Hot Summer Bites: A Castle of Dark Dreams Novella (A Penguin Special from Berkley Sensation) by Nina Bangs

“It’s summer. Aren’t you hot in jeans?”
    “I’m hotter without them.” To demonstrate, he reached down to help her with the buttons, and then slid them off along with his shorts.
    Ohmigod! So long, so thick, so hard, so
wonderful
. Every sexual cell in her body contracted into a tight ball of want. He was temptation on a scale not seen since Eve ate that blasted apple. In fact, if Taurin had done the tempting, Eve would’ve shaken every apple from that tree and taken them all home to make applesauce.
    Kristin had knelt up to give him room to shuck his jeans, but now she couldn’t help herself, she lowered herself onto his erection and ground herself into him. He pressed between her spread legs and only her shorts and panties kept her from impaling herself on him.
    His control must’ve been slipping fast because his eyes grew larger and darker with that telltale slant. But there wasn’t any room in her sex-clogged brain for fear.
    He half-sat and then reached behind her to slip his hands under her shorts and panties. He cupped her cheeks and kneaded with deep, firm strokes.
    The waist of her shorts wasn’t up to the strain of a pair of male hands stretching it to its limit. The button holding the shorts closed popped off and rolled across the floor. Who needed buttons anyway?
    A diver had replaced the octopus at the sub’s window. Who cared? A whole team of Navy SEALs could be staring in for all she cared.
    Suddenly Taurin abandoned his kneading and collapsed back onto the floor. He rested the back of his hand across his eyes. “Damn, damn, damn.”
    “What?” Why was he lying down on the job? Her heart was racing, and she was wet with the anticipation of him sliding deep inside her.
    “No protection.” His disappointment was a harsh groan.
    She stared down at him, outrage out of all proportion to his crime narrowing her eyes. “How could you forget? You can read minds. You can move at the speed of the mail bringing my credit card bills to me, for heaven sake.”
    Wait. She blinked. Wasn’t she supposed to be mad at him? She could’ve sworn that he was a yucky slug. Kristin just couldn’t remember why.
    Glancing away from Taurin, she tried to rein in her runaway emotions and sexual want. Her gaze slid to the sub’s large window. The diver had left. She stared. Something else had taken his place. It was big, and white, and had lots and lots of sharp teeth. And the laughter gleaming in its dark fishy eyes was all too human.
    “Umm. I think Banan is trying to get our attention.” Keeping her gaze fixed on the shark, she reached for her top and slipped into it. She stuffed her bra down the back of her shorts.
    “Banan?” Taurin sat up partway and supported himself on his elbows as he twisted to stare at the window. He snarled at the shark. “That’s not water outside the window, so he’s standing there in human form while he projects his shark image to us. I’ll kill him.”
    “He can do that?” Once again the awesome powers of the beings she’d met so far boggled her mind.
    “Evidently.” Taurin sat the rest of the way up. “We’re not seeing the shark with our eyes. We’re seeing it up here.” He tapped his forehead.
    Kristin glanced back at the window. Sure enough, Banan in human form was standing there waving at them. Suddenly, she realized where her bottom was planted and slid off Taurin. He reached for his jeans.
    Without even a warning knock, someone lifted the hatch, and Saffron leaped through the opening. He took in everything at a glance and then padded over to Taurin. “Tell me you weren’t on the bottom. Real men do it on top.”
    Fury rolled off Taurin in waves. Kristin didn’t need any superpowers to feel it. She clambered to her feet and edged away from Saffron. One didn’t stand near a tree about to be chopped down, because you never knew where it would fall.
    “Real cats know when they’re about to lose one of their nine lives and run like hell.” Taurin lifted his