The Shifter's Kiss Read online

  Pushing off from the wet sand, he stumbled on his feet, head dizzy from a combination of alcohol and fatigue.

  Saila was immediately at his side, shaking his head and tsking. “Shame when a grown man can’t handle his liquor,” he teased.

  “If you can call that rot gut liquor,” Victor said as they walked together to the steps of Nali’s shack. He paused at the base of the stoop, looking back out to sea. The surface was smooth as glass with not a break to be seen in the moonlight.

  Saila tracked his gaze and then sighed. He understood what it was to wait for her and be disappointed.

  “Rest, mi’jo. You’ll need strength to be patient.”

  Victor nodded and hurried to bed. The sheets were in disarray from their lovemaking, and it took all his resolve to straighten them and climb back in.

  They smelled like her, clean and sharp like a brisk ocean wind. The alcohol had loosened some of his control and he grew hard at her lingering fragrance and the memories of her. At the image of her playful grin and her tears.

  He hated that he had brought her those tears.

  Forcing Nali from his mind, he urged himself to rest. He needed to finish healing so he could go in search of her. So he could show her he was not a threat to what she was and what she wanted in her life.

  Sleep claimed him with each breath until he was snoring softly and deep in dreams.

  * * *

  That sound sleep kept him from hearing her soft footfall at the threshold of the shack.

  Nali braced her hand on the jamb and stared at his back. His muscles were relaxed, the skin tanned by the potent Caribbean sun. That golden expanse of skin was marred by the glaring white of the bandages around his midsection and the scars along his upper body.

  The scars of a hero.

  And like the hero he was, he had both saved her and doomed her.

  No matter how hard she’d tried, she had not been able to stay away, even for a night. She itched to walk over and lay with him. Make love to him again.

  But if she did, would it only entrap her more? Set the hook like a fish caught on a line? Or could she break free of the net in which he’d snared her?

  With a hesitant step across the threshold, she walked toward him until she was at the bed. He was sprawled across it now, his big bulk taking up most of the space. She hadn’t realized how immense he was and how much room he took, maybe because they’d been plastered together the entire time.

  She eased beneath the sheets and, with a shove, woke him.

  He jumped at the action, rolling to face her. Surprise gave way to joy on his face. “You came back.”

  “It’s my house, remember?” she joked, unable to give the true reason for her return.

  He grinned and nodded. “It is. Thanks for sharing.”

  As much as she wanted to make love to him again, she needed rest also. The jumble of emotions and the energy needed for her to shapeshift had drained her.

  He seemed to sense that as he hauled her near and whispered, “Let’s get some rest.”

  With her head pillowed on his chest, she listened to the steady lub-dub of his heart and the sound of his breathing. Both had a peaceful rhythm now, unlike the frantic hammering and roughness after they’d made love. She matched her breath to his, allowing that calm cadence to lull her to sleep.

  In the morning they would talk. And make love, she thought with a smile. That was the one thing of which she was sure.

  In the morning they would make love.

  Chapter 9

  He smiled as the weight of her on his chest registered and her pleasant heat bathed his body.

  He cracked one eye open and peered down, almost afraid that if he woke, she’d vanish before his eyes.

  But she didn’t. Instead she burrowed tighter and tossed her thigh over his, pinning him to the mattress, murmuring a protest when he dragged in a deep breath and stretched out a morning kink.

  “Good morning,” he said, skimming his fingers up and down her back.

  She inched open an eye and stared up at him. “Hmm. Is it good?”

  Because he was already hardening beneath the smooth heat of her thigh, it possibly was, but this morning he needed more than just her body.

  “That all depends,” he said and shifted from beneath her to lie on his side and gaze at her.

  Nali seemed to understand what he wanted. She likewise shifted to her side and faced him, lay her hand on his chest and tenderly stroked back and forth across the thick muscle there before settling her hand over his heart.

  “You’re asking me for more than I can give.”

  Victor smiled sadly and hooked his arm around her waist, fearing she would bolt again as she had last night.

  “Is it so hard to consider loving me, Nali?”

  An indignant laugh escaped her. “Love. My parents had that, and what did it get them? Death? Loneliness?”

  “But you’re alone now, aren’t you? You’ve been alone for a long time, whereas they had years and years of happiness.”

  A rejoinder was impossible because in her heart Nali knew the truth of his words. But she wanted him to understand where she stood.

  “I will not leave the ocean to live on land.”

  “I would never ask that of you. The ocean is the one place where I also feel free.”

  Nali narrowed her gaze. “Why? Why do you feel so trapped on land?”

  He shrugged. “After the accident, the pain from the burns and broken bones was unbearable at times. Once I healed enough, the water was the one place where that pain would go away.”

