Reefcake (A Ménage MMF Romance) (Wild Ménage Book 1) Page 2

  “Oh my God,” she gasped, slapping a hand over her eyes. He was completely naked! And most certainly a man. If there’d been any doubt before, she couldn’t have one now with that…that mast dangling between his legs.

  She was alone, in an unreachable cave, with a naked man. Jo skidded back on the sand kicking the black grains up his wet calves as she patted along her clothing. It seemed in place, though drenched to her skin. Did that deter him? Or was he waiting for her to wake?

  Why wasn’t he moving? The man stood beside the watery edge, his jolly roger dangling in the wind. While his arms were crossed over his chest, he made no threatening movements and seemed to be watching her as if she was the threat. Mother Mary how she wished that were true.

  “Who…” Joanna swallowed hard, “who are you?”

  The snow-grey eyes narrowed, his head tilting to the side. A shock of wet black hair tumbled from the move. Placing a thumb to his chest, he said, “Namhu.”

  That wasn’t a name she’d ever heard. Or was it even his name? Could he speak her language? Wonderful, Jo, you’re at the mercy of a naked man you can’t communicate with. “I’m…me,” she pointed at herself, “Jo-Ann-A.”

  His glare didn’t lessen for a second, though the massive thigh muscles twitched as if he intended to run at her should she misspeak. Pulling in a breath, she tried again. “Where are you,” she pointed at him hoping he’d understand, then raised her hands wide, “from?”

  “Eridu,” he said as if that series of letters bore any sense of a word.

  With a groan, Jo’s head tipped down, her eyes drifting over the sand. So he could be a lunatic who lived on a deserted island and kidnapped women found drifting on the ocean, or… She couldn’t think of another option. He certainly didn’t look like any native she’d ever met. Fantastic, Joanna. How are you planning on saving yourself now?

  “Where are you from?”

  Her head jerked up, her eyes zooming straight for the stranger’s face — though they did catch a tremble from that dangling prow on the way up. “You…you speak Spanish?” she sputtered, a tiny hope blooming in her chest.

  “Yes.” He wasn’t about to give her an inch. “Also French and English should the need arise.” Suddenly, the naked man put on erudite airs as if Joanna was the wild barbarian who wandered into his home.

  Namhu. That really was his name. Was he from an island called Eridu? Or a hidden city? She’d never heard of such a place but who knew what lingered in the jungles or deeper into the content itself.

  “I’m Joanna,” she said.

  “You said that already,” Namhu sighed, sounding weary of her. Which wasn’t good from a captor or…

  She peered closer, leaning across the sand to take a deeper look at his features. “It was you,” same brow, same granite jawline, and wide nose. “You rescued me.”

  To her surprise, and relief, a smile raised his pouty lips. Which had been on hers. The memory flooded through her of a naked man cradling her face in his hands as he pulled her in for a kiss. She should be horrified, but warmth pooled in her lower belly causing her to squirm and squish her thighs together. It’d certainly felt nice at the time, before her blackout.

  Namhu tipped his head down in a solemn but tiny bow. If not for him, she’d be a corpse amongst the rest of the pirate flotsam with only the crabs to mourn her. “Thank you,” she whispered, her heart squeezing at the reminder of how closely death seemed to stalk her.

  That caught the strange man by surprise. He stumbled back a step, those snow-grey eyes for once drifting off of her. “You are…respected,” he said and a tiny laugh broke from Jo at the slip. So Spanish wasn’t his first language. Probably not English either. Who was he aside from a man of the seas that rescued drowning damsels?

  Lifting his chin, his body flexing at her laughter, Namhu thundered, “Answer me, Jo-ann-a…”

  “Joanna, actually, all together. Or Jo. Jo can be used too,” she babbled, suddenly caring what this stranger called her.

  He sighed at her interruption, then asked, “Where are you from?”

  “Havana?” she answered in confusion. It seemed the least important question to ask. Who are you? What do you want? How do we leave? Those were far more pressing. But Namhu seemed pleased with the answer, his lips flitting with that same tiny smile as he turned to the water’s edge.

