Deeper (Elemental Series) (3 page)

“How did you get this?”

“Shark.”

“You mean you don’t all
live as one big happy family under the sea?”

“Generally we do, but
sometimes you have to get rough to keep everyone in line. I am my people’s
prince,” he said. “I have to do whatever it takes to keep them all safe.”

“You love your people.”

“I do.” He stroked her
cheek with his knuckles. “May I kiss you?” he whispered.

“Such a gentlemerman.”

She closed the distance
between them, and when their lips met, every nerve ending in Crystal’s body
shot wide awake. She actually felt her blood moving in her veins, her limbs
tingled, and her girl parts rocked ‘n rolled. She’d been kissed before, but not
like this.
Never
like this. She was aware of every part of her body and
every part of Ray’s as well. He was just as aroused, just as heated. When he
pushed his fingers up into her hair, she groaned against his lips.

He broke the kiss, and
Crystal prepared to throw an all out tantrum until she saw the grin on his
face.

“We’ve only known each
other a few hours, and I’ve told you unbelievable things about myself, but
would you do me the great honor of staying the evening with me?”

Crystal smiled over his
polite manner. The last guy who wanted her to stay the night had said something
along the lines of, “You wanna screw?” Thinking she’d maybe be able to sleep
after a good lay, she’d agreed. The sex hadn’t been that good and the nightmare
had been even more terrifying that night.

Tracing a fingertip
over his scales, she let her gaze sweep over his defined chest muscles down to
his apparent anticipation waiting beneath his swimming trunks. “Do all your
human parts…you know…work?”

“Yes, ma’am, they do.”

“Fabulous.”

Ray stood and held out
a hand to her. He led her to the bed where he backed her onto it. “You’ve seen all
of me on the beach this evening, my crystal ball. Now I want to see all of
you.”

“In this bikini, there
isn’t much left to see.” Still, she turned around and swept her hair out of the
way to expose the strings on the swimsuit’s top. “Have at it.”

Ray made quick work of
freeing her then Crystal shimmied out of the bottom piece. “Perfect,” he said.

She faced him and got
to her knees. Resting her hands on his broad shoulders, she caught his lips
again. They kissed with a certain wild hunger that supercharged her entire
body. Kissing him was both brand new and oddly familiar. She couldn’t get
enough. She slid his swimming trunks off, and he crawled onto the bed like a
beautiful predator, capturing her beneath him. Her vision of his naked body
from this morning at the front desk had somehow been spot on.

“Let me take your
nightmares away,” he said before kissing a line up her thigh, over her belly
button piercing where he tugged lightly with his teeth, then around her
breasts. By the time he slid inside her ready heat, Crystal was drunk on his
attention. With the beachy scent of him, the sandy scruff of his skin, and the
cool press of his scaled patch against her stomach, she let all the tension and
anxiety slough away. Her only concern was pleasing him, pleasing him
completely.

And from the sound of
things, she was succeeding.

When they both reached
their peaks, Crystal swore she heard enormous waves crashing outside. Only they
felt as if they were crashing inside her, washing her clean, renewing her.

“Welcome to Bermuda,”
she said as Ray folded his arms around her and cuddled her close.

“Sleep, sweet Crystal.”

The last thing she
remembered was the light brush of his lips against her neck.

****

Ray rolled up the
sleeves of his light green dress shirt, a shirt Crystal had told him made his
eyes look electric. Waking up with her in his arms had been like returning
home. How that was possible he didn’t know. She was a human after all. He
hadn’t changed her into a mermaid, though the notion kept bouncing around
inside his skull since he’d made love to her.

Don’t get ahead of
yourself.
He still had things to explain to her. Things that
might prevent her from ever wanting to see him again. That was an ugly thought.
He had to see her again.

He must.

At that moment, his
extra senses kicked in, and he became immediately aware of her presence in the
hotel’s crowded auditorium. Wearing a purple sundress that highlighted her
exquisite curves, Crystal took a seat a few rows back from the stage and gave
him a covert wave. He took great pleasure in knowing that fresh, rested look on
her face was his doing. He’d spent part of the overnight hours blocking the
nightmare from her mind. It was a strong one. One that confused him.

Why was she dreaming
about the
hydrelam
, the transformation from human to merfolk?

He couldn’t come up
with one instance of such a thing happening in Selecahnia’s history. No human
was to know of the metamorphosis unless he or she was going through it. Ray
knew it was a terrifying experience, but the bond the human had with one of his
people was always strong enough to protect the human. He couldn’t imagine what
Crystal had been going through, being subjected to that night after night in
her dreams. Had he known, he could have found her sooner perhaps.

And what did it mean
now that he had found her?

Too many questions.
He needed to focus on the presentation and sort everything else out later.
Later, when he hopefully had Crystal snug beside him again.

He sent her a quick
smile to which she responded with a wink and a truly sexy grin that almost had
him diving off the stage to be near her. Instead he hooked his laptop into the
large projector and brought up the first slide in his presentation. He took a
seat next to the other two guest speakers and loosened his tie around his neck.

Why is it so hot in
here?

The hotel’s air
conditioner was humming along, however, Ray felt anything but his normal cool.
Maybe last night’s
activities
had altered his body temperature. Making
love to Crystal had been a little like being set on fire. Consuming. Blocking
her nightmare had probably depleted his energy as well.

Fanning himself with a
stack of handouts, Ray found Crystal again. She mouthed the words,
Are you
okay?
He nodded, though his throat was extra dry. After pouring himself a
drink of water from the pitcher on a side table, he sat again and fought not to
chug the water. He felt a little better after the drink, but an itch grew in
intensity beneath his shirt.

