my hands in his hair as his mouth caressed my breasts and his tongue flicked over the tips. He sucked, pulling my nipples erect between his teeth, making me moan and writhe. He moved his mouth along my stomach, kissing and sucking every inch. Electricity shot through my lower body as he continued moving down, his hands on my breasts, sliding along my sides and then underneath me, raising my pelvis. His tongue danced expertly against me, doing things that should be illegal, making me cry out. His mouth took me over that elusive edge and into oblivion.
When the convulsions subsided, I pulled him up, then took him into my hand, stroking him as I guided him into me. He shuddered before he even entered. He looked down at me, his eyes sparkling, as he slid inside. I ran my hands over his chiseled chest and hard abs, around to the perfection in back, and then thrust my hips against him, pulling him into me at the same time. We both moaned and moved with urgency. It’d been way too long. We built up quickly and soared away together. There was no time for messing around, playing games with our powers, destroying whatever lay in our path. This time was relatively normal—except for a few bruises, of course.
But they were nothing compared to—
“Holy crap!” I stared at the water’s smooth surface, perfectly reflecting my battered face as I leaned over the edge of the bank. I looked like a damn raccoon, one large bruise creating a mask around my eyes and across my nose and upper cheeks. “How could you want to make love to this?”
“I won’t acknowledge that idiotic question,” Tristan said, considering me. “But I have a one: Did it work? Your shield?”
I had to think about it. “I don’t know. I don’t think so, but without anyone else around, I can’t tell.”
“Hmm.” He shrugged it off. “Let’s clean off, and we’ll get moving again.”
He led me into the water, and although the ripples distorted the reflection, it was still hard to see what hid underneath. I felt around with my feet, and finding nothing, I dipped down and immersed my shoulders. The water was cool and refreshing, especially since I hadn’t had a chance to shower this morning, thanks to Vanessa and Victor. Tristan was already out, buckling his pants, and I was splashing water against my face when I sensed the mind signature and saw the movement under the water at the same time. I hadn’t been paying enough attention.
The eyes broke the surface first, and then the long, broad snout. As its head emerged, its mouth opened widely, exposing rows of teeth several inches long.
“Waaaaah!” I screamed, punched its nose as hard as I could, and literally flew out of the water, clearing twenty-five feet over the bank before I landed behind Tristan. My fingernails dug into his arm as I peeked around him. The oversized, white crocodile sauntered out of the water, snapping its jaw. My superhuman strength didn’t slow it. “What the hell! What do we do?”
“Shh . . . it’s okay. Can’t you tell?”
Of course it was okay to him. He’d been fighting sharks and probably crocodiles and various other monsters for centuries.
“Yeah! It’s a freakin’ shifter! Do something already.”
Tristan lifted his hand, but instead of attacking, the crocodile began transforming.
Chapter 12
“Please don’t,” the half-man/half-croc begged, the words distorted as he finished morphing. “It’s me—Jax.”
Amadis! That’s what Tristan meant: he was asking if I could tell the were-croc was one of us.
Jax and I both stood there naked, Tristan between us. Jax’s arms hung at his sides, completely relaxed, not at all embarrassed that I could see every bit of him. And there was a lot to see. Although quite a bit shorter than Tristan, he was otherwise large—everywhere—too over-muscled for my liking, but it was probably natural, his being part-crocodile and all. Scars ripped across his darkly tanned skin in several places, including his bald scalp. With my keen eyesight, I couldn’t see a strand of hair anywhere—not even eyelashes or . . . never mind.
“G’day,” he greeted, a toothy grin crinkling a scar that cut from above his brow, down his eyelid, and to his cheekbone, though his brown eye looked undamaged. He saw me peeking at him from behind Tristan and winked at me.
Tristan’s chest rumbled. He held his hand out to his side, and his shirt flew up from the ground. He pushed it back at me. It