Was she actually considering this?
“As a heart attack, Dollbaby.” His hand landed on her knee and I had to fight the spike of anger that rippled through me. “Something tells me you could use the attention.”
“Sure, what the hell, boys. Rules are winner gets a kiss, anything more is at my discretion. It would be nice to have everyone’s undivided attention and be the only girl,” Koda glared at me over mermaid boy’s dirty flannel shoulder, the tiniest bit of her pissed off smile showing. I was right, she knew exactly what she was doing, she was just as twisted as her brothers.
My jealously was rising and with it came anxiety. This spectacle was to be a twisted a knife in my heart, she was getting pay back. Fine. I’d sit here and take my punishment, say my piece, then be done with her and her brothers. I didn’t know how much more crystal clear she needed to make it for me to get the point.
Mermaid boy’s buddies let out a cheer, immediately calling each other names and deciding who should go first.
When I heard one of them say “hold my beer” I recalled why I stayed away from humans as much as possible.
“I’ll give you a kiss and if you don’t like it, you can return it.”
“Black ice isn’t the only thing I’m falling for.”
“You remind me of my toe, sooner or later I’m going to end up banging you on the table.”
“Nice pants, can I test the zipper?”
“You must have sat in sugar because you have a sweet ass.”
The pickup lines were the most horrendous things I had ever heard. I caught the bartender rolling his eyes so hard I thought he’d make himself sick. Her friendly touches, tousling their hair, her laughter, it all made my blood boil. I reached for another drink. I missed her laughing with me like that, I missed those touches. My sister screamed in my head to leave, but I couldn’t walk away. Not now. Not yet.
“I’m not as accurate as the local weather man, but my forecast says you should expect six inches tonight, Doll.” Mermaid boy crooned.
I snorted, nearly sending my drink out my nose. How much alcohol I had drank that I had even found that remotely funny?
“Oh, you think that’s funny, do you pretty boy?” he growled my direction over his shoulder.
“Actually, no, whatever your name is--”
“Caleb.”
“Well, Caleb,” I carefully placed my empty glass back on the table top and stood. My head swam. Shit. I had not meant to get drunk. “I think this is all quite pathetic. Why would she want six inches when she knows where to get nine?”
His crew let out a combined “ooooh.” I immediately regretted the pissing contest I had joined. I was such an idiot for even opening my mouth.
Caleb’s bright blue eyes locked on mine as he spun around to face me in the corner, his fists clenching. Koda sat up a bit taller. She poked her head over his shoulder, the corner of her gorgeous mouth twisted in a smirk. That was her “I’m getting what I want smile.”
“You think you can do better than me and my boys?” he spat.
He stepped away from Koda as I paced towards her. I caught a brief scent of something familiar, something sweet, but I couldn't place it.
I slid right in beside her, my elbow leaning on the bar, the left side of my body brushing up against her right leg.
She handed me a shot of whiskey that Caleb had bought her without so much as a word and I downed it. At this point what was one more? If Koda really did want me to get my ass handed to me, so be it. Maybe I’d finally learn.
“Yeah, I do,” I said as I felt her hand on my shoulder, that electric tingle went through me again.
Caleb’s brow furrowed at me as Koda played with the hair at the nape of my neck. I rolled my head from side to side to focus myself. She knew exactly what she did to me by playing with my hair, turning me on, making my nerves tingle, pushing every button. She knew I’d be more likely to do something stupid if I was drunk and aroused. Koda would easily be the death of me if I let her.
“Then by all means, educate us, pretty boy.” His voice was full of sarcasm as he backed away to join his friends, grabbing one of their beers.
“The name’s Micah.”
Koda’s fingers stilled in my hair.
I immediately regretted the taste of the words on my lips. It really was a too much habit to use that name. I reached for her left hand out of habit, and rubbed my thumb over the base of her palm. This close to her, I needed to touch her.
“Simple, pay attention to what she likes, learn the little things that make her heart race from excitement.”
