2

Sabrina

I giggle as the handsome stranger carries me over the threshold. Even though my human form is petite, I love how dainty I feel in his arms. My ten-foot kraken tentacles are the girth of this man’s leg. How will I enjoy his company without envisioning what could grow between us? He’s handsome now…but as a Kraken…

Shiver.

Why must my treacherous mind go there?! When he transforms, he will be a giant Kraken with the power to sink boats with a thrash of his tentacle. I can’t wait for the red flesh to propel him—and his blond locks—across the Caribbean. As a rogue pirate, I doubt he will want to remain human after our ceremony. He will give up the brothels for adventure with me; I just know it.

“You smile already, pretty lady,” he says with a nuzzle where my neck meets my shoulder. “I haven’t given you a reason to smile yet.”

Stop it, Sabrina, before you hurt yourself!

He drops me onto the lumpy bed and pounces on me as I rebound off the musty feather mattress. Two heavy boots clunk onto the floor as he violently kicks them off. I’m practically drooling as he whips his white linen shirt over his head. His blond hair floats to his shoulders like a golden cloud. Amulets on leather cords hang from his neck to the bottom of his ribs. I follow his seven fingers as his hands smooth down his toned, lean midsection. My desire for him soars as he slowly unbuckles his belt and unties his leathers. I’m awash with shyness and snap my gaze to his face to avoid watching him remove his cock from his pants.

“You’re about to miss the best part of the show, love,” he says with a flick of his blue eyes downward. The cold desire in them freezes me from head to toe when our eyes meet again. He waits with his laces wrapped around his fingers until my lashes drift downward and my attention is where he directs.

I can’t breathe. Any time my eyes move to a safer place—like the wall behind him—he stops. Our power play has morphed into a game of cat and mouse. Half of me wants to admit I’m in over my head and run…the other half wants to lick the ridges where his hips meet his waist. By the time his leathers hi t the floor, I’m a mess of need. Usually, I’m fighting my bed partner to open my corset to fondle my breasts instead of a quick stick under my skirts. This stranger stands stark naked, stroking himself, devouring me with his eyes as if he can’t decide what part of me to consume first.

My courage evaporates, and I scoot backward until my rump hits the bars of the headboard. With a deep chuckle, he crawls onto the bed, prowling toward me on all fours. My heart thunders in my chest as he grabs my ankles. He pushes them apart before pressing them down in a silent order to keep my legs open. His hands glide up my legs as he raises my skirts and slides up my clothed body. I flinch when his thumbs press the sensitive clefts behind my knees. He flashes that brilliant smile at me when he catches my tell. My cheeks heat with mortification. The skin on my inner thighs is wet with my overwhelming response to his slow seduction.

I bet he feels every drop. A calloused thumb collects the dew on my slit, and I nearly hit the ceiling. He withdraws the scandalous hand to present his shining thumb at the end of my nose. I can’t look away or squirm with embarrassment. I’m pinned by his hand clasped over my cunt as I stare at how much I want him. The evidence on his hand hangs between our faces. There’s nowhere to hide from my lecherous side.

His lips caress my ear as he whispers, “Sweet girl, preparing to take her captain’s cock. Don’t shy away from me. I’ll hunt for your treasures all night if I must. It’s what we scoundrels do. No need to pretend you’re a blushing sweetheart with me.”

As if I have an ounce of control over my body! His thumb disappears between his lips. I didn’t think I could flush harder, but the heat travels from my cheeks, down my neck, and dives to my soulbeak. Below my skirts, his fingers move. He’s inside me and dancing over my most sensitive tissues at the same time—doing more damage to my decorum and self-control than any other partner in my past! And he does so with fewer fingers.

“Let me hear those moans of pleasure as I learn your body.” If he wants me to moan, he’ll have to put in the work above my belt. I’m not a half-penny-upright who lifts her skirts for men to steal a half-minute of pleasure from her depths.

I get mine first.

“Shortgown strings,” I whisper between kitten mews. Where’s my voice? Where’s the confident lady who had her pick of men downstairs? Who is this trembling pile of feminine need?

