CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“Do you want to see something special?” Grace asked slyly, abruptly putting an end to his jealous meanderings. “Go stand outside and I’ll meet you there in ten minutes.”
“Your wish is my command,” Henry murmured, pressing a kiss to her hand that made her feel like a bunch of butterflies were fluttering about in her tummy. It was not a bad feeling, not at all.
As soon as he left, Grace raced into the privacy of the bathroom for a quick shave and to brush all the sugar residue from the slushie off of her teeth. Then she pulled on the microscopic pink bikini that Michelle had insisted she buy and took a deep calming breath as she regarded herself in the mirror. When she was with Henry he made her feel beautiful, but she had years of negative memories that said otherwise.
“Coward,” she muttered as she wrapped a towel around her body.
They’d already slept together, so why did she feel so damned nervous? Slipping on her flip flops she made her way outside before she could chicken out. There was no turning back now, he’d spotted her instantly. He was watching her with hot, inquisitive eyes. When she dropped the towel he let loose a growl and the sparks in his gaze turned liquid with desire.
Not knowing exactly what had come over her, she strutted her way over to him and kept on going until she reached the dock leading out to the most picturesque lake imaginable. She knew he was following without having to turn around. Theirs wasn’t the type of attraction where one of the partners cared more, or was further invested than the other. It was a powerful and deeply possessive lure that made them both oblivious to everything but the desperate need to join as one. Her flesh cried out for his and he wanted to plunge himself deep within her and never leave her exquisite folds again.
But first she planned to tease him a little. She took a deep breath and plunged in headfirst. As he watched her dive into the lake, lust made his tongue creep out of his mouth like a puppy in need of water. Grace screamed the moment her head resurfaced. She hadn’t expected the water to be so cold, not on such a warm day.
He grinned as he watched her sputtering and flailing about. Eagerly he began to tear off his cumbersome clothing, although he left on his underwear. He would have felt entirely comfortable without a stitch on, but given the fact that Grace was wearing a bikini he hadn’t wanted to try his luck. He wanted to convince her to have sex with him again as soon as possible, and that meant no scaring her off.
And mate us and bear our cubs, growled his bear possessively.
Shut up already before you spook her, he berated his inner animal. Sometimes being a shifter was exhausting. It was like two minds fighting over one body.
“What are you waiting for?” Grace asked. Unaware of his silent debate she was paddling slowly in place.
“Just admiring the view,” he said as he made his way confidently towards the edge of the dock.
“It is pretty out here,” she agreed, sighing as she soaked up the details of the exquisite landscape.
“I was talking about you,” he countered.
He started running right after he spoke so he missed the surprised look on her face. She wasn’t used to receiving compliments. In her world, words had been employed for the sake of tearing her down. They’d never been used to build her up.
It was going to take some time in order for her to adjust to how wonderful he was, and somehow she doubted that she would ever really get used to it. Perhaps that was a good thing, because then she’d never be able to take him for granted.
He pulled his knees up to his chest and came down hard, sending a wave of water splashing into her face as he shouted “Cannon ball!” with all the grace of a prepubescent boy. He laughed uproariously. Meanwhile she was left sputtering with a mouthful of water.
“What are you, like twelve?” She glared, wiping water out of her eyes with her equally soaked hand.
“I’m sorry, baby. I just couldn’t resist,” he admitted sheepishly.
“Just so you know, you had it coming,” she said ominously before disappearing under the water.
When she didn’t resurface right away he started to get worried. Where the hell had she gone?
“Grace?” he called out, scanning the horizon and wondering how far away she’d gone, and if something could have happened to her beneath the surface. How long could she possibly hold her breath?
And then he felt her hands ripping off his underwear in one decisive motion. Sure he could have tried to fight her off, but he was far too interested to discover where this was going. He would happily take whatever punishment she sought to dish out at him. It was in moments like this where he realized that there’d been an emptiness in his life that he’d never even known was there, not until she’d filled it.
Her head bobbed up to the surface and the wicked look in her eyes made him hard instantly. Fortunately the water was murky enough that he didn’t have to worry about her seeing that his little soldier was giving her a full salute.
