Authors: Rosanna Leo
As Beth bobbed against him, water splashing between their close bodies, Mack felt her tighten on him. She cried out. She was close. Encouraged, at the point of delirium, he clutched at her bottom and pounded into her, filling her over and over. She shouted his name and scratched at his back. He bit down on her shoulder and grunted hard, spurting his seed inside her.
She was his. Nothing, no one, would ever take her away from him again.
As their mutual orgasm shivered away into soft spasms, he lifted his head to look at his mate. She was smiling, and the wound on her chest was gone.
“Hey,” she said, laughing quietly, touching his cheek, “teach me how to swim like a seal.”
He kissed her long and deep, his tongue sweeping against hers, greedy and grateful. “That, madam, I can do.”
And before he could shift for her, Beth had shifted, morphing into the sleek body of a seal as if she’d been born to it. Mack treaded water, entranced by the new look of his mate, enamored by her limpid eyes and blonde pelt. He noticed two small bare patches on the left side of her head and smiled.
She was the most incredible being he’d ever glimpsed.
She splashed him and dove into the water. Laughing, he chased her. Once he caught up, he led her back to Mermaid’s Mound where he retrieved his pelt. He shifted, jumped into the water again with her, and they explored the sea together.
A week later, Mack and Beth cleared out the final antique from Frank’s collection. They stood at her door and waved as the buyer drove away with his new chest of drawers, some fragile linens, and gilt claret jugs. Beth marveled at the wad of cash in her pocket and felt light, as if a burden had been taken from her.
She hadn’t realized how weighed down she’d felt living among Frank’s things. In a way, her sister Connie had been right. She’d needed to purge at least some items in order to start a new life. Mack had helped her with that.
He’d also helped her tackle Luke’s bedroom. She’d decided to keep a few things as mementos. Luke was her baby, after all. However, she’d sworn to give the other items to charity. She felt better knowing that his toys and cups and clothes might have a new life with another little boy who needed them. As she’d hemmed and hawed over each small sock and dinky car, Mack had stood quietly by, never judging or rushing her. Always supporting her, a large hand on her back and a kiss wherever she needed it.
Mack was her angel. A selkie angel she realized with a giggle.
“What are you laughing about, madam?” he teased as they reentered the house. He narrowed his eyes in suspicion at her.
“I’m just happy,” she said, wrapping her arms about his waist.
He sighed and caressed her cheek, letting his fingers stray to her temple to brush her bald spots. He kissed her on each patch, something she loved. His kisses lit a spark that sent teasing flames of desire all through her body. Moisture seeped between her legs as it did each time he so much as breathed around her.
“It’s all I ever wanted. For my Beth to be happy.”
She reached up on tiptoes and dropped a kiss on his nose.
He arched an eyebrow at her. “Surely you realize every time I feel your lips on my skin, I get hard?”
She grinned at him. “Even after a dry peck on the nose?”
His chest rumbled in a deep laugh. “Of all the things we’ve done to each other, I think it might be the first time we’ve had one of those.” Mack cupped her cheek, his face now serious. “Woman, I promise every kiss I ever give you will demonstrate just how much I love you.”
To illustrate his point, Mack lowered his head to hers and took her lips in a kiss that was as stirring as it was savage. He thrust his tongue into her mouth and let it glide against hers, sweeping the cavity, dancing along the ridges of her teeth. Beth savored him as well, taking him deep and sucking on his tongue with abandon. God help her, her libido around Mack had always been quick to flare, but now that they were both selkie with matching animal instincts, she couldn’t hold herself back from him. She needed to touch him and taste him, and she felt lonely if he so much as walked into another room. She was convinced they shared a heartbeat somehow, that invisible veins streaked between them, keeping them alive. Without him nearby, her heart suffered.
And she couldn’t stop wanting him, whether it was hard and fast or slow and sensual. She just wanted him.
As soon as his mouth released hers, Beth licked a path over his chin and down his neck, swallowing his delicious salty-sweet flavor. “I can’t get enough of you,” she said on a sigh. “You taste so good, my selkie mate.”
“Mmm,” he murmured as he nibbled on her neck. “As do you.” He gazed at her, his eyes black with stark hunger. “I wish I could bathe in your cream. I want it all over me.”