“These?” He removes the thumb from his mouth and grabs the strings lacing the front of my dress together. Instead of pulling the string at the bottom and allowing my bosom to slide out the top, he grips the crisscrossing lattice and pops the strings. My whalebone stays burst open on my exhale. My breasts push my linen shift through the opening like yeasted dough. The delicate linen flutters to my waist. Sticky, humid air pets the hard points of my nipples with each breath I take.

“I can’t peak without—” I’m cut off by the sensation of his fingers withdrawing from my cunt. Air slams from my lungs, pushing my gaping linen shift from my shoulders. It drapes over the edges of my open stays like window curtains. His drenched index finger coats my left nipple with my arousal before he flicks it with his tongue. My head lolls backward in bliss until I hit his hand.

“Almost,” he says, cradling my head so I don’t hit the headboard. He slides his opposite hand under my arse to maneuver me onto my back. My skirts twist around my waist, tugging at my soulbeak. “I’ve got you. Thank you for telling me about those potent little buttons. Let’s get you out of this dress, so I can feast on all of you.”

“No, no, I’m fine,” I say, clutching my skirts to my belly. It raises them higher, so the island breeze can whisper up my open sex. Hopefully, his attention draws to my exposed thighs and away from my soulbeak. I can’t be naked with this dangerous man. One bite to my soulbeak will ruin everything. He may be my soulmate, but I’m not giving my freedom to him tonight. He’s a stranger. “We don’t know each other.”

“Everyone knows Teeth,” he says with the smile that must be his namesake. “But if you want to try to hide my face beneath your skirts, who am I to argue? I’ll still do unspeakable things if you ask sweetly.”

My knuckles glow pink as the grip on my skirt loosens. Strumpet behavior—like keeping my dress on my person to prevent theft? Let him think what he wants as long as I’m protected. I give him a shaky smile because I don’t know what to say. My usual trysts don’t include conversation. I shove my mark’s face in my cleavage while I ride his sugarstick to my climax. There’s no seduction. There’s no connection. I barely notice when he peaks because I’m absorbed in satiating my need that I’ve built flirting downstairs.

“Eyes on me,” Teeth says with a growl. He demands my full attention. I can’t even retreat into my head. I must be present and acknowledge I’m under my soulmate, who hasn’t a clue. “You know I have enough virtue to deserve you but not so much to leave you wanting.”

“How?” I ask as I trace a scar bisecting his left eyebrow. Luckily, he understands my breathy one-word sentences.

“Protecting those I care about, rescuing others, righting the balance between men of all colors, and respecting women in all occupations,” he whispers.

His grin opens to suck my breast inside his hot mouth. His fingers work my other nipple with the tugs and rolls I love. My back arches off the bed as he works me into a frenzy. The brush of his fingertips up my thigh as he feasts on my nipples sets my body on fire. I push my knees open as far as I dare to stress my human form.

Oh, how I wish I could drape my tentacles over the sides of the bed to welcome his cock into my pelvic pouch!

His mouth wandering to the underside of my breast is like a bucket of cold water thrown over my head. He won’t be the first man I’ve shoved off my belly before he consumes my soulbeak. I suck in my stomach as my body recoils.

“Ticklish belly, eh?”

No, but whatever works to keep him from tying us before I can explain.

“Other parts of me are more interesting,” I say between gulps of air. Fear combines with lust and arousal until my mind is a jumble. It’s too much, and if I don’t climax soon, I’ll succumb to overstimulation. I thought I had control of the human sexual sensations in this form, but I’m losing my grip on them.

“Show me,” he says, raising a blond eyebrow. He’s a fast learner because his fingers return to their delicious torture of my nipples that I love. “Don’t frown at me, love. Show me what I’ll find more interesting than your soft belly.”

He shifts to the side when I bend my knees. I roll my skirts into a neat bundle at my waist, so I’m bare to our gazes below them. Maintaining eye contact, I allow my knees to fall open like butterfly wings. My fingers pull open my outer labia.

“Beautiful,” he whispers with a huff as if I punched him in the stomach. Everything else is forgotten as his singular focus takes him below my waist.