Just get through the
presentation.
Looking out into the audience, he saw
many lawmakers and other important guests who could really support his cause
and make a difference in preserving the oceans. A few of their strongest
thoughts reached his own mind, and he knew he could get them onboard with this
presentation. He could fall apart later.

By the time it was his
turn to approach the podium, he’d developed a ring of scales around his right
forearm, the mark of his royalty. Forced to roll his sleeves back down, he was
hotter than ever. He must have looked like Hades because Crystal had moved to
the front row and sat at the edge of her seat.

“Ladies and gentlemen,
I give you Doctor Ray Taimen, expert in marine health.” He heard the
facilitator announce his name and stood, but his legs couldn’t support him. His
hands reached for the podium but ended up slapping the stage floor instead.
Voices cut in and out from the audience as his vision blurred. He couldn’t take
a deep breath. No oxygen was getting to his lungs. His throat felt as if
someone had stuffed a beach towel down there.

“Ray.” He lifted his
head and focused long enough to see Crystal kneeling beside him.

“Water,” he rasped just
before everything went black. 

****

“Help me get him
outside,” Crystal barked at the other two speakers. A weird image of Ray’s
scales, dull, dried, and peeling flashed into her head. She instantly hated the
picture.

“Outside? Shouldn’t we
call 911?” one of them asked.

“That’s not going to
help.” Crystal didn’t like the way Ray was wheezing while unconscious. “Please,
let’s get him outside to the water. You can still call 911 if you want. Tell
them we’re on the beach.”

The second speaker got
an audience member to help carry Ray to the shore while the first speaker got
out his cell phone. Crystal was certain no doctor would be able to tell what
was wrong with Ray. Though he was in human form, this was clearly a merman
problem. She’d seen him unroll his sleeves and surmised that more scales had
made an appearance.

Ray mumbled something
that sounded like
deeper
—or had she only heard that in her mind? Either
way, Crystal knew merely getting his feet wet wasn’t going to be enough. She’d
have to…go in there with him. Have to swim him out to deeper water. Submerge
him.

All the details of her
nightmare came rushing back. Last night had been amazing getting a full eight
hours of uninterrupted, non-petrifying sleep. She owed Ray for that, but the
idea of actually swimming and being surrounded by the dangerous sea made her
want to puke.

The men carrying Ray
started to lower him to a beach chair.

“No. In the water,”
Crystal said.

“Miss, he’s shaking.
He’d be better off waiting here for the paramedics.”

Crystal let out a
frustrated growl. She kicked off her sandals and marched over to the beach
chair, which had wheels. “I can handle it from here.” She pushed the chair
toward the water.

“What are you doing?”
someone asked.

“Saving him.”

“She’s crazy,” a voice
that sounded a lot like Rionne’s said.

Maybe she was crazy,
but she knew Ray’s time on land was killing him. Just like the fish her father
used to catch and let flip-flop to their deaths on the deck of his powerboat
when she was a kid.

Grunting and sweating
like a wrestler, Crystal managed to evade the folks trying to stop her and slid
Ray’s body into the sea. As much as she didn’t want to, she hooked her left arm
around his torso and swam him out to deeper water. She was terrified of her
nightmare coming true, but more terrified of losing Ray. And it was more than
the amazing sex and peaceful night’s sleep he had given her.

They were…connected.

Ray coughed and opened
his eyes. “Let me go.”

“No.”

“I need to go deeper.”

“I’m going with you.”

“You can’t go as deep as
I need to go. Not as a human.” His body jerked in her hold, and she almost lost
her grip.

Dark, gray clouds moved
in, blocking the warm Bermuda sun. The blue sky was gone, turning the water
almost black. A few flashes of lightning zig-zagged across the sky followed by
a rumble of thunder. The water around them churned and undulated, white foam
forming on the surface.

Crystal recognized all
of it. This was her nightmare. The only difference? Ray was in it too.

This doesn’t make
sense.

“I must go deeper, Crystal.”
Ray’s voice was strained as he struggled to breathe. “Let me go.

“I don’t want to.” Hot
tears stung her eyes as she fought to keep them both afloat. Before meeting
Ray, she would have done anything to stop the nightmare. Now it was really
happening, but all she could think about was not losing him. 

Ray grabbed her arm
with surprising strength. “What do you want then?”

She focused on his face
as the ocean beat against their bodies. More beautiful scales appeared in an
intricate pattern on the side of his neck. When the lightning flashed, it
reflected off the scales making them look like stained glass. The stormy wind
had turned Ray’s hair into a wild, black mane, and his eyes nearly glowed with
a sea-green fire.

“I want to be with you,
Ray.” She tightened her hold on him. “Make me one of your kind.”

“You don’t know what
you’re saying.” He coughed again, but his eyes were hopeful. “If I did the
hydrelam
,
you’d have to leave your world behind. It takes a while for newly turned
merfolk to be able to spend any time on land.”

“There’s nothing on
land for me anyway. I have no family anymore. Rionne is my only friend, and I
don’t even like her most of the time. You think I want to spend one more day at
Breezes Resort’s front desk dealing with lunatics who claim to be mermen?”

Ray laughed, but
started choking again. When he regained some control, he said, “You should know
that your nightmare is the way I will change you.”

“What?” Crystal stopped
kicking for a moment, but Ray kept their heads above water with his own
sporadic kicking.

“You will drown,
Crystal. Sky fire, or lightning as humans call it, will strike you, and you
will be paralyzed. The sea will drag you under. You will cease to breathe until
I give you the breath of Selecahnia. Then you will be one of us.”