Ellora's Cavemen: Jewels of the Nile II Read online

  She closed her eyes and relaxed against his chest further, losing herself in the erotic sensations. She wanted more. No sooner had the thought crossed her mind than his fingers were there, plucking and teasing and pinching. Heat pooled in her belly, each tug of her nipples sending a jolt straight to her center.

  “Yes,” she whispered, and the sound was softer than a sigh, sweeter than the gentle breeze.

  He tugged her tighter against his body until she could feel the hard length of his erection nestled between her ass cheeks. With one smooth movement he gathered her nightgown and pulled the material up around her waist, baring her to the moonlight. She didn’t care. It felt right and natural to be nearly naked in his arms.

  His lips brushed the nape of her neck. “Relax,” he whispered. “Relax and enjoy the sensations.”

  She couldn’t deny him even if she wanted to. He nibbled her earlobe and kneaded her breasts as she melted against him. Water tickled the soles of her feet then washed gently over her curled toes. Instead of panic, however, the gently approaching water only excited her more. There was no room for fear in her heightened state of arousal.

  Her mind refused to question how the waves had reached them this far up the beach. It was as if he’d summoned the water, adding its gentle caresses to his own. She was bombarded with sensations as he stroked her thighs, spreading them to open her to the night breeze.

  She arched her back, wanting more. Each beat of the waves brought her higher. Each stroke of his fingers made her ache for more. Her blood pounded, her nerves pulsed and her entire body quivered.

  “Not yet,” he whispered. “Hold on just a little longer.”

  Her toes curled again when she felt the lightest brush of water against her heel, a faint tickle, here then gone. The sand beneath her shifted as the water lapped again at her heels, her calves, her thighs. A thousand pinpoints of sensation merged at her center…water and sand and fingertips.

  He slid one finger inside her slick pussy and her walls clutched tightly around the thickness—first one knuckle, then two, then all the way until he was buried inside her. The water swirled around his hand, lapping at her swollen clit with liquid kisses, licking and sliding over her as he opened her wider, sliding deeper, filling her tighter, in and out in quickening thrusts. Higher and higher, faster and faster. As his tempo increased, so did the wave, pounding against her throbbing clit until she tightened, lifted—then crested in a rushing orgasm.

  Her body trembled with release, ebbing and flowing with the tide. The water receded as silently as it had come, washing away the last traces of her orgasm. Nothing could have prepared her for the intensity of the experience. And all he’d done was touch her. What would it be like to take him inside her, to let him possess her completely, body and soul?

  And then she remembered how his touch had become inseparable from the water’s caress. Before the fear could slip back into place, he rose, slid one arm beneath her trembling knees and lifted her. With soothing words, he clasped her against his chest and carried her back to the cottage.

  She rested her head on his shoulder, content as a kitten. Every nerve ending tingled. Even the soles of her feet felt erotically charged from the water’s caress. A sigh escaped her lips.

  At the door to the cottage, he gently set her on her feet. Her legs trembled but held her steady…steadier than she felt inside.

  “Can you come in?” she asked, suddenly shy.

  He glanced back at the moon then nodded his head. “Yes, but only for a little while.”

  Once inside, she was unsure what to do. Should she offer him a drink or simply drag him to bed? The cottage, which had felt too big and empty before, now had an infinitely more intimate feel. Maybe a little too intimate.

  At least they were clothed…somewhat. She brushed sand from her nightgown, feeling a flush rise to her cheeks at the memory of what had taken place on the beach. When she looked up again, Shawn was standing in front of her easel. Only then did she realize just how perfectly she’d reproduced his image, right down to the skin-hugging jeans.

  Why hadn’t she painted him naked, the way she’d first seen him stepping from the sea? And why did he appear exactly the way I painted him?

  He turned and smiled. “Because I thought that’s how you wanted to see me.”

  Kelli blinked. If she’d had any lingering doubts that he could read her thoughts, they were gone now.