“Oh? Is that all pretty boy?” Caleb spat at me as he turned the chair around so he could straddle it to watch us. I’d made myself the center of attention in the bar. I knew some of the boys from Big Mount would be here, whether I smelled them or not. Shit.
“He wishes,” Koda said her voice playful and confident.
“No, that’s not all, but you’ve gotta start somewhere.” My thumb had caught the cuff of her thermal shirt, shifting it to reveal the rough scar that I knew ran halfway up her forearm. The knife I had placed in my own heart when I left kept twisting deeper and deeper as more and more memories came rushing back. But right now, I wanted to pretend nothing had ever happened and enjoy the attention she was giving me. If this was the last chance I would ever get to touch her, I’d take it. Even if I was just playing into her game.
“And what would you know of that?” Koda teased, a rough tug on my hair. I repressed a happy growl at the pain.
“More than you care to acknowledge.” I turned my face towards her to give her a quick wink while I slid my hand up the inside of her thigh. I caught her off guard and she slipped her fingers from my hair to catch my wrist. I turned my body to face her putting myself between her knees, so I was the only thing in her line of sight.
Her brown eyes locked on mine and I could have sworn I caught a quick flash of her anger there. My eyes traveled to her pale lips, and I felt her body shift under my gaze. Was she holding back?
“Then tell me.” She challenged as my fingers traveled lightly up the outside of her thighs, then raked back down towards her knees with more pressure. She took a sharp breath as she, holding onto the edge of the bar to keep from touching me.
“What if I want to show you?”
Before she responded, I hooked my hands behind her knees and pulled her forward on the bar so she was barely still sitting on the bar, her thighs at my hips as I pressed against her. Koda’s breath hitched in her throat in surprise at being pulled against me, her eyes snapped up to meet mine, the barest hint of want peaking through those damn contacts.
“I know what you want,” I said as I brushed back a stray strand of hair from her face, my voice dark and soft so only she heard. “To come in from the cold to a burning fire, crackling and popping, a pile of blankets to relax into while you warm up. You want someone to help you out of that clothing inch by inch so you can feel the warmth of the fire on your golden skin. Someone who will lavish attention on every inch of your skin, with kisses up your back to cool it from the heat of the fire as they slide against you. Someone that will take their time and show you how good it can feel to go slow.”
I put my hands on her hips, my index fingers tucking inside her waistband to touch her soft skin, pulling her tighter against me as her hands made their way to my chest. I slowly slid her off the bar and down my body till her feet were on the floor, my eyes locked on hers. Koda’s heart beat faster, her arms slipping around my waist as I pinned her back against the bar. My hand slipped to the side of her neck, my thumb tracing invisible swirls slowly across her throat.
My eyes flicked to her lips for just a moment. I saw her catch her bottom lip with her teeth and look at my lips. I wanted to slide my hands into her hair and pull her into a kiss. I wanted to ravage her body until she remembered how good we were together. I missed the taste of her. And I had her right in my hands.
I leaned in to barely brush my lips against her
s, but pulled back at the last moment, what was left of my sensibilities recalled that we had an audience. I took a step back from her personal space where I had pinned her against the bar and turned toward the rough miners, my heart no longer in it.
“That, boys, is how it's done.”
I don't know why I expected them to care, or cheer, I'd never been part of the boys club mentality. But cheer they did as I doubled over from a left hook Koda planted squarely in my solar plexis. I froze in place trying to catch my breath as I felt cold steel against my jaw.
“Is that how you got Rory, too?” she hissed in my ear. She’d taken her knife back when she slipped her arms around me. It was razor sharp against my skin.
I swallowed hard and pressed my luck.
“I thought your father would have taught you better than to threaten with a weapon that you don't intend to use.” Her father would have had her ass for that stunt and she knew it. It was a shame he wasn’t around to keep them all in check.
She tried to shove me backwards but I stayed put. Koda pushed a bar stool towards my head. I barely managed to catch it as she walked away.
The miner boys whooped it up as she grabbed her vest from the coat rack and flew out the door, the long chocolate braid swinging behind her. Mermaid boy clapped me on the back as I was trying to catch my breath.