He feasts on my flesh as if he’s starving and I’m the last exotic fruit on a deserted island. I play with my breasts until I scream my climax. Opal screams down the hall as if we are competing to bring down the thatched roof. I shiver with aftershocks as my inner muscles squeeze his finger.

I want more but don’t have the voice to ask. I’m formulating my request in my head when his arm snakes under my lower back. My back bows as I’m lifted from the bed to sit on his lap. I flop like a rag doll over his shoulder as he lowers me onto his cock. The rubbing on my inner walls and how he hits that secret spot inside me detonates a second climax. I’m seeing stars as he thrusts into me from below.

My ankles cross at the base of his spine as my eyes cross with pleasure. I wrap my arms around his strong shoulders and hold on for dear life. The undulating of his muscles against my skin is a soothing massage, caring for the nerve endings he set on fire. I find the strength in my legs to counterthrust and raise myself a few inches to fall onto him. He rocks back so my pelvis tilts and my clit rubs against him.

I peak again, and this time my ears ring as if I’m diving into the deepest ocean trench.

He drops me onto the bed a heartbeat before he roars his release. It splashes onto my stomach, zapping my soulbeak like lightning. My hand flutters over my heart in a vain attempt to calm it before it thunders out of my ribs. I exhale to the ceiling with a satisfied sigh…

…until his tip notches the top of my opening.

“You didn’t think that’s all I wanted from you, did you?”

We wring every droplet of pleasure from one another and, after a short nap, exhaust one another again. Throughout the night, we engage in screaming contests with our neighbors. My boldness grows as the liquor I consumed wears off, and I lose myself in the man of my dreams. He’s raunchy and shameless, but surprisingly, gentle and generous. We whisper sweet promises and share dreams of a future while our connection grows from mere physical to emotional. Our souls connect as intended with my kind.

Despite our closeness, I hold onto my soulbeak. Teeth mentions marriage several times, and I suspect his ingestion of my soulbeak should be part of the ceremony. For now, I enjoy learning our human forms—in case he chooses for us to keep them as we love one another forever.

Sabrina

“Morning,” I say to the blond mop beside me. It’s not fair a man should sport such lush, thick hair. However, the bulging muscles along his back aren’t pretty at all. No, they remind me of the power and masculinity he displayed during our night of passion. Is it too soon to tell him the truth…that we will get hitched on land before I drag him under the sea to start his conversion? I’m not a common girl, but a MidAtlantic Kraken. One bite of my soulbeak, and he will know all about my world.

“The sun’s up,” he shouts as he jumps to his feet. “Where’s me britches? Patricia’s Wish may weigh anchor without me. Captain Branko is as cross as the ratlines of Jacob’s Ladder with me for feeling up Magda. I can’t be late again.”

“Who’s Magda?” I snap back, sitting up. The sheets fall to my waist before I clutch them to my throat, but not before I catch a whistle from Teeth.

“I missed an eyeful of dairy last night, didn’t I? Don’t look at me like that. I was loaded to the gunwales and don’t remember a thing, but I can tell from the muss of your hair and the marks on your chest that I’m leaving another satisfied strumpet,” he says with a flash of the killer smile I loved last night. After the tequila has worn off and the sun has risen, I’m not as fond of it.

I may just knock a few teeth loose.

“Leaving? We made plans last night!” I’m not begging…not really. He promised we’d be married today and start planning our lives… “You set sail today, don’t you?”

“The sooner, the better,” he says with a shudder. He pulls the braces over his shoulders to keep his britches in place, covering his ass in all ways. “I’d hang from a hempen necklace before letting some wench yoke me to land.”

I won’t cry. I won’t cry. A tear falls onto the ratty, yellow sheets.

“Aww, pretty lady, don’t be like that. Here,” he says before flicking a doubloon onto the bed. “I’ve got an extra coin for you—just because I like your face…and what hangs beneath it. Cheer up and get ready for your next man. I’ll parlay in this town again before you know it, and we will do the horizontal dance all night.”

I nod because what can I say? There’s no next man because I don’t work at Maude’s tavern? I’m not a strumpet, but I play one once a month to get my laughs from the land-people. He dons his coat, tosses his hair, and throws me a wink before leaving.

Not a kiss goodbye. I’d bite his tongue off anyway…