  Nali moved her hand upward to trace the edge between smooth and scarred flesh. “Your life before was ruled by fire just as mine has always been controlled by water.”

  He shook his head. “Just elements, like air and earth. They might bind us physically, but what we feel in here,” he said and tapped his chest, “is what truly sets us free.”

  Not understanding, she glanced up at him and begged him with her gaze to explain.

  “It wasn’t just that the weight on my physical body was gone in the water. It was the weight on my spirit. I finally recognized that being a firefighter wasn’t really my dream, but my father’s. That’s when I decided to change my life and do what I always wanted to do.”

  Nali had never wanted anything other than the basics. That simplicity of life had been the way of her people forever. But some had grown to want more. Her father had wanted more, and up until Victor, she had not understood that want.

  Now she did.

  “I want you, but I also want my life in the sea.”

  “You can have both. I promise that.”

  “I want to seal that promise,” she said and before he could respond, she surged up and covered his mouth with hers. She sealed the promise with a kiss from the heart he had awakened with his love.

  Victor accepted her gift, letting her set the pace as she explored his mouth, her lips skimming lightly before she deepened the kiss, opening her mouth on his, accepting the slide of his tongue to taste her and dance in celebration.

  Over and over they kissed, sharing breath and life through that simple connection until they were both breathing roughly and needing more.

  He grazed the tips of her breasts with the back of his hand and they puckered instantly beneath his touch. Smiling against her lips, he said, “I love how sensitive your tits are. How they get tight for me.”

  She chuckled and unerringly fou
nd him with her hand, stroked him and said, “Your cock is just as responsive.”

  When she ran a finger along the sensitive head of him, he jumped from the overwhelming sensation. He sucked in a breath and held it, reining in his need.

  They had satisfied passion well in their short time together. This time he wanted it to be about more. He wanted it to be about the promise they had made to each other.

  “Do you trust me, Nali?”

  Wide-eyed, she nodded and he urged her to her back but gently eased her thigh over his hip, his front to her side. The position let him bend to kiss her mouth and her deliciously hard nipples. But it also let him slowly slide into her vagina from behind while dipping his hand down to part her center and find the nub buried there.

  She gasped against his mouth at his possession, but he whispered, “I want to take it slow this time.”

  Nali heard his words through the haze of desire gripping her body. Her head rested on his arm and as he leaned over her to suckle her breasts, he rubbed her clit while filling her with his thick length. There wasn’t an ion of her that wasn’t aware of him and his possession.

  Every part of her ached for the sensations he was creating to never end.

  When he bit down gently on one hard nub, she called out his name and fisted her hand in his hair, dragged him forward so she could sample his mouth again, nip at his full lower lip and savor the spill of his warm breath.

  “Nali, you are so lovely.”

  She yanked on his hair again, pulling him away so she could see his face and gauge the truth of it because she wasn’t used to such man-woman things. All she saw was love and honesty.

  Skimming her hand down his arm, she twined her fingers with his and said, “You’re beautiful, too, Victor.”

  He smiled and it reached up into those sea-blue eyes that glittered as if kissed by the midday sun. “I’m glad I please you.”

  She dipped her gaze to where they were joined and playfully drew their hands there, a lighthearted laugh escaping her as she teased, “Then please me some more.”

  His broad, unrepentant grin filled her with warmth as he bent and whispered against her lips, “That will be my pleasure and yours.”

  With a sure hand and his gifted mouth, he proceeded to show her, bringing her to the peak and then dragging her over with the first powerful thrust of his hips. Her body trembled around him as her climax nearly swamped her, but then he kept up his kisses and caresses and started a steady, determined stroke of his hips that had her clinging to him. Her back arched away from him as her release became a long, never-ending stream of pleasure so intense that for a moment her eyesight wavered.

  “Easy, love. Easy,” he urged as she held onto him, her nails digging into his flesh as her world reeled.

  Victor gritted his teeth at the force of her climax, which threatened to pull him under like a riptide. Her vagina caressed and held him, the friction of it almost unbearable at the shift of his hips at her center, at the musky smell of her rising up and the delicious salty-sweetness of her nipples beneath his lips.

  At the bite of her sharp nails into his skin, he grunted as that pain melded with the pleasure, reminding him that would be his life with her. Pain at her absence and this rapturous love with her presence.

  He could deal with it, he thought and, nearly light-headed from desire, he stroked harder into her, faster, until she bucked off the bed with a long powerful release that he could no longer battle.

  With a harsh grunt, he came, spilling his seed into her. Savoring the way her muscles milked him and she rose up to kiss him again, the whisper of her lips a benediction.

