of his brain.

  He’d seen the blue before. The glow of St Elmo’s fire.

  Jamie went back to an old reference book he’d found days ago, tucked onto Braden’s shelf, the pages yellowed with time. He traced a finger over the page, the words he’d read earlier leaping out at him. St Elmo’s fire—watchers, saviors—legends are told by sailors of the fortune of the ships guided by their light. Sailors recovered from the storm-tossed sea speak of mermaids bestowing the kiss of life to their drowning souls.

  Damn it all, where had he seen that glow before? Jamie walked out on the balcony to stare at the ocean again. It wasn’t a picture he was trying to remember, he was sure of it. The water crashed against the shore and another memory intruded.

  The rush of waves, the taste of salt on the air…

  It teased him. Like the faintest of memories, hidden in the recesses of his mind. There’d been surf. The blue shimmer and waves, the heat of the night and…music. Jamie twirled and raced back to the computer in search of pictures from one of his earliest assignments. He flipped through the shots, one after another, until he hit a snapshot from New Year’s Eve. Party hats and tipsy faces smiled back at the camera. He tapped his fingers on the screenshot, over the shoulder of the people. This was a part of what he needed.

  Black rocks on the beach. Black on white…

  He remembered attending the start of the party, but not the end.

  Jamie poured himself a drink and took it out on the balcony, descending the stairs to the beach. The wind picked up, cool on his skin as he sank into one of the lawn chairs clustered together under the condo’s umbrella stands.

  The wind had been warm…

  He tossed back the fiery liquid, letting it roll down his throat and burn away part of his restraint. He closed his eyes and leaned back. Breathed in the sea smells, the salt and the moisture. The organic scents of seaweed and flotsam.

  The sweet fragrance of a woman’s body…

  They’d completed their project. Palma de Mallorca—he’d been taunted good-naturedly by his friends back home that his first excursion as an archaeology student was to a location that was a resort destination for many. Even his stuffy parents had somewhat approved. Oh, they would have been horrified at the tiny pensione rooms he and the other students were housed in like the serfs they were. Grunt labor at a dig was not glamorous. Digs were not attractive. Dirty, painstakingly boring maybe, never life-threateningly ex
citing like an out-of-control Indiana Jones movie. But the excitement came for him in other ways. Digging deep into the past and recovering missing information. Experiencing new cultures.

  The strong espresso served in delicate porcelain cups…

  New Year’s Eve and it was time to party. Their month-long session of fieldwork was over. In a day they’d fly home and return to digging for clues in books instead of diving beneath the waves or brushing away millennia of grime and dust from ancient sites.

  The brush of soft female skin under his fingers…

  “Happy New Year!”

  Jamie raised his glass again, the cries of happiness around him contrasting with the bitterness in his belly. He wasn’t ready to leave. The new find was too fresh, too unexplored to abandon without knowing what other treasures it held.

  He stayed at the party long enough to see his fellow students slip away with willing partners. Jamie was drawn in another direction. He fought it for all of a minute before giving in and returning to his room to grab flippers, mask, snorkel and his headlamp.

  Swimming alone was stupid. Insanely stupid. He turned off the part of his brain that screamed at him as he strode toward the water. He wasn’t really going to dive, just like he’d never dream of actually touching anything in the dive area without following proper protocol.

  He had to see it once more. There would be no time in the morning before the rush to the airport, and if he did manage to wrangle a trip back in the summer, the site would look totally different.

  Maneuvering past the security gate was simple with the key he’d found when he’d packed his bag. Actually, he’d found three of them, all copies he’d misplaced during the month at the site. He rounded the corner and headed to the farthest edge where the rocks cut down to the sparkling white sand, the jagged black boulders shining in the moonlight. The security fences stopped at the rock face, continuing on the far side of the next bay.

  The warmth of the water wrapped around his skin like a caress, crawling up his shin and stroking his thighs. This was a part of what he loved so much about his work. The chance to be in the water, to work with his hands as well as his brain. His family had never understood his fascination with manual labor. Jamie smiled as he adjusted the mask and cleared the snorkel, focusing the headlamp to its highest beam. Then with a soft glide, he was away. He kicked his flippers with a slow controlled motion, his hands sculling before his face to hold his upper body at the surface. He didn’t want to dive. He wouldn’t disturb the site. A coin passed under him, the edge of green moss peeled back to reveal a flash of silver. A hunk of wood, the rotting edge of a chest. It was incredible this wreck had avoided being ravished and stripped clean before now with its proximity to the village.