“And an orca?”
“Takes about three of us, but someone probably won’t swim away.”
“Why can’t you take a better route if this one is so dangerous? Where the hell do you guys go that it’s worth the danger? Kekoa protects the water here and keeps it shark free, but out there...”
“Once we leave this territory and cross the Atlantic, we’re in orca territory again. Like I said, they’re not so bad. Great whites are our greatest enemy.”
“The sharks,” I whispered, imagining four massive stallions teaming up beneath the waves to take on a great white. The image made my chest hurt and my eyes water. Nature was rough, I’d known it for years ever since I began studying marine life, but this man was my friend.
“Once we return to our home in the Mediterranean, we’re also returning to seas inhabited by sharks. But it’s our home. We have no other home like it.”
“Is it too late to get a mate?”
“No, but it’s not going to happen by September. I’ve accepted that.”
“Why don’t they want you?” I hugged him tight and set my cheek against his chest. His heartbeat was loud, powerful beneath my ear, a reminder that he hadn’t gone yet, that he wasn’t a lifeless body floating in some shark’s gaping mouth.
Dante wrapped his arms around me. We fit together well, his hugs too comforting over the years.
When I cramped and had PMS, he’d show up with ice cream and sashimi, then we’d curl up on my couch and watch movies into the night together.
When a guy broke my heart, Dante always found out, and he’d listen tirelessly to me as I droned on about how I wished I’d done things differently.
When Dad died last year, Dante had held me throughout the night. He’d packed my bag for me and contacted Teo. My boss flew me home for the funeral on his private jet because Dante asked him to do it.
How long have I been falling in love with him?
“I don’t get it,” I whispered. “You’re a great guy.”
“We don’t watch movies and do those kinds of things for entertainment out in the ocean, Alessa. I can’t impress a filly with my job, my wardrobe, or my music preferences. There, what matters is the color of your fins and whether you’ve got the most muscles in your tail. The biggest hooves. The fairest mane.”
“You have big feet and muscles!”
“I do, and I’m fairly large in my natural state,” he confirmed. “But black hair isn’t a favorable trait. Dark horses are despised and viewed with scorn. Some of the older hippocampi believe we bring blackness with us wherever we go and cause bad luck.”
I tried to imagine him, a sleek fish body attached to a muscled stallion with a jet coat. I pictured wild locks, dark as obsidian, flowing free in the water. The image in my head was beautiful. “Well they’re dumb, because I’m sure you’re gorgeous.” I sniffled and ignored the tears threatening to fall. Dante had seen me at my worst after a breakup, an absolute snotty mess with red-rimmed eyes. I repeated the words he’d told me then, “If they can’t see how amazing you are, then they don’t deserve to have you.”
Dante chuckled weakly. His heart wasn’t in it. “You have a good memory.”
“You were right.” I bit my lower lip. “What if... what if you leave the herd and stay here forever? Isn’t defiance better than death?”
He shook his head. “I’d waste away and get sick again. We’re not like most shifters who can strike out on their own. A lone wolf can survive without a pack, but we’re a magical collective. Together in large numbers, we’re stronger. Separated, we weaken. Ask Abuelo about when I was a child. I don’t remember much of it, but when my mother died I washed up on the beach and he took care of me like a normal child. I got pretty ill as the months went on.”
“What are our choices here, Dante? Maybe you’ve given up but I’m not going to. There has to be something to do to keep you from becoming shark kibble.”
“There’s only one option, and I’m reluctant to ask you to help,” Dante said. “It’s a little extreme.”
“I’ll be the one to decide that. What would you need from me?”
“A baby.”
Our eye contact held during the long silence between us. He didn’t look away and neither did I, but my mouth finally fell slack when I realized it wasn’t Dante’s brand of humor in an attempt to make me laugh.
“Extreme is an understatement,” I finally ventured. “A baby is supposed to save you from becoming a snack?”