  He opened his mouth and shouted an incoherent noise. Jo couldn’t even understand if it was a scream, a song, or a bird cry. To her ears, it sounded like all three, but Namhu acted as if he’d done nothing strange at all. With crossed arms he stood in place, his face softening from boredom.

  No. She needed answers. “How did you save me? I was drowning, and I remember you…did you bring me here? Where are we? Where did you even come from in the middle of a battle?”

  His jaw opened, and it had to be a trick of the light, but Jo would swear she saw two sets of teeth on the bottom row. Shaking his head, Namhu asked, “Which do I answer first?”

  Why are you naked? No, that’s not the most pressing and it might enrage him. “How did you survive the battle?” she asked.

  A splash shattered the still pool, Jo watching the ripples race to the edge as a fin splintered through the surface. She pointed at it, her mouth falling open to warn Namhu away from the potential shark, but he was all smiles watching it. The ripples drew closer, something barely under the surface swimming towards them. Calm down, Jo. It doesn’t much matter. Fish can’t walk on land and…

  At the edge, a head with hair green as seaweed rose up from the salty depths. She stared in confusion as a man fresh out of boyhood hooked his arms onto the shore’s edge and began to rise. The face was sweet and soft, the complete opposite of Namhu, with features that spoke of a gentle nature. While she couldn’t see his eyes at this distance, something told her they’d be warm and mirthful, a smile already on his peach-pink lips.

  He too was shirtless, his muscled body a giddy-joy to Namhu’s taciturn pride. Upon pushing himself high enough to expose his belly, the new addition turned to Namhu. “Well? Did you guess right?”

  “Yes, it is her,” Namhu announced. He reached behind into the darkness and revealed in his hand an amber bottle with a scroll of parchment inside.

  “That’s…is that my message?” Jo gasped.

  While Namhu glared, the new stranger smiled wide. He tugged on the scrap of the old map and unfurled it on the sand. “Indeed so. Least that was our hope, and seems you were right after all.” He grabbed onto Namhu’s calf and worried his palm up and down it. A strange sensation gurgled in Jo’s stomach at the tenderness in the move. She wanted to watch more, but the stranger returned his hand to the sand.

  “Who are you?” Joanna asked, causing Namhu to snort and roll his eyes as if she was some untrained dog pissing in the corner.

  “Ignore him, he gets grumpy when the moon’s out,” the green-haired stranger said. Laying a hand to his chest, he said, “I am Enki, and I am very pleased to meet you, J Caballero.”

  “She says her name is Jo-Ann…” Namhu began before snickering. “Jo.”

  “Excellent, Jo. Jo Jo,” Enki played with her name the way a dolphin would a shrimp bucket. It was oddly comforting to watch the man lighten without a second thought. Perhaps she wasn’t in as much danger as she feared.

  “My Lord,” Namhu whispered to the young man who stopped reciting ‘Jo’ and focused on her. So Enki was someone of noble birth. Would that deign Namhu as his bodyguard?

  “Yes, forgive me. I’m still working on this tongue. You are Jo Caballero of Havana, yes?” Enki asked, Jo nodding at the facts. “Then,” a smile dawned on his face, “you are the only one who can get us to the Governor of Havana island.”

  Oh no.

  They wanted the reward she offered. Of course they did, they read the note. She knew no one would take her plea seriously without the promise of a reward. No one did anything in this world without coin. But she thought she could give her rescuers the slip before having to make good on
it. If she approached her father, if they forced her to Havana, she’d be right back on another ship to her doom.

  “I can get you coin, lots of coin. From a…a ship carrying pieces of eight bound for—”

  Namhu interrupted with a snort. “We care nothing for your metal bits.”

  They didn’t want money? Who in this world didn’t want money? Who would turn down the opportunity to get rich? Neither monk nor barbarian would refuse such an offer. Jo’s eyes narrowed, her body tucking in tighter as she stared down the two naked men. “Who are you?”

  “That,” Enki said, his eyes rolling up to Namhu’s. With a grunt, he dug his palms into the sand and launched his body out of the water. A massive green tail curled from his hips clear down to where his feet should be. Where the feet on a human would be. “…will take some explaining.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  “YOU’RE…YOU’RE A…?” Jo sputtered watching as the leafy-green scales of the tail began to melt to form darker tan skin. Human skin on a not human.

