Caught By Surprise

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He quivered…then went still.

Beth sucked in a breath, her eyes widening. Wonder and exhilaration flowed through her, and she wanted to laugh with the sheer joy of it. She was touching a merman—a mythical creature that wasn’t even supposed to exist! Yet, how real—how solid he felt beneath her hand.

Gently she stroked his skin, enthralled by the sensations coursing through her. Her father had tried to explain to her once about the excitement of touching a gray whale—those giants of the deep who, after centuries of enmity with man, had recently begun allowing humans to stroke them in a lagoon off Baja.

But nothing—nothing compared to this, Beth thought, delicately trailing her fingers back up over the sculpted curve of his biceps. How smooth, yet firm his skin was. How rock hard the muscles beneath it. The most amazing thing of all was that he hadn’t moved away.

She stroked his arm again, more lingeringly this time. A faint tremor ran along the taut muscle beneath her fingertips, and afraid he might swim away, she began talking again. “How handsome you are,” she praised him, in that crooning tone that had worked so well before. “You’re such a good-looking merman.”

Beneath her palm, she felt him stiffen. His eyelids flickered, and he shot her an almost startled glance, before he looked away again, his expression going blank.

But even this minute sign of response encouraged Beth. She tried more compliments, getting into the spirit of the thing, pouring lots of enthusiasm into her voice. “So big and strong. So manly. And so warm…”

Her voice trailed off. “Maybe too warm,” she added in a worried tone, a small frown creasing her brow.

She slowly lifted her hand toward his face. He sent her another sidelong glance and she said softly, “It’s okay, it’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you. I’m just afraid you might have a fever.”

She gently brushed back his hair, combing her fingers through the damp, silky strands. She did it again, watching his thick dark lashes drift down with the movement, as if he were half-asleep. Then she placed her palm firmly against his forehead. He only allowed the contact for a few seconds before pulling away, but that was plenty long enough for Beth to make her diagnosis.

“You’re so hot!” she exclaimed, dismay filling her voice. She sat back on her heels to look into his face. Sure enough, examining him more closely, she could see a slight flush beneath the dark tan on his cheeks. “You do have a fever!”

She moved to the side, leaning over him to see his back. She sucked in a breath as she stared at his wound. “And no wonder,” she said huskily.

The jagged, lightning-bolt gash was dark red and swollen along the edges. But at least it wasn’t bleeding, Beth noted, grateful for small favors. The skin had even begun to seal, forming a thick, uneven ridge that made her wince.

“It looks bad,” she told him, unconsciously patting his arm comfortingly as she spoke. “But not as bad as it could be. The salt water must be good for it.”

Of course he didn’t respond; she knew he couldn’t understand her. He just continued to regard her with that inscrutable stare. Beth continued to talk to him anyway, as much to calm her own anxiety as his. “You’re going to have a terrible scar, but you already have a few anyway, don’t you?” she added, as her gaze roamed over his chest and back.

This close, she could see other marks on his bronzed skin. One thin, faded white line ran beneath his well-defined pecs and the glinting silver medallion he wore. Another small scar was centered on his muscular back. Almost hidden beneath his hair she noticed another mark, curving from beneath his ear toward the back of his neck. She looked at it more closely, and with a slight jolt, saw it wasn’t a scar at all, but a gill.

The realization shocked Beth—yet, it oddly reassured her, too. His rugged face, the hard muscles and warm flesh beneath her hand—his sheer, raw maleness—unsettled her in a purely female, human way. This new evidence of how different—how alien—he actually was, quieted the uneasy, feminine wariness that had unconsciously been stirring inside her.

She wasn’t taking care of a strange man, but a strange animal, his features taut with mute suffering.