“If I can produce a child for the herd, then I’ll be granted full rights. It’s like gaining citizenship.”
“What if the baby is human? What if the baby is only half hippocampus?”
“The shifter trait is a strong gene, Alessa. Any child born from a shifter parent is always a shifter, too. So he or she would come with me to the ocean to live with the herd.”
My anxiety formed a hard lump in the pit of my belly. My chest tightened, tension creating an invisible cage around my lungs.
This wasn’t the typical Dante request. Bumming a buck off of me for a Coke or asking for a ride deep into the mainland was the limit. This was...
“Your baby. You want me to give you a baby I’ll never see again?”
I sat down, harder than intended into a rocking bench. It felt unyielding beneath my bottom, the wooden edge pressing into my thighs.
“Don’t humans do that all the time? Carry babies for others, or even just give them away?”
I wanted to slap him, but he looked genuinely curious, so I sighed instead. “Not nearly as often as television would have you believe. There are usually special circumstances.”
“Is this not special?”
“I need time to think about it. I...”
It meant I’d be having sex with Dante. My mouth became dry, a barren, parched desert where my tongue used to reside. I gazed up at the shirtless man in front of me then let my eyes travel over the heavy muscle comprising his athletic bulk. His broad shoulders, chiseled torso, the washboard abs I’d dreamed of touching for the past two weeks since his return.
It also meant I’d be giving up my first child. Maybe my only child. “I will see you both again each year, right?”
“Would you want to?”
I did slap him that time. I was up and on my feet again, my hand flying at his face by reflex before my mind realized I was doing it.
“You’re my friend. You think I wouldn’t want to see you again?” God, is he really that dense? Didn’t he realize I was always the first to greet him with enthusiastic hugs?
Dante rubbed his reddened cheek. The other blushed hard to match it.
“Your dad is a real prick. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree though if you’d think for one second I want to be without your friendship. I want you safe, but I want you here, too.”
“Sorry,” he said, genuinely apologetic. “I don’t expect him to bend the rules for me, though. This is my thirtieth birthday and I’ve been a drain on the herd long enough.”
Silent, I listened to him talk about the herd, their troubles, their dying numbers, and his father’s chilliness toward him since his mother’s death. By the end, I wanted to weep for my friend and his people. I’d always known Dante had a strained relationship with his dad, but the truth of it made me angry for him.
Letting my chin drop, I considered his request. A child from my womb in exchange for his guaranteed safety. A baby conceived by the two of us to help replenish a dying breed. Could I be that selfless?
“Hey. Hey.” His fingers cupped my chin, directing my eyes back to his face. “I don’t want you to feel as if you have to do this for me. You don’t. None of this is your problem, and it was stupid of me to even bring it up.”
“Bullshit. You’ve been thinking about this. You planned things out, Dante. All of this to break some sad news to me about you leaving? You were hoping I’d ask if I could help. You arranged this to butter me up and you had Teo’s help,” I accused.
“I did hope you would ask,” he admitted.
“But the rest of my statement still stands.”
“Why me?” I was afraid of the answer, but I had to know. Was it because I was convenient? Was it some sort of pity play because I was single every summer since we had first met? Did he simply not know anyone else? Or did I seem desperate enough to birth a kid for him and just let it go?
He didn’t answer.
“Why me?” I repeated. “Why not Judy? Why not some beach bimbo? Your clients like you enough. You’ve screwed some of them.” More than a few over the years. At least one out of five women taking his classes weren’t interested in learning to surf.
Dante remained silent.
“Answer me!”
I had more to say, planning to call him a coward and any other word that came to mind, when Dante shoved me against the wooden beam and pressed his lips over mine.
His tongue plundered my mouth, and then one of his hands slid over my thigh. I let him raise it to his hip, and then without warning, he hoisted me up.
The finesse was lost as our kiss deepened, but he made up for it with raw hunger and his animal instinct. Hints of rum flavored his tongue, delighting me when I gave the tip a playful suckle.
