Heat ignited in his eyes, and a thrill of deep satisfaction ran through her.
Koenraad moved her hand from his mouth. “Since we’re both naked, I supposed I can do that.”
“You’re so considerate,” she said.
“I wasn’t finished. I suppose I’ll do that if you touch yourself to my satisfaction. And I want your eyes on mine while you do it so I can watch you blush all those gorgeous shades of pink and red.”
His words alone made her cheeks warm. “Why? If you can magically know what I’m thinking?”
“It’s not magic. I told you before that I’m not psychic. And I have a second reason. I want you to see what you do to me. You, my beautiful, charming lover, have so much power and don’t even realize it.”
He took her wrists and moved her hands between her legs. Then he sat back.
“Spread your thighs, Monroe. I want to see everything.”
Slowly, Monroe slid her legs farther apart.
“You know what to do,” he said. “Eyes on me.”
Staring at him but not really seeing him, she spread her sex and placed a finger on her clit. She massaged lightly around her nub, and blood thundered in her ears.
Koenraad palmed his hard cock, then squeezed himself in a fist. She wondered if he let the barbs come out when he masturbated.
Hell. If he was going to make her do this, the least he could do was answer a question. “Do you get cut up when you jerk off?”
“Sometimes,” he said with a shrug. “I heal quickly, though.”
Wow. “I want to see,” she said, her voice little more than a whisper. If he denied her now, after telling her that he knew her emotional state because of her physical reactions, she would die.
His smile nearly made her heart stop. “If I do that, we can’t have sex. I can’t pull them back in until after I orgasm.”
She nodded, her mouth dry. “That’s fine.”
“Then you keep playing with yourself, and you’ll get what you want.”
The words and delivery were calm, in control, but Monroe suddenly understood. What Koenraad knew about her was just part of who he was, how he saw the world. But this, her exposing herself, was more on the level of what she’d been asking from him.
Dipping a finger down to the entrance of her slit, she drew slippery moisture back toward her nub.
Koenraad knew that doing this made her uncomfortable, and he knew it turned her on. He couldn’t help but know. But she could show him more. She could be vulnerable, just like she’d asked him to be over and over and over again. All the secrets she’d wanted him to give up, and she’d thought she had nothing to reciprocate.
But she’d been wrong. He wanted to see her.
Her breath caught, and her brow furrowed. She tilted her head back slightly but made sure to keep her eyes on Koenraad’s. His hair fell across his face in a blond mass as he stared down at her. At the moment, he looked more male model than man with a secret.
He leaned in, and she closed her eyes as firm lips rasped down her throat. He tongued the soft spot at the bottom of her neck until she whimpered, then he licked and nibbled his way back to her ear. His hair felt like silk against her skin, and she caught a hint of the woodsy body wash he kept stocked in his bathrooms.
“Promise you won’t run away,” he whispered. He sounded composed, almost commanding, but that he was saying this at all told her he was worried.
“I promise,” she said. Because no matter what happened, no matter his secrets, she wasn’t going to run. She knew that.
He sat up, his eyes trained on hers. “You can look,” he said.
She held his gaze a moment longer. This was what she’d wanted, right? To see? To know?
Suppose she didn’t like it?
Suppose she did?
Slowly, nervously, she dragged her eyes down, her gaze catching on his full lips, which were settled into a firm line. Her attention jumped to the hard plane of his muscular chest, then to those rippling abs.
Mentally bracing herself, she looked down to his hands.
The air choked out of her in a staccato rush. She snapped her legs up, squeezed her knees and eyes closed. Her entire body felt like it had been set afire, and her mouth was completely parched.
“That could have gone better,” Koenraad said dryly, “but at least you’re still here.”
“I’m sorry,” she said through her halting breaths. “I thought it would just be the barbs.” In fact, she hadn’t even noticed the barbs. That little detail had escaped her notice because where there had previously been a single thick, hard cock…
There were now two.
Or she assumed they were still there. She couldn’t bring herself to open her eyes and look again.
“I thought I’d get the whole thing out of the way.” He sounded a little hurt… and very irritated.
“Please don’t be offended,” she pleaded.
He coughed out a bitter laugh. “Why would I be?”
Damn. She hadn’t meant to hurt him, but he’d really caught her unawares. She forced herself to look again.
This time, she was prepared, but it was still shocking.
Oh, yes, there were definitely two of them, side by side. The bases stood close together, but the heads were several inches apart. Both shafts strained away from his body at a steep upward angle. They were mirror images, right down to the pulsing veins that twisted around the thick lengths. She licked her lips, her mouth suddenly not dry at all, and he seemed to throb.
She became aware of Koenraad’s stomach moving as he breathed, and she looked up and saw he was staring intently at her.
“You’ve used them both at the same time?” she asked.
He nodded slightly, and she looked down at them again. “That is… not something I’m sure I’m up for tonight,” she said. “But I’d like to try. I know this isn’t something women usually need to ask a man who’s got his… stuff out, but can I… touch you?”
