The Shifter's Kiss

by Piñeiro, Caridad

  “Simple is always better.” He took a big bite, enjoying the sweetness of the onions and the crispness of the potatoes enveloped in the fluffy egg mixture. Cutting off a piece of the chorizo sausage also on the plate, he found its spiciness contrasted pleasantly with the smoothness of the omelet.

  Thick slices of rustic bread sat on a dish in the middle of the table and he grabbed a slice, buttered it and ate it, enjoying the yeastiness of the still-warm bread and the sweet cream of the butter.

  “Delicious. Did you make the bread?”

  Another shrug greeted him. “I had to do something while you were sleeping.”

  He chuckled at her seeming outrage. “Forgive me for being so weak. Not all of us are as strong as...” He paused then, reminded of the fact that she might be something other than mortal.

  “Just what are you? What is your father?”

  Another shift of her shoulders came, but she seemed slightly more uneasy. “We have been here far longer than when the Kunas came to these islands. Until then we were alone, surviving in the sea and coming to land for just brief moments.”

  “But when the Kuna arrived—”

  “They were kind but fearful. We were intrigued by their worship, and more and more of us came to shore. Some forgot the ways of our people. Others lost their lives as more men came to hunt us for sport.”

  “Your father is like you?” he asked, intrigued to know more.

  “My father was like me, but then he met my mother during a visit to shore.”

  And gave up what he was, Victor realized.

  “Do you think that is what love is about? Giving up what you are for someone else?”

  His question brought her up short, with her fork halfway to her mouth. After a pause, she set it down and nodded. “It’s what happened to my father and so many others.”

  “And you do not wish for it to be that way with you?”

  “No,” she answered abruptly and far too testily.

  Her hand rested on the table and he covered it, squeezing reassuringly. “Love is about sacrifice, but that doesn’t mean you need to stop being who you are. What you are.”

  She withdrew her hand, picked up the fork and finished eating silently. He did the same. He understood her a little better, but that did not make things any easier.

  When they were done, she cleaned up quickly while he sat at the table, reluctant to return to bed. But she had something different in mind. That was clear as she stalked over to the bed, yanked off her dress and lay down, as if waiting for him.

  His cock jerked and came to life at the sight of her, creamy copper skin dark against the sun-bleached whiteness of the sheets. But as he had told her earlier, he wanted more from her and no amount of anger on her part was going to change that.

  “Are you not coming to bed?” she finally asked while staring up at the thatched roof of the shack.

  “I’m not sleepy.” He had to fight back his chuckle at her moue of annoyance.

  “I’m not here to sleep. I want to make love,” she announced in regal tones.

  This time he could not contain his burst of amusement, which only earned him a nasty glare. “You may be waiting a long time.”

  With a huff, she said, “Then I’ll just satisfy myself.”

  He stifled a groan as she reached up and cradled her breasts, tweaking the tips into tight peaks. Her first sigh escaped her lips. She closed her eyes then and shifted one hand between her legs, parting them as she dipped her fingers to her center and pressed while continuing to play with her nipples.

  His balls tightened painfully and he couldn’t just sit there, despite his earlier declarations.

  Almost hobbling over from the pain of his erection, he sat beside her on the bed, his hip against hers.

  Her eyes flew open then, but before she could say a word, he said, “Let me help you.”

  He lay his hand on hers as it rested between her legs and found her clitoris in the damp nest of her curls. He pressed against it, dragging a sharp gasp from her.

  He smiled and bent, ignoring the pull in his side so he could wrap his lips around a tight nipple and suckle her while he worked her clit.

  She moaned then and grabbed hold of his hand, urging it downward to her vagina and the wetness of it. He eased his fingers into her while she returned to touching her clitoris. Her juices dripped over his hand and hers.

  He left her only long enough to stroke himself with her wetness and urge her hand to him.

  With a rough exhale against her breast as she encircled him, stroking, he returned to loving her, driving his fingers in her over and over. He bit and sucked on her sensitive nipples until she was writhing against the sheets and her hand was urgent on his erection, moving on him roughly as they both reached for release.

  But he was not a greedy man. As he had told her, it was not just about this and his own satisfaction.

  He left her then, slipping to the floor to kneel while urging her to the side of the bed. The movement and position exposed her to him, rewarding him with the view of her glistening and flushed sex. He parted her lips with his hands, revealing the hard and swollen nub of her clitoris, and she moaned and shifted restlessly beneath his hands.

  He didn’t hesitate, bringing his mouth to that nub while he eased his fingers inside her once more.

  Nali shook with his possession of her and nearly came against his lips and tongue, but it was too good to rush. Too pleasing as he used that gifted mouth on her and then reached up and played with one of her breasts while she caressed the other.