Dante met my flirt with a nudge of his hips, grinding his erection against me with exquisite friction. I nibbled his lower lip and drew back for breath to find his dark blue eyes trained on my face, watching me closely while his chest heaved.
“Whoa.” He made me feel feather light, both of his hands on my ass, one palm on each cheek.
“You wanted my reason. That’s my reason. Because I’ve wanted to do that ever since I saw you in the mermaid tank. Because I can’t get you out of my fucking mind and you’re there all of the time now. Because you’ve been my best friend, and I thought if I had to go away into the ocean forever and never see you again, I’d want to take some part of you with me.” He paused, the look in his eyes so intense I could drown in it. “Because I’m falling in love with you.”
I couldn’t breathe, but our lips still found each other for a shyer, gentler version of our first kiss. “Okay,” I whispered against his mouth.
“Okay what?”
“I’ll do it.”
I’d have his baby, if it meant he could come back to me again.
Chapter 5
~Alessa~
I took the rest of the month to consider the gravity of the situation. During those days, we restricted our time to casual outings with our mutual friends but never risked being alone together. The sexual tension between us reached an all-time high when I came within one breath of ripping his clothes off at a beach party. My friends sensed a change in us, which they ignored until I rushed away to wash my face in the bathroom.
“Alessa? Are you okay, sweetie?”
“I’m fine,” I called through the door.
Dante’s touch inspired the worst kind of thoughts, even a hand to my elbow felt charged with electricity. I’d had to get away before impulsively kissing him became my only option.
“Oh... well, okay,” Pam replied.
I didn’t want a random case of the hots for his body to influence an important, life-changing decision for both of us. Telling him that was easier said than done. I avoided him altogether for a week, until Julia assumed we were fighting and approached him on the beach to demand what he’d done.
“I said you were pissed at me for chasing off her brother then putting myself in your personal business,” Dante said over the phone.
“Mm, well. I was a little upset that night. I’m a big girl and I can send off my own shitty ex-boyfriends.” I sank deeper into the clawfoot bath tub, enjoying the floral-scented steam drifting up around me.
“I know you can, but it would have been shitty of me to sit there and let him talk to you that way.”
“True, I guess. Anyway, I’m sorry she tracked you down like that.”
“It’s fine. I’m sorry I made everything awkward between us.”
Is that how he feels? “You didn’t make everything awkward, Dante. What are you talking about?”
“I burdened your conscience with an unfair request.”
“Hey, you didn’t do anything wrong. This is my choice, remember? Speaking of which, I wanted to let you know I’m ready.”
“For what?”
I rolled my eyes even though he couldn’t see it. “I’m ready to start on the baby-making,” I clarified, enunciating my words.
“Oh.”
We made plans to meet in neutral territory at La Flor Rosada, the overpriced resort bar a fifteen-minute walk from my place. If he’d arrived directly on my doorstep, I would have felt compelled to greet him in lingerie and change the entire tone of why we were doing it.
He’s not in love with me. He said he’s falling in love with me. Big difference. Huge difference, I reminded myself. We’ll work on one thing and let the rest fall into place.
After the first three outfit changes, I firmly reminded myself we weren’t having a date. We weren't going out for dinner and dancing. So I settled on a seafoam green sundress with a built-in bra. The flirty hemline danced around my knees without the risk of flashing my panties to the beach if a wind kicked up.
I arrived first, and while waiting for Dante to join me, I downed two quick shots of tequila for courage. Flora, the bartender and owner, flashed a concerned but gentle smile.
“Is everything okay, señorita? You are not yourself. You talk about it?” she offered.
I shook my head, grimacing through the burn. “No, nothing’s wrong, Flora. Thanks.”
“Work is stressful. I get it. You have another drink on me.” She poured a double shot of tequila and flit to the next customer.
It burned going down, the perfect distraction from my worry.
