Lords of the Deep (27 page)

She twisted to meet his mouth more fully. Her world instantly narrowed to him. Gladness to feel him vied with the glorious heat he could draw from her so easily. She kissed him back hungrily, apologetically, grateful that he wasn’t angry with her for what had just happened between her and the other merman—the
mertiz
he seemed to despise.

She came as he sucked at her tongue hungrily and, feeling her explode with rapture, he followed her before she’d fallen completely from the peak, tightening his arms around her as he expelled his seed inside of her.

She met his gaze searchingly when he broke the kiss.

He pressed his forehead to hers. “It’s alright,
mesoma
, my pretty little love. It’s the way of things.”

Her breath caught in her chest at that, but she couldn’t tell if it was no more than a lover’s endearment or he really meant it.

Fortunately, Millicent caught her gaze as she looked away. The moment Damien released her, she dove for the woman, circling behind her and peering at the mermen uneasily.

At the rate she was going, she was going to get fucked to death, she thought unhappily—unless she could figure things out on the fly and tame her tendency to blush.

“Good choices,” Millicent said complacently. “My son is of excellent stock—and of course Basil—he’s definitely the prize bull of the season. You’ll be earning some evil looks on the ride back if you hold his interest!”

And she needed Millicent to tell
her
that he was a fucking bull!

She was surprised her womb hadn’t fallen out when he’d gotten done!

She didn’t particularly
want
to hold his interest, thank you very much! And she certainly didn’t want to if it was going to piss everybody off!

She was tempted to glare at him and try to wither his interest, but she didn’t know what might happen if she did. He might take it as a come hither look, all things considered.

“It’s alright now. They’ve gotten the message. It’s safe to go back to your ledge. You can even look at them if you like and try to decide which one you want next. For my part, I think you should favor Basil … and possibly Damien. You have a very nice selection and any of them would produce a very good child, but Basil and Damien are definitely the cream of the crop.”

She wasn’t sure she appreciated the advice, and she certainly didn’t appreciate the fact that she’d failed to mention Miles.

“Then again,” Millicent said meditively, “Miles would also be a very good choice—very impressive stock and a brilliant scientist—one of our brightest. Oh … I don’t know! Heavens! I would never have thought you would have this kind of choices. It’s so much easier when there are only one or two very good ones.

“You see the short, stocky one there at the end? The one who has the other okean in a wrestling hold, trying to break his back?”

Angie looked, but she was damned if any of them looked ‘short’ and stocky. She doubted very much that any one of them was under six feet tall—though Basil looked six and a half—easy. She nodded anyway, studying the one at the end who certainly seemed intent on breaking his opponent’s back.

“Cole—same sire as Basil, but his mother wasn’t from quite as good a stock as Basil’s mother.”

“The one with the very blue hair is Justin—a warrior of some note. Galen, the one to his right with the light caplet, is physician to the king. Rasmus, the one currently trying to choke Basil, is an enforcer … like Basil—except not a high lord.

“If you just can’t make up your mind, it wouldn’t hurt to let all of them have a go at it. One of them is
bound
to do the trick and I don’t think you’d have any anxieties with any of them.

“Besides which, you have by far the best court—even if it is a little small. It’s very select, which is
much
better—and a catkin should make the most of this sort of opportunity. You never know when it may come again!”

Angie finally nerved herself to move from behind Millicent and take her ledge again, trying to sort through the font of information Millicent had decided to bestow upon her—unfortunately a little too fast for the damned translator to get it all. Pretty much the only thing she was
almost
certain of was that the woman was encouraging her to let
all
of them fuck her!

Quite aside from the fact that she was pretty sure she didn’t want to, she had the uneasy feeling that she needed to be very careful what advice she accepted from Millicent. She’d hardly spoken two words to her on the trip and now, suddenly, she was friendly?

She supposed, even though the woman didn’t seem to like her, it was possible she still took her role as sponsor seriously and meant to do the right thing.

It was also possible that Millicent really was impressed with the mermen who’d decided to form her ‘court’ and had revised her earlier opinion.

She wasn’t sure she trusted that possibility, though.

Instead of watching the brutal battle being fought out in front of her, she glanced around the coliseum surreptitiously. Felicity, she saw, was being pounded by a different merman than before—she thought. She hadn’t actually studied the girl’s partner the last time she’d looked.

She discovered as she studied the orgy in progress, though, that the men lined up around the mermaids not only looked like they expected to get a turn, the mermaids were sharing their favors fairly freely.

It dawned on her abruptly that the reason Miles and Damien had watched one another while they took turns with her was because that was standard practice among them. They might not like it—and the fighting seemed to indicate they didn’t—but they accepted that, as Damien said, that was the way of things.

She still wasn’t particularly comfortable with the idea when it was so contrary to acceptable behavior in her own world. She supposed, a little wryly, that it was telling that she wasn’t comfortable because of the censure usually associated with multiple partners. It seemed obvious, even to her, that her reluctance didn’t stem from a lack of interest in the possibilities presented to her, or even a sense of ‘wrongness’, but rather had more to do with the possibility of penalties that might be attached to it.

She’d not only thoroughly enjoyed having sex with both Miles and Damien when she’d never even thought of doing such a thing before, but she’d enjoyed being watched—something else she’d never considered that she might like.

The bottom line was that she wasn’t against it. She was only worried about how Miles and Damien would feel about it and whether they would abandon her if she took advantage of the situation and did what everyone else seemed to be doing—sampling as they pleased.

