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An Excerpt From: SOUL OF THE SEA
Copyright © ALISON PAIGE, 2008
All Rights Reserved, Ellora's Cave Publishing, Inc.
The scratchy-skinned human coughed, spewing seawater from his lungs, and Marina breathed a sigh of relief. She thought she’d killed the nasty, hairy thing. Though, in truth, he wasn’t quite as nasty as she’d expected. In fact, he was actually kind of…cute, in an overly hairy sort of way.
She’d never actually gotten to touch a human before. She’d imagined what they’d feel like—dry, scratchy, baked to a crisp like the water-starved land. She reached out and caught one of his dark curls between her fingers and thumb. His hair was the same darkness as hers, though hers had an iridescent quality to it that gave the overall mass a bluish luster. This human’s hair was simply black, like the night sky or the deepest depths of the ocean, and lacked the protective coating that sealed her hair from the penetrating water.
Marina moved her hand to his face and he flinched away. She tried again and this time he allowed her to stroke the back of her fingers against his cheek. The rough, stubbly hair tickled her sensitive skin. The strange prickly texture was just too fascinating, she couldn’t stop herself from reaching to touch it again. But the man jerked away, not allowing it.
“It’s…you. It can’t be. No. What is this? Who…Who are you?” he said, his deeper male voice sounding weak from his coughing fit. His gaze dropped to her tail fin, eyes stretching impossibly wide. “This is some kind of joke. What the hell are you?”
“Your superior in every way,” she said, a twinge of self-consciousness sharpening her words. She wasn’t the slightest bit ashamed of her species, but the way he looked at her—horrified—she couldn’t help the reflexive emotion. “Where’s my sea’s soul?”
“You’re a…a mermaid. Aren’t you? You’re her.”
Marina glanced at her tail an instant before she willed her body to shift forms. Pale flesh rippled down her lower body beneath her sea-grass skirt, tingling, forming legs and feet where bluish green scales and a wide, powerful fin once were. Her neck smoothed, gills melting into smooth flesh, making breathing much easier. She turned her gaze back on the human.
“How’d you do that? You can’t be real. You can’t be.” The man scrambled backward like a pincher crab over the sharp stone bank toward the softer moss at the center of the little island. His eyes shuttered, blinking as though he couldn’t clear his vision.
“What I am is beyond your comprehension and completely irrelevant.” No one would believe the poor soul anyway, but there was no reason to give him more information than necessary.
“Wait. You…you understand me. You speak English?” he said.
“My people speak many languages, and to many species. Now give me the sea’s soul you stole, or I’ll leave you here for the sun to drink you dry.” She wouldn’t of course. It wasn’t in her to harm living things, especially a human. They were her favorite entertainment…whether they knew it or not.
“Here.” He wrenched his chin over one shoulder then the other. “Where’s here?”
“Here is this rock in the middle of my world, no bigger than that boat you pollute through my water. More room than you deserve. There’s nothing to eat, nothing to hydrate your land-born body. Just rock, moss and sea. Your sea churner won’t find you. Ever.” Marina tucked her feet under her and stood.
The human rose to his feet right after her, his dripping shorts clinging to his body, outlining the long, firm ridge of his sex. Her mouth gaped. The man was growing aroused. And it appeared he was very well endowed. What in the blue ocean was causing that?
She took in the rest of him, his thin T-shirt molding to the sinewy contours of his chest and arms, his dark hair hanging in wet, dripping waves just above his shoulders. Marina folded her arms under her breasts trying to keep her answering heat in check…mostly. She’d never been this close and certainly not to one this sexually aroused before. All manner of possibilities flickered through her head. The idea of sex with a…a human was wickedly kinky. She gave herself a mental shake and tried hard to banish the thoughts. After all, he wasn’t exactly the picture of male prowess standing before her.
Muscled as he was, his broad shoulders sagged and his sodden clothes drooped on his body. His toes of one foot wiggled and she realized he’d lost one of his foot-slappers, sandals they called them, during the long swim from his boat. She’d nearly lost him when his arms began to slip from the sleeves of the shirt she fisted by the collar. After that she’d dragged him by the wrist, leaving finger indents ringing his pale, saturated skin.
That wasn’t her fault. Human skin was far too absorbent, greedily soaking up more water than was good for it. The cold waters had turned his skin bluish and puckered his hands and feet, and even saturated the skin of his lips and around his eyes. He was wet and tired and out of breath. He was frightened and confused. Her heart pinched and she struggled to hold tight to her objectivity. He was a creature to watch, to study, not to grow attached to. Her father would have a whale if he knew she’d even been seen by a human. He’d fall over dead if she asked to keep one as a pet. Not that she would. That would be wrong. But this one was so cute…and hard.
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