Dante wandered up five minutes later and took a seat on the stool beside mine. He eyed the empty shot glasses until I nudged the remaining half of my double toward him.
“Saved it for you.”
“I meant what I said, Alessa. This isn’t... I won’t hold it against you if you change your mind. I’d understand.” He downed the remainder of the tequila.
“I said I want to do it. I only needed a little time to be one hundred percent certain I’d have no regrets about it.”
“All right.” He backed off and fell into silence, only to climb off his stool. “Wanna go for a walk first?”
I blinked at him.
“What’s with that look?”
“I, uh...” A walk. Sure, okay, I can do that.
“Hola, Flora,” he called to the bartender. “Add Alessa’s drinks to my tab, por favor.”
“Claro que sí.”
Strong fingers took ahold of my hand, casual like we’d done it a hundred times before. It even felt that way, our hand holding no stranger than the sun descending below the horizon.
“Is this a date?” I impulsively asked as we crossed the beach.
“Did you expect to hop in bed right away?”
Yes. I didn’t say the word aloud but my expression answered for me.
“Did you think I’d have my way with you a few times and be done?”
A few times. I shivered and avoided eye contact with him. Pregnancy on the first time only happened to unfortunate virgins and romance novel heroines. I hadn’t considered how often we’d meet after consummating our new arrangement. “Maybe,” I answered.
“I’m not going to fuck you and leave, unless that’s what you want me to do, Alessa.”
I shook my head and stole a shy look at him. His attention was on the water, watching the sun’s shimmer over the cresting waves. Hand in hand, we watched it together until Dante drew me close.
The kiss was a brief tease, his mouth over my lips, tongue rolling over mine. I tasted the hint of tequila and salt from the bar and then it was over.
“Your place?”
I nodded, mind flying away with possibilities, unspoken promises. The air between us was positively charged with raw desire, and it took all of my restraint to walk at a sedate, u
nrushed pace beside him.
When we reached my home, the sun had lit the ocean on fire in hues of brilliant gold and ruby. I placed my key in the lock then turned to face him. Without warning, my back was against the wood and strong hands had me by the hips. My tipsiness was fading away but I didn’t need the alcohol buzz anymore. Not when he had me pinned against my front door.
“I should claim you right here, since you’ve given me permission to have you,” he murmured against my ear.
Where had my sweet and friendly Dante gone for this sexually-charged beast to take his place? Before I could reply, he drew up the skirt of my dress and his fingers skimmed the edge of my panties, tracing the damp lace.
“Everyone would see,” I whispered. A glance to the side revealed my neighbors packing up for an outing on the beach. Marc climbed into the driver’s seat and his wife set a picnic basket behind the seats on a sturdy storage shelf.
“Maybe I want them to know you are mine.” Dante’s nostrils flared on his next breath, making it apparent he smelled my arousal. It turned him on as much as his touch made me wet with longing.
His index finger split my folds and delved inside, penetrating my body to the knuckle. I gasped. Holy shit. Part of me wanted to say fuck it all and let him carry through with the promised threat. Molten heat rushed to my core, the muscles squeezing him instinctively and holding to the intruding digit.
He fingered me at my front door, where anyone walking by could see it. With only his large frame between me and any passing onlookers, I felt exposed. Sexy. On fire for him and completely at his mercy. My back arched against the door and my eyes squeezed shut as the tension wound tighter and tighter.
“Dante,” I half moaned, my voice sounding like a whine.
“Do you want me to stop?”
“No!” I protested, grabbing frantically at his shoulders.
I was a rubber band close to the breaking point, but a single flick of his thumb against my clit pushed me over the edge. I shattered and came apart, struggling for air, my breath a keening cry against his shoulder.
It felt like the entire world should have known what he was doing, or heard me screaming, but when I finally opened my eyes again, I saw the winding path in front of my house was vacant. My neighbors’ dune buggy was absent from their drive, and hell if I knew when they’d left.
Making Waves (Mythological Lovers) Page 4