  Enki shrugged, the smile rising as if he found her shock entertaining. “Not land-walkers.”

  “What?” She tried to focus away from the legs that appeared from nowhere, but it was hard to turn away. Some of that was due to a fear that his lower half might suddenly melt into seaweed, the rest because of the cut thigh muscles bulging as Enki tucked a foot under him.

  “Land-walkers.” He jabbed a finger at Jo then accepted Namhu’s hand to rise. His body was unsteady, wobbling as he stood up on what had been a tail not even a minute prior. Joanna’s eyes drew across the legs, hunting for a hint of the scales she just witnessed.

  God’s nails. The transformation didn’t seem to involve trousers, Enki’s manhood resting comfortably against his right thigh as he jutted his hip out. It was tighter than Namhu’s, certainly less intimidating, with a jaunty curve to the left as if it was about to wave to her.

  “I…” Jo’s mouth salivated and she tried to pinch herself for memorizing the nude bodies of two strange men. “I’m not a land-walker. You’re a mermaid. Merlad?” Rising from her mind came the tales told to her by nannies of harrowed sailors left adrift in the doldrums. It was always beautiful women trying to charm the men to their depths.

  They never told of men with chiseled bodies, soul-capturing eyes, and heartwarming smiles who rescued women. Nor if said lustful objects of manhood would devour the women they saved or not.

  Enki turned to the taciturn Namhu, his innocent face crinkled in confusion. “What’s a mermaid?”

  “Some of them call us that,” Namhu spoke. “Most get it wrong.”

  “Hmph.” Enki spoke the word mermaid thrice, his mouth bending about to name the supposed mythical creature. She stared at the pout to his warm lips glistening from the sheen of seawater still clinging to his body.

  Joanna’s neck strained as she watched the two men towering above her. Should she stand? Would they allow that? How could she even escape if they were truly mer…folk? They’d certainly catch up to her with their powerful fins before she swam a hundred meters. Was that why both had leg muscles that’d rival atlas himself?

  “You saved me for a reason?” Jo spoke, trying to silence the lecherous voice panting inside her. The fact they were clearly not human wasn’t dissuading it as much as it should.

  “Yes,” Namhu spoke. He remained rigid and as inflexible as stone while Enki darted about on his legs like a school of fish. The smaller man stepped closer to the seated woman, his cock swaying side to side before he took a knee right before her.

  Eyes as turquoise as the lagoons of her birthplace stared deep into Joanna’s. When he spotted her ice blue left eye his lips lifted into a smile and a rosy blush swept across his face. Enki captured her hand in his and raised it closer. She held her breath, both fearing and hoping he’d place a kiss to her knuckles, but he only held it.

  “All I need from you to help my people is an audience with your father. Nothing more.”

  Yes. Say yes. Give him whatever he wishes. Look at those sweet eyes in his honorable face and… The scent of salt and ocean spray wafted through his green hair, grounding Jo as to what he was. An honest-to-the-Christ-child merman.

  “Your people?” she whispered. “Are you a…a chieftain? A king of the merfolk?”

  Enki’s eyebrows raised at such a thought, but it was Namhu who snorted and answered, “He is the son of our leader.”

  “A prince?” Jo’s voice gargled in her throat, a scream of joy and panic melding into one. Not just a merman but a prince as well, and he was nearly pressing his naked body to hers.

  It was to Namhu whom Enki turned, the young man staring for explanation from the slightly older guard. Shaking his head, Namhu said, “Not the way you land-walkers use it, no.”

  “Please,” Enki resumed, his sparkling eyes welling up. “Lady Caballero, you may be our only hope to avoid wanton slaughter of my people. We lived in peace here before, even traded with the land-walkers of the area. Then your ships came.”

  “The tar dumped from their bellies destroyed our fish, the low bottoms scraped apart our reefs,” Namhu snarled, his soul-burning grey eyes focusing on the only ‘land-walker’ in range. Jo shivered in her soaked dress, trying to pull in tighter to avoid him. “Every day the battles between your fallacy of nations grow more bloody, ships firing balls of metal at each other, your refuse shattering our homes and threatening our young.”

  “I’m…I’m sorry,” Joanna pleaded.

