A Mermaid's Heart Read online

  A Mermaid's Heart

  A Steamy Mythology Romance

  Tamsin Ley

  All characters in this book, be they mythological, human, or something else entirely, are the product of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual people, situations, or events are entirely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or distributed in any form or by any means without explicit written permission from the author, with the exception of brief quotes for use in reviews, articles, or blogs. This book is licensed for your enjoyment only. Thank you for supporting this author.

  * * *

  Copyright © 2018 Twin Leaf Press

  ISBN: 978-1-950027-12-5

  Contents

  Book Description

  Introduction

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Epilogue

  Also by Tamsin Ley

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  A newly-made mermaid wants to protect a human male from her deadly siren sisters, but her own carnal desires may spell disaster for them both…

  * * *

  When Ebby discovers a coven of mermaids torturing a handsome human, she's determined to set him free. But one small kiss to renew his breath-spell has her teetering on the brink of ecstasy, drawing her to the one thing she's avoided all her life—a mate. Mermaids don't bond for life, but Ebby can't deny the irresistible hold Cruz has on her. He's strong, clever, and immune to the other mermaids' song. For the first time in her life, she dreams of a home and family.

  * * *

  Yet the other mermaids are relentless, and swear if they can't have him, then no one will.

  * * *

  Together, Ebby and Cruz must overcome deadly odds to survive. And happily-ever-after? That may require more than either of them has to give.

  Introduction

  A Mermaid’s Heart can be read as a standalone, but you may enjoy it more if you read The Merman’s Kiss first. And right now, you can get it FREE!

 
  THE MERMAN’S KISS

  FREE NOW >

  1

  Cruz watched his friend, Jake, run a finger down the bare arm of an over-tanned blonde and say something that made her giggle. The party boat’s deck was loaded with inebriated targets, and apparently Jake was determined to bone every one of them. This vacation was supposed to be a diving expedition, and Jake had told him they’d be snorkeling today, but so far, no one had even dipped a toe in the water.

  Cruz caught his friend’s eye and signed, “You ready for a swim?”

  Jake gave him a wicked grin that told him no and launched into one of his signature jokes.

  Sighing, Cruz looked out over the glittering water, imagining the sound of the waves against the hull and the cry of gulls in the distance. Deaf since the age of seven, he vaguely remembered the sounds from TV shows he’d seen. He’d also learned that his voice tended to come off as less than charming, and as a rule remained silent.

  The scent of coconut body oil wafted toward him and he returned his attention to the conversation, laughing a little too late—and possibly too loud—at Jake’s punch line.

  A redhead puckered her brows, her sangria-stained lips forming the words, “What’s up with him?”

  Knowing Jake was about to pull the deaf card—chicks dug a guy with a deaf friend almost as much as they dug a guy with a puppy—Cruz forced his mouth into a good-natured smile and signed, “Going lobster diving.”

  Jake lifted his chin in Cruz’s direction in acknowledgment and kept talking to the blonde.

  Cruz strode to the back of the boat and grabbed a snorkel mask. Diving into the blessedly cool water, he kicked toward a rock overhang in the reef. He’d always loved diving; deafness wasn’t an issue underwater. Normally, he preferred full scuba gear, although he did equally well free diving. He had a keen eye for detecting spiny lobsters on the sandy floor and even made enough to pay his rent one summer selling them to a local market.

  Within moments, he spotted a blue-green crustacean. He angled in to snatch it by its carapace and was ready to shoot back to the surface when he spotted one of the party girls peeking at him from behind a lacy green sea fan. At least one person had followed his lead and come in for a swim. Her long dark hair billowed around her face, and her bright red lipstick shone vividly even underwater.

  Huh. He didn’t think any of those women from the boat would actually want to get wet—at least, not with water. His chest was beginning to ache with the need to breathe, but he raised the lobster in greeting and made an eating motion. “Dinner?”

  The woman opened her mouth as if to speak, beckoning him toward her with one hand.

  She’s interested? And she liked to swim, too. Maybe this party boat had been a good idea after all.

  Grinning, Cruz pointed to the surface and kicked upward, keeping his eyes on the woman.

  A flash of pale skin, black hair, and red… legs? shot toward him in a blur.

  Startled, he stopped kicking. A woman with flowing purple hair swept up from behind him, close enough that her naked breasts brushed against his arm. She pulled his face to hers, clamping his lips in a kiss. This is a bit fast, even for a drunken cruise. Her hair enveloped him in a purple mist, blocking his vision. The lobster slipped from his fingers. He grabbed her hands, trying to pull them from his cheeks, but damn, the woman had a grip. His lungs burned for oxygen.

  The woman not only continued forcing her tongue between his lips but now crushed her breasts and hips against him as if ready to do the nasty right then and there.

  What the fuck? Unable to break free, he kicked for the surface for all he was worth, dragging her with him.

  A second, distinctly feminine body pressed against his back. The snorkel mask was ripped from his head while two sets of hands slithered greedily over his skin.