  She keened with pleasure like the animal she was inside. The animal that wanted to taste and bite him. That reached down with both hands and clawed at his shoulders to hold him close until her body could no longer contain the pleasure and it spilled over her, bringing a release that had her screaming his name and arching her hips against his mouth and hands.

  His caresses gentled as she came back to Earth, his hands soothing along her thighs. His kiss at her center was soft as he left her to rise, and her eyes shot open to watch him.

  He guided his cock to her vagina and slowly pushed forward, stilling when he was buried deep within her and the soft hairs on his pubis brushed the still sensitized nub between her legs.

  “Victor,” she pleaded, wrapping her legs around him, needing a moment to catch up from the earlier pleasure.

  He smiled, knowing her need. Bracing one hand beside her on the bed, he traced her lips with his index finger. She could smell herself on him, taste herself as she dipped her tongue out before he drew that hand down to the love bite on her neck that was still tender.

  As he skipped his finger along that spot, she moaned and her vagina contracted against him with need. Still he did not move, his restraint far stronger than hers.

  Her breath exploded from her body as he strummed her nipple with his fingers and then bent and tasted her again.

  “You are so sweet. So lovely,” he whispered and bent his head, bringing his lips close to hers.

  She wanted to taste him, but she feared that intimacy. Feared that if she had that taste, she would forever hunger for it. And so she avoided him again, escaping his kiss as she said, “Make me come. Make me shatter again.”

  He grunted his response and answered her request, shifting his hips back to withdraw the thick length of his dick before driving into her. His movements were hard and rough, almost angry as he sought her release and his.

  It came fast
and powerfully, dragging them both over while he continued pumping his hips into her, extending the pleasure of the moment until his arms trembled and sweat dripped off him and onto her. Until they both could barely breathe from the shock of the passion still gripping their bodies in its aftermath.

  Finally spent, he dropped down beside her, his body heavy and damp with sweat. The ends of his longish hair were wet with it as she wrapped her arms around him and soothed him. She kissed the side of his face and whispered, “Thank you.”

  Chapter 8

  Victor wanted more than her thanks, but he couldn’t say it, aware he would drive her away.

  He understood now why she feared the intimacy. Why she had likely kept herself innocent of the demands of human passion and pleasure.

  With passion such as this, it would be tough not to lose sight of who she was. Not to sacrifice herself the way her father had—giving up his life beneath the ocean for Nali’s mother, an act that had brought him great joy but also immense sadness.

  Victor had seen that melancholy in her father when he had first met him, and now he knew the reasons for it. Yet he had also seen the joy when Saila had spoken of both his wife and his daughter. He suspected the old man would not have given up that happiness for anything in the world.

  That was a lesson Nali would one day have to learn. He just hoped he would be the man she chose to teach her that joy.

  He lay down beside her and splayed his hand across her sculpted midsection, which shivered beneath his touch as she recovered from the aftermath of their loving. Along the smooth skin of her hip, his cock grew flaccid, but even with that, the temptation of her still-puckered breasts was too much for him to resist.

  He bent and kissed the tips, the touch of his lips reverent. His mind was absorbing every minute detail of her in case she might leave him only memories.

  Nali sighed with pleasure at the tender caress of his mouth against her breasts. The tips were overly sensitive and even his most gentle actions awoke need deep between her legs.

  She was sore there. She had never been sore before. Never allowed herself such multiple intimacies with any man or even any of her people on land or in their true form in the sea.

  As she shifted her legs, trying to assuage the want to have his touch again, he raised his head and met her gaze. He let the hand that had been on her abdomen drift down until his fingers just brushed the nest of curls in her center.

  Her breath soughed from her, faster and faster as he skimmed his fingers against her and she came from just that touch.

  She knew then that she could not stay the week. She could not stay another second.

  “I am lost in you,” she said as she bolted from the bed and raced out the door of the shack.

  Victor could not move as fast, hampered as he was by the wound in his side. But he chased after her as best he could, only to see her dive cleanly into the midnight blue of the ocean and disappear beneath the glass surface of the sea.

  He cursed beneath his breath. He hadn’t meant to drive her away, but he just couldn’t keep his hands off of her.

  He stood at the shore’s edge, searching for any sign of Nali.

  Only the silvery glitter of the moonlight greeted him, but he could not leave until he knew she was safely home.

  * * *

  Nali propelled herself through the water, her strong arms and legs pulling and kicking her forward and through the intricacies of the coral reef. It was harder to navigate at night in her human form, the darkness making it difficult to see beneath the surface. As she turned one corner, she nicked her arm on the coral and a ribbon of blood leaked from the scratch.