  A calming palm curled to her cheek, Enki pulling her from the wrath of Namhu into his serene eyes. His smile never dipped for a moment even as he swept the edge of his thumb over her trembling lips. “Help us. We have been watching your people for some time. Learning their ways.”

  It was Namhu who snorted at that. Judging by how he seemed to understand the most and was who Enki looked to, Jo would guess he was the one tasked with spying. “There is little by way of honor on the surface,” the stoic man intoned, his lip curled in a snarl. She hated how he made her heart skip in her chest, but hated even more the throbbing pulse from between her thighs when he looked upon her.

  “You were with the pirates,” she caught on. Of course, they were hiding on the ship, perhaps ordered it to attack. It would explain how quickly they found her. But then both the men’s eyes narrowed, their gazes darting together in confusion.

  “Pirates,” she explained. “The men without honor. They fly no flag, no colors, no allegiance to King or any country but gold. They’re who you spoke of.”

  “I have served on ships of all the nations who desecrate our home. From my time, I see no difference from these pirates you mention,” Namhu declared.

  Enki glared at his guard, the pair clearly exchanging a look that’d Jo would guess had been shared many a time. It seemed as if one was more on board with their plan than the other, and she had to play along or risk angering the biggest one. In that, his form was taller and wider, not just that his equipment was jaw-dropping.

  “While there are differences between our people,” Enki breathed, his gentle caress once again sweeping over Jo’s cheek, “I wish to convene with your leader — the governor as you call him — to reach a mutual understanding.”

  His mouth softened out of the constant smile, the bottom lip bulging as if taunting her to give it a taste. Would it be fishy? She couldn’t remember being put-off by Namhu, but then she did pass out almost as soon as he latched on.

  “That…” Jo breathed, her body rocking closer to the naked man nearly in her lap. His turquoise eyes sparkled at her, seeming to take in every word and breath in her body. How unlike any man she’d ever met before. In an instant, the spell snapped as she thought of her father. “That cannot be done.”

  “As I said,” Namhu snarled, “she is his spawn, they will not help outsiders.”

  Jo snapped her head up, her glare narrowing to a pinprick. For all the jeers of witchcraft she received, her icy eye worked to her advantage whenever she turned her wrath upon a perso
n. It even silenced Namhu, though his stance didn’t falter from the power pose. “I despise my father with every bone in my body,” she thundered, a fist to her chest while sneering at the man who saved her. As if he was the reason she was to be sold off to the highest bidder. As if he tricked her onto a ship bound to her personal hell.

  “That…” Namhu slipped into a sly laugh, but when she wouldn’t break off her glare, he was the one to turn away, “is a dangerous statement.”

  “It is the truth. It is why I know that your plan will not succeed. My father is…he cares for nothing beyond power. Beyond what he can gain from you. If you were to meet with him, I guarantee you would not leave the building.”

  He’d kill them, or imprison them. Send them back to the crown as trophies, whether stuffed or not was if they could be collared at all. Jo felt that truth as surely as she did the salt stinging in the cuts to her cheeks. And the idea of sweet Enki or even the grouchy Namhu’s bellies cut open and stuffed with cotton choked her heart.

  The hand around her cheek swept down, Enki raising her chin higher so she’d fall into his turquoise stare. Did he have some magical power? Could he see all her misdeeds with his haunting eyes? Jo snorted to herself at the idea; people in Havana thought the same of her.

  “Would you lie to us?” he asked, leaning closer. Her body trembled at the thought of him placing his mouth upon hers and pulling the truth from her lips. But Enki paused just before kissing her to say, “To protect your father?”

  “No,” Jo admitted, “No one should die by his hand. I wouldn’t wish his punishments on my worst enemy, never mind…” Never mind, what? Why did she turn so protective of these two highly strange men in a matter of moments?

  Enki nodded, seeming to accept her truth as fact. Staggering back on his heels, he rose to speak softly to Namhu. They fell into a strange conversation, the same loud clicks and high-pitched whines reverberating from when Namhu called for his prince. But their body language was close, protective even. Neither held the other in their arms, but Enki would let his soft touch glide along Namhu’s prickly exterior seeming to soothe him. That sloshing in her gut returned tenfold.