Lords of the Deep (14 page)

Angie studied his face. She couldn’t tell anything about his expression, but as she watched she noticed his color change ever so slightly, taking on a faint yellowish glow. He sent her a strange look and released her hand.

A blush?

She noticed his chest was moving faster. His hand shook slightly when he reached for her other arm and repeated the process.

His cock had stood up and was looking her dead in the coochy, she discovered when she slid a glance in that direction. The damned thing undoubtedly had a built in homing device for finding the hole it wanted to slide in to.

Studiously ignoring it, he settled back when he’d finished taking her right arm and hand measurements and then set the tablet aside and grasped one of her ankles.

She resisted the tug, but he seemed too distracted to actually notice. He jerked her foot out from under her, tipping her onto her back. Leaning forward, he ran the measurer from her hip to her arch.

She knew what was coming even before he placed the counter on the inside of her foot and started up.

She wasn’t sure he did—or that he’d thought it through. He froze when he reached the juncture of her thighs, staring at her sex as if someone had abruptly switched him off.

Angie felt warmth stir in her belly.

He came to when she’d begun to think her heart would beat its way out of her chest, leaning back to record the measurement on his tablet.

He was adorably befuddled when he’d done that, staring down at the tablet as if trying to jar his brain into producing what it was that he’d intended to do next. Apparently realizing after a few moments that he was still holding her ankle, and that he’d already measured her hand, he heaved in a shaky breath, touched it to her, and ran the thing over her sole, heel to toe. Her feet were ticklish. She tried to keep from laughing, but she couldn’t keep the chuckle inside any more than she could help wiggling her ankle and trying to arch her foot away from the thing in his hand.

Distracted, he halted abruptly and looked at her in surprise.

Dividing a look between her and the foot he held in his hand, he palmed the measuring devise and ran his finger lightly along the bottom of her foot experimentally. Angie gasped and erupted into laughter, trying to jerk her foot away from him as he continued to stroke his finger back and forth.

A slow grin curled his lips.

Leaning forward when she couldn’t wrest her foot from him, she grabbed his hand. “No, Miles! Stop! Please?”

He desisted. Setting her foot on the bed, he closed his hand around her fingers, pulled her closer and tried tickling her palm. She grinned and shook her head at him. “That doesn’t tickle. Don’t tell me you don’t know about tickling?”

On impulse, she pulled her fingers from his and walked them up his ribs on either side of his chest. His eyes widened. He uttered a convulsive sound and then chuckled when she found the right spot, grabbing her hands. “No tickle,” he said, mock stern.

The minute she relaxed the tension and ceased trying to pull her hands from his, he released them and dove toward her ribs, imitating her movements until she was nearly breathless with laughter.

She discovered when she’d caught her breath that Miles was nearly on top of her after their wrestling match. He stared into her eyes while the smile slowly faded from his lips and then swallowed with some difficulty. Abruptly, he surged toward her, covering her mouth firmly with his own.

A shockwave rolled over her at the heat—the sheer ferocity of his kiss as he filled her with his ravening touch, his taste. Her heart slammed into her chest wall almost painfully. Doubt warred with the sensation of melting into liquid heat. She dug her fingers into his shoulders as sensation streamed into her mind too rapidly to tabulate.

The touch on her thigh penetrated the heated haze sufficiently to redirect her mind at least briefly. Discovering he had one hand tangled in her hair and the other just beneath one breast, confusion momentarily wafted through her.

And then she felt the touch a little higher, coasting along her inner thigh, butting against her cleft. Another shockwave rolled over her as the realization hit her that it was his cock just about the time it found its way beneath the cloth she’d covered her genitals with and plowed along her cleft, parting the flesh, seeking.

Her heart sped up until she felt a wave of darkness joining the languid heat coursing through her from the dance of his tongue along hers. He jolted when the head of his cock found her opening and pressed inside, almost as if he was as startled as she was.

Breaking the kiss abruptly, he lifted away to stare down at her, gasping for breath as his cock wormed its way a little more deeply into her channel.

She sensed debate in his eyes, but after staring at her face for a long moment, he closed his eyes. His face tightened as he curled his hips to force himself deeper. He let out a shuddering groan. “Angie! Tell me now if you don’t want this,” he murmured raggedly. “Tell me to stop.”

Angie swallowed against the hard knot of need that had risen in her throat. She hadn’t understood anything but Angie and stop, but she knew what he was asking. She debated, briefly, but she was too deeply under the spell herself by now to consider anything except what she wanted, and that was to feel more. Tightening her hold on him, she arched her hips, pressing against him until he slid deeper. A tremor worked its way through him. Digging his head and shoulder into the mattress to support part of his weight, he worked his arms around her to hold her tightly to him and thrust again, over and over until he’d plumbed her depths. He was shaking all over as he withdrew and thrust inside of her again, muttering words she couldn’t understand—and her name, over and over.

She felt his cock vibrate inside her, quivering with his need. He rocked with her, deep, slow strokes with his thick flesh until she felt anticipation build in her, felt the tension coil tighter and tighter. Squeezing her eyes tightly, she savored the mounting pleasure, the building heat in her belly until it seemed to reach maximum capacity and convulsed, tightening almost painfully and easing in waves as her climax tore through her. She voiced her rapture in keen, sobbing cries. He answered her cries with a guttural groan, jerking as his body responded to the summoning of hers and began to bathe her womb in his seed.

They lay coiled together in the aftermath, struggling for breath for several moments before he withdrew his flesh from hers and shifted to settle on the bed between her and the wall.

Miles saw without a great deal of surprise but with a good bit of displeasure that Damien had entered the room at some point. His glazed eyes were fixed on Angie but, almost as if he felt Miles’ gaze, he whipped a challenging look at him, fanning the mating fins along his shoulders and flashing red. “She’s in season,” he growled, his voice hoarse with his needs. “She accepted you?”

