Shark Bait (19 page)

* * * *

Sophia’s shifted to human and climbed up the small ladder at the back of their boat. Raider shook out his hair like a dog and water streamed over his rangy shoulders and arms. The breath rushed out of her. Perhaps she hadn’t completely noticed before, but he was beautiful—tough and hard, and hers.

When he lifted his head, he pinned her with a wicked glare. “What are you looking at?”
As if he didn’t know. She allowed her eyes to travel the line of white down his body to where his member expanded before her eyes. Her lower lip pinched between her teeth.
When she didn’t answer he returned her stare with a hot one of his own. “Those were some tall tales you told back there.”
His body called to hers, and she obeyed, walking slowly toward him. “I learned from the best.” She notice his eyes riveted on her lips. She licked them slowly, delighting when he groaned low in his throat. Sophia reached out, walking her fingers down his chest and watching his lance bob as she neared it. “But not all of them were lies.”
She felt his smile like sunshine raining down, though her eyes trained on his hips.
“Hell, sweetheart, you know I have to motor us into a cove before we can have any real fun.”
Sophia’s grin grew wide. She liked this power she had to make him crazy. Her lip twisted into a mock-innocent smile. When his mouth dropped open with desire, she added a bat of her eyelashes and a little sigh. His whole body convulsed.
She pulled her finger away right before it dipped into the crinkly hair at the juncture of his thighs. “I guess you should start driving.”
He plunged in and nipped hard at her lower lip. His hands didn’t touch her, but she felt the bite to her toes. Then he ripped open the door and went inside, leaving her to place cool fingers on the swollen lip he’d bitten. With adoring eyes, she watched through the window as he started the engine and adjusted himself so his erection didn’t poke the console.
He turned around and called to her, “Come here and suck me off while I drive.”
She snorted but did as he said.
The motor started up under her feet, rumbling up her body. Sophia fell to her knees while keeping her eyes trained on his.
He looked to the water, then back to her, then back to the water. Raider’s Adam’s apple bobbed when he swallowed.
Sophia traced her eyes up his long shaft, up to the folds of skin framing his slick, reddened cap. Wetness seeped between her legs, mirroring his arousal. His hand combed into her hair, urging her forward.
She snaked a hand between her legs as she closed her mouth over his salty head. His growls urged her on, sent waves of excitement through her body.
Sophia opened her mouth wider, tried to shove more of him into her mouth.
“Easy, baby, you don’t need to take it all.” His hand petted her face, and his panting breaths came closer together. She backed off, just drawing on the tip while her hand worked into the cleft between her legs.
“Give me your hand.”
She lifted her head from his sex and lifted her right hand to him. He bowed his head and took her fingers into his mouth, groaning when his tongue wound around them. Then he released them and smirked at her. “Not that hand.”
She reached up her other hand, burying the one he licked back between her legs. He took her fingers and wrapped them around the base of his sex, urging her to grip. “Put the tip in your mouth.”
Sophia did as he said, and Raider worked her hand up his shaft in a long hard squeeze. He moaned aloud and rocked his hips forward. The movement sent her core burning and she sped up her hand as well as the fingers inside her. The motor screamed, and the boat buzzed under her as he hit the gas.
“Hell, I need to get you on your back.”
Sophia sped up her movements, bold now that she understood better what he liked. She tugged him hard and then curled her lips down his length until bitter fluid touched the back of her throat. He gripped at the back of her head, thick fingers twisted in her hair. She wondered what he’d taste like if he released in her mouth as she’d done on his.
Sliding back up his length, she stroked him again, this time doubling him over as he tried to pull away. “Sweetheart, I…”
She followed his retreat, teasing at a penis head turned purple, but he set the motor to neutral. “Hold that thought.”
She waited on her knees while he threw the anchor. By the time he returned, her probing fingers had worked her to a moment from climax. He strode back to her, gripping her hair with his fist. “Open!” Her mouth spread wide and he thrust into it, almost causing her to gag. Sophia moaned. The bite of pain in her scalp, his tangy taste, her orgasm held barely at bay, all of it created an erotic haze her awareness could hardly pierce. “Your throat too, open.”
Sophia experimented with her muscles, adjusting her spread jaw to accommodate him further. Her eyes flew open as his wide cap settled snuggly into the back of her throat. She keened around him and his answering curses of praise set her off. She screamed around his cock as her spasming core bent her at her waist. She was still crying in rhythmic waves when Raider’s arm wrapped around her waist from underneath and tossed her in the V-berth.
She flipped to her back, spreading her legs open for him. She wanted to watch his face when he spent inside her. Raider gripped her knees in his hands and balled her under him then sank into her slick center in one hard thrust. She closed around him gripping him tight. When he had her pinned and impaled, his mismatched eyes bore into hers.
“Mercy.” Her breath rushed out.
He showed her none.

