Page 8 of The Mer-Mate
“How are you called by those who know you?” he asks.
“Shayle.” Even to my ears it doesn’t sound like it did on land, and when he repeats it back to me, my name is water over pebbles in a shallow stream.
He brings his fingers to my lips. The pads of his fingers are shockingly rough compared to the rest of his body.To grip underwater, I think. I lean into his touch. I want to close my lips around his fingers, but the claws stop me. I wonder how he tastes, or if from now on, everything will be salt.
“So often when I saw you above the water they were blue,” he muses, still tracing the shape of my mouth. “When I saved you first, they were white. Now, they are pink. You are so many colours.”
It’s not a conscious thing when I kiss him. I run the tip of my tongue over his fine silver lips. Thewaters leaving our mouths mingle, and I feel him pulling the taste of me into him.
I wind my hands into his hair. He does taste of salt, but also of strange undersea herbs I don’t know. His huge hands cradle my jaw, holding me close so I don’t drift away. Even so I feel like I’m spinning, upside down, and I cling to his forearms to hold myself in place. Our tongues meet, and I suck in water.
Like the pads of his fingers, his tongue is incredibly rough. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever felt before. My mind wanders to what it would feel like other places on my body. Experimenting, I lick the tip, and a groan leaves his mouth. He descends on me, plundering my mouth in return. His rough tongue over mine and it’s all I can do to remember to breathe.
Kissing must be a part of mer-culture, because my merman isveryproficient with the act.
“So soft,” he says between kisses. “So small. Soperfect."
If I were on land, I’d be stumbling, my legs are shaking so hard. My tongue finds the tip of one incisor and flicks. The faint tang of copper fills my mouth, and another deep groan leaves his throat.
“Do not do this unless you wish for me to claim you,” he growls. Underwater, his words vibrate all around me. My body screams at me to lick again, to let him claim me, but some feeling I can’t explain holds me back.
My heart pounds against every pulse point in my body. God, what am I doing? This is reckless, even for me. I’ve just been shipwrecked, nearlydied, and am naked in an undersea cave with a fucking merman.
A merman I’ve searched for my entire life. I’ve never wanted anything more. And to know him fully is beyond anything in my wildest dreams.
This is the opposite of reckless. This isn’t moving too fast. In fact, I think I’m not moving fast enough.
Thea’weshin my throat glows hot as I try to swallow against it. I trail my hands over his neck, down the expanse of his chest. The flat disks of his nipples are a darker grey than the surrounding skin. I draw a finger over each one, and the flat front of his tail, right where a human man’s cock would be, flexes at my touch.
Water flows from my lungs in a stream of bubbles. I’m already wondering how the mammal half of him extends below the tail.
I pull my gaze up to find him with a look of pure hunger. He releases his hands from my face, slides them down my body, and immediately I start to float away.
Easily fixed. I wrap my legs around his torso, securing us together, and he looks down in shock.
“I guess two legs would be different for you,” I say, grinning. I wiggle against him. He’s so big my feet barely connect on the other side. My foot runs into a dorsal ridge, and I stroke with my toes. “They’ll keep me from drifting away from you again.”
“They will,” he says, slightly stunned. “We would not even need my knot.”
My heart rate jumps in my chest. “Knot?” I squeak.
“Your kind does not have this?”
“Nope. No knots.”
A shadow passes over his features. “Then I doubt your body can take me.”
For now, he’s satisfied with exploring other parts of me, and attacks my body with single-minded dedication. He’s methodical, fingers starting at my extremities and working his way inwards. Every hollow gets attention, from the curve of my underarm to the arch of my foot, both of which delight him as they earn him a ticklish kick.
From the dimples on my thighs to the bumps of my ankle bones, he caresses me like he’s memorizing me. My webless fingers and toes are admired with wonder, and my breath stops when he strokes the underside of my breasts.
It’s intoxicating to watch his hands on me. They’re so huge he can circle my waist. His claws look sharp enough to rip a shark to shreds, but never come close to breaking my skin. And the friction is making my already erratic heart rate stutter.
The roughness of his fingers is intense, electrifying everything under them. His thumbs toy with my nipples the same way I did his, and my thighs flex around him. He strokes the outside of my thigh, fingers curving around the seam of my ass.
The flow of water stops in my lungs. Whatever coolness the water lent my body is gone. I hold achingly still, not wanting him to move, willing him to keep going. When he finds the cleft at the apexof my thighs, heat blooms between my legs, and my merman’s head whips up, nostrils flaring.
“Your scent.” His eyes close as he lets my arousal wash over him. He drags his knuckles through my slick, and another flood of wetness leaks out of my aching pussy. “It is delicious.”
