Fathom (Mermaids of Montana #3) - Elsa Jade Page 0,15
the way he’d been bred or engineered was almost as perverse to his fellow Tritonans as her own status as a fire-witch. She certainly hadn’t meant to hurt him.
Feeling her way carefully she said, “It’s not you, but your clothes. Or lack thereof. I know Tritonans leave more of their bodies exposed so that you can feel through your extra senses, but here on Earth we cover up more. Especially when it’s cold.”
The tense set of his shoulders eased. “I only have my battle skin. Since it is self-cleaning and self-repairing, I don’t need anything else.”
She pursed her lips. “Well, you need something.”
He tilted his head. “Isn’t it enough that I’m armored?”
“No,” she said curtly. He might be huge, thick-skinned, and steel-eyed, but for all the strangeness, he was still built more or less like a man. When she’d read the handbooks from the defunct local Intergalactic Dating Agency, she learned how the general humanoid shape was fairly common in the galaxy, and the IDA made a point to match compatible shapes among their interested clientele. Any oblivious Earther who saw Sting might think he was just doing some elaborate cosplay of an obscure anime character, but they’d still find it inappropriate for the streets of Montana.
Also, she couldn’t be in a small car with him with all his muscles just…bulging and whatnot. Maybe his body was resistant to electricity, but the heat he gave off seemed to amplify the energy that powered her zaps. And that wasn’t good for either of them.
Also also, ever since a particularly ferocious zap had melted her vibrator in the midst of a happy ending, she’d been afraid to pleasure herself, even with her own hands. Sting might not be a man, but his battle skin barely contained the blatant bulk of a very sturdy sex organ, and knowing it was armored too and maybe less vulnerable to her zaps had definitely featured in her dreams last night…
Realizing she’d drifted again, she cleared her throat. She dug through her messenger bag and held out some extra clothing. “Here. Put these on. They won’t be perfect, but at least you won’t be half naked.”
“More like five-sevenths,” he said.
“What?” She shook the fabric at him.
He accepted them with no change in his expression. “Most of my skin is exposed. And I like it that way.” When she took a breath, he shook his head. “But if you want me like this for now, so be it.”
She bit her lip again. It wasn’t that she wanted him…
When he pulled her white poet blouse over his head, the soft, flowing folds of the voluminous shirt became the snuggest, most provocative clubwear ever. The gold cord threaded through the eyelets of the V neck unraveled helplessly under his fingers, leaving a wide gap down his chest. The exposed skin glimmered with a faint sheen, as if he were freshly waxed all over.
Her fingers twitched, not with a threatening zap but with the urge to touch. He kept saying he was armored, but for the brief moment he’d placed her hand on his chest to feel the call to the seahorses, he hadn’t been hard, exactly. More like super-dense memory foam that resisted pressure but tempted her to keep pushing, like the finest mattress that could take all her weight, simultaneously holding her up and conforming to her shape…
Oops, drifting again.
When he pulled on her loosest leggings, they were little more than skin-tight capris on him, like the knee breeches on an old-school historical romance cover.
This was not going how she’d intended. Now he wasn’t cosplaying some obscure anime alien; he was the all-male review version of a rakish highwaymen.
Under her own caftan skirt, she clenched her knees together. At this point, she’d built up such a yearning energy, she’d likely incinerate him if she opened her legs.
Which was not going to happen. She was going to show him the ship and then kick him off her world.
“Do I look Earther?”
Not in the slightest. Impressive that she’d actually made things worse. But even before her zaps, making things worse had always been her superpower.
“We just need to get to the crash site,” she reminded herself through clenched teeth.
He nodded. “Can you breathe underwater like the other two females now, or will you need an external gill when we swim?”
“We’re going to take the car,” she said firmly. No way was she holding onto him while he dragged her underwater through the interconnected aquifer tunnels below Sunset Falls.