MakeMeWet

by Nara Malone

  “Oh yes.” He rocked back, tumbling them both into the pillows and quilts, turning so they were on their sides facing each other. “You do.”

  “I really should check on the filly.”

  “She’s right there in the snug nest where her mother birthed her. She’s good on her own for a few hours yet. I do know a fair bit about horses. It’s best to keep contact to a minimum until you know for sure she’s abandoned.”

  He bumped his nose against Maille’s. “It’s time to stop running, love.”

  He made a show of it, enjoying the power of bringing down Maille’s walls. They trembled when he pushed his robe aside, so she could watch him cup his balls in one hand. Propped on one elbow, his back arched and torso angled just so, the robe falling away, he was an invitation. Her eyes went wider, took the journey from his hand to his cock. Her breath caught.

  He watched her watch. Her tongue caught between her teeth. He moved, his palm gliding up the length of his shaft. Slow motion. Her tongue did a quick little glide between slightly parted lips.

  He paused to kiss her, tasting longing and lust, an electric tingle running over his tongue.

  When he pulled back, she ran one trembling finger over his lips. Staring, as if she were seeing them for the first time. Then her gaze dropped, drawn back to the motion of his hand. She reached, and then stopped just short of touching him, looking up at him.

  He rolled to his back. Undid the belt of his robe with his free hand. Sat up and shrugged out of the robe to give her a full view.

  “Go ahead,” he said softly. “Touch me.”

  She did. The tip of her finger caught a drop of pre-cum leaking from his cock. Her eyes locked with his when she tasted. Pleasure bulleted through him. He nearly bit off his tongue, fighting for control as longing spiraled up from his belly and lodged in his heart.

  These last minutes couldn’t be rushed. Ronin needed to slow Maille down, make this a memory he could savor. Mere said she’d take the memory, but Ronin didn’t believe she could. Her expression, the teasing gleam in her eye as she licked her finger, nothing could take that moment from him. He liked to think, that on some level, Maille could hold on to the magick of their last minutes together.

  Yes, she was enchanted and memory of him would be gone, dissolve like a dream when the enchantment lifted. They were making more than memories here. They were bound by more than magick. Across oceans, across time, he believed part of him would always be a part of her. He wanted to make it something strong and beautiful.

  “Maille mine. Don’t be one way now. Will you leave me getting love drunk alone?”

  She shrugged out of her robe. But hesitated once she was naked.

  “Touch yourself for me, love. It makes me hot to watch, same as it does you.”

  With legs wide, her fingers slipped inside her pussy. His balls tightened at the thought of her silky heat. Her eyes locked with his again, a stare so heated he thought his bones were melting.

  She knew what she was about too.

  A sweet little moan made him wince. She drew her fingers out slowly, so he could see the sticky threads of her desire.

  A shy whisper, “You make me so wet, Ronin.”

  He caught her hand, brought it to his lips. Sucked her fragrant nectar.

  It burned. It burned. So hot. Hot enough to melt an iron will. Goddess knows his will was made of flimsier stuff.

  He pressed her hand back between her legs.

  “Good girl,” he whispered against her ear.

  Her teeth had that bottom lip clamped tight. Her gaze went back to his cock. He tightened his grip, pumping firm and fast.

  She whimpered.

  “That’s it, Maille, love. I’ve got you. Come for me.”

  The liquid sounds of her fingers in her pussy. The scent of her. He would lose his mind.

  Nectar glistened on rosy petals. His tongue twitched, eager to lap it up.

  He couldn’t. If he didn’t send her over the edge first, make her believe her fears were groundless, he would fail her. That her fears weren’t groundless wasn’t something he could change. The danger was his worry, not hers.

  When she was within a breath of climax he reached out, pulled her in close to his chest, the words wrenched from him, “Come for me now, love. Come, my beautiful Maille.”

  “Ronin-n-n-n.” His name broke from her in a long shudder and ended on a hiss when she pressed her face into his shoulder.

  “There’s my girl,” he said, stroking her hair with shaking hands. “There’s my beautiful girl.”

