Chapter 21

Chapter

Twenty-One

"Ever have sex in human form?"

The question might've been abrupt and forward to a Surface Dweller, but Nireed had scented Reid's quiet, persistent need all afternoon. And on the hike down the mountain, as day fell into dusk, his lingering touches and longing sidelong glances had increased to near maddening frequency.

As far as she was concerned, it was about damn time he asked.

Peering up at him, and into teasing eyes hiding hunger in their depths, a slow grin spread across her face. "Is there a reason you're asking?"

The corner of his mouth ticked up. "Wanna give it a go?"

She took his hand, slowly walking backward toward his motorcycle. "Show me."

His scent spiked, something feral flashing in his eyes. "Hands on the seat."

Currents of heat swept through her. That growly command weakened her already unsteady legs and made her tremble with an intolerable aching desperation. She thought he'd take her back to his houseboat, but no, he wanted her right here. Right now. In the place that brought him peace.

She needed this man like she needed the ocean. Only if she let her guard down with Reid, let herself fall into blissful abandon, he'd keep her safe. Where the ocean doled out harsh lessons in vigilance, Reid gave her the courage to let go.

"Are you asking me to submit to you?" She flashed him a sharp smile, claws extending from her fingertips. In this quiet, empty place, there was no one to see her partial transformation, or the wicked things they were about to do together.

The fading sunlight caught fire in his dark auburn hair as he approached her with a slow, easy swagger, crowding her in, demanding she take notice of his strength and virility. And oh, did she notice. He was an unbreachable wall of primal heat, and it ensnared her mind, body, and soul.

Capturing her chin, he stared down at her with eyes as dark as the abyss, and though a crooked smile teased his lips, each word was a hard, reassertion of dominance. "Did it sound like a question?"

"No," she said in a breathless whisper.

"Hands on the seat. Won't tell you again."

She turned around then, her bottom brushing the generous bulge straining the front of his pants, and though it made her wild with need, she obediently braced herself, feverishly curious to learn how Surface Dwellers mated. This was already vastly different from how merfolk did things, their tails dictating a front-facing approach every single time.

Reid smoothed a hand up the length of her spine, then gently, but firmly, pushed her down, splaying her across the seat. "That's it, sweetheart," he praised. "Get those hips up."

She arched for him, backside on display. Exposed. Vulnerable. No scales to shield her most tender flesh, just thin, flimsy fabric. It was an utterly terrible position to fend off an attack, but with Reid, she didn't need to fear. "Like this?"

"Just like that." He knelt behind her, inching her pants and panties down her legs, kissing her bare flesh along the way, before leaving them in a pool around her ankles. "Glorious."

"What is?" She couldn't see him, but he was there, a steady presence behind her.

"Pussy's as pretty as your tail." His palms charted a slow course up her legs. The newness, the anticipation, his hot breath on her seam, were doing disastrous things to her insides. "I think you've done something to me," he continued, half accusation, half awe. "Seeing you wet and gleaming like this gives me the most wicked thoughts."

"Tell me." She pleaded. Every wicked one.

"I want to consume you." She sucked in a sharp breath as he swiped his tongue up her center. "Just like this. Like fucking ice cream." He licked her again, slower this time. "What do you think of that?"

Shivers ran up her spine. She knew enough about Surface Dwellers to know it was a sweet treat they adored very, very much. "You like how I taste."

"Mm." He kissed and licked her tender folds, pausing only to curl his tongue into her channel. "So goddamn much."

She mewled with pleasure. He nipped her ass, her inner thighs, her folds, not stopping until her thighs were wet and dripping, and she was quaking so hard she could barely stand. He held her up when an orgasm ripped through her sudden and fierce, buckling her knees. "I got you."

Fists clenching, she cried out, eyes squeezed tight, but the screech of bowing metal snapped her from her lust-filled fog. There was a twin set of dents on either side of Reid's motorcycle seat. "Reid, I'm…"

His fond chuckling cut off her apology. "Made you come that hard, did I? Give me a little something to always remember you by?" He pressed a kiss to the base of her spine, his voice lowering. "Worth it. Fucking worth it."

She heard him stand behind her and every sound that followed after was more tantalizing than the last. The clink of belt, a lowered zipper, a condom being rolled onto hardened flesh. He stepped closer, the outside of his boots slotting next to the inside of hers, nudging out her stance as he wet his tip in her sodden slit.

"All right, sweetheart. I'm going to take this nice and easy. But you let me know if it gets to be too much."

She nodded.

He worked himself in gently, rocking in and out in short, shallow thrusts, his fingers paying homage to her sensitive pearl. Even when he was seated in her fully, he kept a restrained pace. Not too hard, not too fast, and she appreciated the care. From this angle, she felt him so much more, filling her to the brim and pressing on her belly from the inside out, almost too much to take.

When she began to hold herself, trying to apply some pressure to ease the discomfort, he reangled her hips, tilting them at a steeper slant so that when he rocked in, he hit her pearl every time. The unwanted pressure immediately disappeared, a pleasant tingling sensation building in its place. "Better?" he asked.

"Much." She exhaled, relieved.

"Always tell me if you're uncomfortable."

It felt so good now, her delayed "yes" tumbled from her lips in a gasping moan.

He smoothed his hands over her. Up her back, down her curves, over the round of her backside. "What do you think?"

"I like this." Really liked this.

"Would you like it more if I went faster?"

"Please."

Speed was a delicious blessing. Each collision delivered another wave of pleasure spiraling out to every corner of her body, a repeating rhythm of "yes," "yes," "yes" harmonized by "more." It left her breathless and spellbound.

"Fuck, I love your tail, but I can't have you from behind with it."

"This is…how…Surface…Dwellers…mate?" It came out in halting clusters. There was something so viscerally raw and primal about it. She couldn't explain why or how. But she reveled in it as if it were the answer to all her baser instincts.

"Sometimes." His voice was a harsh rasp against her ear.

"There's other ways?"

Reid's grip around her hips tightened, his rhythm growing fierce and urgent, and she loved that she drove him to such frenzied need. One that matched hers. This angle, this wonderful, demanding angle, was taking to her higher highs, and when she fell, she would shatter into oblivion, her pieces as innumerable as the stars.

Together they climbed higher and higher until she was wound so taut, she thought she might snap. "How many?" she ground out through clenched teeth.

His hips punched forward and with a sharply hissed curse, he came apart. Her body responded in kind, her channel fluttering and squeezing all around him. Even in this form, it did not want to let him go, not for anything.

"So many." Two simple words shouldn't sound so filthy, but falling from Reid's lips it was an indecent promise.