Riptide [Kismet Cove] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (29 page)

“How much do you need?”

Both men looked at her and Evan said, “About sixty thousand dollars, give or take a few grand.”

“You don’t need to take out a loan,” Jess told them. “We’re going to be together forever once this bonding is done, right? And I’m moving in with you guys, so I want to do this. Let me pay for the other half of the boat.”

“How the hell do you have sixty thousand dollars lying around?” Rory demanded.

“Some of it’s from the sale of Mom’s house after she died, but…” Jess ducked her head as her cheeks heated. “I got a really nice advance on this book I’m working on, and I have royalties coming in on the others.”

“Holy crap, we bagged a rich woman!” Evan stood up and high-fived Rory, who was looking at Jess with a dazed expression.

“So I’m not the only one who really likes your books, huh?”

“You’re still my favorite fan, though, big guy.”

“Damn skippy I am. Anyone else tries for that position and I’ll tear their head off.”

“You’re really that loaded?” Evan asked as he came over to hug her.

Jess nodded and Evan grinned. “Well then, I guess you’re going to be a partner in Pacifica Tours. Welcome aboard!”

“We’ll need to have a lawyer draw up the paperwork and make sure everything is legal, but if this is what you want to do, then who am I to say no. You really are the perfect woman for us.” Rory dropped the engine into neutral and came over to hug her, clapping Evan on the back at the same time.

“And speaking of perfect, this is the perfect spot for us to take a swim. Time to get naked, Jess.”

“Wait, what?” Jess’s head snapped up and she looked around them. “We’re in the middle of nowhere!”

“Exactly the point, there’s no one out here to see us change. We’re out of the way of the usual fishing holes and the orcas were reported forty klicks north of here, so we know they’re not going to be a problem.” Rory waved his arms to indicate the wide open stretch of gray sky and ocean that surrounded them. “It’s perfect.”

“Orcas? You mean killer whales? Why would they be a problem?” Jess suddenly felt a lot less eager to learn to transform. Why the hell hadn’t anyone mentioned killer whales before now?

“Why? Because orcas
eat
seals. Welcome to the food chain, baby.”

“Will you stop panicking her, Rory? Holy shit you’re an ass sometimes.” Evan took Jess by the shoulders and turned her around so she was looking up into his sky-blue eyes. “Don’t worry. Orcas are not going to swim up and eat us. Rory’s just messing with you. We make a living knowing where the whales are so we can bring the tourists to them, so I promise you that they’re nowhere around here. And even if they were, the odds are good they wouldn’t bother us. If you ever seen them while you’re in seal form, you just swim back to the boat and hop out of the water.”

“Okay.” Jess nodded and then turned around enough to be able to glare at Rory. “But just to be sure, your ass is going into that water first, buster.”

Evan howled with laughter and Rory nodded, grinning. “Okay, okay, I earned that. I’ll go in first. If nothing eats me, then you’ll know it’s safe.”

Jess just crossed her arms over her chest and glowered. “I don’t see you getting naked, either.”

“She’s really cute when she’s mad…at you.” Evan snickered. “Do you need some music to accompany this strip tease?”

“Shut. The fuck. Up.” Rory ground out each word and unzipped his jacket. “If I’m going in, you need to put up the dive flag and help Jess make the change.”

“I know the routine. You go ahead and get naked.”

“Bastard,” Rory snarled and started to strip off his clothes, hissing in discomfort as the winter wind hit bare skin. “Glory fucking hell, it’s cold. Why are we doing this again?”

“Because Jess needs to learn how to do this without half the colony watching.”

“Right. I knew there was a reason I’m freezing my assets off.”

“And they’re really fine assets,” Jess observed as Rory skinned off his jeans, revealing every inch of his sculpted body to her gaze, along with the fact he wasn’t wearing underwear again. Jess felt a flood of heat spread out from her womb as she drank in the vision in front of her.

“Once you change, you should be able to hear me in your mind. It’s not as strong as the bond between Evan and me, but we all have the ability when we’re in the seal form. It’s the only way we can communicate.”

Rory walked over to her and planted a slow kiss on her mouth. “Don’t be afraid of what you’re going to see or what will happen when you change. It’s as natural to us as breathing. Now your pelt is free of that binding box, you’ll be able to do it no problem at all.”