  He struggled against them, bubbles leaking from his mouth and nose. How can they hold their breaths so long?

  A hand reached around him and dipped into his trunks.

  The air left his lungs in a great rush. Holy fuck!

  He resisted sucking in that fateful first inhalation of water. This couldn’t be real, being mauled to death by beautiful women underwater. His head grew muzzy with the need to breathe. Closing his eyes, he felt like this had to be a bad dream.

  A dream. He had to be dreaming. There was no other explanation—unless he was already dead…

  He sucked in a draught of water.

  And then another.

  His eyes opened to the freckled cheeks of the purple-haired woman still enveloping him in a kiss. She rubbed her lithe body against him, her nipples teasing the fine hairs over his pecs.

  If this is a dream, I may as well go with it.

  Taking hold of the woman’s hips, he noted the lack of a bikini bottom. This was the most vivid dream he’d ever had in his life. He swore he could even smell sex rising from her skin, filling the water. He wrapped both hands around the small of her back, pressing his length hard into her flesh.

  She wriggled in obvious pleasure and broke the kiss to nibble his jawline. While she worked her way down his throat and chest, the woman at his back slithered up over his head to take over the kiss from an upside-down position. Before her halo of hair once again blocked out his surroundings, he imagined he saw a huge, purple tai
l fin spread out in front of him…

  His swim trunks were yanked down his hips.

  Much as he loved the ocean, he’d never had a sex dream about it before. This is awesome. His entire bloodstream surged with need.

  A firm tongue caressed the head of his shaft. His hips jerked involuntarily, and a groan rose from deep in his chest. He didn’t know where to put his hands—the woman at his crotch or the woman plunging her tongue into his mouth. He settled for one hand each, knotting his fingers in their hair and kissing back with deft strokes of his tongue. Immediately above his head bobbed his kissing partner’s breasts, tipped by nipples as red as maraschino cherries.

  Cherries on top, he thought, realizing he was feeling a bit drunk. Why not? It was his dream. He could do whatever he desired. He reached up to pull one within reach of his mouth when a third set of hands swept over the breasts. Delicate fingers and golden skin so dark it was closer to brown than gold pinched the nipples, coaxing them into sharp peaks.

  Pulling his face from the kiss, he tried to get a better look at his partners, but long-nailed fingers pulled him roughly back into place. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he wondered about the forcefulness of this fantasy. He didn’t mind a woman with an appetite but generally liked to do a bit of the steering himself. At the moment he felt like nothing more than a toy.

  Three sets of hands and three mouths caressed his skin, his lips, his cock. He couldn’t return their touches fast enough, slippery breasts and hard nipples under his palms, a slender neck, silky hair slipping between his fingers. Yet every time he reached for that sweet spot between their legs, they pulled out of reach.

  Then one of them grabbed his hips, driving her pelvis against him. The familiar encasing warmth of her nearly made him come. Holy mother of God, no condom. Good thing this was a dream. She pumped against him furiously. He reached around and grabbed her backside, only to have her ripped away without warning.

  Dark hair filled his vision. Pointed teeth flashed between crimson lips. He blinked, realizing the dark-skinned woman with brilliant gold hair also seemed to have a bright gold tail instead of legs. What the fuck? He knew mermaiding was a thing, with costume tails and all, but these women were so damn real.

  He attempted to back away, pushing against the crimson-lipped woman’s pale shoulders. A small white charm that looked like a turkey wishbone dangled from a cord between her naked breasts. Below her belly button, her flesh brightened to match her mouth. Brightened and coalesced into fins and a tail.

  A fish’s tail.

  Realization exploded inside him like a breath of air after a long dive. He shoved harder, clearing more of his view. The rocks and reef were no longer in sight, nor was the shadow of the party boat at the surface. They’d drifted into a towering kelp forest, the filtered sunlight now hazy and green. Despite his flagging interest, his partners had lost none of their ardor, and continued to claw and thrust and grope, seeming to grow frustrated at his inattention.

  Mechanically, he returned their caresses. Gave them what they wanted. If he didn’t, he had no idea what might happen. This wasn’t a dream, and these were no ordinary women.

  He was underwater.

  He was breathing.

  And he was surrounded by mermaids.

  2

  Ebby peered between the veins of a sea fan toward the coven of mermaids in the kelp clearing. They passed a deeply tanned human between them, his muscular frame adjusting to their undulations with surprising agility for a land creature. His hands squeezed their breasts or pulled them into coital embraces with what seemed like an uncanny sense about how to prevent the activity from becoming a violent, competitive frenzy. The current drifting toward Ebby reeked of sex, heightening the uncomfortable urgency low in her belly.

  Finish already.

  Two years ago, she’d chosen to be female. Not out of any biological urge, but because mermaids were obviously the stronger sex. Mermen like her da were destined to live out slow and miserable death-sentences, bound to the first female they mated with until their mate’s unfaithfulness caused their hearts to literally break. Although Ebby was undeniably female now, she refused to be like her mother, killing humans and subjecting mermen to inevitable misery.