It wasn’t worth it if it meant giving up Damien and Miles. She cared about them. It was more than great sex—at least to her. She didn’t know how they felt about her. Maybe it didn’t mean any more to them than what was going on now at the breeding grounds—the men just wanted to fuck and the females were letting them because they just wanted a baby. They’d come to breed.

She hadn’t—at least, she hadn’t intended to. She had to wonder, though, since Miles and Damien were familiar with this custom and she wasn’t, just what they’d expected to happen.

They hadn’t been surprised to find her waiting with all the others, she realized.

She didn’t know what to think about that. Did it mean they really didn’t care about her? Or did it mean they had accepted her and expected her to accept their customs?

Or did they just not have any other choice?

“Pay attention, dear,” Millicent said, abruptly breaking into her thoughts. “You don’t want to look too eager, but ignoring them is dangerous. They’re liable to kill one another.”

The comment brought Angie back to her surroundings with a jolt. She could feel blood rushing to her cheeks in discomfort even as she jerked her head up to see what was going on. Basil met her gaze.

Oh hell!

God! The man was a fucking wall right by himself! How the hell was she supposed to
avoid
looking at him!

Eager, too, she thought as he swooped down on her. He stunned her—not just when he grabbed her, but when he jerked her against his broad chest and clamped his mouth down on hers. She shouldn’t enjoy this, she thought dimly, and it was the last clear thought she had, because the moment his hard mouth covered hers—annihilation.

His mouth was … divine. Images of Damien and Miles flashed through her mind, but she couldn’t hang on to the images because her mind shattered, her thoughts scrambled with the heat pouring through her.

She wondered dimly if mermen just had a special knack for kissing … or if she’d just become addicted to mermen.

She was so caught up in the kiss, she came within a hair’s breadth of lifting her legs and locking them around his waist when she felt his cock nudge her belly. A cold dose of reality swept through her, but she didn’t have time to recover or even to realize it would’ve been impossible to give herself away, at least in that manner.

The manufactured skin Miles had used to make her disguise apparently acted very much like their skin did—not really surprising since that was exactly what it was. The moment she was submerged it water, it merged, locking her legs together to form a mer tail, and there it stayed until she emerged from the water again.

He broke the kiss, twisted her in his hold and bent her double to ‘receive’ the telephone pole. Fortunately, she was wet from the kiss and two rounds of sex. He managed to stuff her down over it without rupturing anything. The pleasure/pain of it was one of the most exquisite things she’d ever felt.

She gasped, groaned as she felt the deeply satisfying vibrations of his pleasure throbbing through her. She came with his second stroke. He hesitated for a split second and then began thrusting faster, driving her upward again before she had time to touch down. She screamed when she came the second time.

It emerged as a gargle.

He tightened his arms around her almost bruisingly and jetted his seed into her in a series of deep, short strokes.

She felt perilously close to blacking out as she struggled to catch her breath in the aftermath. She was grateful that he held her while she recovered, enjoyed the crawl of his lips along the side of her neck. A hard shudder traveled through her when he reached her ear and nipped at it. His arms tightened again, briefly. “Gods, Angie! You came for me twice, my angel!” he murmured.

She was
sure
it had nothing to do with the post he’d mounted her on! Or the fact that the pulsations from his excitement made it feel as if she had a flesh and blood vibrator up her coochy!

He’d nearly rattled her teeth!

She shuddered in after quakes as he pulled free of her.

She was afraid to lift her gaze.

But she wasn’t sure it was permissible to simply drift down to the ledge and sprawl out like a dead thing.

She turned in a cautious circle, examining the mermen around her below the waist, wondering if she could
possibly
identify either Damien or Miles by their cock.

Nope!

Seeing one she thought must belong to Miles, she looked up and turned beet red when she discovered it was someone else entirely—Justin of the blue, blue hair if she recalled Millicent’s inventory correctly. He nearly bowled her over in his enthusiasm. Millicent rapped him soundly on the head with her tail fin when the two of them landed on her ledge with him on top of her.

He seemed oblivious to it.

It certainly didn’t slow him down that she could tell.

He didn’t kiss her as both Damien and Basil had, but he didn’t slow up until she came.

Mental note, she thought tiredly, they obviously think coming is absolutely essential to procreation. Come fast, or die trying!

She was so exhausted by the time Millicent beat them all off and dragged her, thankfully, toward the pavilion it was all she could do to keep her eyes open. “Very good,” Millicent said approvingly. “One never knows which one might be most potent at any one time. I’m sure, since you covered them all, you’re in good shape.”

Oh, yeah! She was in great shape. She had done them all and the good ones twice or three times.

She was pretty sure she hadn’t left
any
body out!

She emerged from her semi-stupor when she discovered they’d entered an airlock.

Thank god!

Every muscle in her body turned to the consistency of a jelly fish when gravity took hold of her. Fortunately, Millicent had a firm grip on her and hauled her over to a bench before she let go of her.

She discovered her ‘court’ had joined them.

She actually found that a lot more dismaying than gratifying. Squirming uncomfortably on the hard bench, she tried to ignore them and her throbbing coochy, looking around at the inside of the pavilion instead—which was when she discovered they’d been brought in to eat.

She wasn’t sure she could eat. ‘Entertaining’ a football team was a lot more work than one might think, she reflected ruefully.

Basil caught her attention. “Is this pavilion much like the one you have in Pacifica?”

Angie stared at him blankly, feeling her face heat as she scoured her mind for any clue of what he might be talking about. “Yes,” she mumbled finally, hoping that was the right answer.