He kissed her again and let her see the love in his eyes before he turned and walked to the side of the boat and simply dove over the side. Jess gasped and ran to look down into the water, half expecting to see a cold, wet Rory staring up at her. Instead a seal was swimming calmly below her, his dark eyes so familiar Jess knew without a doubt this was Rory. His dark brown fur was mottled with black, and as she stared at him the seal winked and then lifted a flipper out of the water to splash her.

“Hey!” she yelped and wiped the saltwater out of her eyes. “Not funny!”

“Oh, he thinks he’s being hilarious,” Evan informed her. “Better hurry up and get in there before he thinks to use his hind flippers instead. They’re much bigger.”

“So, what do I do?” Jess flailed her arms at her sides, mimicking Rory’s flippers. “Imagine I’m a fuzzy marine mammal and dive overboard?”

“Pretty much, yes,” Evan reached into a cubbyhole and pulled out a bright-red flag with diagonal slash of white across the middle. “I need to go put this up, so you stay here and get naked.” He stepped past her and out onto the deck so he could clip the flag to one of the various antennae and poles that seemed to stick out of the deck in numerous places.

“What is that thing, anyway?”

“It’s a flag that tells any other boaters who come within sight of us that we have a diver in the water and to keep clear and be careful.”

Jess started stripping off her clothes and she was shivering from cold before she even got her jeans off.

“But we don’t have a diver on…oh!” She ended lamely as she realized the reason for the flag. “That’s smart.”

“Thanks, sweetheart, we do have our moments.”

Evan grinned as he came back into the semi-sheltered portion of the boat. “Naked is a good look for you, by the way, but blue with cold isn’t really your best color.”

“Thanks for the fashion tip. So how do I get myself wrapped in fur?”

Evan handed her the silver-and-black pelt they had found at the bottom of the box. “Hold onto that and imagine yourself wrapped in that fur. It’s enveloping you, protecting you and keeping you warm and safe. You don’t need it to shift, but it usually helps with the visualization to hold it the first time you try and transform.”

Jess closed her eyes and wrapped her fingers into the soft fur. She tried to relax and let Evan’s voice guide her imagination, but the rocking of the boat kept her off-balance and the wind was so cold against her bare skin it was almost painful.

Suddenly Evan was there, holding her and cutting the worst of the wind as he stood at her back and curved his big body around hers. “Just relax. You’re trying to force it.”

“I am not.”

“Really? Then why are you gripping that fur so tight your knuckles are white?” Evan rested a hand over hers and squeezed her fingers. “All right, we’re going to try something else.” He teased the pelt out of her grip gently and set it down on a nearby chair, safely out of the wind.

“Just trust me,” he whispered and began nuzzling his mouth over her ear and down the side her neck, dusting tender, butterfly kisses to her skin all the way down to her shoulder. “Think about being warm, and buoyant, and gliding through the water.” Evan words slid into her mind and she tried to relax and focus on his voice and nothing else. “You’ve already done this once, your mind and body know what to do. You just need to let it happen.”

“I’m trying,” Jess grumbled. “It’s not working.”

“I noticed.” Evan pressed one last kiss to her shoulder and then scooped her up into his arms. “Remember, you already know how to do this!” was all he said as he walked her over toward the side of the boat. Jess realized what he was planning and started to kick and flail, but he had her in an iron grip.

“Don’t you fucking da—” He heaved her over the side and Jess hit the water before she could even get out the last word and the ice-cold Pacific closed over her head. The cold was so intense it was painful, but her fury ran hotter than even the frigid ocean could cool and by the time her head broke the surface Jess wasn’t feeling the cold anymore. She sucked in a lungful of air and turned her head to curse at Evan, but all that came out of her mouth was a harsh bark.
What the hell?

“Well, that wasn’t quite the way I thought he’d do it, but it worked.”
Rory’s voice sounded inside Jess’s mind and she shook her head at the strange feeling.

“Rory?”
she sent out the tentative mental query.

“Right here, J.J.”
Rory’s sleek, fur-covered face popped up in her vision. “
You are gorgeous in this form. I’ve never seen a prettier seal.”

