Each Step Like Knives (6 page)

He told her he was sorry, which she recognized. She
stared at his hands as he spoke, and he realized she was looking at
the soft, flexible webbing between his fingers.

The woman's face was solemn. "You're not human, are
you?"

He shook his head.

"You came from the sea." Recognition made her gasp.
"It was you the other night! You saved me when I went under!"

He nodded. The woman sat back in her chair. She
covered her eyes briefly with her hands, then peeked at him through
her fingers.

"What are you?"

"Carrageenai," he said, but the sound came out
mangled and indecipherable.

She shook her head. "I don't understand."

He stood and put his hands on his thighs. "These are
not my legs. I usually have a tail."

He'd used the formal gesture for tail, but switched
to infant-hands again for her benefit. "A long tail. But I'm not a
fish. We're mammals, like those you call porpoises and whales."

He'd made the symbol for whale by imitating with his
hands a whale breaching, but she clearly didn't understand. He
tried the one for porpoise, the creature his people called
closemates because of their ancestral relationship to the
Carrageenai. That she seemed to understand.

"You're a mermaid? A merman, I mean?" The woman took
a gulp from her cup. She stared at his legs. "You must be joking.
This is still a dream, right? I'm dreaming. Or I'm crazy."

He wondered why she thought she was not experiencing
this reality appropriately. There were Carrageenai who, on
occasion, lost touch with the real world around them and slipped
into their own minds. They were considered mad. His woman, his
mate, did not seem mad.

She laughed, though the noise didn't sound quite as
joyous this time. "I must be dreaming."

He shook his head. "You are not mad. This is real. I
am real. We are real, here, together."

She rubbed at her eyes again. "What happened to your
tail?"

He began to explain and saw her eyes follow his
gestures without understanding. She bit at her lip. Jeenai stopped
trying to explain.

"I came from the water to be with you," was what he
finally managed to say with infant-hands.

"Why? Why be with me?"

"Because I love you."

She gasped. She had understood. Instead of smiling,
though, she got to her feet and began to pace in front of him.
Jeenai lurched upright, but his feet sent bolts of pain through his
entire legs, and he sat again.

"That's insane," she muttered, her face turned from
him.

She wasn't speaking to him, yet he was able to
understand her. With the Carrageenai, both parties needed to face
each other to speak. If one could not see the myriad of gestures
and expressions of the other, the language was lost.

"You came out of the sea to be with me because you
love me." She let out another harsh burst of laughter. She faced
him. "How do you even know me?"

"You walk along the beach at night. I heard you
singing. I've been watching you a long time."

He could see she didn't understand everything he'd
said.

"You've been watching me? From the ocean?"

He nodded. "Your song called me."

"I don't understand."

He made another set of gestures, but she still shook
her head. Jeenai sighed, frustrated. "I came to be with you. To
bring pleasure to you. To share the fuck."

That she seemed to have no trouble understanding.
Her eyes widened and her gaze fell to his now-covered crotch. She
backed against the counter with her arms crossed over her chest.
"Oh. My. God."

He recognized the tone, if not the words. She was
shocked. But the way her nipples hardened beneath the front of her
garment and the high color that rose in her cheeks told him she was
not displeased.

Jeenai stood and ignored the pain that shot through
his feet. He stepped toward her. She made a low noise. Fear? He
stopped and considered her.

Carrageenai fems could be hostile if approached when
they did not desire sexplay. Yet this woman's nipples had grown
hard. Her legs had parted slightly beneath the edge of her garment.
He could not smell as well as he could at home, but he caught the
spicy aroma of her arousal.

Human fems are different, he reminded himself as he
took another hesitant step closer to her. They did not have sharp
teeth to bite or powerful tails to slam. He thought of the blow
she'd given him earlier. They were not without their own defenses,
however. And while it might be easy to read a fem's desire in her
body's response, perhaps human indicators of arousal were as
different as their defenses.

Jeenai took another step. Now she could strike him
if she so chose. The woman didn't move. Her breath caught in her
throat. This close he could almost hear the thump of her heart.
Below the sea, now was the time he would take her in his arms and
thrust his erect cock inside her. Here, above the water, Jeenai was
not so certain of what step to take next.

He stared into her eyes, which were the color of the
sea. Blue, surrounded by white, with only a small dark circle in
the center. Her lips had parted. She didn't shy away when he
reached for her shoulders.

A kiss. That was what humans did. They pressed their
mouths together. He would kiss her.

It felt awkward at first, this pressure of mouth
upon mouth. She sighed and trembled when he gave the kiss, and
Jeenai pulled away, suddenly fearful she was going to strike at him
again. Her eyes had closed. She didn't move.

He bent to kiss her again. Her lips parted. Her
tongue probed lightly at his mouth and he followed her lead. Their
tongues stroked one another. The sensation made his penis surge to
life inside the garment she'd given him. He pulled her closer to
him. Her breasts crushed against his bare chest. He could feel the
sharp points of her nipples through her garment. The feeling
excited him. He pressed his penis against the softness of her
belly, then nudged a bit lower to the juncture of her legs. That
was where her fem parts were, the slick, heated folds and shining
pearl he'd explored earlier.

Jeenai wanted to lose himself inside her body and
seek the release he'd given her before. He restrained himself. He
was no longer below the sea. He was above and things were different
here.

The scent of her desire grew stronger as they
continued to kiss. The touch of her tongue against his was
incredibly erotic. He had not imagined this action called kissing
could be so pleasurable.