  “I want you,” she whimpered, both arms going around his neck. “I want you inside me.”

  He rolled her under him.

  Pleasure arrowed through her when Ronin’s cock parted her pussy lips. Maille was wetter than she’d ever been. It wasn’t the first time they’d made love tonight. But she was so tight, tremors of the orgasm still rippling through her, he had to ease his way inside.

  He kissed her. Little kisses all over her face and shoulders and breasts. “Maille mine, I want to give you time. Give you so much.” He captured her face between his hands. Kissed her lips. “Time’s running out.”

  Her body relaxed enough to let him the rest of the way in.

  He groaned as he sank deeper. “So hot, baby. So fucking hot.” He drew back and slammed in, sending a white-hot, hurt-so-good wave of pleasure ripping through her.

  She melted. Changed state from solid to liquid, wrapping around Ronin like a wave around a rock.

  More. She needed more. Needed to level up to steam.

  Ronin held himself on his elbows, trembling above her.

  “Ronin?”

  “I don’t want to hurt you.” Strain roughened his voice.

  “If that was hurting, hurt me more. Just like that.”

  He did, over and over until she was howling louder than the wolves. Then he stopped. Too soon.

  “Ronin?”

  He glanced out to the sea, as if he were expecting something.

  “Ronin, you can’t stop,” she pleaded. “Not this time.”

  As he pulled back, his smile was part grimace. “As my lady wishes, then. Hurry, sweet. Turn over for me. Hands and knees. Yes, just like that.” He entered her from behind and his skillful fingers found her clit.

  She was shaking so hard she couldn’t hold herself up on her hands. Because she was liquid, flowing. Dripping between her legs. Rivulets running down her thighs.

  With her shoulders to the sandy blanket, she moaned. Ronin gathered her, them like the moon pulling in the tide. With each thrust he hammered at the shores of reality. Scattered facts like shells at her perimeter.

  It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but the heat, the fire he stirred with fingers and cock. Hellfire. Heavenly fire. It didn’t matter. Wet as she was she could survive either. Use. Own it.

  Pleasure boiled between her legs. In that tight, pulsing button under his fingers. In the quivering tunnel that sheathed his cock. They were so close.

  He stopped again. Pressed his face into her hair.

  She wriggled her hips restlessly.

  “I know. I will. I just want you to know—” He shook his head, buried his face in the curve of her neck.

  “Come with me this time, love. Let’s do this together.”

  She would. She had to. Good or bad, whatever happened next, she wanted that moment when they dissolved together. Another thrust, another, lick, flick. Then…

  The horizon was going light as he fucked her, and it seemed it went a lighter shade of gray with each thrust. Ronan drilled deep and held tight. His cock jerked inside her. Her back arched.

  She pushed up on her hands, head tipped back, body racked with shudders. Even as they came together, Ronin went liquid. Their bodies fused and a deeper instinct drove Maille to open her eyes.

  She opened them into the black mirror of the sea. A silver bolt hit them. Took them down like Taos lightning, cast them up in a glittering shower.

  The landscape shattered li
ke a picture made of glass.

  Ronin was shouting something she couldn’t make out. He seemed so far away. Too far to hear. How could he shout without a mouth? How could she hear without ears? They were nothing. Pleasure had vaporized them.

  Chapter Six

  Maille woke to the tickle of heated breath against her ear, a soft nip of teeth. When she reached to push the intrusion away, her hand connected with the velvet-soft muzzle of a horse.

  A tiny filly was curled next to her, tucked snug in a quilt. Asleep. Breath ran hot along the back of her neck. She sat, her own head colliding with a bigger head. Earning her a butt in the chest from a stallion.

  He gave her another bump. An aura of urgency rippled through the air.

  Maille scrambled from her nest of quilts. A fire flickered beside a tide pool. Her foggy brain shuffled the clues in her surroundings to make meaning. Where was she? Why? How had she gotten here?

  Sets of footprints, hers and some man-sized, led to a break in the dunes and back. She tried to follow them, but the stallion cut her off, nudged her back.

