Page 8 of Tempting Triton
“Not where I come from.” She huffs.
“Perhaps you are just not listening?”
A small growl vibrates in her throat before she launches herself in front of me, her slender finger jabbing at the skin of my bare chest. My beast stands to attention—the part of me that controls my ferality at the scent of blood and prey in the water is interested in this ferocious female that beats and growls at me.
“Listenhere, you overgrown fish!”Poke.
“First, you kidnap me.”Poke.
“Then, you kiss me without asking.”Poke.
“And now you’re implying I’mstupid?!”
Before she can poke me again, I reach out to grab her hand to stop her, but she yanks it out of reach and crosses her arms over her chest, her eyebrows scrunched in anger.
“Overgrown. Fish?” I mumble.
I do not think anyone has ever argued with me, let alone said anything so shocking. I keel over laughing, hands clutching at my sides.
“Overgrown fish!” I wheeze.
I meet my mate’s gaze again. A red flush spreads across her cheeks, but not because she is embarrassed. She is furious. I can tell by the way her knuckles whiten as she clenches her fists at her side.
“Could you just stop!?”
My laughter dies as her hand whips out to slap me across the cheek. It does not hurt; the water slows her momentum so that it is more of a tap than anything damaging.
I think she has also taken herself by surprise as she kicks away, horrified at her reaction. She snatches her hand back, cradling it against her chest, looking at it as if it is a sea snake that might sink its poisonous fangs into her sun-kissed skin.
Now, my beast isveryinterested in this curious female. So much so that it seizes control of my body, no longer happy to sit in the back seat of my head and observe.
My upper lip curls back in satisfaction when she realizes the change. Her eyes flick between each of mine, the once playfulness of our gaze now has a sharpness to its edges, her disbelief at what she has done twisting into nervousness as she senses a predator in her vicinity.
I move into her space. Into her. So close that I can feel the small mounds of her breasts beneath the tight material that covers them as they press against my skin. She freezes beneath us, and I hum while I run our nose up the side of her throat to nip at her earlobe before whispering in her ear.
“My, my, aren’t you a thorny little thing?”Our voice is rough and gravelly.
I reach up with our thumb and thrum at her lower lip. She stutters, her lips warm and moist against our skin.Triton is but a passengerinside our body in this moment, but I can feel his eagerness nonetheless.Our heartbeat feels ragged, beating wildly in our chest, as I slide our hands down the backs of her arms, grab hold and spin her, reversing our positions to press her against the wall, reminiscent of our earlier interaction that had her arousal spiking around us and set my teeth on edge. I want to take a bite out of her.
It is this action that breaks her from the spell of having a predator in her midst, my mate remembering how fierce she is—her head no longer cowed in submission but staring me down, her angry sea-blue eyes meeting my kelp-green ones. If I could purr like a humpback whale, I imagine my body doing exactly that right now.
She shoves me backwards, but this time I am ready for her beautiful, violent limbs, grabbing hold of her hands and pulling her with us as I float backwards onto our bed.
“What is wrong with you?!” she shrieks, slapping my chest and pushing away from my body.
“Wrong?”I frown.
My beast fades into the recesses where it resides as the wordswrong, wrong, wrongecho in my head, pushing my consciousness back to the forefront and in control ofmy body once more.
“Yes, wrong! You can’t just go around kidnapping strangers, and kissing them, and—and licking them without asking!”
“You hit me! Twice!” I reply, indignant.
“That’s beside the point.” She huffs, placing her hands on her hips. “You kissed me without my permission, so really, you deserved the slap.”
“What iskissed?” My brows draw together, thinking back over our interactions. I cannot think of what this ‘kissed’ could be. I can, however, understand her anger at being taken against her will.
“That’s what you’re hung up on? What is kissing?!”