He’d lifted an eyebrow at her fumbling for the right words. “Watch out for the barbs,” he said. “Only stroke from the top down.”
She pushed herself up and moved closer to him, but instead of immediately touching them, she raised up on her knees. “Do your partners like it? I mean… both at once.”
His eyes bored into hers, and when he spoke, his tone was matter-of-fact. “They beg for it. Only a shark shifter can fill his partner’s body in this way. I think you would like it very much.”
Scorching heat burned her cheeks, and she quickly looked down at him again. “I’m surprised you’re still hard given how poorly I reacted.”
“It’s because I can smell your excitement,” he said. “Surprise and fear, but also a strong physical response.”
“To be honest, I don’t think I had that third reaction,” she said quietly, not wanting to hurt his feelings any more than she already had. He didn’t argue with her.
As she examined him more closely, she saw that there were indeed spurs on both of his cocks. They were short and flesh colored, which was why she hadn’t noticed them when she was on her back and farther away. Looking at both cocks was a bit overwhelming, so she focused her attention on one. The barbs started an inch below the cap of the thick head and extended the length of the shaft, stopping about an inch from the base.
They looked more like texturizing than anything else.
She touched one, gently. It didn’t hurt, so she flattened her hand and stroked from the bottom up.
Koenraad jerked away as dozens of tiny pinpoints of blood bloomed on her palm.
“The top down,” he said.
“It doesn’t hurt. And the bleeding already stopped.”
Koenraad caught her hand and turned it over. “Damn,” he said. “It’s my blood.”
“How do you know?”
He glanced up at her, and she felt herself reddening. “Right,” she mumbled. “Your non-magical powers.”
“I wouldn’t have thought it would still be so active in you,” he said
. He went into the bathroom and came back with a dampened towel that he used to clean her palm. Then he inspected the wounds. “You’re completely healed,” he said.
She reached for him again, but he jerked out of her range. “You need to be careful,” he said. “If something happens to you, it’ll still be my fault. On your back.”
Feeling strangely euphoric, she settled on the bed. “Sorry about the way I reacted. Honestly, seeing them was a lot easier than hearing about them.”
“Happy to hear you won’t be in therapy over it.” He smiled, and she couldn’t help but get the impression that he really believed this was turning her on.
Her gaze darted down. It was impossible not to stare at him, at them. He gripped one shaft tightly, but unlike before, he didn’t slide his fist up and down. Instead, he squeezed himself.
“How come you can’t do them both at the same time?” she asked, a little disappointed.
“I can, but I won’t.”
“W—”
“Because you’ve had enough excitement for the day, that’s why. Now play with yourself and if you do a good job, I’ll help you along.”
Her fingers dipped between her legs before she even realized what she was doing. To her surprise, she was sopping wet, and when her finger brushed across her clit, she nearly jumped through the roof, she was so sensitive.
She slid her legs wider, and she met Koenraad’s approving gaze. At the moment, she didn’t mind him watching. Next time she probably would, but for now, all she wanted was to get off.
He choked his member hard, and she winced for him, but it was hot, too, that he was so turned on by her that he wanted to stroke himself anyway.
Digging her heels into the soft sheets, she slid closer to him so that she could see better. A dewy bead of moisture gleamed from the tip of the cock he fisted.
She wanted him inside her, and she moved her legs across his thighs. They were like warm, compressed metal, vibrating with barely contained power.
Koenraad’s breathing mixed with the sound of the ocean outside the balcony.
As her finger slid over her clit, she pumped her hips, each movement making her calves glide against his muscular legs.
Koenraad drew his hand up the inside of her thigh, but he stopped before he reached the area where she most needed his touch.
Moaning, she wiggled her hips more, but he moved back enough to deny her yet not so far that she’d give up. She served up her brightest smile as he slowly pumped himself.
His answering smile was lazy, confident, and a little cockier than she would have predicted given how awkward things had been between them only minutes earlier.
“What do you want?” he asked.
She lifted her chin but held his gaze. “Touch me.”
“You seem to have the hang of it,” he drawled.
“But I want to feel you inside me.” She sat up and grabbed his fist, tried to direct the swollen and now dripping head of his cock between her legs, but he wouldn’t let her.
He was keeping her from touching him.
“But I can’t get hurt,” she said. “You saw that.”
His jaw clenched. “I saw you bleed. It’s not worth the risk.”
“Please,” she pleaded. “I want to… to know you in that way, without you holding back.” She needed this, to feel close to him, to have this experience that only he could give her. “Please, Koenraad. If all I have is this week, I want it to count.”
As she begged, she pushed his arm down until the head of his fisted cock, like silk-wrapped steel, brushed the trembling entrance of her sex. She whimpered as he pressed forward, and she could feel his knuckles against her body.
“I won’t,” he said. “You don’t know what you’re asking for.”
“But—”
He thrust two fingers deep into her, stretching her, making blood rush to her face, and his thumb shoved away her fingers, which had stopped playing with her clit, though she didn’t remember doing so.
The orgasm was instant.