  She knelt, pressed her palm into the imprint of the man’s footprint. Who had been here? Something important was missing. Then she saw, a patch near the fire, sand smoothed flat and a message scratched there.

  I love you, Maille mine. Forever. Into eternity, I will love only you.

  Her throat tightened and tears burned at the backs of her eyes. Grief gave the air a glassy shimmer. But she didn’t know who would leave her a message. Who loved her?

  Confused, she looked back to the stallion. He pawed the ground. Male footprints led from their nest of blankets back to the ocean.

  She hesitated, struggled to push the facts together into some order that made sense from chaos. But her brain was cotton dry. A dry ache between her legs suggested a night of hard use.

  “I don’t understand.” The words came out in an old creaky voice, parched, as if she had panted a long time.

  She turned to follow the prints and stumbled. Her legs were stiff, weighted, as if the sinews and ligaments had been left out to bake in the sun, but the sun was only an orange slice on the horizon.

  She crept forward, a painful hobble. What had she been up to? Who had she been up to it with?

  The stallion pranced ahead, lowered himself to the sand, stretched his neck, caught a lock of Maille’s wind-tossed hair and tugged. Grateful, she accepted the ride, clambering onto his back, clinging tight to the mane as he bolted. Hooves pounded sand. Then surf.

  He took her straight into the waves.

  Then under them.

  Once she was in the water with cold spray hitting her face, life seemed to flow back to her, plumping cells, lubricating thoughts. In the ocean she came alive. She was home. It didn’t matter that a deep-sea-diving stallion made no sense. This was where she belonged when life stopped making sense. She had a creeping feeling inching up her spine, a prickly warning that she wouldn’t like what the facts revealed when she solved the puzzle.

  When the stallion resurfaced, she spotted a small dark object moving steadily toward the rocky island off shore. A head. A man swimming?

  She had to get there ahead of him. Certainty burned in the pit of her stomach. She didn’t know why. But it felt crucial. Crucial in a Shrödinger’s cat kind of way.

  She leaned in, shouting to the stallion, “Faster.”

  Reading his response as if she were one with him, she gulped air as his muscles bunched to take them under again.

  He gave her all she asked for. Fighting against the pounding surf and battering wind. They were ahead when he resurfaced again. But not by much. Almost to shore. The stallion’s strength seemed to be fading.

  The stallion seemed to be fading. Going to mist under her. And he was gone.

  Choppy water slapped Maille’s face. Treading water, turning in circles. The burning kicked up to all-consuming blaze. She couldn’t stop to think. Answers. All the answers she needed were tied to something on that island.

  It defied all reason. It defied everything she’d grounded her new life in, but there was a bridge on that island, hers for the taking if she found it in time. A bridge between the desert life she’d been living and the wild, wet vibrancy she required to survive.

  She dove down. No sign of the horse. The yawning black of an underwater cave drew her like a magnet. Dimly a memory of swimming here, with seals, surfaced. At the other end, a cave opened into the bottom of a pool at the center of a pile of rocks locals called Selkie Island because the seals loved to sunbathe there.

  She swam into the tunnel, feeling her way along the walls when they closed around her. It was smaller than she remembered. She couldn’t waste energy on worry. She had to push forward. Propelling herself with mermaid-like thrusts of her legs, and her hands using the walls as leverage to push her forward.

  Maille felt every year she had been away from the water as the tunnel seemed to grow longer ahead of her. Her endurance, the quick confidence of a child who had spent more time in the ocean than out was gone. She didn’t just doubt she could make it. She knew in her bones it was impossible. Knew too she was too far in to turn back.

  Pressure grew in her chest, beat in her ears. Darkness wrapped around her and the thought she truly was dying now screeched at the back of her brain. If death came, when it came, better here in the velvet arms of the ocean than in the dry sands of New Mexico.

  Then she saw a circle of light undulating above. All she had to do was swim to the light.

