A Mermaid s Kiss

by Joey W. Hill

  Nine

  SHE'D woken before him, just before sunrise. So when she'd slipped from the bed and watched the sky become gray, then shades of pink laced with the traces of gold heralding the sun, she also watched his wings slowly disintegrate and then vanish, leaving a handful of feathers scattered across the bed and her floor. Though his torso altered somewhat, she was still captivated by the long, bare length of leg, his sex at rest, his testicles a dark shadow curved on his inner thigh.

  He had been inside of her. She'd felt the shift of his biceps against her flesh as he held her, the line of his jaw pass over her cheek as his lips feathered over her skin, teeth taking an unexpected, fierce nip, rousing an equally fierce response from her.

  All silent wonder, she knelt next to his hand, lying loose and open on the covers. Those long fingers had touched every inch of her flesh, teasing, caressing, gripping . . . Now she placed her own hand into the cup of his palm, carefully straightening her fingers, one by one, holding her breath so she didn't wake him. She wanted to see again how delicate her hand was against the elegant power of his.

  Tilting her head to gaze at his face, she found his eyes had opened. Dark, dark brown, the human whites so odd to her even though she'd been used to his true appearance such a short time. She liked figuring out his emotions from the tone of his voice, the shift of his body. Watching the fire flash through the solidly dark eyes from desire.

  "Good morning," she said softly, and then wondered if he'd consider it good, considering he was waking to it in this form.

  HER hair had fallen forward, brushing his forearm. That's what had woken him. That, and a very strange sensation. He knew the ways of humans, had moved silent and unseen among them for a long time. But seeing human appetite and hearing it rumbling in his belly were entirely different. It sounded alarming, as if an animal were in there and would soon rip its way out if he did not appease it.

  The second thing that confronted him was a cat. Sitting on the footrail just beyond her, peering at him with half-closed yellow eyes that opened a tad wider when he raised his gaze. He contemplated the two things--cat, empty stomach--and didn't feel any particular pull toward consuming the feline, so it apparently wasn't what his stomach craved.

  He turned his attention back to Anna, for his reaction to her was much easier to understand. Under the guise of sleep, for the past few moments he'd just watched her playing with his hand, like a newborn discovering a fresh revelation with everything touched and seen. Her guilty flush and the way she drew back told him she was embarrassed.

  "Can you change on land? To a mermaid?"

  Her brow puckered, but she nodded. "Not for long. I need the water to move of course, and to keep my gills and scales wet." She arched a brow. "Why, my lord?"

  Because he wanted a visual reassurance that neither of them was truly human. He didn't have the words to explain that. But then, why did he have to?

  "Is that why you have the pool up here?" He gestured.

  The loft bedroom contained only two objects. Last night the only thing that could claim his attention was the bed. This morning he noted the walled pool, a lotus-shaped creation with sandstone block walls to form a seating area around it. It explained the extra reinforcement beams under the balcony. Several baskets were placed on the edge of the sandstone wall, and they contained soap shavings shaped and scented like rose petals. There were floating candles in the pool, apparently lit by her in the night, for they were still burning in this dawn hour, casting a gentle light over the dim room.

  "I don't like to be too far from the water, my lord."

  "Change for me," he murmured. "I want to see."

  Anna seemed to consider that. Then she withdrew from his side, her eyes lowering so her thick lashes swept her cheeks. She'd donned one of the human garments, the gauzy skirt from yesterday, but she'd put on the black T-shirt he'd been wearing. It pleased him to see her wearing close to her skin what he'd had close to his. She dropped the skirt first, then slowly drew the shirt over her head. Not for the first time, he thought how beautiful her breasts were. Small and firm, tipped with delicate pink nipples that made his mouth suddenly moist. As he swallowed, she stepped over to the pool, taking a seat on the edge.

  Jonah sat up, watching her. "Anna, why can't you look at me? You liked looking at me a moment ago." He injected a teasing note in his voice and was rewarded with a slight smile, but she kept her eyes down.

