by Ann Gimpel
“You may have blundered”—Leif smiled—“but your heart was in the right place. It’s what counts.” He stood. “I’ll leave your clothes and return to my people. When will you be ready to cure another dolphin?”
“As soon as you bring me a blood sample and I can do some calculations,” Daide replied.
“Fine. Give me a syringe and I’ll get you what you need. Thank you for the meal. And the tea.” Leif stood and bowed, a formal, old-fashioned gesture that warmed Zoe’s heart.
“Join us any time. Your pod are welcome as well. I’m looking forward to getting to know you better.” She stood too, along with Karin and Recco and Daide.
“You as well, coyote Shifter.” Leif bowed slightly and then walked toward the door with Daide behind him.
“Turn right,” Daide said. “Might as well show you where the lab is. It’s where I’ll want you to bring the blood.”
“Intriguing that you, er we, are human most of the time, while their primary form is the animal one,” Recco murmured.
“Aye, they’re also far stronger magically than we are,” Zoe said.
“Probably why any of them are left at all,” Karin noted. “I’m encouraged he committed to join us. It bodes well for the others. They’ll probably follow their alpha’s lead.”
Zoe began piling dishes into a stack. Karin slapped her hands away. “You cooked. I’ll clean up. Besides”—she leered knowingly—“I’ll bet the two of you would like some time alone together. Daide and I crashed your cozy supper, so why don’t you find a nice, private location where you’re not likely to be disturbed.”
Zoe’s cheeks warmed. “Yes, Mom.”
“So long as I’m Mom, take your outside clothes with you. I’m not expecting a ship’s emergency, but they should be close to you in case something goes south.”
Recco threaded an arm around Zoe’s waist. “How about a second bottle of wine?”
“Nah. How about just you and me?”
Karin picked up the pile of dishes. “Time for me to exit stage left and let you lovebirds sort out the fine points.”
Recco’s coppery skin colored with a blush. “Your cabin or mine?”
Zoe grinned. “Yours. It’s closer.”
He tightened his arm around her. “I like a woman with clear priorities.”
She hip-butted him. “Aye, they’re verra clear.”
“I’ll grab our things from the galley. Bet I catch up with you in the corridor.”
“Bet you don’t.” Zoe sprinted from the dining room. If she timed it right, she’d greet Recco naked as the day she was born. Desire surged, annihilating everything else.
Soon. Very soon she’d lay claim to her heart’s desire—and never let him go. Deep within, her coyote yipped and yowled.
“Thanks for being happy for me,” she told it.
“Happy? I’m ecstatic. I never thought you’d settle down. This is one time I’m delighted to be proven wrong.”
Zoe sent a jet of magic to open the door to Recco’s cabin. “Oh come on,” she retorted. “I wasn’t as awful as that.”
“Not awful.” The coyote’s reply was slow and thoughtful. “But nor did you expend any effort to find an appropriate mate.”
“And now we know why. I was waiting for this one.”
The coyote yipped and chittered while Zoe stripped off clothing, folding it as she went.
Chapter Twenty: Love Claimed
Recco hustled into the galley and snatched up an armload of waterproof outerwear and two life vests. Karin turned from where she’d been bent over the sink and shook a finger his way. “We’ve been through so much. Do not hurt her.”
“No worries on that front. I love her.”
“Have you told her?” Karin furled her white brows.
“Um, by inference.”
“Not good enough.” More finger shaking, but this time Karin was smiling.
Recco nodded. “I was thinking the same thing, about what I need to tell her before we’re so caught up in one another talk is the last thing on our minds.”
Karin’s copper gaze bored into him. “After I’m done in here, I’ll run Viktor down. The Sirens cursed us, and we have a few loose ends dangling, items that might tempt fate. It’s high time Juan and Aura formalized their mating. Maybe we can make it a double wedding.”
Joy beat a path through Recco, brimming with hope, determination, and potential. The small distance between him and Karin sparkled with crystalline clarity, which meant magic was in play. “Save your compulsion spell, Doc. I’d like nothing better. So long as Zoe says yes. I’ve known for a long time she was the woman for me. I haven’t wanted to crowd her.”
