He grimaced at the sight and she fell silent. Humans did not talk while they were eating either, she remembered. She swallowed down the salmon in such haste that she almost choked and had to gulp a mouthful of water from her glass. “What danger?” Even in her human form she could swim well—better than most humans for sure. The sea knew her as one of its own and would not deliberately hurt her.
Besides, though she had reluctantly resigned herself to the bitter knowledge that she was no true weather selkie, she could read the sea and its moods better than most. She would not dare to trouble it when it was rumbling and disturbed in displeasure. It was not in her nature to court danger for the mere thrill of it.
Her master did not deign to answer. “But I can give you water another way.” He waved a hand to one of the manservants—the one with the strong-looking legs and muscular torso who had put the salmon on her plate.
She licked her lips as she looked at him and placed another forkful of baked salmon into her mouth. He looked almost as tasty as her dinner, with his firm, round buttocks and shapely calves. She wondered what he would look like with no clothes on. Would his body be white or tanned golden by the sun? Would his chest be well furred with springy black hair or as smooth as her own? Did his cock grow vigorously stiff and excitingly long and fat when he handled it or would it stay disappointingly thin and limp?
The master caught the direction of her gaze and frowned again, his black brows nearly meeting in the middle of his face from the force of his irritation.
She heaved a resentful sigh. Another rule she had broken without really meaning to. According to her master, she was not supposed to look at another other man with lustful eyes, or to touch another man at all. Most especially she was not to touch herself in front of any other man every again.
The rule seemed needlessly harsh to her. What was the harm in looking at a handsome man, admiring the shape of his legs and wondering about the size of his cock? She was sure that all human women indulged in such a harmless fantasy. Why should the rules be any different for her?
The thought of taking another human lover did not appeal to her—the master kept her so happily sated that there was no need for her to take another man as mate. She was simply curious.
Were all human men as well endowed as the master was or was he something special? Could any man make her pussy as wet as the master did just by looking at her the way he looked at her, or was it just him? Did he have a special talent that other men lacked? Would being fucked by any other human man make her feel so good as it felt to be fucked by him?
She could not believe so. During the five days she had spent in his company, he had mated with her in every way possible. She was confident now that she was learning to please him well, and he had satisfied her in his turn. Whatever the sisters said about their delight in variety, she could not believe that any man could be as good to mate with as the master. He had pleasured in so many, many ways, and she had done things with him that she had not even imagined doing before.
At the thought of making love with the master, her nipples begin to tingle and her pussy to drip and she clamped her legs firmly together under the table to stop her untimely thoughts in their tracks. She was not supposed to initiate sex games with him, or even to think about having sex with him except when they were alone together in their bedroom. That rule, was far too easy to forget. With so many human rules to remember, it was hardly surprising she could not keep them all in her head at once. There were too many rules altogether. Far too many.
Her master was whispering to the manservant. She tamped down the rebellious thoughts in her head with some effort and went on with her dinner, savoring each bite as she brought it awkwardly to her lips. The salmon was definitely the most delicious of all, but the other dishes, though strange to her palate at first, were quite tasty in their own way. She could definitely grow used to human food.
When she had finished eating and laid her knife and fork carefully down on her empty plate as she had been shown how, her master stood up and held out his hand to her. “Come. I have a treat for you.”
Eagerly she rose from the table to follow him. “A treat?” Was he going to show her some new human sex game? Were there some delights she had yet to sample with him to explore? The thought made her breathing quicken in anticipation. “What is it?”
He shook his head. “Be patient. You will see it soon.”
She pulled her hand out of his in a sudden sulk. “Tell me what it is,” she said, stomping her feet on the wooden floor. She had had enough of all his rules and all his control. “I want to know now.”
He stopped halfway down the hallway, so suddenly that she ran into his hard length in the dim light. “I said be patient.” He sounded like he was very nearly out of patience himself.
She did not feel like being patient but as usual he gave her no choice. A few more days of obedience would hardly kill her. Mutely, she placed her hand back in his and allowed him to lead her upstairs and into the bedchamber they shared.
Inside the bedchamber stood a large tub from which little tendrils of steam were escaping. “Here is your treat, impatient wench,” he said, gesturing to the tub. “I have had the servants draw you a bath.”
She was gazing at it in awe and amazement, all thought of sex games gone instantly from her mind. “Water,” she breathed. It was the most marvelous sight she had ever seen. She reached out and stirred the surface with one fingertip. The calmness came alive into ripples under her touch. “Water.”
“You can get into it,” he said as she hesitated, not knowing what to do next. “The tub is designed to lie in.”
With a sigh of joy, she kicked off her slippers, lifted up her heavy skirts and climbed into the tub.
The heat of it made her gasp. It was as if the sun had been shining on the ocean for a month of days together with no cooling nighttime to come between. It was water for sure, but not as she had ever known it before.
She lay back gingerly into the hot water, until she was submerged up to the bottom of her chin. Her head fell back and her eyes closed of their own accord. Ah, what bliss it was to be properly wet again, completely wet from her shoulders down to her toes. She’d forgotten how delicious it really was.
A loud bark of laughter made her eyes snap open again.
Her master was leaning against the wall with a look of utter amusement on his face. “It is customary to take your clothes off before you get into a bath.”
She looked down at the silk of her dress, now quite sodden and see-through. She’d been in such a rush to get to the water, she had not given her clothing even a passing thought. “Is that another one of your rules?” she asked, her mood suddenly deflated.