  “As you can read mine,” he said. “You just have to learn how to listen with your heart instead of your ears.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You will,” he said, turning back to finger the sketchbook lying open on the table. “It’s like the difference between shouting to a neighbor across the street and whispering to someone beside you. Soul mates hear the whisper.”

  He ran his fingers over the pictures in her sketchbook—dreamy underwater palaces made of coral and mother-of-pearl seen through a watercolor haze. “Home,” he murmured, then turned and held her in a mesmerizing gaze. “On some level you still remember.”

  Even as she fought to deny it, he continued, pointing to the fantasy pictures she’d drawn her entire life. “This is where you were born…and where you still belong.”

  “I was born in New Jersey.”

  He shook his head, closing the distance between them. “No, that’s where you were found, my little lost mermaid. And I’ve been searching for you ever since.”

  He held out his hand and waited until she placed her hand in his own. “Let me tell you a story.” He led her to the couch and draped her across his lap. “Where I come from, each man has only one mate whose soul song answers his own. Their songs cry out like a beacon until they find one another.”

  As he spoke of his home, a series of visions flooded her mind—vibrant coral reefs, flowing seascapes and underwater castles. They were familiar images she’d tried to capture on canvas for as long as she could remember.

  “Buried memories,” he said, confirming her thoughts.

  “But how…?”

  “In my culture,” he continued, “we have tales of babies lost at sea, wrenched from their mothers’ arms and tossed onto the shore. These water babies rarely survive. Only the strongest adapt and become land-bound creatures, with no memory of their home beneath the sea. They too are lost, unable to hear the underwater call of their soul mate.”

  He held her close. “Your memories of drowning are real but your fear of the water is misplaced. It’s not the water that nearly killed you—but the air that strangled your newborn lungs when you were thrown from the sea.”

  She tilted her head skeptically. “Merfolk?”

  He smiled, the light in his eyes sparkling like moonglow over tranquil cobalt waves. “Some people might call us that.”

  His voice took on a thoughtful tone, as if telling a tale passed down for generations. “According to our legends, we share the same ancestors with those who dwell on shore. My people once walked on land, before the Great Wave of Creation buried our home beneath the sea. The Earth was young then and mankind had only recently walked from the sea where all life evolved. It was easy for us to readapt to an underwater existence.”

  Kelli gave a soft little sigh. In his arms, all things seemed possible.

  “After a great many years,” he continued, “we stopped surfacing altogether. Our land-based brothers forgot about our existence. The occasional glimpse by a fisherman or lost sailor gave rise to your legends of mermaids. The truth is, we’re more alike than we are different. Only we choose to remain below the surface in our underwater paradise.”

  “But you can breathe on land?”

  “Only under special circumstances, and those come with restrictions. The ideal time is after midnight, when the air is cool and moist and the moon full in the sky to guide our way back home. Prolonged exposure to the heat of the sun is dangerous, burning our skin and blistering our lungs if we indulge in sunlight for too long. Because of this, one must seek permission from the elders to co
me ashore.” As he spoke, he stroked her with languid caresses. “Permission is rarely granted, and if it is, the window of time allowed above the surface is small. The risk is too great.”

  At once Kelli had a vision of Shawn pleading passionately before a council of elders, begging for this one chance to find his lost love. She blinked and the image evaporated. But the scene was burned into her memory and somehow she knew the vision was real, not a product of her imagination.

  “Every once in a great while,” he said, “a soul becomes lost. When that happens, their mate beneath the sea will spend eternity searching in vain for the song only he or she can hear. If that song has been forever silenced, we live alone for the rest of our days, yearning for the lost love.”

  “How sad.” Kelli yawned. She was having a hard time keeping her eyes open. She couldn’t be sure whether it was because of the late hour, the soothing lull of his voice or the amazing orgasm she’d just had. She burrowed into the crook of his arm like a child drowsily listening to a familiar bedtime story.