Karin snorted. “Crowd away. We women like to know we’re wanted.”
“Thanks for the tip.” Recco spun and loped from the galley, out through the dining room, and up the nearest flight of stairs. He yanked the door to his cabin wide and strode inside. Zoe, a buck-naked Zoe, grinned at him from where she perched on one of the bunks.
Breath caught in his throat, and his cock jumped to attention in the blink of an eye, hard as it ever got. He’d known she had to be stunning. Reality surpassed his imagination many times over. Red curls cascaded down her shoulders, snaking around perfect globes of breasts tipped with strawberry nipples the size of silver dollars. Hips flared around a flat stomach. Where she’d crossed her legs under her, a triangle of copper-red curls graced the vee between her legs.
She arched her shoulders back, making her breasts bounce forward. “Are you planning to stand there gawking with the door open?”
The door. He’d forgotten all about it. A swift backward kick seated it firmly in the jamb. “Dear God, you’re gorgeous.”
A slow smile lit the bottoms of her brown eyes and made its way to her mouth. “Thank you. What kept you so long? You were going to catch up to me—before I got here.”
“Karin had a few words of motherly advice.”
“Aye, ’twould be verra like Karin. Such as?” Zoe angled her head to one side.
Recco hung the pile of clothing in his arms over a hook and toed off his Wellingtons, using the boot jack in the corner. He unzipped his warm top and dropped it on the desk.
“Good start.” She pointed at his recently discarded jacket. “You have a way to go to catch up. Also, you didn’t answer my question about Karin.”
Recco dragged the room’s only chair until it faced where she sat on the bunk. Sitting down, he placed a hand on her knee. The simple contact had an electric effect. Heat and urgency traveled up his arm and straight to his groin, but he had things he needed to say. Recognizing it as a losing battle, he did his damnedest to smother the waves of desire rioting through him.
Her smile faded, and she closed her teeth over her lower lip. “Oh-oh. You’ve a serious look about you. Is this where you tell me I’m a nice lass, but you’ve rethought—?”
“Not at all, darling.” The temptation to crush her against him was overwhelming. He held back. “I love you. I’ve loved you for months now, but I’ve done my best to offer you space to warm to me.” He shrugged, feeling uncomfortable. “Maybe too much space. I’m babbling, but Karin wanted to make certain my intentions were honorable. If she didn’t know, then probably you don’t, either.” He stopped to suck in a breath. “Anyway, I wanted to make certain you realized how I felt. Damn it, Zoe. I want to protect you from every bad thing in the world. Put you in a bubble and stand guard over you.”
The corners of her mouth twitched. “Neanderthal sentiments aside, you said honorable intentions? Sure and is this a backhanded marriage proposal? You haven’t even sampled the goods. You might not like—”
“Zero probability. Jesus, I can barely breathe with you naked and only a few inches away. I would love it if you’d marry me, Zoe. It would be the greatest honor of my life if you said yes.”
Her eyes sparkled with mirth, and longing flared in their depths. “Best proposal I’ve ever gotten. Also the only one, but ’tis beside the point. Aye, I�
�ll make an honest man of you. Now could you get those clothes off? Or should I do it for you?”
His face heated. She may have said yes, but he was making a total botch of things. More like a shuffling schoolboy than an experienced lover. Inside, his wolf whuffled what was probably laughter. “Sincerity will win the day. It always does.”
“My coyote is so happy it’s yipping.” She laid her hand over his. “It also called me a hussy.”
“My wolf is laughing too. And you can be a hussy so long as your hussiness is all mine.” He let go of her long enough to free both hands to drag his top over his head. The heat of her gaze seared him, made him self-conscious. Was his body still attractive? His gym years were a long way behind him.