She writhed on his hand, her pussy clamping around his thrusting fingers. She was aware of her desperate moans as he brought her to orgasm again. She was aware of her legs splayed wide for him, of her submissive posture.
He’d denied her sex, and that hurt her pride, but she also knew that it meant she could trust him, no matter what. If he could put her needs first at a moment like this, she’d always be safe with him.
“You’re—” She wanted to tell him that he was amazing, but a third orgasm took away her ability to speak, and then his large body was over hers, his left side pressing into her right side as he kissed her, devoured her mouth.
She felt the soft skin of his cock… the one he wasn’t squeezing… and she rocked her hips, trying to tempt him. Oh, god, she really wanted it inside her. Wanted both of them. And maybe she’d feel differently when the air wasn’t heavy with arousal and when his kisses weren’t frantic and desperate, but she didn’t think so.
Koenraad’s pumping fist pressed into her stomach rhythmically, the tempo so like sex that she moaned with frustration and pleasure.
Hot spurts shot over her belly and chest as he groaned out his pleasure, a sound that made her tingle all over again. She dragged her hands down his torso, his scar thick under her fingers.
She slid her palms around to his back, and she gasped in horror.
From his mid-back and spreading over almost everything she could reach, his skin was bumpy, chewed up. It felt like someone had ripped into him with a chainsaw.
“No more secrets today,” Koenraad said, his husky voice still breathless from his orgasm. “You asked, I agreed, and I’m holding you to that.”
Silently, she nodded. She stared into his eyes and tried to guess what had happened, if he’d gotten into a fight with the shark that attacked her or what.
But as always, she couldn’t even begin to guess what he was thinking. All she could see was his unwavering determination and the reflection of her frightened face in his dark eyes.
Chapter 16
The ocean looked like a blanket of crushed diamonds under the luminous moon. Koenraad had been standing on the beach for twenty minutes while Monroe showered. All he could think about was Brady.
He heard the door in the bathroom open, and he turned to look up at the balcony. Monroe wouldn’t have any reason to come out that way, especially naked, but he wished she would. The sight of her always quieted the turmoil inside him. It was a gift she had, calming him.
And right now, he yearned for calm.
Then he heard the bathroom door close again and the sink start up. For someone who disliked the water, she sure took long showers.
Shoving his hands into his pockets, Koenraad walked down the stone path that ran along the mansion. The pool was still full of bloody water. He should have emptied and cleaned it while Monroe had slept, but instead he’d paced back and forth in front of the inlet, avoiding looking into the reflective water while he tried to work himself up to doing what he knew he must.
He’d known what it was to be helpless two years before, but he’d never thought of himself as weak.
Not until today. But what other name was there for this inability to act?
And he knew that if Brady was at all still inside that shark’s body, he’d be panic-stricken. He’d be aware that he’d messed up, and he’d know that punishment would surely come.
Koenraad wasn’t ready to deliver it, though. He’d never touched Brady in anger. To hand Brady over to the Council would be cruel, but so was delaying this. Every minute he procrastinated was surely another minute that Brady was paralyzed with fear.
What kind of father couldn’t do the right thing?
In the afternoon, he’d finally taken those first steps toward the water, ready to fulfill his horrible obligation. But then Monroe had woken and screamed for him. It was the sweetest sound, and he’d run to her, his relief at the reprieve colored with shame at his cowardice. There was anger, too, at the idiotic h
ope that had filled him.
All of this was his fault, and even if Monroe seemed no worse for wear, Koenraad knew the truth. He’d never be able to forget the image of her broken body floating in the water or how helpless he had felt as he’d pumped blood into her silent veins. Brady had done this, and he would do it again.
He threw his head back and sniffed, but whatever he thought he’d smelled… no, Victoria wasn’t here. It was his mind playing tricks on him, imagining the only thing that could make the situation worse.
The water shut off again, and Monroe walked across his bedroom. She appeared on the balcony, and now that he was standing to the side, he had the perfect image of her silhouette as she scoured the beach in front of her.
She was his calm. His everything.
He’d take her to dinner, get a hotel in town for the rest of Monroe’s week. Then he’d come back and deal with all of this, because he didn’t think he could do it while Monroe was anywhere near.
The light in the bedroom turned off, and he heard the faint sounds of her footsteps, her voice calling his name, which might have been one of the sweetest sounds known to man or shifter. He could appreciate that even as sorrow filled him again.
“Koenraad?” She stood in the doorway, illuminated by the light of the hall behind her. The silhouette of her curvy figure was the definition of perfection. “You out here?” She took a few steps toward him, into the darkness.
“I was on my way back inside,” he said as he walked up to her and pressed a kiss to her lips. “You taste minty,” he murmured.
“But I brushed my teeth with garlic,” she said, turning toward him. Her delicate hands slid up to his neck. “Your hair is dry.” She sounded surprised.
“It only took me a few minutes to rinse off,” he said as he guided her back into the mansion.
“Oh.” Confusion colored her voice. “When I was looking out the window, I thought I saw you in the water, though I couldn’t be sure.”
He turned and took a long, hard look at the ocean behind him but didn’t spot anything amiss.
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