  “For years I’ve roamed the endless seas searching for my lost mate.” He brushed a stray lock of hair from her forehead, his fingers caressing her temples. “But her song was silent. She was nowhere to be found. There was only one place left to search.”

  “New Jersey?”

  He chuckled, and the sound was like waves rippling over weathered stones. “The elders granted my request to search beyond the water’s edge for my lost mate. But I can only walk on land for two more nights, while the moon is full in the sky. After that I must return to the sea.”

  There was more, but by that time Kelli had drifted off to sleep. Her dreams were colored in blues and greens and in them she wore garlands of kelp woven with seashells and freshwater pearls. The man beside her was gloriously naked, as she’d first glimpsed him when he’d stepped from the sea.

  Chapter Three

  Kelli woke alone on the couch. She sat up and stretched, more relaxed and content than she could remember feeling in ages. A vacation at the beach was exactly what she’d needed after all.

  Then she remembered the rest—naked men and soul mates and little lost mermaids. The story was unbelievable. Maybe it was all a dream. Hadn’t she always fantasized about castles under the sea? Those images had found their way into her sketchbook as she lulled herself with watercolor daydreams.

  The dream theory was shattered when she glanced toward the window and noticed her painting shimmering in a shaft of morning sunlight.

  The man in the picture was naked, exactly the way she’d seen him the very first night.

  She distinctly remembered painting him with clothes on—perhaps in an unconscious attempt to deny her sexual attraction.

  Draped over the corner of the painting was the most beautiful necklace Kelli had ever seen. An exquisite aquamarine pendant dangled from a cord braided with fine silken threads. The stone sparkled with the lucid blue of the sea.

  Mermaid tears.

  The voice was no more than a whisper at the edges of her mind. She lifted the pendant and immediately felt a sense of calm. Whether actual mermaid tears or simply aquamarine weathered smooth by the sea, the pendant seemed to act as an amplifier, giving strength to the voice in her mind.

  Was it simply coincidence that aquamarine was her birthstone? Its name was derived from the Latin “aqua” for water, and “mare” meaning sea. According to legend, aquamarine came from the treasure chests of mermaids, and was long regarded as the sailor’s lucky stone. She’d always wondered if that explained her mysterious pull to the water.

  Wear it and think of me.

  How could she not? It was as if he’d captured the essence of the sea in a gemstone and instilled it with mystical powers. The lucid-blue color perfectly matched Shawn’s eyes, as she’d somehow known the moment she’d seen him step from the sea.

  She draped it around her neck. The gemstone nestled in the dip of her cleavage, pulsating with warmth that radiated straight down her center to her pussy. The crystal-blue pendant seemed to hum and pulse in tandem with the beat of her heart.

  She glanced out the window, searching the endless horizon for any sign of her moonlight lover. Her body ached for his touch.

  Tonight, my love.

  Kelli clasped the pendant at her breast, feeling the signal strengthen. She knew it wasn’t only the gemstone that held magic, however. Her inner ear was already becoming more attuned to her lover’s song.

  “Until tonight,” she whispered, sending the thought out across the waves.

  Only then did she notice another difference in her painting. Shawn stood in the foreground, as she’d painted him—but on his bare chest was a teardrop-shaped glimmer of blue formed by a single tiny brushstroke. He was now wearing a pendant at his throat that matched her own.

  When she pressed the tip of her pinkie to the image, she found the paint was still wet to the touch.

  * * * * *

  With the entire day ahead of her, Kelli decided to explore the ocean. If what Shawn had said was true, then her fear of the water was groundless. Knowing that and overcoming the fear were two different things, but she was determined to try.

  First she knew she should check in at work. She turned on her cell phone, somewhat surprised and not a little disappointed to find a strong signal. With no excuse not to, she called her office.

  That was a mistake. She knew something was wrong as soon as she heard the receptionist’s frantic voice.