“No, it’s not a rule. It is just that you might find your bath more comfortable without your clothes. Not to mention it will be a lot cheaper for me if you don’t go around ruining every dress I provide for you.”
She gave a fleeting thought to her now ruined dress, and found she really couldn’t care. Once she had her skin back, she would never wear the pretty thing again anyway. For now, her master’s permission to take off her clothes was top of her mind.
Standing up in the tub, she undid the buttons on her bodice with fumbling fingers. As soon as it was open enough, she pushed the sodden fabric off her shoulders and wriggled it over her hips.
Her skirts, heavy with water, were the next to go. She felt infinitely lighter without them, as if she were casting off some of her humanness along with her clothes and becoming more like her seal self.
Balancing first on one leg and then on the other, she rolled her stockings down her legs and added them to the pile of sodden clothing at the bottom of the tub.
Finally she stepped out of her shift and sank back down into the warm water with a quiet moan of pleasure. Naked in the water, she felt almost like a selkie once more.
Iain stood watching her as she removed her clothing and lay back down into the bath, a look of utter contentment on her face. She had not looked so happy since he had seen her on the beach with her wild sisters and taken her for his own.
He was pleased with his own thoughtfulness in thinking to make her a bath. Since she clearly loved bathing so much, he would see to it that she had one drawn for her every evening if she wished. The servants would no doubt mutter among themselves about the extra work that heating the water in the kitchen cauldrons and then carrying it up two flights of stairs to the tub in their chamber entailed, but no matter. He was the master in the house and they would obey him if they valued their continued employment.
He held out his hands to her. “Come, pass me your clothes.”
She reached down into the water and drew out a mass of sodden silks which she handed to him without so much as a blush of shame for the expensive wreck she had made of them. Of course she was only a selkie, he reminded himself, and not given to the same emotions as human women. The wanton display she had given to the gardeners was proof enough she had no concept of shame.
He wrung the water out of the clothes and flung them, still dripping, into a corner of the room. He did not like to think of the gardeners. The memory still had the power to infuriate him beyond belief. Her actions had not been intended to hurt him, he knew that, but they had hurt him all the same. He did not like the nagging feeling that he was not man enough for her, that she might turn to another if given free choice.
Come to think of it, neither did he like the curious glances she had given the footman during dinner—she had clearly been admiring the man’s well-turned legs and, judging by the lascivious look in her eyes, calculating the size of his cock as well. His little selkie was proving to be rather less biddable and rather more trouble than he had expected.
With measured hands, he began to pull off his cravat. He had never made love to any woman in a bathtub before. It was time to remedy the situation and to show his rebellious selkie that she had no need to look further afield if all she wanted was a good fuck. He stood more than ready to accommodate her, and he did not like to share.
In a brief moment, his clothes were stacked neatly on the end of their bed and he was standing over her as naked as she was.
“Move over, selkie,” he instructed her.
She opened her eyes, completely unsurprised to find him standing before her. “My name is Maya,” she said crossly, “not ‘Selkie’. Go away. There is not room for two in the tub.”
“If you were to sit up, there would be.”
“I do not wish to sit up,” she grumbled, but all the same she did as he had bid her, shifting her bottom to the end of the tub and drawing her knees up to her chin.
The water rippled over the peaks of her breasts as he clambered in to the tub and sat facing her in the hot water.
She relaxed her legs and sank back down into the tub, a leg on either side of him. “You are disturbing my bath.” Her voice no longer held a grumble though, and there was the merest hint of a naughty smile on her face.
“I know. Does it bother you?”
Her eyes were large and shining with happiness. “No, you are not bothering me,” she said cheekily. “You have my permission to share my bath.”
She was rewarded with a genuine smile as he settled back in the tub.
Maya looked at him as he lay before her, at his ease in the water with her. What games had this man taught her that she could use to finally tip the balance and please him enough to secure the return of her skin, and her freedom? She wished she could read his mind to see what he wanted but she was not gifted in that way. Few selkies were, and those lucky few kept their knowledge to themselves.
They sat in the confines of the tub, warm water enveloping them as each looked at the other. She could see the lust in his eyes, and glancing down she saw the lust in his cock, clearly hard and erect beneath the water.
Although he had been pleased with her each time they had mated, it had not been enough. She did not know why she had failed, all she knew was that something more, something different, was going to be required to get her skin back. She would need to put into practice all she had learned about her master’s preferences over the past days, and call on all her powers of invention to aid her as well.
With those thoughts in mind, she reached for the soap.
Her eyes fixed firmly on his to gauge his reaction to her movements, she moved the soap languidly over her breasts, her nipples crinkling to hardness with the attention.
Almost immediately he reached out to touch them for himself.
“No,” she commanded, pushing his hands away. She wanted him to wait until
she
was ready for him to touch her. He would learn what it was to be in the power of another, wishing and waiting and wanting. She would tease and torment him as he teased and tormented her, and not give in to him until he was crying out with need. A smile crept over her face at the thought. Let him see how he liked to be treated as he treated her.
Iain sat back in the tub and watched Maya as she touched her breasts. He did not easily take orders from a woman, let alone a selkie, but this new slant on their love play intrigued him. He would go along with her game and see where it led the pair of them.
She got to her feet, slowly leaving the warm haven of the water, and stood in the tub, water and suds drifting down the sensuous curves of her body. He stared up at her as she slowly turned around, maneuvering her feet around his legs until she faced away from him. Lifting one leg out of the water, she placed her foot on the edge of the bath then bent slightly, displaying her cunt and ass to him.