Miles glared at him. “She allowed me to mount her. I wouldn’t have if she hadn’t accepted, gods damn it!”

Damien moved closer. Miles stiffened, fanning his own challenge, but he knew as well as Damien did that he was in no condition to object to Damien’s interest in Angie at the moment.

Ignoring him, Damien climbed onto the bed, his face taut as he stared down at Angie’s face. “She isn’t flashing,” he said in obvious confusion.

“She didn’t flash me,” Miles said tightly. “My cock sought her. She allowed it.”

Damien stretched out over her, bracing himself on his elbows and knees as he settled himself between her thighs, watching her face intently as his cock sought her. She gasped when it engaged, opening her eyes and looking up at him in confusion. “Damien?” she whispered.

Swallowing the uncertainty nagging at him, he lowered his head to kiss her. She’d stiffened, but she relaxed almost at once, returning his kiss. Relief surged through him that she’d accepted him without the necessity of a battle between himself and Miles first.

There would be one, he didn’t doubt. Miles would try to claim her again for another chance at mating.

He banished the thought, focusing on the pleasure pouring through him as he tasted her, felt her respond to his kiss, felt her body slowly closing around his cock as it delved deeper and deeper along her channel. “Gods, Angie!” he murmured raggedly. “If I’d known it would feel this good to be inside of you I would’ve taken you that day in the
terrium
! I wouldn’t have been able to stop myself.”

He lifted away from her enough to watch her face as her wetness eased his access to her body, allowed him to drive smoothly into her sweet, heated depths and then back along the channel that clung so tightly to his flesh that his belly burned with the need to expel his seed at once. He struggled with the control spiraling away from him with each thrust, feeling the need to please her, to watch her face contort in pleasurable agony for him as it had for Miles.

“Show me I please you, too,” he murmured huskily, curling his body so that he could caress her face with his lips, seeking her mouth.

She stiffened, groaning into his mouth as he kissed her. He felt his skin prickle with sensation, his body tightening in response, and when he felt her body convulse around his cock and broke the kiss to hear her cries of ecstasy, he felt his body rush to join hers in rapture.

Gasping for breath when the spasms finally passed, he levered himself upward on shaky arms and pushed himself to the bed beside her.

Miles, on the other side of her, was bristling furiously at him when he finally managed to open his eyes. He glared back at him, feeling the mating aggression flow into him, chasing the weakness. He was still sluggish and weaker than he liked when he rolled off the bed.

Miles bounded over her and landed in front of him challengingly, but they both knew the disadvantages of fighting in their current element. He gestured toward the door of Angie’s room with his head.

Miles narrowed his eyes at him but apparently realized he was too weak, still, to attack. He strode past him and down the corridor toward the airlock. Damien threw a last glance at Angie and stalked down the corridor behind him.

Miles attacked before the outer doors even opened. He was ready for him, though, whipping swiftly out of the way so that Miles slammed into the inner airlock wall. Smacking him in the back with a flick of his tail, he sailed out of the airlock, turning to face Miles again only when he had sufficient room to maneuver.

There was death in Miles’ eyes when he confronted him. He was flushed a bright red with mating aggression, his neck fins fully displayed in challenge. Damien flexed his own, lifting his arms to flex those along his laterals, flushing his own skin until he was dark red with his fury.

He took the initiative this time, barreling toward Miles and slamming into him hard enough with his shoulder that Miles flew backwards in a tumbling roll that took him over the roof of his domicile. Uttering the mating roar, he charged after him.

Miles had recovered enough by the time he reached him, however, to bellow a return challenge and slam him with his tail. He tumbled away, rolling over the curve of the structure toward the ground. He twisted so his shoulder caught the brunt of the impact, but Miles shot toward him, grabbing him by the throat before he could thrust upward again.

Enraged that he’d been caught off guard, he pummeled Miles’ belly with his fists until he curled in upon himself to avoid the blows, then grabbed his elbows, sending just enough of a charge through the joint to paralyze his arms briefly. Miles’ hands slipped away despite his effort to maintain his grip.

Before Damien could retaliate, however, Miles whipped his tail around, slapping him so hard across the head and shoulders that his ears rang.

He shook the encroaching darkness off furiously. Miles had taken her first, gods damn the bastard to hell! He was going to kill the fucking asshole if his seed had taken root!
He
would be first next time if he had to kill Miles to do it!
He
would fill her so full of his seed it would flush Miles’ from her body and
his
would take root instead!

As it turned out, it was a near thing, despite his determination. By the time he’d beat Miles to a point of exhaustion where even his mating aggression wasn’t enough to give him the strength to continue the fight, he was so nearly exhausted himself it was all he could do to drag himself into the airlock and seal it.

When it had flushed, he crawled out on his hands and knees, resting for several moments before he managed to gather the strength to rise. Anticipation began to pump the blood more rapidly through his veins, though, as he headed to Angie’s room. He paused in the doorway, studying her as she opened her eyes languidly to look at him and then widened her eyes and pushed herself upright.

Surprised, he thought dimly, but not unwelcoming. Fuck it! He didn’t see reluctance in her expression. That was close enough.

Wavering slightly on his feet, he headed toward her purposefully.

* * * *

Angie stared at Damien blankly as he wove a slightly unsteady path toward her. Water dripped from his hair. His skin was still damp with it.

Shower, she thought a little blankly?

He reached her, pushing her down on the bed as he crawled onto it with her. Straddling her hips, he grabbed her t-shirt and pulled until the precarious knots she’d tied gave. Scooting backward immediately, he lowered his head to explore her breasts and torso and upper chest with his lips, his tongue, the light scrape of his teeth, skimming her nipples maddeningly but never once taking either into his mouth.