Beth’s chest rose and fell in a shattered breath, and then she laughed. “It usually does end up all over you.” She grabbed his hand and pulled a chuckling Mack into the house. They raced upstairs while she thanked the stars for her new selkie swiftness. They began to peel each other’s clothes off in the bedroom. Off went her cotton sweater and blue lace bra. Off went his Def Leppard T-shirt. Mack touched his fingers to her chest, grazing the spot where the finman had stabbed her, and his face turned down in remembered sadness.
She caught him staring at her like this a lot. She knew without a doubt seeing her hurt had just about killed him.
She grabbed his hand and kissed his webbed fingers, marveling at the new webbing on her own. “Mack, I’m okay. I’m just like you now, and I love it. You’ve helped me ease into this new life, and I’ve never been more excited. After Frank and Luke died, I didn’t want to go near the water. Now I can’t wait to jump into the waves with you. We shift together and swim together. Hell, even my appetite is more like yours.” She patted her fuller stomach.
“I know,” he said softly, caressing her belly. “But I almost lost you. I hate remembering.”
“Then don’t,” she urged with a kiss. “Look, I was thinking. We’ve spent the week going back and forth between this place, your parents’ place, and your apartment in town. I want to be settled with you. I want to move in with you, Mack.”
He gazed at her, rapt. “I would love that, but this was your home … with your family.”
“You’re my family,” she affirmed, smiling. “And it’s time to let them rest.” She swallowed the lump in her throat.
Mack wrapped her in his arms. “I wouldn’t want you to forget them.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t. But we’ve both been haunted by ghosts for too long.”
He nodded, understanding her meaning. “For so long, I haven’t truly lived. I’ve been too determined to avenge Anne. The one who hurt her is dead now, and I want to devote myself to you.”
“No more ghosts, then?”
“Aye, lass,” he responded with a low murmur. “No more ghosts.”
She nuzzled his chest and contemplated how to broach the topic that had been on her mind ever since he’d made her a selkie. Perhaps it was best just to come out with it. Since her transition, her womb had been rumbling with a new desire, a new hope. An animal instinct had sprung inside her, a need to procreate and give life to a little being. She turned her face to him and basked in the love she saw there, her own love reflected. “Mack. One day, you and I will have children. I can’t promise you when, but we will.”
He frowned in confusion, but she could see it was also because he was so worried about her feeling pressure. “Beth, I don’t need…”
“You do need it, and so do I,” she reassured him. “I just didn’t know it before you mated with me. I want to make a baby with you, a pup of our own. Lord help my ovaries, I want to be surrounded by our children. I have this sudden desire to have a big, crazy family, one just like yours.”
He didn’t say a word, just smiled against her face, but she heard his heart pounding like a kangaroo thumping down a dirt highway. She breathed in his scent, comforted and aroused by it, willing it into each artery, wanting him deep inside her. She rubbed her body against his and felt the answering swell of his cock. He wanted her too. As much as it pricked at her to remove herself from his touch, she pulled away and grinned at him. Keeping her gaze on him, she popped the button on her denim skirt and reached for the front zipper.
Mack moved her hands away. “I’ll do that.”
Beth watched, her head deliriously dizzy, as he knelt before her. He stared at her skirt as if it were a devilish problem, one he wanted to resolve and make disappear. As he tugged on the zipper with one hand, he reached another up to tweak her nipple. He leaned in and ran his tongue up her stomach, letting it circle around her navel. The need to reach release was already strong inside her, but as he continued licking and plucking at her nipple, Beth’s resistance failed. “Please,” she uttered.
He looked up from under his black lashes and chuckled. “You’ll come when I tell you to come.”
Beth could have dropped to her own knees. She loved it when he got bossy in the bedroom. Mack was a delectable study in contrasts: so caring and gentle in many ways, but a veritable tiger when he made love to her. And she adored being under the sway of his iron fist, especially because it heightened her own pleasure.
He tugged on her skirt and watched as it slid over her hips. As her wet satin panties were exposed, he licked his lips. His nostrils flared, and she knew he was breathing in her arousal. She now understood the impact of her scent on him because his drove her mad with the need to fuck. And now that she was selkie, everything was heightened and intensified. She could smell him from down the road, and it made her excited to greet him. She could see the same excitement in his eyes.