* * * *

Mindlessly, Raider bucked into her. Somewhere in the distance he heard Sophia gasp and scream. Then she was shouting his name and he murmured hers in return but gritted his teeth against the need to come. She was his, not leaving, and he was going to fuck her senseless on
his
boat.

“Raider?” She panted, her hands pressing on either side of his face. He looked down at her to find her flushed, damp with sweat, but concern shone in her eyes. “I’m not going anywhere.”

His chest clenched against an onslaught of feeling, and he collapsed onto her, his body pressed along every inch of her soft, fragrant skin. Her hands stroked down his back, and he thrust into her again, this time slow and deep. “I thought you were leaving.” He growled as she gasped again, her center pulling him in, her limbs tensing around him.

“I’m yours.”

His balls pulled in tight, sending spasms up his body. He took her mouth in a romantic-as-fuck kiss as he poured into her. He felt her answering climax all around him. She cried into his mouth, and he sucked it all in.

Raider held her close, not wanting to separate yet. “I…” She whispered in his ear. “I know you do.”

He smiled against her neck, and then lifted his head to kiss her pouty bottom lip. It felt plump and bruised and tasted like salt and female. “So are you gonna want to get married or something?”

She reached down and slapped his ass. “Like a human? Gross!”

Raider tickled her side as he wetly slid out of her depths. “Mere do it, too!”
Sophia cocked her eyebrows at him and adopted her most haughty expression. “Well dragons don’t!” She stated it as if that had ended the discussion and wiggled out from under him to get to the tissues, but Raider wasn’t going to let it drop.
“Well maybe my dragon does!” He snatched her around the waist as she tried to scurry away and nipped her pert rear end.
She gasped.
His cock went hard as a rock again.
Sophia’s whisper came out as little more than a breath. “You’d have to make me.”
“Oh, would I?” He climbed up her back until his hips slid between her legs and kissed a path from her shoulder up to her ear. “I could do that.”
With a giggle, she squirmed forward. “You could try.”
The tip of his cock teased at her wet entrance, her movements sending jolts of pleasure like lightning up his spine. He pushed up with his arms, popping off her back.
“Where are you going?” Nervousness tinged her husky voice.
His mouth curled at her wide-eyed expression. “To get some rope.”

* * * *

Six months later

Sophia lounged on the back deck, her fashionable sunglasses shading her eyes as she flipped the pages of a human magazine. She’d heard these periodicals were becoming extinct. Too bad, threehundred years would be a long time to live without
Cosmo
.

“You almost ready to go, sexy?” Raider called to her from the cabin door. She kinda missed their little Dory, but Dendric had insisted they upgrade to a much-larger Nordhaven. Weber had even foisted a couple crewmembers on them. The guys were human and had the sense to stay out of Raider’s way.

“Do we really have to do this?” She stood and looked down at her belly. The pregnancy showed for real now, a round ball protruding under her bikini top and threatening to overhang her bottoms.

Raider came up behind her. His arms wrapped around her. She guessed that he’d handed off the steering wheel to one of the crew. “Your mother’s been planning this for a month.”