“Well you tried, friend. That's further than the rest of them have gotten with the owner. Let me buy you a drink. There is always tomorrow.”
Rest of them? My wheezing ceased as I glared up at him. He wasn’t including himself in that group? It turned my stomach at the thought Koda would have been interested in him, but one word took me by surprise.
“Owner?”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Rhen
The biting cold and snow sobered me up fast.
“Koda, wait!” She hopped into her truck and I thanked the goddess when it wouldn't start. “You own Broken Tusk?”
“Fuck you, Rhen!” she yelled as she hopped back out of the truck. “Why did you do that?”
“What? You’re an instigator Koda! What was I supposed to do? Start a bar fight with them? Walk out?” I fought to keep myself from yelling as I closed the distance between us, my teeth on edge. “You wanted nothing more than to see my ass handed to me.”
“You should have stayed gone, never come back to Cordova.” She yelled, her voice cracking. “That’s what you could have done.”
“Maybe I -”
“Kody, you ok?” I heard mermaid boy call after us the door to Broken Tusk slammed shut.
Kody? He called her Kody?
“Yeah everything’s fine. I just need to talk to her.” I spoke without looking over my shoulder, the wind whipping through the alley. I shoved my sleeves up to my elbows as I clenched my fingers. I wanted to feel the cold, the little of it I could. I needed a distraction. I wanted to punch something, maybe Caleb.
“I'm pretty sure I was talking to Kody.” Caleb moved to put himself partially between us as if he were some great protector. He didn’t know her well enough if he thought she couldn’t handle herself. I watched his hand slip to the small of her back, lingering on her while her eyes went to his. It told me all I needed to know as he directed her behind him.
“Walk away, Caleb.” The snow was coming faster as my blood pressure rose. The thought of him having touched her made me want to rip him apart.
“Yeah, I don't think that's happening, Dude. You need to walk away before you make a mistake.” He tried to look imposing as he crossed his arms over his chest and settled his stance a bit wider, but it didn’t work. Even with his Viking mane and dirty denim overalls, he was still too pretty and graceful to look menacing. A gust of wind whipped my direction and I caught a whiff of him.
There had been too many bodies in the bar to pick up individual scents, but his was unmistakable. Seaweed, fish, and something akin to ozone. That unmistakable sweet biting smell meant only one thing. He was a shifter. That combination of smells didn’t give him many options, but given his tattoo and his rough sandy voice, I'd bet my share of the gold he was a merman that was missing the ocean as much as I was.
“Koda,” I called over his shoulder. “Who is he to you?”
She was silent for a moment.
“I’m her boyfriend,” Caleb answered with a sly smile.
She didn’t correct him.
Hell, she’d been with another shifter? Did she even know what he was?
That small glimmer of hope I’d been holding onto in the deepest part of my heart flickered and died. The raging jealousy was gone replaced by sheer anger at myself. Caleb had probably told her up front he was a merman, not hidden it like the coward I was. I watched as she fiddled with the closure on the knife sheath on her thigh taking comfort in having it back. I closed my eyes and tried to steel myself against my runaway thoughts.
“No, you’re not, Caleb. You were just a fling,” she finally managed. Her voice betrayed her annoyance with him. Koda smacked him on the back of the head, before stomping away from us towards her truck. “Freaking jerk. So much for asking you for a favor.”
Another merman, another liar. Always out for the next piece of tail, literally and figuratively.
“Time for you to leave, Caleb. I've got things to discuss with Koda.” A satisfied smile on my lips knowing that they weren’t a couple, but my body was still on edge.
“I'm not going anywhere.”
Caleb stared at me, his sea blue eyes attempting to burn a hole in me but I only saw the rolling ocean. The silence in the alley was palpable and the snow was coming down in clumps. He wanted a fight, fine, I’d give him one. I was over this day. I wasn’t into making friends. My seal canines peeked through as I flashed him a wicked grin, my eyes flipped to black in the same instant.
