Page 24 of The Rusalka and Mr. Right

I break into a run only to stop dead in my tracks when Marina hurls the jerk flat on his back with an audible snapping sound. She stands above him, glaring. “I personally find his ass spectacular, but his wife-to-be wouldn’t like you hitting on her man—and I don’t like the way you were hitting on me.”

“Tease! You—”

“I have an affectionate nature. I was enjoying your company. Now, I’m not.” Marina bends down and runs a perfectly sculpted nail over his grimacing face, a smile never leaving hers. “You must not behave that way in Pine Ridge, my dear... We have very little tolerance for such things.”

“Damn straight.”

Marina gasps and looks up, rising to her feet in that same gorgeous, fluttery white sleeveless dress she wore on our one and only night together. “Kevin!” Her voice is a mixture of fear and elation. She looks at the scum on the grass and then back to me, eyes wide.

Is she afraid I’m going to be mad at her for defending herself?

Wait, is she pissed that I saw and that I didn’t do anything to help?

Crap, how did I get into this? Why do I care so much?For a second, waiting for her next words seems like wondering if my heart will make it to my next beat.

“I... I took martial arts one time. I mean, I used to,” Marina stammers, backing away from the groaning figure who’s trying to rise.

I nod. “Nice moves!” My heart has body-slammed my brain out of the way. I only have one thought.Make Marina stop looking scared. Bring back her smile.

“You think?”

I trot to join her, still nodding, pushing my cheeks to their limits with my broadest, proudest smile. “I was so damned impressed. You were like Bruce Lee in a sundress, baby. Hold on, honey.” I pause to put the toe of my new boot right into Rich Boy’s crotch, grinding down to hear him howl. “Don’t get up. I’ll walk her home.”

“Fuck,” Rich Boy whimpers and rolls on the ground, hands clamped between his legs.

Marina springs to my side and puts her arm through mine. I protectively close my arm over her shoulders, even though it’s obvious she doesn’t need my help.

I’m the one who’s shaking. Sweating. So angry. And stupid. I didn’t have to get physical with that guy. What if someone from work saw that? What if he calls the cops. Yeah, I was helping a woman in distress, but that’s not always the first thing people think about when one person is white and the other one isn’t.

Marina leans on me, her body soaking into mine like rain seeping into the ground. Calmness settles over me. No one’s even looking in our direction—almost like they didn’t see a thing.

“You like Bruce Lee?” she asks, as if we’re sitting having coffee and making small talk.

The shakes are gone. “Jackie Chan’s my number one, but Bruce Lee is up there. So, what’s this Pine Walk?”

Her smile is back, soaring off her lips and straight into my heart. “I’ll show you.”

KEV SAW A SHOW OF MYdemonic strength. I don’t know if he realized that I simply flung a two-hundred-pound man to the ground as easily as swatting a gnat, or if he saw something else, something more acceptable to the human brain. But I know he saw something, and I know that he’s still with me, sitting on a bench in the most secluded section of the Pine Walk as fireflies dance around our heads and I straddle his lap.

“I saw those guys bothering you,” he breathes out between heavy kisses.

I hike up my skirts, his nearness reminding me that I am hungry again—but strangely, I’m only hungry for Kev. And the hunger only prickles in my insides whenhe’snear. When I received my earlier unpalatable invitation from Todd, I felt nothing hungry, nothing sexual—only some confusion. “I have many friends,” I lie. I have many conquests, out of necessity. I would call very few people outside of the supernatural community my friends.

“Rich Boy wasn’t your friend, baby.”

“I know. I don’t need men like Todd for friends. I need them to scratch an itch.” I bite down on his lip as he gives a frantic grunt, and I feel his hands shifting under me, undoing his zipper. The truth slips out around him.

“Nuh-uh. Your itches are mine to scratch. If I see Todd flashing his perfectly capped teeth at you, I’m going to knock ‘em down his throat.”

Protector. Satisfier.Words roll from my lips, first in the ancient tongue, older than the Russian I used to converse with Gregor, older than a thousand languages, but as Kevin pulls me onto his cock, sinking himself inside my wet heat in one hard pump, my whispers turn to English. “You are my hunger. Youare all I desire,” I confess, words I cannot take back, words I have only said to one other.

Most of me prays he will reject me, stop and look askance at such a heartfelt, heavy declaration.

Kev moans into my mouth and grabs the back of my neck, his fingers kneading my pale skin as we rock our bodies together on the little wooden bench. “That’s right.” He pulls his head away to look into my eyes, dark, bottomless eyes melting into mine, little ships that have no idea of the sea they’re crossing. “You’re all I desire, Marina. Want you. Need you. Not just Fridays,allthe days.”

“Mm, yes. Yes, fuck,yes,” I answer in a breathless groan as my body gets what it’s been craving. Kevin knows my insides, my tricks and depths (at least some of them), and he pulls back to adjust before sinking himself right in the most sensitive place, the needy sucker on my upper wall. He sheathes himself inside and my muscles clamp down, thousands of nerve endings dancing, pulsating. Both of us moan so loudly that night birds flutter from their roosts.

“It’s too fast to claim me for all the days,” I warn with my last brain cell.

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