“Not quite.”
“I got a dumb question, here.”
“I,” she teased, “am not surprised.”
He smacked her on the thigh and she laughed. “How do you know how to cook on land?”
“We have banquets—great parties and celebrations—on land. And there is much cooked food at these feasts. The prince in particular enjoys cooked food, so we all learn how to make it when we’re still pups.”
“Pups? Baby mermaids?”
“Yes.”
“What’s the prince like?”
“Infatuated,” she said shortly, picking up a stick and drawing her name in her own language, a complicated grouping of loops and swirls incomprehensible to anyone but her own kind.
“Oh, yeah? You jealous?”
She snorted. “Hardly. I have only met him twice. I do not know him well enough to be jealous of his love affairs.”
“Affairs, plural?”
“But because he fell in love with the half-breed—I mean, Fredrika—” She blushed at her rudeness. After all, she had been at the Pelagic, hadn’t she? And Fredrika had handled herself quite well under the circumstances. She had a startling manner about her, a grimness cloaked in sarcasm, but still—she had acquitted herself well at the Pelagic, well enough that—
“Ree? Hello? Come back, Ree.” He was snapping his fingers before her face in an extremely irritating matter. “Fell in love with the gal who basically talked the king into letting you guys come out of the closet,” he prompted. “Read it in
“Well. Yes. She has a great deal of influence with the royal family and I—I am not sure that is the best thing for my people. After all, she spent nearly all of her years on land, being raised by your kind. She knows nothing of Undersea Folks. And,” she added in a mutter, “she comes from bad blood.”
“Oh, yeah? What’s that mean? My daddy was a trucker.”
“Her ‘daddy’ was a traitor. But the prince—and the king—turn a blind eye to this, and, as I said, she has great influence with the royal family.”
“Well, it’s a goddamned good thing she does, otherwise I’d be dead of dehydration by now.”
“Now that is a good point,” she said, cheering up. “I never would have dared approach you even six months ago.”
“Months? You have calendars?”
“Don’t be absurd. The fish are done.” She yanked the stick out of the sand, popped a fish off, and tossed it to him. He tore into it, ingesting a good deal of scales along with the cooked meat, but there were no complaints this time. He wolfed down the second, as well.
“Don’t you want the last one?”
“I ate while I was hunting.”
“Oh, good.” He sucked down most of the last fish, then let out a small, contented burp. “Oh, man, that is so much better.”
“You look better,” she informed him. “Of course, you could hardly look worse.” He smelled better as well; she assumed he had splashed about in the surf and cleaned up a bit. He was shirtless, but still had those—what were they called?—blue jeans?—on.
“Thanks for that. And for the fish. Delicious.”
“They’re just fine raw,” she muttered. “Stupid Con.”
“I love your little pet names.” He was leaning back in the sand, picking his teeth with a fish bone. “God, isn’t this great? A friggin’ island paradise with a beautiful woman who brings me food and cooks and has a great set of—never mind.”
“Are you talking about my ‘rack’ again?”
“Uh, yeah. Sorry.”
“
He laughed. “Oh, darlin’, you’re gonna get in trouble if you keep talking like that.”
“You mean you might like to mate with me?”
He choked on the fish bone.
Chapter 12
It’s all right,” she hastily assured him after pounding him on the back and extracting the bone. “I don’t expect you to mate with me. Why would you ever want to?”
That was enough of
He eased her down on the sand and did what he had been longing to do since he’d first seen her: pounced on her breasts. The breath popped out of her lungs (gills?) as she laughed, and then gasped when he sucked a pale pink nipple into his mouth.
He lavished attention on her creamy mounds, licking, nibbling, sucking, and even (very, very gently) biting. Beneath him she wriggled in the sand and clutched his shoulders with surprising strength. In fact, he was fairly certain he’d have bruises. Not that he gave a good damn.
He slipped his hand between her cool, chubby thighs and she parted her legs and pulled him to her as he thrust into her moist warmth. Her thighs gripped him, again with that astonishing strength, and she rose to meet him. Now they were both gasping and groaning in each other’s arms, and he cut his tongue on one of her teeth and didn’t care.
“Oh—you’re—bleeding—”
“Don’t—care,” he gasped.
“Sorry—sorry—maybe we—should—stop?”
“Shut. Up.”
This time he didn’t think it was an accident when his tongue got punctured, but he had it coming so that was all right. In fact, it was so all right he laughed into her mouth, a noise which was instantly cut off as she tightened all over (
That sent him right over the edge, and he knew it was going to be no use thinking about baseball or saying the alphabet backward. He came so hard he actually shuddered from heels to throat, and then unceremoniously collapsed over her.
Chapter 13
After about ten minutes had passed, Reanesta worried he had passed out, or was bleeding to death from a punctured tongue. So she tapped him on the shoulder.
“Sleepy,” he yawned against her throat.
“I am a patient woman, as I think you have noticed. But you’re squashing me.”
He snorted, but rolled off her—and yelped when he nearly rolled into the fire, which had burned down to embers. He tossed a few more sticks on, then said, “Where the hell did my jeans go?”
“Oh. I, uh, was, um, anxious to, ah, mate with you before you changed your mind.” She held up denim shreds. “I do apologize.”
