Each Step Like Knives Read online

  He'd used the formal gesture for tail, but switched to infant-hands again for her benefit. "A long tail. But I'm not a fish. We're mammals, like those you call porpoises and whales."

  He'd made the symbol for whale by imitating with his hands a whale breaching, but she clearly didn't understand. He tried the one for porpoise, the creature his people called closemates because of their ancestral relationship to the Carrageenai. That she seemed to understand.

  "You're a mermaid? A merman, I mean?" The woman took a gulp from her cup. She stared at his legs. "You must be joking. This is still a dream, right? I'm dreaming. Or I'm crazy."

  He wondered why she thought she was not experiencing this reality appropriately. There were Carrageenai who, on occasion, lost touch with the real world around them and slipped into their own minds. They were considered mad. His woman, his mate, did not seem mad.

  She laughed, though the noise didn't sound quite as joyous this time. "I must be dreaming."

  He shook his head. "You are not mad. This is real. I am real. We are real, here, together."

  She rubbed at her eyes again. "What happened to your tail?"

  He began to explain and saw her eyes follow his gestures without understanding. She bit at her lip. Jeenai stopped trying to explain.

  "I came from the water to be with you," was what he finally managed to say with infant-hands.

  "Why? Why be with me?"

  "Because I love you."

  She gasped. She had understood. Instead of smiling, though, she got to her feet and began to pace in front of him. Jeenai lurched upright, but his feet sent bolts of pain through his entire legs, and he sat again.

  "That's insane," she muttered, her face turned from him.

  She wasn't speaking to him, yet he was able to understand her. With the Carrageenai, both parties needed to face each other to speak. If one could not see the myriad of gestures and expressions of the other, the language was lost.

  "You came out of the sea to be with me because you love me." She let out another harsh burst of laughter. She faced him. "How do you even know me?"

  "You walk along the beach at night. I heard you singing. I've been watching you a long time."

  He could see she didn't understand everything he'd said.

  "You've been watching me? From the ocean?"

  He nodded. "Your song called me."

  "I don't understand."

  He made another set of gestures, but she still shook her head. Jeenai sighed, frustrated. "I came to be with you. To bring pleasure to you. To share the fuck."

  That she seemed to have no trouble understanding. Her eyes widened and her gaze fell to his now-covered crotch. She backed against the counter with her arms crossed over her chest. "Oh. My. God."

  He recognized the tone, if not the words. She was shocked. But the way her nipples hardened beneath the front of her garment and the high color that rose in her cheeks told him she was not displeased.

  Jeenai stood and ignored the pain that shot through his feet. He stepped toward her. She made a low noise. Fear? He stopped and considered her.

  Carrageenai fems could be hostile if approached when they did not desire sexplay. Yet this woman's nipples had grown hard. Her legs had parted slightly beneath the edge of her garment. He could not smell as well as he could at home, but he caught the spicy aroma of her arousal.

  Human fems are different, he reminded himself as he took another hesitant step closer to her. They did not have sharp teeth to bite or powerful tails to slam. He thought of the blow she'd given him earlier. They were not without their own defenses, however. And while it might be easy to read a fem's desire in her body's response, perhaps human indicators of arousal were as different as their defenses.

  Jeenai took another step. Now she could strike him if she so chose. The woman didn't move. Her breath caught in her throat. This close he could almost hear the thump of her heart. Below the sea, now was the time he would take her in his arms and thrust his erect cock inside her. Here, above the water, Jeenai was not so certain of what step to take next.

  He stared into her eyes, which were the color of the sea. Blue, surrounded by white, with only a small dark circle in the center. Her lips had parted. She didn't shy away when he reached for her shoulders.

  A kiss. That was what humans did. They pressed their mouths together. He would kiss her.

  It felt awkward at first, this pressure of mouth upon mouth. She sighed and trembled when he gave the kiss, and Jeenai pulled away, suddenly fearful she was going to strike at him again. Her eyes had closed. She didn't move.

  He bent to kiss her again. Her lips parted. Her tongue probed lightly at his mouth and he followed her lead. Their tongues stroked one another. The sensation made his penis surge to life inside the garment she'd given him. He pulled her closer to him. Her breasts crushed against his bare chest. He could feel the sharp points of her nipples through her garment. The feeling excited him. He pressed his penis against the softness of her belly, then nudged a bit lower to the juncture of her legs. That was where her fem parts were, the slick, heated folds and shining pearl he'd explored earlier.

  Jeenai wanted to lose himself inside her body and seek the release he'd given her before. He restrained himself. He was no longer below the sea. He was above and things were different here.

  The scent of her desire grew stronger as they continued to kiss. The touch of her tongue against his was incredibly erotic. He had not imagined this action called kissing could be so pleasurable.

  Blood surged into his cock, stiffening and lengthening it. The garment created a new sort of friction. He moved his hips against her and she responded with a moan. She parted her legs farther.

  She took Jeenai's hands from her shoulders and moved them to her waist. With gentle pressure, she urged him to lift the garment up past her hips. She was no longer bare beneath it. A tiny scrap of cloth covered her pelvis. It was smoother than the garment she wore on the top. His fingers slid along it. She shuddered against him when he found the swollen bump of her pearl and rubbed it.

  Jeenai found he could lift her by putting one hand beneath her rear end while he continued to stimulate her with the other. He pushed her up to sit on the counter behind her back.

  Now it became difficult to kiss, and he left her mouth with a sigh of disappointment. Her eyelids had half-closed. Her mouth looked swollen. As he watched, her gaze began to sharpen, to focus. Fearful he was going to lose the erotic daze she had allowed herself to enter, Jeenai bent and put his face between her parted legs.

  His lips found the center of her arousal, but the barrier of her garment frustrated him. He pulled at it, and she lifted her hips to allow him to remove it completely.

  She was open to him, and he buried his face in the scent and feel of her. Her soft flesh was warm. He lapped at her bud and was rewarded by her shudder and moan. The sound of her pleasure made his penis throb. He wanted to fill her, but first he wanted to fulfill her.

  He worked the small button with his lips and tongue until her conch swelled and trembled. Her passage convulsed under his kisses. Her hands clutched at his hair.

  She pulled him upward, toward her mouth, and captured his in a burning kiss. Her center was hot and wet and still slightly pulsing against his belly. She pushed at the garment at his waist, and Jeenai took the hint. She wanted him as bare as she was.

  She lifted her garment over her head as he slipped out of his. It came off easier than it had gone on. She slid forward, off the counter, turned her body and bent over the table so her back faced him.

  Jeenai stopped, confused. A fem who turned her back on a mal was rejecting him. His hands trembled from the force of his desire, but he did not take her.

  The woman looked over her shoulder at him. "What's wrong?"

  He could think of no way to tell her his reason, and now it didn't matter. She wanted the fuck with him as much as he wanted it with her. He could hold back no longer.

  Jeenai pushed his penis inside her slick c