“Why? Why should I let you collar me like a dog?”
“Because it pleases me and lets me control you still, just a little.” He held up finger and thumb a fraction apart. “I like keeping control of my females.”
“Females?”
That was not the proper way for a man to address his lovers. Even she knew this.
“Don’t like that word?” He grinned maliciously. “How about my captive? Better? Because you are that.”
He squatted down, played with the chain, looped it like a snake along the ground then up his leg, over his bent knee. Tempting her.
It did tempt her and was somehow seductive.
A chain and a collar.
For her. She imagined the man placing the collar on her neck, buckling it.
Making her his…
Desires ascended, whispering to her, washing away the centuries of loneliness. Her loneliness had been leeching away her soul. Nevertheless, she had survived, had been her own keeper, carer, and this, living in his pool, was surely fated to fail.
“Come, little captive.” He twitched the chain.
With teeth denting her bottom lip, she contemplated Wolfgang, and thought idly about scaring him. No gun showed, anywhere. Was this a game or serious? When blood was involved calling it a game seemed wrong.
There had been and would be more blood. It was in the nature of her kind.
“Am I?” Asking was fraught with danger – the danger of encouraging something ever more forbidden. Chains and collars were for animal pets, not lovers. This was something her society, her time, would have considered unthinkable.
Memories surfaced of the day before, of their lovemaking. Her mind split between the past and the present. As if he had touched her, her intimate area pulsed with warmth.
Which was odd since she had nothing there until she shifted.
“You are my pretty captive, yes. I have you confined to my pool and at my disposal. The doors are locked to you.” His head inclined. “You are argumentative, today. Come. Let’s do some more research.” He shook the chain, opened the collar. “Come to me.”
That deceitful mouth of his smiled, as if he knew she would obey.
Raffalea swished her tail, languidly, pretending to think in spite of the burgeoning ache within. She prolonged the moment to tease him then swam over.
“Good. Thank you,” he said as he removed the necklace, buckled the collar at the back, then rearranged it and clipped on the chain. She suffered the procedure, unmoving. “Up here.”
After patting the very top of the ramp, where there was no water, he backed away. She shimmied up and lay with her head up and her lips parted.
As always, there was threat in showing her teeth. Before this, he had respected that.
Today?
With his foot, he casually flipped her onto her back and stood on the chain beside her neck, as if victorious. Triumphant. She let him think it was so because she found she liked playing the victim with him.
Besides, one day she might need his mistakes.
Wolfgang looked down her body and sighed.
“Such beauty should never be left in the sea.”
If that wasn’t so flattering, she might have scoffed.
Having kneeled beside her, he trailed his fingers softly down her face, beginning at her hairline, going over her eyes and making her close them, over her nose, her lips. When he reached her mouth and delved in there in spite of her teeth, she was already aroused and squirming. Something about the way his foot pinned her and his casual dominion over her body did things to her. Nice things.
She left her lips parted. Though his hand moved lower and he kept his foot on the chain, his focus was on her face.
He watched her, watching him.
Awareness heightened but she saw only him. As she struggled with arousal, her breathing hitched.
When he reached her lower stomach, he stilled his hand, his relaxed fingers pointing downward like arrows aimed at her sex.
“Not turned on enough, yet?” he murmured. It was true that she had not shifted. “I have a fix. Something I was going to use anyway.”
Wolfgang reached into a pocket in his pants, retrieved a small device then flicked at it with his thumb. It began to buzz.
“What is that—” she began as he pushed it onto her below, where everything was not yet human, where her female parts would appear after shifting. Her sex.
The buzz burrowed in, struck her an intimate and delicious blow, and made her arch into his hand.
Eyes locked on his, she stifled a moan. Her eyes rolled upward. Her hands clenched, her tail tensed, and—
Shift.
She came down to Earth, on her back, and breathing like a steam train. Above was sky. Blue sky.
Had she orgasmed?
In the middle of a shift? No. Couldn’t have.
Certainly, she was panting uncontrollably. A wash of pleasure had ripped through and left her mind a jumble.
He was chuckling. “That worked.”
“No. No,” she found herself saying.
“No?”
She shook her head, gulped. The word had appeared without her assembling it.
“Come. You can walk.”
He unfolded his legs and stood, pulled on the chain until she rolled over and found her feet, pushed herself upward to stand beside him, if a little wobbly.
“Ahhh, naked girl. Much better. I like having bits to play with.”
After a brief kiss and fondle, with his hand clenching onto her butt – the fingers slipping partway into the split between each cheek – he headed for the steps. The chain was in his hand, so she followed.
The existence of her bare feet took a little while to get used. Her middle throbbed but she followed, one hand feeling at the collar, wondering why it felt so curious to wear one. The other necklace was gone, but she supposed wearing both at once