  "It's an intimate thing, my lord. I . . . I've done it in front of Mina, but we both do it, so it doesn't seem as significant to shift before one another."

  "Well, for the time being, I'm a shapeshifter, too, you know."

  Her silence told him it was different, that his change was forced, involuntary and unwelcome. And temporary. It tightened his mouth to even think of it, though he tried to soften his expression as he noticed her hands tensing, wringing the fingers together nervously.

  "Anna."

  She raised her gaze, a fraction at a time.

  "I command you to shift," he said quietly. "Now."

  Her eyes went to half-mast again, like the cat, who'd moved to the doorway and lay on his side, lazily watching them both.

  Her toes curled. Uncurled. Small pearls of flesh, so pale, and then suddenly his eye was drawn to a purple and blue streak spreading across her legs, like ink marking all the veins beneath, only the iridescent color was widening, the texture of the skin changing beneath it. Flashes of silver sparkled over it then, replacing the flesh in a blink, scales overlapping, her lower body shuddering, elongating when she leaned back on her arms. She arched in sensuous display as her lower body twisted, writhed and altered. The blue and purple lines snaked up her upper body, over her rib cage, their delicate tendrils tattooing her abdomen, following the outsides of her breasts and ending in elaborate curls over the roundness of her shoulders.

  The overlapped scales gave the womanly shape of her hips an even more lush outline, now that he could compare the difference between her human and mermaid forms with more accuracy. His attention traveled back down the length of her tail, where the scales became smaller and smaller until they were like jewels in a delicate maid's shield of armor. The fronds of her caudal fins unfurled like feathers, the various shades of purple and blue highlighted with tempting glitters of pink and silver.

  When Jonah rose from the bed, he could tell the part of her that was instinct, bound to the sea and its laws, immediately became apprehensive, knowing how vulnerable she was in this form with no ocean to provide her grace and speed. He would not have her suffer a moment's fear.

  "Sshh . . . " he said, coming to one knee beside her. As petite as she was, it put them nearly eye to eye. He curved his hand beneath the weight of her hair, traced the sensitive crescent of gills that hid along her throat, a different type of beauty. Just like his current form. A different way of surviving. He needed to think of it that way.

  Lifting her, he stepped into the pond, lowered himself and her into the clasp of the water, the familiar touch of an element they both knew. Her hair floated around them as he settled in, finding out it was roomy enough he could put his back to the side and hold her between his thighs, pressing his attentive cock comfortably against her lower back as she slid down into his embrace.

  Turning her in his lap, he rested his arm over the bend of her tail and perused her at his leisure. "So"--he let his gaze travel down her body, lingering with particular pleasure over her breasts, his fingers passing over the ornamentation embellishing them, feeling the slight raised texture of the intertwined colors, registering her tremor--"where do I find your . . . ?"

  The inflection, the trailed-off sentence, told Anna what he meant. She flushed. Would she ever stop doing that? He'd had his mouth on her, his body fully inside hers, and yet, when his gaze pinned her like this, she felt warm and hot, and was so conscious of the way the water moved over her . . . in her.

  Lifting his right hand from her breast, he extended it, held it before her. "Take me there. I want to tou
ch you like this. You're beautiful, Anna."

  It gratified her to hear it. She'd worried that, because he had legs, he might find her mermaid form unappealing. But she'd been born a mermaid. The human form was just a disguise. Although she used it often enough it had become more comfortable to her, there were physical limitations she had that could not be overlooked. Hence, Mina's sharp warning that she needed to head back to the sea at a certain point.

  Which turned her mind to other worries. She had to get Jonah to Nevada. Into the middle of the desert, and they could only "travel by Fate." They couldn't drive a car or pay to take a bus, but had to be carried there by the kindness and motives of others. Why had Mina been so specific on that, so vague on other details? Damn it.

  But right now there was this. She'd figure out the rest later. He was waiting, those dark eyes riveted on her face, so still, in a way that suggested his true otherworldly nature even in this mortal form. And he wanted her as a mermaid.