  “Kelli, where have you been? I’ve been trying to call! Don’t you check your voice mail?”

  “I’m on vacation, remember?”

  “Yeah, well—consider it a permanent vacation.”

  “What?”

  “Those rumors we’ve been hearing? They’re all true. They sold the company right out from under us. We all got an email telling us that ‘our services would no longer be required’. Can you believe it? An email!”

  Kelli hadn’t checked her email of course, having left her laptop behind. She wasn’t surprised by the news though, and in fact had been steeling herself for the inevitability. She’d heard strong murmurs of a takeover for the past few months.

  The least they could have done is told them face-to-face, however. Termination by email just seemed so…cowardly.

  “When?” she asked, interrupting the receptionist’s tirade.

  “Huh? Oh—two weeks. Then we get an additional two weeks’ severance pay.”

  Kelli did some quick mental calculations. She had a small amount in her personal savings account and a few freelance jobs on the side. She’d always been good about paying her bills on time, so she wouldn’t have to fend off bill collectors. Not for a few months, at least.

  By the end of the phone call, some of the old stress was back. She couldn’t even hold on to a job she hated. She tried to convince herself that maybe it was a blessing in disguise. Hadn’t she wished she had the time to work on her own art rather than the drudgery of a nine-to-five job? Of course there was the matter of money to consider. Her savings wouldn’t last more than a few months, and the last she checked there wasn’t a huge market for fantasy watercolors.

  Still, it could be a chance to follow her dream. She glanced out the window. Maybe more than one dream…

  Without even realizing it, her hand found the smooth gemstone at her neck. Almost immediately her fears slipped away, as easily as shedding her clothes. Which, now that she thought about it, wasn’t such a bad idea.

  Ten minutes later she was on the beach wearing nothing but a terrycloth robe. She carried a wicker basket containing some fruit, sunscreen and a novel. Nothing was going to spoil this vacation for her. She’d worry about the future when her time here was over. For now she was determined to enjoy every gloriously sun-drenched moment.

  * * * * *

  After reading the same page three times, Kelli finally gave up. Her mind was elsewhere. She kept glancing out at the water, hoping for a glimpse of Shawn even though she knew it wasn’t safe for him to walk o
n land by daylight. She clasped the aquamarine dangling from her necklace but his voice was silent.

  If he can’t come to me, maybe I can go to him? The thought came as a surprise. Was it her idea or had Shawn placed that suggestion in her mind? Either way, it felt right. There was only one problem. Just the thought of stepping into the water sent a spike of dread straight to her heart.

  As soon as the fear struck, a picture formed in her mind of the way Shawn had used the water’s caress to enhance his own touch when he brought her to orgasm the night before. Remembering the way the water had teased her body eased the fears. She slipped out of her robe and let it fall to the ground as she stood naked and free in the glistening sunlight. With a sense of purpose, she walked to the water’s edge. Each time the fear threatened to rear its head, she focused on the vision, remembering how sensuous the water could be.

  When she reached the water’s edge, she took a slow, deep breath. “I can do this,” she whispered, sounding braver than she felt. She closed her hand around the pendant at her neck, feeling an immediate connection to Shawn…then dipped one toe in the water.

  Her heart began to pound.

  Ignoring the fear, she stepped into the water, letting it swirl around her ankles. A quick image of the water sucking her down and pulling her under made her jerk back. This time the memory of Shawn’s touch wasn’t enough to overcome her apprehension. The terror came back stronger, making her pulse pound and her breath come in short, quick gasps.

  Determined to push past her phobia, she tried again. This time she made it a little farther, wading out into the water by sheer willpower alone before the fear came back stronger than ever. By the time the water was licking at her calves, a clammy sweat coated her skin. Terror held her immobile as the panic escalated, tightening her throat until she couldn’t breathe, could only whimper helplessly. As if mocking her fear, a dark cloud obscured the sun, darkening the sea and sky.