  * * * * *

  He was a prisoner. The first watery prison had been fabricated by the Goddess, penance for sins that deserved no forgiveness. This new prison was built on the one sacrifice he’d ever made for a woman. This new prison was worse. Freedom hadn’t mattered when he hadn’t loved anyone—not even himself—enough to long for something more.

  Mere must be laughing herself silly. He’d missed his freedom by mere seconds.

  Stranded on the sea with nowhere to go but endless nowhere once he’d collected his pelt. Even the knowledge that seven years from now he’d have a new call and a new lover to ease his suffering didn’t make the nothingness bearable. For the first time since he had discovered the wonder of a woman he didn’t want another.

  He held on to the one lifeline that loving Maille had thrown him. She’d been lost in a similar hell. He’d freed her. She wouldn’t remember him, but she wouldn’t be alone either. She was for Trey now. As much as it burned, Ronin knew Trey would treasure her. Hell, it didn’t take much to be a better man than he.

  A wave tossed him high and slammed him onto an outcropping covered in enough sand to prevent cracked ribs, but not to prevent the wind from being knocked out of him. Or the orb of the rising sun from disintegrating briefly into a whirl of sparks.

  He curled onto his side, welcoming pain. Any sensation trumped the numbness threatening to snuff out the flicker of soul Maille had managed to light in him.

  He crawled to the cairn he’d used to mark where he’d stuffed his pelt, reached into a slimy pile of kelp. Nothing.

  Startled, he sat back, surveyed the ledge. Yes, this was it—the only ledge on the east side big and low enough for him to crawl upon. That was his cairn, seven rocks high. He dug through the kelp again with both hands.

  No pelt.

  * * * * *

  She’d done it. Staring up into that golden pool of light, dawn shimmering on the surface of the pool, something had snapped, propelled her to the surface with the power of rocket thrusters. Giddy from lack of air she’d staggered to the cairn perched on a ledge not far from the pool. Knowing treasure lay there. None of the trials and frustrations could penetrate the happy bubble of promise that had formed in her belly the moment she’d plucked that raunchy seal pelt from beneath the rocks.

  Joy. Pure, simple, ridiculous joy powered her swim back from the island. It sustained her when she trudged wet and weary up the steps to the cottage.

  In her kitchen she found a blond god of a man in a tight tank t
op and tighter jeans. That didn’t faze her either. Oh sure, it gave her pause, had her jaw dropping, but it didn’t send her off screaming down the beach.

  “Hello,” he said cheerfully. He glanced briefly at her and turned back to the stove, stirring frothy liquid in a pot.

  “What are you doing here?” Maille asked.

  “Making formula for the foal I found out on the beach.”

  “Ah.” Just at his elbow, a clean bottle and nipple were at the ready. “You normally just walk in someone’s house and make yourself at home?”

  “Only when I’m renting said house. You must be Maille.” He turned off the burner and put down the spoon. He offered her a towel from a rumpled pile on the table.

  She realized she was naked, the seal skin she was clutching to her chest scant covering. She couldn’t bring herself to let it go.

  She went on the offensive. “You’re not renting anymore, Mr.…” Fuck. What was his name?

  “Jones,” he said, filling in the blank. “Trey Jones.” He put down the towel and offered a hand.

  She gave his hand a quick shake and hugged the seal pelt to her again.

  “You had notice. I’m selling the place.”

  “Yes, I got notice. I suppose the real estate agent hasn’t told you I’m the buyer?”

  No. Well maybe she had. None of the details had seemed important until now.

  “I’ve decided not to sell. I guess you can sue me or something.”

  She turned slowly. He’d been living here and it still looked like her home, just the way she’d left it. Family pictures still on the mantel.

  His silence had her glancing back to catch him staring at her backside. Flustered, she whirled back around. “Sorry, it’s just—”

  He started to say something, swallowed, then tried again. “Don’t apologize. I won’t take your home from you. I’ve been looking after it for you, if you want to know the truth.”

  Maille backed up a step.

  “If you want truth, Maille, if you need answers, you will always get them from me. As much as I know, anyway. For instance. I know what it is you have there. I’m not going to take it from you.”