  With thoughts of her mother’s behavior always on her mind, Ebby’d managed to remain a virgin—an unheard-of feat among the females of her kind—and merely watched these orgies from a safe distance, waiting until the unwitting human men were used up and abandoned. Then she swept in and towed them toward shore. Unfortunately, most were killed before she reached them. Those she found who weren’t already dead always expired of their wounds during the journey toward land.

  But that didn’t stop Ebby from trying.

  The man she was watching now had held up remarkably well, and she thought she saw signs of the mermaids tiring of him. If she could rescue at least one man from his demise, her abstinence would be worth it.

  The mermaids’ seductive song rose and fell, Urokotori’s crimson claws stroking the twin prongs of the fish harp she wore around her neck. They rubbed their bodies along the human’s, pulling at Ebby’s instincts as surely as they pulled the male’s. She slid one hand over her own pale breast and tweaked the sensitive coral nipple. A shockwave of pleasure rippled into her core.

  Pinching her nipple harder, she let her other hand creep to the aching folds of her vulvar slit. Her tail twitched as she rubbed, her blood heating as she watched the man’s length slide in and out of a mermaid. On the verge of climax, the orgy drifted close to her hiding spot and red-tailed Urokotori spotted her through the fronds.

  “Come on, Ebby.” The other mermaid clamped her bony fingers around Ebby’s forearm, dragging her hand from her breast and pulling her free of her hiding spot.

  Behind her, still half-buried in the sand, Ebby heard her pet mantis shrimp, Kato, shimmy himself deeper beneath the sand. The other mermaids laughed at her for keeping such a useless pet, but Kato had bonded to Ebby of his own accord, not because Ebby compelled him, and Ebby loved everything about him.

  “We’ve all had our turn.” Urokotori flung Ebby forward into the man’s arms. “He can be your first.”

  The other two mermaids stopped their songs, pointed teeth gleaming between kiss-swollen lips. Lutana jack-knifed and stroked the man’s backside with her gleaming golden tail fin. “Humans are so willing to play.”

  “He has inspiring stamina,” Selachii agreed, her amethyst eyes hooded with satiation. Her triggerfish minion wriggled between the grotesquely scarred rip in her freckled tail fin.

  The man’s gaze met Ebby’s, and she was struck by eyes that reminded her of pebbled tidepools. Was that a glint of alarm she saw? He’d been so willing and confident during the orgy, never hinting at fear or exhaustion.

  The three mermaids encircled Ebby and pushed the nearly spent man against her. His long, lean thighs brushed her tail, the tip of his erection leaving a trail of fire along her skin. She’d never been this close to an aroused man before.

  Urokotori commanded, “Sing, Ebby.”

  Her attention slid down his muscular chest to his perfectly rippled abs. A line of downy hair traced a path to his bobbing member. Only a few scratches marred his smooth bronze skin where the mermaids had grown careless or rough.

  Ebby licked her lips, her nether regions pulsing despite her resolve. How could she escape this? Mermaids could be just as brutal toward their own gender as they were to any man. But she dare not risk getting pregnant. Mermaids were terrible mothers, and Ebby had sworn to never subject a little one to the abandonment and terror she’d endured as a child.

  “He’s ready,” Lutana said. “You don’t even need to sing. Just take him and get it over with.”

  Urokotori shoved between her shoulder blades, driving breasts against the man’s hard chest. “Depths, you’re boring.”

  The human’s hands found her waist as if by instinct, neither pushing her away nor pulling her closer.

  Boring. That was her way
out. The only way to escape the attention of a mermaid was to bore them. That, or offer better entertainment elsewhere. She decided a long, slow kiss would be boring enough without inciting their wrath. She’d just have to reign in her own instincts and not take it farther.

  To be fair, her only experience kissing had been with Lutana; the golden-tailed mermaid liked women as much as men. Ebby had found some pleasure in her touches, but not enough to keep coming back for more.

  The man’s hands, however, were different, padded by callouses, and broader than a mermaid’s. The sensation of his palms on her skin made her ache with need. How would his thick fingers feel plunging between her folds?

  No, Ebby, she chided herself. A kiss is all you get.

  Placing her hands on the man’s shoulders, she pressed her lips against his.

  Cruz had attempted to get away from these voracious women only once—and paid the price. A set of bleeding lacerations down his hip still stung from the red-tailed one’s claws as she’d pulled him back into an embrace. These females were strong, stronger than humans, and quick. They seemed to be out for more than just sex—they wanted blood.

  To his relief, the frenzy seemed to be winding down. But his inner voice was already asking what happened next.

  Then the red-tailed mermaid yanked a fourth mermaid from among the weeds surrounding the kelp clearing. Her apricot tail was flawless and her skin so pale she could have been a ghost. Atop her head, a fiery auburn halo of hair rippled in the current, and her coral nipples beckoned from the perfect peaks of small but luscious breasts. Although she had hips, her legs were fused into a single, supple appendage. Like the other mermaids, her feminine parts were exposed on the front, open to him, inviting his penetration.