Page 13 of Leaping Into Love

Mirroring his frown, I narrow my gaze. “What do you mean, ‘while I decide what I want to do’?”

The croak he makes sounds distinctly melancholy. “I will understand if you want to leave now that you know what I truly am.”

“Did the magic or glamour or whatever it was hide your true personality, or are you the man I’ve been falling for, minute by minute, since I got out of my car that first day?”

“I haven’t been able to tell you the full truth about some things, but I haven’t lied to you. I’m the same man, though in a much different body.”

“The glamoured you was handsome, but I like this body,” I say, gliding my hands over his shoulders and the swell of his exposed chest. “I’d like to see more of it. All of it.” I can’t help but giggle as his big eyes open impossibly wider. “But if you’re a wait-for-marriage kind of frog…”

“I would marry you today, Tiana. And not because I wish to taste your sweet release and sink into your soft warmth until you’re so lost to pleasure, you can no longer tell where you end and I begin.” One hand leaves my back and rises above the water’s surface to cup my chin. It’s as large as I imagined, with thick pads on the tips and slightly webbed between each finger. “I would swear a vow to you here and now because I love you.”

“You love me?” I whisper, because I can barely breathe with my heart pounding its wild beat.

“Completely. Eternally. I have waited so long for you, my mate.”

“Mate? That’s how you described your parents and grandparents. As true mates.”

Smiling, he nods. “My kind, and many other monsters, mate for life. So, when I call you my mate, it is with reverence because you are the one, the only one, I would share my life with.”

I’ve read plenty of books where hearts are described as pitter-pattering, and I finally understand what it feels like. “How can you be sure I’m the one?” The possibility of having my heart broken…it’s the reason I never let anyone even try to get close. Or at least, I thought that was the reason. Now I wonder if somewhere deep inside, my heart knew to wait for Henry. Letting him in was so easy.

“I’ve lived here my entire life, and I knew from the emptiness inside me that my mate was not nearby. That didn’t stop me from sending out my mating call for many, many years. Like so many of the monsters in town yearning to find their special mate, my call was never answered. Then, one day, you contacted me, replying to an advertisement I never placed, for a job that didn’t exist.”

If my eyes aren’t as big as his right now, I’d be shocked. “But there was an ad, and you interviewed me.”

“And as you now know, magic exists. Old magic with a power beyond comprehension. Most humans are not consciously aware of these forces, but credit ‘luck’ or ‘fate’ with unexplainable circumstances. Fate is old magic at work. Fate heard my call, and when it found you, created a path to unite us. The job advertisement existed only for your eyes.”

“You’re saying that some mystical force lured me here under the premise of an amazing—but fake—job opportunity so we would meet and fall in love?”

Worry pulls his eyes closer together. “If I could have, I would have told you the truth from the start, and every day since. The magic prevented that kind of disclosure. I had to trust you would see beyond the glamour when it was the right time.”

“So, when you sang for me now, you weren’t sure I’d see your true appearance when I opened my eyes?”

“I hoped. The glamour carries a unique sensation, and the moment I had you in my arms, with your lips close enough to kiss, I felt the old magic beginning to unravel. I knew the time had arrived.”

“Then why didn’t you kiss me?”

“Not revealing myself to you sooner was beyond my control. Kissing you while you believed me to be human would have been willful deception on my part.”

I didn’t come here looking for a man, but I found the best one. “I changed my mind; I do believe in fate,” I say, cupping his cool, wide face in my hands. “Kiss me, please. Then take me to bed and sing for me.”

chapter eight

henry

Fate would not give me a mate I could not make happy, yet my pulse beats as if I’m in a race for my life as I close the distance between Tiana’s mouth and mine. They are drastically different. In size, in shape. And I have never kissed anyone. Not on the mouth. Not intimately.

But the moment our mouths touch, every worry vanishes. Somehow, we fit together. Move together as if this is our thousandth kiss instead of our first.

Again, she slides her arms around the back of my neck, pressing her beautiful soft body against me as her warm, eager breaths mingle with mine. Her small tongue slides into my mouth, exploring, teasing. This, I will never be able to reciprocate. My tongue is too long, though not for the other places I will taste and pleasure her.

Underwater, she raises one leg and wraps it behind me, her heel finding purchase against my backside. The position brings her center tighter against my hard cock, and her throaty moan vibrates through me all the way to my webbed toes.

Moving my hands to her round bottom, I hold her firmly and bring her other leg up to mirror the first. The cool water is no match for the warmth of her body. Even with layers between us, the heat between her legs radiates through my cock as she moves against me, seeking pleasure.

“I want you so much I can barely breathe,” she whispers mid-kiss. “I feel like I’m going to explode, and I want to be naked with you when I do.”

“Climb around to my back and I will swim us to the steps.”