“I’m a seal?”
Jess glanced down at herself and got a face full of water for her trouble.

Rory’s laughter filled her skull.
“Yes, now stop flailing around and try swimming. You have about thirty seconds before Ev joins us, and if you want to get back at him for tossing you into the drink I suggest you figure out how to do more than bob up and down.”

“How?”

“Stop thinking and just act. You already know how to swim, you just need to let the magic do its thing. This is all part of who you are, you just need to accept it.”

“Easy for you to say…or uh…think. You’ve been doing this since you were a kid!”

Rory barked, and to Jess’s ears it sounded a lot like laughter. “Get moving!” he told her telepathically and dove under the waves. A second later she felt him nudge her sharply in the side. Without thinking, Jess reacted, flicking her hind flippers and arcing up out of the water and racing off. Holy crap, I’m fast! she thought as she drove herself through the waves. Jess felt like she was flying, and her senses flooded her with a myriad of details. Her nose identified odors with ease, telling her there was a kelp bed nearby and that hidden deep in its golden-green depths rock cod swam, ready to be caught and eaten. Her stomach rumbled and she realized the thought of eating raw fish didn’t bother her physically, but her she mentally and again she heard Rory’s laughter in the back of her mind.

“You eat sushi, don’t you?”
he commented and Jess couldn’t come up with a reasonable argument.

Her ears detected a splash and then she scented something new in the water, a hint of spice that she immediately knew belonged to Evan.

“Hi, sweetheart.”
His voice touched her mind
. “Forgive me?”

“Not yet!”
She sent the thought flying back at him and doubled back on herself with a mental yell of exaltation as she launched herself at Evan. His coat was a mottled golden gray that stood out in the water, making him much easier to see than Rory’s dark coloring.

“Shit!” Evan’s curse came through clearly and then he darted away from her, managing to stay just out of her reach no matter how hard she swam. Rory joined in and soon they were playing an aquatic game of tag, both men encouraging her and showing her how to use her new body to its fullest ability.

Finally she had had enough and sent a message to both of them announcing she was tired. Within seconds they were swimming up on each side of her, escorting her back to the boat they had left adrift during their short but intense period of play.

“Just push yourself up out of the water and onto the swim platform, and once you’re out of the water imagine yourself human again and that’s it. Easy.”
Evan sent the thought, accompanied by a faint hint of laughter and then flicked his body and launched himself up onto the platform at the stern of the boat.

Easy my ass, she thought as she recalled the way he’d tossed her overboard. She spotted one of Evan’s flippers and lunged forward, nipping him sharply. She could hear his yelp of protest and it filled her with a sense of satisfaction as she followed his example and propelled herself up onto the platform. This time she was prepared for the transformation, but even though she was paying attention, it still came so quickly that she barely had time to register a slight tingle and then all she felt was the shock of being soaking wet and naked in the middle of December.

“Cold!” she exclaimed and scrambled to her feet before another wave could hit her in the ass with icy spray.

“You bit me.”

The hairs on the back of Jess’s neck rose at the odd tone in Evan’s voice, but she was too busy climbing back on board to really pay attention to what her instincts were telling her. She barely got her feet back on the deck before Evan was standing in front of her. His blue eyes had turned stormy and a trickle of blood flowed between the fingers he had clamped around the hand she’d nipped.

“You deserved that after what you—”

Evan growled again and Jess’s mouth went dry, while the saucy retort she had been planning withered from her brain.

“Mine.” His voice was as rough as a gravel road and his blood-streaked hand shot out to snag her wrist, hauling her up against his naked body and curving an arm around her so that she was pinned in place. Evan dropped his head to her neck and inhaled, and she could feel his chest rise as he drew her scent deep into his lungs. His cock surged and thickened against the rounded softness of her stomach and Jess felt her body react. She forgot about the cold, about the wind, she forgot about everything but the low, rumbling sounds rising from Evan’s chest.

When he brushed his lips over the top of Jess’s shoulder she moaned and tipped her head to one side, offering him her throat. Instead his arms locked around her and he growled her name once and then bit down where her shoulder joined her neck. Jess cried out in shock and tried to twist free, but Evan gave her no room to move and she didn’t have the strength to pull away.