My body screamed at me for the partial shift, hot pain running through my muscles making them twitch, fighting to stay human. I couldn't keep doing this to myself and expect to stay in control. This was a mistake and I was going to pay for it. I needed release and I needed it soon.
“Here, fishy fishy.” My words were barely audible as I baited him, the thunder rumbling in the harbor as the storm built. The chaos would pull me under if I let it.
Caleb lunged at me and I threw him up against the clapboard wall of Broken Tusk. He managed to land two punches on my ribs before I wrapped him up enough that I didn’t have to worry about anymore potential hits to the face. I caught a stronger whiff of him when I had him in a headlock and the seal in me growled at the smell of food. I felt my canines cut into my lip and I tried to refrain from taking a bite out of him, but the taste of my own blood did me no favors. I felt another growl come from my throat.
“Rhen, let him go!” Koda yelled from behind me.
Shit, that growl must have been audible.
“Rhen?” Caleb choked out. “Ravenwhite?”
“Yeah, what of it?” He went slack in submission in my hold.
“Tritan’s di- I didn't know. Kody just said you were her ex, not who you actually were. I'm sorry.”
Sorry? What the hell?
“Don’t tell my boss, ok?”
“Your boss?” I let him go but before he backed away, caught me in the jaw, splitting my lip worse.
I reached for him as he backed away from me, hands up in surrender, slightest bit of a chuckle under his breath. I touched my bloody lip, and tried not to snarl, my teeth still sharp points.
“Yeah, Mel Z.”
When did Melusine start going by Mel? I had stumbled across her once on a swim when I was fifteen and spent a week with her. I hadn't seen her since. I hadn’t realized I had made that much of an impression with the ruler of the merfolk. Had I come across Caleb before and just wasn’t placing him?
“I’m sorry. I had no idea who you were. I should have known though, the random storm, the seals-”
I shot him a look that said shut up or die, my eyes darting between him and Koda.
“Oh- ooooh.” He cut himself of
f with a laugh, as he realized that Koda didn’t know. “Well. Nice meeting you, Rhen. Thanks for the bruised shoulders. I'll see you around. I’ll see you, Kody. Don’t let him off too easy, his sister wouldn’t like that. Fun night, oh such a fun night, Kody, I’ll check out your truck tomorrow”
“How do you know my sister?” I reached for him as he slipped past me still laughing.
“That is for another time, friend. Night Kody!”
Caleb disappeared around the other corner of the building. The next talk I had with my sister was going to be an interesting one.
“So you slept with him?” I asked bluntly, the slightest edge of a growl and territorial claim spilling back into my voice.
“Once.”
I snorted.
“He couldn't have been that good if it was just once.”
She cocked an eyebrow at me. “You don’t get to come back and question my decisions. You. Left.”
I bowed my head in defeat. She was right.
I gently caught her arm as she walked past me to head back into her bar, it didn't take much to convince her to come towards me in the slowing snow. She let me pin her against the wall of the building where I had tossed Caleb just a little earlier. I looked down at her just watching her breathe, neither of us willing to speak first.
I found myself brushing a stray hair out of her face as she reached up and tentatively touched my bloodied lip. I didn’t care for the pity I saw there. She’d never once looked at me like that.
“You owe me a kiss, Koda.”
“Rhen,” she said softly and shook her head no.
“You set me up, didn’t you? You wanted to see those boys kick my ass when I wouldn’t leave?” I asked softly, a finger gently tilting her chin up so she met my gaze, the scent of lavender, mint, and patchouli drifting up to me in the shadows.
I searched her eyes for the spark that used to be there, but those brown contacts hid it all. Gods, at least she hadn’t tried to match her blue eye, that would be my living nightmare. The actions of the last half hour swirled through my head like the raging storm, the more I began to dissect what happened, the more I began to think Caleb actually had played us both. Hell, he probably had messed with her truck so it wouldn't start, probably for his own gain later. Damn merfolk, they were as meddlesome as genies.
Steal the Sun: (Book 1) Page 8