Zoe uncurled her lithe, long-legged form and stood, eyes never leaving his face. Reaching between them, she undid the fastenings on his pants and gave them a push. They slithered down his legs, and she closed a hand over the unruly appendage jutting from his body. The heat of her hand was intensely erotic and made it seem as if his shorts weren’t even there. His cock had never been so sensitive. Delight spilled through every cell, creating a pulsing vortex of lust so intense it took all his self-control not to toss her on her back and plunge into her as deep and fast as he could.
He threaded his arms around her and teased her back and shoulders with his fingertips, reveling in her soft, silky skin. She smelled heavenly. Cinnamon, amber, and the musk of her arousal. Weaving his fingers into her lush hair, he drew it back and away from her face.
“Has anyone ever told you your hair is like liquid fire? It shades from cherry to amber to copper to gold.”
“Nay, but when I was verra young, Rowana used to tease me. She’d tell me dragons were waiting to spirit me off to grace their hoard. Because my hair was like dragon’s fire, they’d covet it, want it for their own.”
“Not going to happen on my watch.” Possessiveness surged through him, surprising in its fierceness.
She slid the elastic waistband of his underwear over his erection and pushed the cotton shorts down his legs. They joined his trousers in a heap around his feet, and he stepped out of them. Zoe leaned back against the circle of his arms. Spots of color rode high on her cheekbones, and her nipples formed peaks.
He brushed his thumb across her full lower lip before bending his head and settling his mouth over hers. She nipped his lips in a string of biting kisses, and he scrubbed his tongue over her lips until she opened for him to dive inside. He loved how she sucked on his tongue, and he withdrew to encourage her to tongue-kiss him.
Magic pulsed around them, forming colorful streamers that made him shiver with longing when they stroked his naked flesh. He ran his hands down her long, straight spine, settling them over the curves of her ass and drawing her against his aching hard-on. Where she stroked his back, digging in with her nails, he caught fire with lust so pervasive it drove everything except the woman in his arms from his mind.
He strung kisses across both cheeks and down her neck before dropping an arm low enough to scoop it beneath her knees and lift her onto the narrow berth. Before she could drag him down next to her, he filled his hands with her breasts, working the nipples between his fingertips.
Zoe made little mewling noises as she writhed beneath his touch. The magical motes of light continued their arcane dance, heightening his pleasure wherever they touched him. Her legs fell open, and she squirmed, rotating her hips in unmistakable invitation.
Recco traded his lips for his hands and took a nipple into his mouth, suckling her. His body was so tightly strung, he almost didn’t recognize the sensations bombarding him from all directions. To center himself and keep from coming, he focused on her breasts, switching from one to the other and back again.
Her breathing quickened, and the color dotting her fair skin deepened to a lovely rose. Letting go of her breasts, he drew his mouth down her rib cage and across her flat stomach to hover above the mat of red curls, spiky with her arousal. She made a grab for his cock, but he evaded her. If she touched him, he’d explode.
Kneeling between her splayed legs, he let his mouth hover half an inch above her distended nub. She bucked upward. He kept his mouth out of reach as he breathed on her. Two of the colored streamers wrapped around his cock, hot and teasing.
He got the picture. She was using magic as an enhancement, not that he needed the slightest bit of any kind of boost. As it was, his heart pounded against his chest, and he fought to breathe.
A volley of Gaelic was followed by her hands on either side of his head, pressing him downward. He licked her clit, just one fast swipe. She mewled and pulled his head lower, clearly as lost in lust as he was. He drew his tongue up one side of her sensitive center, and then up the other. Up. Down. Around. While he pushed between her legs and buried two fingers inside her.
She ground herself against him, hands tightening where she’d woven them in with his hair. Her clit, firmly inside his mouth now, quivered, and her muscles clamped around his fingers. She moaned low in her throat, and the sound joined everything else, merging into an erotic ballet. He drove his fingers into her and sucked hard on her nub until release crashed over her, almost carrying him with it. The streamers tickled, teased, and slapped, like mini-BDSM accomplices.
He didn’t back off until he was certain her orgasm had played itself out, and then he raised himself until he knelt, straight-backed between her legs. She curved a hand around his cock and licked her lips. “I can return the favor.” Streamers bobbed around her, awaiting her commands.