  It would attract the sharks, especially at night, leaving her no choice but to morph back into her true form. Back into the predator that she was—the hunter and not the prey.

  Pain radiated throughout her body as bone, muscle and skin transformed, legs joining together into the thick powerful tail of her shark form. Her face flattened into the broad snout and jaws as her shark spirit assumed control.

  As the faint trace of her human blood brought a few inquisitive sharks closer, her change completed and she emitted an immense underwater roar, chasing away most nearby marine life.

  But even in her natural state, a new sense of restlessness lay deep in her heart. One that she tried to drive away by racing through the sea, putting distance between herself and the shore, where she knew he waited.

  She had seen him there for only a moment, but it was long enough to see the determination on his face. To see the yearning in his eyes for something that could never be.

  Never ever, she said to herself as she reached the edge of the reef and the drop-off to open ocean—the route to safety.

  Few of the local fishermen ventured this far out in search of her, and luckily, outsiders were still few in this part of the world.

  For good measure, she dived down into the midnight inkiness, where even during daylight there was little light. In that murky darkness she swam, circling the ocean floor over and over. Hoping to drive away the sight of him, the feel and taste of his humanity, which had proved far more tempting than she had thought possible.

  She understood her father better now, although it didn’t make her situation any easier.

  Over and over, round and round she went, but as the hours passed, she realized just how futile an exercise swimming away might be. Even with that insight she had to try to forget him. Forget that which she could not forget.

  And so she swam, giving rein to the animal spirit within her. Protecting the unique gift the sea had given her people and which she could not reject for any reason.

  Not even for love.

  * * *

  After an hour of standing, searching the ocean for the familiar sight of her fin cutting a swath through the water, Victor had plopped down on the sand to wait for her.

  It wasn’t much later that her father joined him, settling himself on the sand, a bottle of his homemade liquor in one hand and two glasses in the other.

  Victor waved him off, recalling well the bite of the alcohol and the aftermath of its sting.

  With a shrug, Saila poured himself a glass and sat there, sipping it for long minutes until he finally said, “You may have a very long wait, mi’jo.”

  “I’m a patient man.”

  Saila chuckled. “The last time she ran off like this was when her mother died. I didn’t see Nali for nearly a year.”

  He jerked his head around to stare at the old man. “A year? Didn’t you worry something had happened?”

  Saila nodded and then took another sip. “Every day. Every day I rode out into the deep ocean, slid into her embrace and called out for my daughter, but she didn’t come.”

  Victor arched a brow. “You can call for her?”

  With a shrug, Saila explained. “It’s one of the few powers left from what I once was—a sonic cry if you wish.”

  Interesting, Victor thought. He had picked up a stray sound pattern or two from his monitoring stations and had thought they were from dolphins or a passing school of whales. Now he had another possibility.

  “Why do you think she would not return?”

  “Pain. Anger,” Saila answered quickly. “There was nothing we could do when her mother got sick. Illness and that kind of death are hard for Nali to understand.”

  “Your people do not get sick or die?”

  Saila shook his head. “Not like that. We are a strong race, so
strong that even our hybrid children possess the full powers of our people.”

  He eyed Nali’s father up and down. Roped muscles were evident on his wiry body and Victor had seen first-hand proof of his strength as he had worked beside the man on several occasions. But he was old. Human-old as far as he could tell.

  “So you will not die?” he asked, seeking clarification.

  “I will die just like any human. When I chose to stay on land, I gradually lost almost all the gifts of my people.”

  Nali would see that as both a betrayal and something to fear, for both her people and herself.

  “I do not wish to change Nali. I only want time to explore what I feel for her.”

  Saila finished his drink and poured himself another. “It always begins that way, but then the time together is too short. The absences are felt more strongly. Some cannot handle the separation and part ways. Others sacrifice themselves and lose who they are. What they are.”

  Nali’s parting words came back to him, jabbing at his heart as painfully as the spear that had pierced his side.

  I am lost in you.

  He didn’t want her to be anything other than what she was, but the heartache he sensed in Saila was too keen not to ignore. The old man had lost both daughter and wife because of his decision.

  A difficult and almost impossible choice. One that Nali obviously did not wish to consider.

  “I think I’ll take that drink now,” he said, and the old man poured him a full glass.

  He grimaced at the first bite of the alcohol, which deadened his taste buds and warmed him from his gullet to his stomach. With each sip the world became a little fuzzier and the ache in his heart dimmed. But only a little.

  He was only about a quarter of the way done with the glass when he decided he’d had enough. He had never liked being drunk and it wouldn’t solve anything. Plus he wanted to go into the water tomorrow in search of Nali. A wetsuit would protect his side and, although he couldn’t manage the air tanks thanks to the injury, he could snorkel.