“Are we even now?” he asked huskily.
“Not even close,” she replied saucily before drawing in a big lungful of air and disappearing back below the surface.
And then her slender fingers were gripping his thighs. He began to suspect that there’d be no hiding his erection after all. And that’s when he felt her warm lips slide around his throbbing member. He about shot his load right there and then, but somehow he managed to hold it together. There wasn’t another woman on the planet who would ever compete with Grace. She was a goddess, she was incomparably sexy, and all he wanted was to make her his.
He watched his underwear drift away dispassionately, because there was no amount of money that could have induced him to move to intercept them, not when that would interrupt his woman, and the exquisite torture her perfect mouth was inflicting on him. He longed for her to continue on forever, but she didn’t have gills and eventually she had to come up for air.
Henry wanted to tell her how much he loved her right then and there, but it was hard to carry out serious conversations and tread water at the same time. One thing was for certain, there had never been and never would be anyone more perfect than his mate. His greatest fear was that the other unmated men in his pack would come to the same realization.
“Do you think you can keep us both afloat a little longer?” she asked coyly.
He nodded his head eagerly, no longer capable of forming sounds into words.
“Good, ‘cause I wanna go for a ride,” she admitted breathily.
It was fortunate for him that he was in perfect shape, or they never would have pulled it off. They would have both sunk to the bottom of the lake with skeletal grins intact mid coitus.
Grace hitched a leg around his waist, their wet bodies sliding deliciously against each other. He continued to paddle for both of them. When she slid her bikini bottoms to the side and impaled herself sinfully on his shaft he couldn’t hold back the roar that broke loose from inside of him. She wrapped her other leg snugly around him. They were like a very wet jigsaw puzzle, because they connected in all the right places.
Then she gripped his shoulders so that she could leverage herself up and down. The buoyancy of the water made her feel almost weightless, not that she weighed much to begin with. When she stepped on a scale he doubted if it even registered that she was there.
He couldn’t have taken control from her even if he’d wanted to, because it was taking all of his coordination and strength to refrain from climaxing prematurely. She kissed him, and then it was his turn to see how long he could hold his breath because he forgot that he was supposed to be swimming for two as he cupped her breasts reverently in his hands. He slid the tiny pink bikini triangles to the side so there was no pesky fabric to block his view.
He tugged eagerly on her nipples and then her hot core was gripping him so tightly that he actually thought it might bruise his shaft. To be clear, he was more than fine with that outcome, as he would proudly wear any mark their lovemaking left on him. Of course, it wouldn’t last for long given his expedited shifter healing powers. He began to paddle again, instinctively after a while because he didn’t have gills either.
She broke contact with his lips, gasping for air as the powerful bursts of her orgasm continued to rip through her. He followed right behind, not able to hold back any longer as he filled her with the sticky white jets of his own release. He’d never come so hard in his life, and for a while he feared he’d be left a hollowed out husk. But eventually he finished, and managed to regain a semblance of control over himself.
“Hold on tight,” he murmured, voice hoarse from all the noises his animal had been making. National geographic couldn’t begin to compete with him.
She continued to grip him tightly with her legs and arms as he began to awkwardly swim back to the edge of the lake. He ignored the dock ladder, and instead he slithered up the muddy embankment. His back was covered with algae and who knows what else, but he didn’t care about any of that because Grace was still on him, and more importantly, he was still inside of her.
His fingers trailed over her perfect form, gripping her perky behind, tracing the hollow in her back. He’d softened initially after their submersive achievements, but holding her like this he couldn’t help but get turned on all over again.
He would never tire of her. He would never be satiated, not so long as there was still breath in his body. He began to gently lift Grace up and down his shaft and she gaped at him incredulously when she realized that there was a new kind of wood in her forest.
“You couldn’t possibly . . .” she began to speak, but he was hitting her in just the right spot and all she could do was grip him tighter.
This time Henry wasn’t ruled by the same frantic urgency as before. He planned on taking it slow and easy. Of course, the embankment was making them both filthy so they’d have to go inside and shower eventually, which was fine so long as he was the one who got to scrub her clean.