“Later,” his voice came out in a rasp, “I want to know about these.” He batted a streamer.
“Aye, and do you like them?” She grinned coquettishly.
“Aye,” he aped her brogue, “but I like you better. Spread your legs, wench. I’ll take a rain check on, well on everything else.”
He disentangled her fingers from his shaft, dragged a pillow over, and lifted her hips onto it. The sight of her sex spread before him was deliriously tantalizing. He still tasted her on his tongue. The sensory mélange pounded through his veins, and he positioned his cock at the entrance to her body. Her labia were hot, slick, and enticing, and he slid inside slowly, savoring the scorching heat of her core as it closed around him.
At first, he stayed quiet, engaging small muscles to make his cock twitch inside her. She snugged herself around him, twitching back. Arching her spine, she raised her legs, wrapping them around his waist. He drank her in. Red curls spread across the pillows, eyes hot with desire. Nipples puckered into inch-long peaks.
He reached for her clit, flicking it with his fingers. “Touch yourself,” he ground out.
She moved a hand from his thigh and placed two fingers over her nub, rubbing in small circles. “Like this?” Her tongue slid across her passion-swollen lips.
“Yes. Exactly like that. Touch yourself while I love you.”
He’d always liked to watch, but watching Zoe existed in a whole different universe. He withdrew inch by inch before plumbing her again. Long, slow strokes gave way to faster ones until he pounded into her. She was rubbing herself harder now, eyes glazed with lust. The streamers wound around both of them, heightening sensation until he growled his need and delight.
His balls tightened. He rode a ragged edge of control. She would come again before he did, goddammit. Jamming his fingers over hers, he displaced them and teased her slick mound, alternating hard and soft touches. She dissolved around his cock in a wave of heat that crashed hard around his rigid flesh. The rhythmic demand of her peak was impossible to evade. Semen shot from him in jets so intense the edges of his vision hazed to gray.
Gasping and panting, they writhed against each other. Bending low, he kissed her, sealing their lovemaking with their mouths. Recco held her close as their bodies quieted. Her legs were still twined around him, and he remained buried deep in her body. When he moved his mouth from hers and opened his eyes, the streamers were nowhere in sight.
He smoothed stray hair
s off her face. “You were amazing. Thank you.”
“Nay, ’tis I who should be thanking you.”
He smiled. “The colored ribbons, where’d they come from?”
She grinned back. “A wee bit of magic from the old country. My granny, she had a Gaelic counterpart to the Kama Sutra. She kept the book well hidden, but I’d sneak-read it whenever I could.”
“Bet you were a young hellion.” He ruffled her curls.
“Och, I gave granny more than one anxious moment.”
“Did she raise you?”
“Aye. Mum and Da weren’t around much. They were archaeologists too. World-renowned at that, which meant they were always off on some dig or other. What about your people?”
“Poor as dirt, but lots of love to go around.”
“Someday”—her expression turned serious—“maybe I could meet your family, and you could meet mine. If any of them are still alive.”
He turned them onto their sides in the narrow bunk and cupped the side of her face. “My family would love you, but I don’t hold much in the way of hope they survived the Cataclysm.”
“Juan found lots of people when we scanned Buenos Aires during our joint trance.” Concern spilled from her, and he respected her for caring.
“People, yes, and lots of destruction, particularly in the poorer sections of town. He and I talked about it later and concluded it would be a miracle if our older family members had survived.”
She spread her fingertips across his back, kneading tight muscles. “I’d enjoy lolling around here for hours, but we probably should see what everyone else is up to.”
He wound a curl around one finger. “What? The honeymoon’s over already?”
“No, silly. It’s only a few hours until bedtime...” Her eyes widened. “Damn. I believe I have bridge duty at twenty-two hundred.”
“Why damn? I’ll keep you company. Besides”—he lowered a hand to squeeze her ass—“we might have it all to ourselves.”
“Nay. We won’t. Juan or Vik will be there. It’s fine.” She wriggled out of his embrace, dislodging him from her body as she crawled over him, and then walked to the sink.