Her face scrunched in disbelief, and she craned her head to look at him. “So now you’re siding with my mother?”
Raider’s face split into a wide grin. His lightning-bolt marking glinted in the sunlight. “I’m just glad she’s stopped referring to me as ‘that damned shark.’”
Sophia hid her wince.
Only in your presence.
“I don’t even know about shifting to dragon…” She patted the rounded brown skin of her belly meaningfully. If she had to hide behind her unborn child to get out of seeing her parents, so be it.
“Weber says it should be fine for you to shift to dragon for the trip down, and you can turn human as soon as we get there.”
She threw her hands up. “Oh, and my mom is going to love that! Not only am I showing up with my shark-shifter baby-daddy, but I’ll be rubbing shoulders with her friends in human form.”
Raider petted down her side. His firm hands calmed her. “Fuck ‘em.”
A snort escaped her nose, and he nipped her neck.
“All right! I’ll go get ready.”
The swim to Underwater City passed uneventfully and only an hour later, Sophia descended from her bedroom to the feast room. Despite the undeniable proof of her involvement with Raider, her parents still asked that he not accompany her to her room. Instead they advised him to change in a guest room.
Sophia took a deep breath and steadied herself around the corner from the staircase’s landing. At least they hadn’t asked him to change in the servant’s quarters like last time they’d come to visit.
She passed her hand over her low-cut turquoise evening gown. Raider had insisted she get it even though she knew that dragons would find it “distasteful.” In fact, Raider’s exact words were, “it’ll shows off your knockers.” Looking down at her amply displayed cleavage, she wondered at the wisdom of listening to her mate.
Finally, she stepped her high-heeled foot around the corner. All conversation stopped, as if they’d just been discussing her. Lifting her chin, Sophia walked directly to the buffet table and grabbed a glass of wine.
“You shouldn’t be drinking that in your condition!” One of her mother’s friends gasped in shock.
“I’ll take my chances.”
The female scowled at her. Sophia didn’t bother explaining to her that a part shark-shifter infant would be to immune practically anything. Her attention turned to the door where her lover entered. Even human among all these dragons he appeared completely nonflustered. Her shoulders dropped several inches.
He looked amazing, the white collar of his dress shirt set off both his dark features and the flash of white across his face. The black dinner jacket he wore emphasized his broad shoulders and V shaped torso. Even dressed to the nines he reeked of menace. He stalked toward her, and the dragons all averted their gazes.
“Hey, sweetheart. You look hot.” He wrapped his arm behind her back and nuzzled her neck, sniffing her blatantly and not caring who noticed. “Let’s mingle.”
Her eyes went wide as her mother waved her over and Raider steered her toward Patsy Herilian and her minions. Her mother looked expectantly at Sophia, who squirmed.
Patsy peered down at her, a mocking glint in her slanted eyes.
“How is the yachting life treating you, Sophia? Your mother tells me you’re living aboard a ship now?”
Um, sort of.
“Yes. It’s a…research vessel actually. Raider and I work for Dendric Biotech…um…with science.” Sweat beaded on her brown as she tried to think of what to say and not to say. Raider gave her a soft squeeze.
“So you work for humans?”
Sophia winced, knowing where this line of questioning led. “Yes, but they’re working on several compounds to improve the lives of ocean shifters.”
If Weber talks them into it.
The enormous female’s head swung in confusion. A nearby male, this one an older Council member, jumped into the conversation. “But dragons have no need for human medicines.”
Mercy!
She breathed out slowly, exasperated at the dragons’ idea that they were the only ocean shifters who mattered. “Yes, but mere and sharks might like to be able to go farther inland, for jobs, and…” Incredulous faces met hers, and she backpedaled furiously. “But that’s all very theoretical…um. Nothing’s solid yet.”
The male’s talons curled into her parents’ imported Oriental rug. “I should think not. To imagine those savages walking on land!”
Sophia tensed, but Raider’s hand stroked down her back. Damn, nothing fazed him! Sophia, on the other hand, wanted to rip the dragon’s throat out for insulting her mate.
Her mind was so preoccupied with thoughts of bloody vengeance that when Pasty asked her, “How did you and your mate meet again?” she replied, “He pretended to fuck me to save me from getting raped.”
Silence.
Wide-eyed, geckos-chirping, stone-drop silence.
Heat crawled up her neck and onto her face as the open-mouthed dragons stared at her.
Next to her, Raider erupted into laughter. The dragons hastily turned away and started conversations of their own, but he laughed without restraint, decorum, or any kind of concern for public opinion for far longer that was appropriate. When he knew their attention had focused elsewhere, he leaned in and nipped at her lips. “You, sweetheart, are funny as hell!”
Raider put his hand on the side of her face and kissed her, adding plenty of tongue for good measure. When he came up for air, he looked around. The party was in full swing, everyone having gotten their fill of gawking. “I think we put in enough of an appearance.”
She nodded, a giddy smile playing across her lips.
“Let’s get the hell out of here.”
And they did.