So much had changed, and all for the better. She knew it the first time they swam together as seals. As they’d cut through the water with such ease, it astonished her; she’d never felt such freedom. To feel his muscled shape gliding next to hers was bliss. Her favorite thing now was to join Mack in the waves, especially when they shifted back to human form and he made love to her in a cold sea that now seemed strangely warm to her.
He hooked a finger in the top elastic of her panties and then grinned at her, his brow arched like a sexy fiend. Rather than pull the garment off, he pulled it tight against her skin so her feminine shape was completely outlined under the thin satin. Mack leaned in and dragged his tongue over her mound, allowing his saliva to mix with own moisture, soaking the panties even more. Using his teeth, he tugged at the panties and then let them go. Tugged again and let go. On and on until the greedy scrape of his teeth made her eyes fall back into her head.
“Take them off, Mack,” she begged, groaning.
He didn’t, the bastard. Instead, he calmly stood, his hooded gaze on her the whole time. He dropped his jeans, stepped out of them, and sat on the edge of the bed. His cock was hard and ready with lusty veins snaking down its length. He leaned back on his elbows, smiling, and spread his legs. “Stand between my legs. And dance.”
“Dance?” She burst out laughing.
“Do it. If I like what I see, we’ll take those uncomfortable wet knickers off.” He bit his bottom lip, amused at her shyness.
I’ll show you a dance
. Beth gritted her teeth and moved between his legs. She circled her hips with leisure, calling upon the skills she’d learned in one belly dancing class ten years ago. Only now, with new-found selkie elegance, her motions felt more fluid and seductive. She pointed her left toe and rotated her left hip backward in a slow cycle. After a few rotations, she did the same with her right hip.
Mack’s gaze was pinned to her hips and was glazed over. His mouth opened.
Satisfied she had
him
on edge now, she raised her hands as gracefully as she could over her head. As she continued swinging her hips, she bent her elbows slightly and moved her hands in delicate circles.
His breath was starting to come harder and more frantic. He was almost panting for her. And she loved it.
While he raised himself to a sitting position, Beth shimmied her shoulders, thrusting her bare boobs into his face.
A vein throbbed in his temple. “Fuck,” he muttered.
With that, he pulled her down and smothered her triumphant laughter with his kisses. He thrust his tongue into her mouth, stealing her breath, and he reached for her panties. Without preamble, Mack tore aside the elastic of her panties and slid three fingers into her eager pussy. He glided right in, she was so wet and hungry for him. Beth arched her back and let out a moan, and he captured her nipple in his mouth and sucked.
Oh, God
. No one fucked like Machar Kirk.
When he’d teased her to the breaking point, he released her nipple and removed his fingers from her sex. He pulled at her panties and ripped them clean from her body. Beth glanced down at the shreds poking out from under her bum. He leaned over, kissed her inner thigh, and then let his lips find their home between her legs. Beth screamed at the sinful invasion of his tongue in her center. He pushed her legs wider, flicking his tongue back and forth in a long line from her entrance to her clit, and then flattened it against her pearl. It grew swollen under him, jumping with need every time he flicked over it. She knew Mack loved eating her, but he seemed to find new and better ways to do it each time. He dragged his warmth around the outside of her lips and then pulled them gently into his mouth. As he continued nibbling on her labia, a wild wave of pressure threw into Beth, threatening to flatten her. Sensing how close she was, Mack said in an unsteady voice, “Come now, dammit.” He clamped onto her clit and suckled.
She came with a shout of exaltation. He continued to drink from her until the violent spasms in her body calmed to tiny pulses of satisfied energy. Then he drank some more, apparently still thirsty for her. As he launched another oral assault on her, Beth felt another orgasm begin its inexorable climb.
Mack climbed up over her body, his lips wet with her dew. Grinning, he dragged her over to the footboard of the bed and turned her over so she was on all fours. He positioned himself behind her, his legs brushing hers. He gripped her hips, his fingers digging into her, and guided her pussy over his engorged cock. Beth gasped at how marvelous it was to have him snake inside her, stretching every fiber in her core.