  She took his hand in one of hers. Reaching out, she curved her other hand on his shoulder, at the corded juncture with his throat. Her slender thumb pressed at the base, feeling his quickened pulse as she shifted to one hip on his muscular thigh. The movement told her he was aroused, and his casual attitude about that combined with the focus in his eyes made her short of breath. She had to remind herself to use her lungs, not gasp through the useless gills.

  She guided his hand around her hips, back, back. As she did, it arched her upper body up and his attention settled on the breast now tilted invitingly toward his mouth.

  She rested his hand on the indentation just below the skirt of her feathery anal fin. The blue and purple silk of it rippled over him, brushing his knuckles. Her lower body quivered as he kept his gaze locked on her breast, but felt his way beneath her with his fingers, exploring that indentation, seeming to know intuitively how to move with the overlap of her scales, onto the smooth, tender dip at the crevice below the fin. He found the opening waiting there, hidden but giving way at the presence of his fingers, like the furled petals of a flower.

  Jonah knew the moment his easing fingers penetrated. For one thing, Anna's lips parted, her tongue tasting them in a quick, nervous sweep. For another, the fluid, cool feel of the water in the pool gave way to the warm, viscous fluid of an aroused woman. He explored with gentle fingers, not only to feel that opening, but the tighter anal opening just above it, tucked in closer beneath the fin. Caressing them with his thumb and forefinger, he made her eyes widen at the unexpected dual sensation.

  Though he was inflamed by her breathy moan, he took his time. If there was one thing an angel knew, it was that it was a sin to rush a female's pleasure.

  Particularly when the exploration itself was such a pleasure. If she'd been in a human form, it would have been like laying her over a chair or table to touch her soft, wet cunt from behind, her anal entry within reach, as it was here. However, the warm, wet opening he was currently investigating was more narrow than the one in her human form. To get the same effect, he suspected he would have to have her cross her legs at the ankles, holding her thighs tightly together while he plunged into the excruciatingly snug opening.

  "Holy Mother," he breathed, his cock rising hard and hungry at the thought. He'd never been like this, so carnal and demanding at once, so quickly. While he didn't want to think about what limitations his human body would force upon him, apparently one thing it managed well enough was lust. He would focus on that, rather than the unfamiliar, unbalanced feeling he'd had when he rose to cross the room to her, so that for a moment he'd been afraid he was going to pitch at her feet.

  Keeping his gaze on hers as long as he could, he turned her away from him, so he could settle her more squarely between his thighs. Her head dropped back, resting on the wall, her body in a lithe crescent as he lowered her slowly onto his upright sex, taking himself into the grip of that narrow but blessedly slick opening. As he stretched her, she cried out, soft moans, making him ache even harder to take her down on him, to the hilt.

  When he finally did, every glorious inch, her hips were nestled into the cradle of his, his forearm wrapped over her breasts, his other at her waist, holding her securely on him, his thighs holding her still on either side. She'd gripped his forearm in tight hands, and he could see her nipples were now sharp points, her breath floundering.

  "Breathe, little one. Breathe. Tighten on me. Ah, gods," he groaned as the very command made her contract involuntarily.

  He liked having her this way, knowing it was possible to join with her in the form closest to who she was. Knowing once again he was the first to do it.

  Her nails dug into him, and he watched her tail undulate involuntarily, which in turn brought her down on him in an incredible sensation of motion, stroking him almost like the movement of water. Pressing his face into her neck, he put his lips beneath her ear and over her gill, that elegant slit. The inner side looked like mother-of-pearl, but was a delicate membrane he teased with his mouth, experimenting, and earned a gasp of reaction. As well as an intimate clamp on his length that made him wonder if he had the strength to move her along it. He did, and she helped with the movement of her tail, her upper body quivering, flushing, a sparkle of silver flashing across her skin, energy collecting, collecting . . .

  Was she conscious of it? Had she thought that was why he was doing this, another healing session of Joining Magic, getting Mina's daily prescription out of the way? It didn't sit well with him for her to think that, but as the energy closed in around them, he couldn't stop it. It stimulated the senses, pouring into his muscles, increasing the rapid pounding of his heart, enhancing his vision and strength, healing things that were not present in this body but waiting just beyond sunset.

