water, he backed away. She shimmied up and lay with her head up and her lips parted.
As always, there was threat in showing her teeth. Before this, he had respected that.
Today?
With his foot, he casually flipped her onto her back and stood on the chain beside her neck, as if victorious. Triumphant. She let him think it was so because she found she liked playing the victim with him.
Besides, one day she might need his mistakes.
Wolfgang looked down her body and sighed.
“Such beauty should never be left in the sea.”
If that wasn’t so flattering, she might have scoffed.
Having kneeled beside her, he trailed his fingers softly down her face, beginning at her hairline, going over her eyes and making her close them, over her nose, her lips. When he reached her mouth and delved in there in spite of her teeth, she was already aroused and squirming. Something about the way his foot pinned her and his casual dominion over her body did things to her. Nice things.
She left her lips parted. Though his hand moved lower and he kept his foot on the chain, his focus was on her face.
He watched her, watching him.
Awareness heightened but she saw only him. As she struggled with arousal, her breathing hitched.
When he reached her lower stomach, he stilled his hand, his relaxed fingers pointing downward like arrows aimed at her sex.
“Not turned on enough, yet?” he murmured. It was true that she had not shifted. “I have a fix. Something I was going to use anyway.”
Wolfgang reached into a pocket in his pants, retrieved a small device then flicked at it with his thumb. It began to buzz.
“What is that—” she began as he pushed it onto her below, where everything was not yet human, where her female parts would appear after shifting. Her sex.
The buzz burrowed in, struck her an intimate and delicious blow, and made her arch into his hand.
Eyes locked on his, she stifled a moan. Her eyes rolled upward. Her hands clenched, her tail tensed, and—
Shift.
She came down to Earth, on her back, and breathing like a steam train. Above was sky. Blue sky.
Had she orgasmed?
In the middle of a shift? No. Couldn’t have.
Certainly, she was panting uncontrollably. A wash of pleasure had ripped through and left her mind a jumble.
He was chuckling. “That worked.”
“No. No,” she found herself saying.
“No?”
She shook her head, gulped. The word had appeared without her assembling it.
“Come. You can walk.”
He unfolded his legs and stood, pulled on the chain until she rolled over and found her feet, pushed herself upward to stand beside him, if a little wobbly.
“Ahhh, naked girl. Much better. I like having bits to play with.”
After a brief kiss and fondle, with his hand clenching onto her butt – the fingers slipping partway into the split between each cheek – he headed for the steps. The chain was in his hand, so she followed.
The existence of her bare feet took a little while to get used. Her middle throbbed but she followed, one hand feeling at the collar, wondering why it felt so curious to wear one. The other necklace was gone, but she supposed wearing both at once would be a problem.
Although every so often he glanced back as if to see if she was still there, she could tell he was simply observing her body.
Which was entirely fine. She wore no clothes, and he was male.
Now if he had been naked…
After he opened the glass door and they passed through, Wolfgang went deeper into the house with her in tow, moving away from the lounge room where they’d spent most of the previous day. Raffaela smiled.
She walked. Had feet. It was always a novelty, an adventure.
That she lived at all was something to celebrate. If not for Wolfgang’s aborted revenge she would have killed herself.
“The kitchen.” He gestured vaguely at the wall before them, which featured a long countertop with timber cupboards above and below, and a tall steel cupboard that hummed. There was a sink equipped with what she remembered were faucets. Those carried water. No pumping was needed. It simply poured out.
He turned to face her and leaned back against a cupboard, then tossed a towel to the floor before him.
“Kneel.”
Then he simply waited, and she had to decide whether to obey. Obeying appealed to her, so she slowly kneeled, adjusting position until her knees did not hurt.
This was strangely sexual.
His erection was clearly poking at his pants, and she ran her tongue across her lips,