  Gently he lowered himself to her side and wrapped his arm around her waist. She shimmied near and lay a hand on his thigh possessively. Neither one of them was going anywhere, he thought as long minutes passed and their tender, soothing caresses restored some semblance of sanity and calm.

  “Will it always be like this?” she asked, that touch of innocence he had sensed earlier back in her voice.

  “I hope so,” he answered honestly.

  That earned a small smile from her as she closed her eyes and said, “I’m tired. I’d like to sleep now.”

  She didn’t wait for him to do just that, dropping off almost immediately.

  She was funny that way, so basic in her needs. Maybe because her life until now had been that straightforward. Food and rest. Night and day. Uncomplicated and simple.

  Until he had interceded in her life and changed everything.

  He grinned at that, not in the least bit upset with how he had shaken up her existence because she had done the same to his.

  Lying there, he let his mind wander to what their life together might be like. He considered what they would do next.

  Besides eat, he thought as his stomach rumbled noisily.

  Not wanting to wake her, he slipped from the bed and over to the long counter along the far wall of the shack. He busied himself with cutting up ripe fruit he had picked from the nearby trees and plants. Luscious mangos and papayas. Ripe bananas. Then he scrounged around in the icebox, which still had a small chunk of ice in it. He pulled out a hunk of a native white cheese and sliced it up for some protein. Maybe later he could visit Saila or the nearby village for something more substantial, he thought as he finished prepping the meal.

  Nali woke to the sound of his moving about. As she opened her eyes, she noticed him standing naked by the counter, working on something.

  He had a beautiful ass. She had noticed that about him one time when he had skinny-dipped while out by the reef. As he turned with the tray in hand, she appreciated the other side of him and the cock that hung down his thigh.

  “Like what you see?” he teased and sauntered over, a brash swagger to his gait.

  Chapter 10

  Nali refused to let him get a swelled head. “The food looks great.”

  He chuckled, but instead of returning to the bed, he set the tray down on the hand-hewn table off to one side of the room. It sat beneath an open window, which faced the ocean, and he took a seat and gave her a come-over jerk of his head.

  She supposed they couldn’t spend all their time in bed, as pleasant as it might be. Rising, she grabbed hold of her dress from the chair where he must have neatly folded and placed it. She eased it on, hiding herself from him.

  At the table, she took the spot adjacent to him. The table was so narrow their knees bumped beneath its surface.

  Snagging a piece of mango, she was about to feed him but then remembered what that had led to last time. Popping the fruit into her mouth, she chewed on it thoughtfully before trailing her fingers along the bandage at his side.

  “How is it feeling?”

  He shrugged. “I barely notice it.”

  “I’ll have a look at it and change your dressings after we eat.”

  “Thanks,” he said and then fell silent while he ate the fruit and cheese.

  Nali was not so inclined. “You said your father was a firefighter.”

  “My dad and his dad and every Edwards going back to the first one who set foot in New York. What about your family?”

  “My father is—was—like me. My mother was Kuna. Her family came here when the Kuna fled the Spanish in Panama.”

  Victor treaded carefully because he knew of Nali’s conflict with her parents and their relationship. “Your mother must have been very special.”

  A broad smile erupted across Nali’s lips and
remembered joy lit up the dark grey of her eyes. “She was. She was a wonderful cook and so funny. She could always make me laugh.”

  “So the way to your heart is with food and jokes?” he teased, trying to keep the conversation from getting too serious.

  “Definitely food, as long as you don’t feed me fish. I am so tired of eating fish,” she said with a laugh and a shake of her head.

  Victor joined in her laughter but murmured, “Damn, there go the dinner plans.”

  “Baba—”

  “Baba?” he asked.

  “My father. He usually goes to town for meat when I come to shore.”

  Victor nodded. “I’ll go see him when we finish.”

  “No, I’ll go. I need to spend some time with him, but first, let me check your side.”

  Without waiting for his reply, she popped out of her chair and back to the cupboards above the counter where she had stored the medical supplies. She removed them and then walked back.

  He eased the chair away from the table and waited for her, moved by the sight of her, by the ease with which she moved, as comfortable on land now as in the sea.

  It was impossible to fight his arousal nor did he wish to. She had told him it was as natural as breath and maybe it was, at least with her.

  She said nothing about his state as she kneeled beside him to examine his side. With calm efficiency she removed the wrappings and gauze and examined the wounds.

  “They are closed. It won’t be long until they are completely healed.”

  She popped up again and returned to the counter to fill the basin with water and grab a clean towel. Once she was kneeling beside him again, she tenderly washed away the healing paste and he noticed the stellar-shaped wound where new skin was already knitting closed.

  “Chicks dig scars,” he said, recalling what one of his firefighter buddies had told him as he lay all bandaged up in the hospital.