Blood surged into his cock, stiffening and
lengthening it. The garment created a new sort of friction. He
moved his hips against her and she responded with a moan. She
parted her legs farther.

She took Jeenai's hands from her shoulders and moved
them to her waist. With gentle pressure, she urged him to lift the
garment up past her hips. She was no longer bare beneath it. A tiny
scrap of cloth covered her pelvis. It was smoother than the garment
she wore on the top. His fingers slid along it. She shuddered
against him when he found the swollen bump of her pearl and rubbed
it.

Jeenai found he could lift her by putting one hand
beneath her rear end while he continued to stimulate her with the
other. He pushed her up to sit on the counter behind her back.

Now it became difficult to kiss, and he left her
mouth with a sigh of disappointment. Her eyelids had half-closed.
Her mouth looked swollen. As he watched, her gaze began to sharpen,
to focus. Fearful he was going to lose the erotic daze she had
allowed herself to enter, Jeenai bent and put his face between her
parted legs.

His lips found the center of her arousal, but the
barrier of her garment frustrated him. He pulled at it, and she
lifted her hips to allow him to remove it completely.

She was open to him, and he buried his face in the
scent and feel of her. Her soft flesh was warm. He lapped at her
bud and was rewarded by her shudder and moan. The sound of her
pleasure made his penis throb. He wanted to fill her, but first he
wanted to fulfill her.

He worked the small button with his lips and tongue
until her conch swelled and trembled. Her passage convulsed under
his kisses. Her hands clutched at his hair.

She pulled him upward, toward her mouth, and
captured his in a burning kiss. Her center was hot and wet and
still slightly pulsing against his belly. She pushed at the garment
at his waist, and Jeenai took the hint. She wanted him as bare as
she was.

She lifted her garment over her head as he slipped
out of his. It came off easier than it had gone on. She slid
forward, off the counter, turned her body and bent over the table
so her back faced him.

Jeenai stopped, confused. A fem who turned her back
on a mal was rejecting him. His hands trembled from the force of
his desire, but he did not take her.

The woman looked over her shoulder at him. "What's
wrong?"

He could think of no way to tell her his reason, and
now it didn't matter. She wanted the fuck with him as much as he
wanted it with her. He could hold back no longer.

Jeenai pushed his penis inside her slick channel.
Her walls clenched around him. She tossed her head. Her hands
gripped the table. She lifted her rear in the air to push herself
harder against him.

He thrust once, twice, and her body again convulsed
around his cock. She arched her back and cried out, over and over
while she climaxed. Jeenai thrust again. His first orgasm tightened
his balls, then ripped through him. His cock spasmed inside her,
and he could no longer tell the difference between the ripples of
her inner muscles and his own contractions.

His second climax burst out of him, but still he
withheld his seed. She might not want a child of him, and he was
uncertain about human fertility. A third, smaller climax made him
tighten and relax as he gave a final thrust that had her writhing
in her own last orgasm.

The sound of their breathing was very loud in the
quiet room. Her hair had fallen over her shoulders, leaving the
back of her neck exposed. He traced his finger from the soft skin
there, along the length of her spine, down to the twin dimples on
either side just above her buttocks.

The woman raised herself on her hands. Jeenai pulled
out slowly, reluctant to leave her warmth. She turned to face him.
Her cheeks had flushed pink.

"I can't believe I just did that." She put her hand
between her legs and pulled the fingers away with a look of
surprise. "You didn't come?"

She must have recognized the look of confusion on
his face, because she clarified. "You didn't have an orgasm?"

He smiled and held up three fingers.

"Three? You had three?" She seemed stunned.

He raised his eyebrows. "Don't human mals have
multiple climaxes?"

Now it was her turn to look confused. "I'm sorry. I
don't know what you're saying." She looked at her hand again.
"You...there's nothing...."

Had she wanted a child after all? Jeenai knew it
would take a lot of time to learn the human ways more thoroughly.
"I'm sorry. I didn't know if you wanted an infant."

She recognized the motion he used to symbolize a
baby. "No, I don't want a baby right now. You mean you can control
that?"

"Yes."

She looked down at her body, her cheeks still pink.
"I can't believe I just fucked like a mad thing on my kitchen table
with a man I just met. Excuse me. A merman I just met. You must
think I am some kind of slut."

He didn't understand the last word she said, but he
did understand the expression on her face. She felt as though she
had done something wrong.

"You regret having the fuck with me."

She only stared at him, wide-eyed.

"If I did not please you enough, I will try harder
next time."

She did not understand, and he couldn't make himself
any clearer. Instead, Jeenai did the only thing he could think of.
He pulled her into his arms and kissed her again.

Her mouth was sweeter than anything he'd ever
tasted. He could kiss her forever. Unfortunately, she didn't seem
to feel the same way. She pushed him gently away from her and
busied herself with putting on her clothes. She handed him the
garments he'd worn before, and he managed to dress himself with
little effort.

"I don't even know your name. What do you call
yourself?"

He gave the sign for his name, then the sound. She
imitated the noise, but it came out sounding wrong. He said it
again, and it sounded wrong even in his voice.

"Jeannie?" She shook her head. "That's not right.
Johnny?"

He nodded and took her hands. He made his name in
infant-hands for her. She repeated the motions he made and said his
name again.

"Johnny."

It was close enough. "And you?"

"My name is Helena."

He did little better with her name than she had with
his, but the sound of it made his heart leap. They were talking. He
could say her name. She could call him by his.