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 tooverstimulation. 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 bedto 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 screamingcontests 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 toosoon 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 Wishmay 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 tokeep 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…

3

Teeth

“Enough playing around,” Chub growls. Sadistic little troll is never any fun. “Magda expects us back on board before nightfall. We’re sailing up the Atlantic, and she wants to be north before the hurricane blows through. There’s no time for fortune tellers when hunting your fortunes on the high seas.”

“Come on, Chub,” I yell at me hearty. I thought my best friend’s transition from Blackbeard’s quartermaster to our friends’ quartermaster would make him less of a stick in the mud. My mistake. “Aren’t you curious? Or are you scared your lady love is a grouchy troll like you?”