Page 148 of The Hunted

All at once.

No questions asked.

Her lithe form cut through the water and slammed into him. The force of it was enough to send him stumbling back several steps in the mucky bottom of the bay. Her mouth found his, and those hands of hers pulled through his hair with a sting that spoke of desperation and hope.

He understood that feeling all too well, now.

Because of her.

Everything about them had been desperate.

But hopeful all the same.

He found her scales were as soft as silk when her tail wrapped around his legs. At some point in her swim from the other side of the bay to him, she’d taken off the gown. It floated around them in the water, now transparent and useless. His palms slid down the curve of her stomach and her waist before drifting lower to where smooth skin met shimmering scales. All the muscles that made up her tail flexed at his touch, tightening around him even as his legs fought to free themselves from the hold.

Not because he wanted to get away, but rather, he wanted so badly to do the same to her. Coil himself around her, keep her right where she needed to be—hold her still until she understood.

Never once did their kiss break, even as the struggle between them neared closer to the shore, and he was no longer neck deep in the water. Her tongue slashed against his; her taste became the sweetest drink to him, taking him higher and making him crave more.

Now, the water only came to his chest and so did she when she dipped lower to drag in water through her mouth like she was taking in a breath of it instead of air.

She didn’t want to change yet, he realized.

Eryx’s hands drifted over her jaw. “You miss this.”

Being in her true form.

The sea …

All of it.

A sly, knowing grin answered him back. “I need both.”

Somehow, he would give her that.

Raising from the water, but not releasing the pull of water she’d taken into her lungs, she took his hands and pulled them lower while she continued to stare up at him. He felt the way she guided him until he reached what she wanted him to find. A small cleft in her tail just below the curve of her hips. Slit in the same way the paradise he’d found between her thighs, it was the only similarity.

His fingertips graced the cleft, and he was surprised to find it warm and soft like the rest of her. Arelle released a quiet hum, and her lashes fluttered closed when she shuddered from the touch.

“Is it different like this?”

“No,” she said, the word coloring her next moan. “Not to me.”

Frankly, he found it wasn’t all that different for him, either. Her form might have changed, but all those sounds still fell from her lips as he stroked her cleft in and out with two twisting fingers sounded exactly the same. Her silken heat drew him closer; her hands wrapped around his cock and tightened with fast pulls that had him hard in seconds. She was still beautiful—still wild in her need.

She closed what bit of distance remained between them. He lost his words when her lips grazed his, her body molded against his, and with just a shift of her lower half, she’d fitted his cock into the tightness of her cleft.

“Fuck,” he grunted against her lips.

She laughed an airy sound.

And then she bit him. Hard enough to draw blood from his bottom lip, he was sure. All the while, she moved against him—riding him, in a different way. Except all around his cock, muscles shuddered and pulled though he couldn’t move because her tail had enclosed his legs again.

This time, it was his turn to laugh. Even when she was sweet, she still wanted to be his animal. Wild. Uncontrolled. Entirely untameable. He certainly didn’t mind fucking her like one, either.

• • •

The watchtower was both old and wet.