  The flood of magic surged through him as he held her against him, realizing he might very well be using her fragile body as an anchor against the poisons drawn up in a vortex inside him at the incursion of energy.

  He didn't want the magic to remind him of who he was, even as he cursed being human. He only wanted to embrace her. She was the only thing that made sense.

  "Stop, Anna," he muttered, thrusting into her hard, feeling her shudders. Reaching up to grasp her throat, he held her head alongside his, her hair brushing his lips. "Give me your cries. That's all I want. Let me hear your pleasure."

  He didn't know if she heard him or not, for almost as the words came from his mouth, she shattered, surging out of the water, her scales glistening the way he knew her folds would be if he could see them instead of having only the aching glory of fucking her, rising, falling, stroking, demanding, until . . .

  His body spasmed, gripped in two opposing forces, the physical realm of his body and the surge of heat energy that crashed around him, through him, rippling like electrical current. He didn't want the magic, only her, and so he threw up a block, a magical ability that apparently his human form hadn't taken from him, though it was a clumsy, cumbersome effort.

  Too late, he realized what a shield recklessly thrown up to reject a surge of healing energy so far along might do.

  Anna's cry of pleasure escalated into a scream, and her body thrashed, only no longer in pleasure. Clouds of steam billowed from the water as fire licked over his skin and hers.

  No. He shoved her beneath the water, dislodging himself from her, holding her under as the fire roared over his skin. Though he knew how to conduct energy, he had no idea what power this mortal form had to absorb or channel it, but he made a fierce effort now to seize it back, bring the crush of the thwarted purpose back on himself, swallow the detonation of it.

  He forced himself to reverse his reaction, accept the magic he didn't want, ameliorate the negative effect of his initial rejection. As he did, the human skin blackened on his forearms and began to fall away. Now he cried out at the pain, even as new skin began to regenerate at once, for he was still immortal when all was said and done. He struggled through the agony to keep his focus on the woman bucking beneath his hands.

&nb
sp; Though she could breathe beneath the surface, he felt her panic, so he pulled her up though the air stank of blackened flesh and steam still rose from the water. Mercifully it occluded her expression. He was sure it reflected her confusion and fear, things he'd caused. He cursed his cowardice, but even feeling those emotions from her was more than he could bear.

  With an oath, he erupted from the pool, stumbling out of it to stand, dripping and gasping for air, several feet away, turned away from her. If he'd hurt her . . . Gods, how long had he known how to manipulate energy? Easy as breathing, but he'd panicked over an attempted healing, let it take him over so he reacted like a youngster in need of a mentor to protect him. Or protect others from him.

  She'd shifted back to human form and was sitting on the edge of the wall, her hair draped forward but her eyes on him, worried. Worried for him. But she was also trembling, in pain.

  In two steps he was to her, kneeling and tunneling his fingers through her hair. Searching her face, the front of her body. Pale, un-marred. Either he'd done better than he anticipated, or . . .

  Tightening her muscles when he tried to turn her, she attempted a smile. "I'm fine, my lord."

  He rose and looked over the top of her head. Her back was scorched, the skin already a deep red, with several seeping welts.

  It could have been worse. He told himself that even as he felt impotent fury at her pain. In his usual form, he could incinerate her with no more than a thought. Only his ineptitude and this limited human shell had saved her life, or at least protected her from more damage.

  "I can heal you . . . tonight." He'd retained a substantial arsenal of his magical ability, and yet his healing power was denied to his human form. A cruel joke. Sunset was hours away, hours while she'd suffer. "You won't have any scars." It sounded pathetic.

  He turned away, unable to bear it any longer. "Why didn't you just let me die?" he snarled. She flinched as if he'd struck her. Snatching up the jeans, he left the room, afraid of what he might do, enraged by what he couldn't do, enraged by all of it. If she'd left well enough alone . . . He'd been buried so deeply in her, and that was all he needed, wanted. To stay in that moment.