Blood in the Water

By Cleo Peitsche

BLOOD IN THE WATER (#4) is a BBW paranormal erotic romance and erotic suspense of 44,000 words.

Even though their world is crumbling, Monroe only wants more of Koenraad. She knows it’s dangerous to keep tempting him, but she can’t help herself.

Koenraad struggles against his shifter urges while he tries to fix the life-and-death disasters piling up on his doorstep. If Monroe knew what he was capable of, she’d stop her dangerous games.

He doesn’t want to damage the beautiful human who stole his heart, but there’s only so much teasing a shark can take.

This sexy paranormal romance is for adults only.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cleo Peitsche
• Release date: Jan 14, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311622129

Cleo Peitsche

If Cleo isn't writing (or reading!) erotica, she's probably sitting on her balcony, watching the wind blow through the trees. She loves snowstorms, piña coladas, horses, and pasta primavera. If she won the lottery, she would hire an assistant to take care of the technical side of e-publishing so that she could write all day.Some random facts about Cleo:1. Thinks life's too short to forgo HEAs and HFNs.2. Sprained an ankle joining the mile-high club. (Never again!)3. Favorite writers include Cormac Mccarthy, Junot Diaz and Rachel Caine.4. Gets weak-kneed for bookish guys who know how to fix things with their hands. *swoons*

Book preview

Chapter 1

Monroe bobbed in the ocean, the handle of an eight-inch rubber knife between her teeth.

She felt like a cork someone had tossed into a washing machine. Her fingers and toes had passed the prune stage fifteen minutes earlier. Despite the wetsuit and the constant churning of her limbs, she was getting uncomfortably cold.

In contrast, the sun seemed to be broiling her cheeks, and her eyeballs ached from the brightness reflected off the water.

The end of her long braid floated into her peripheral vision. Panicking even as she recognized what it was, she jerked back, her heartbeat shooting into the stratosphere.

She hated this.

She forced herself to take a calming breath. Fingers splayed wide, she waved her arms back and forth in the water as she turned in a small circle, her eyes alert for any sign of movement.

In the past week, she’d progressed from being terrified of deep water… to being terrified of deep water and forced to spend large amounts of time in it.

She tried not to think about things like the Mariana Trench. She was in the Caribbean, but who could say there wasn’t an even deeper trench below her thrashing legs? Something twenty times larger than the Grand Canyon, and filled with nothing but heavy, dark water.

No, not nothing.

There were jellyfish, with their stinging tentacles.

Slimy tangles of seaweed.

Schools of fish.

And sharks.

She definitely didn’t want to think about sharks.

But the more she tried not to think about them, the more she saw triangular dorsal fins in the swell of every wave. Huge teeth powered by muscular bodies. Sharks longer than a minivan, than a school bus.

A whimper escaped from her throat.

She was never coming out here again.

And then she saw it. It started as a shadowy mass that quickly resolved into a torpedo-shaped body. Monroe’s stomach clenched painfully, then tried to force its way up her throat.

She took the knife in her shaking hand, which threw her off balance in the water. She churned her legs faster, her breath coming in panicked gulps.

The shark was closer. Circling.

Koenraad had explained to her that great white sharks liked to attack prey from underneath. She’d seen it, too, a massive body launching into the air, twisting almost gracefully. Dolphins had nothing on sharks when it came to murderous acrobatics.

This shark wasn’t going to swoop from underneath and tear off the lower half of her body. Koenraad had told her many times: as long as she could see an attacking shark, all hope wasn’t lost.

Whatever that meant.

Now her whole body trembled, and she kept swallowing, which turned the rising bile in the back of her mouth salty from the ocean spray. It was a thoroughly revolting combination, but she didn’t have time to dwell on that because the shark was circling closer, and now she could see the animal’s top line, the deep gashes between its dorsal fin and its tail.

She squeezed the knife handle and waited, just as she’d been instructed. She held her position, too, at least until the shark suddenly came at her, its enormous jaws agape.

Fuck this! Shrieking, she blindly slashed out with the knife. It went flying from her fingers and landed several feet away, where it floated on the waves.

Monroe thrust her hands in front of her. If she could hit the shark just right on its nose…

But she missed, her fist glancing off the side of the animal’s face. The neoprene gloves she wore protected her hands from the shark’s rough skin. The shark stopped immediately, then dove.

Sharks like to attack prey from underneath. Koenraad’s words were as fresh in her mind as if he’d just said them.

Koenraad! she screamed, terrified.

She didn’t know if he could hear her, but then the shark was at her side, nudging her toward the waiting yacht.

She couldn’t look at him, didn’t want to see the disappointment in his face—though truth be told, she’d never seen recognizable facial expressions while he was in shark form. She tried not to look at him too closely when he was like this.

His shark form terrified her. To think she’d begged to see him shift.

She clambered onto the yacht’s swim platform and collapsed on her hands and knees. The shark disappeared, then it launched into the air.

The moment of change was impossible to see. One moment he was a toothy killer, the next he was the man of her dreams, naked, bronzed, dripping wet.

He landed gracefully on the boat next to her. His hands wrapped around her shoulders as he pulled her into an embrace against his tall, muscular body.

I suck at this, she moaned.

His pause was a moment too long. You’re getting better. Let’s take a quick break—

Can we be done for the day?

His handsome, angular features hardened, then relaxed. Yeah. Turn around.

He unzipped her wetsuit and helped her peel it off. Underneath, she wore a bikini, though it was completely unnecessary. Out here, there wasn’t anyone to see her in her naked glory.

Thanks, she mumbled. She glanced up at him to see if he was disappointed, but his face showed only concern. Don’t forget the knife, she said, uncomfortable with his scrutiny.

Koenraad gently touched her arm, then dove back into the water in human form and swam smoothly out to retrieve the knife. When he climbed back aboard, he tossed it to the side of the deck, where it bounced.

Do you keep dropping the knife because you’re afraid of hurting me? he asked as he slicked his blond hair away from his face. The sight of his dilated predator’s pupils made her shiver. Even in human form and despite his refined bearing, Koenraad radiated danger.

She shook her head.

Even if it weren’t a rubber training knife, she wouldn’t have been too worried. Koenraad was practically indestructible, which made her wonder again about his old scars.

The ones that wrapped from the base of his neck and sliced down his torso were from a boat propeller. He’d told her that, but she still hadn’t gotten the whole story.

The scars on his lower back were far worse, and they hadn’t been there when she’d first met him. She’d thought he’d earned them the night he’d saved her life by protecting her from the shark that had almost killed her.

Now she knew they were self-inflicted. He’d mutilated himself to save her life.

She couldn’t begin to wrap her mind around that. Whenever she saw the evidence of how calculating he could be, her blood ran a little colder.

Koenraad was a gentleman. He was kind and sophisticated and attentive and very protective.

But he had a dark side. The shark nature. The practical mindset that resulted in things like maiming himself to save her… like pressuring her to get into the water and practice warding off shark attacks.

His reasons she understood perfectly well. Victoria had challenged her, and it was a fight Monroe had no hope of winning, knife or no. Then there was the matter of Bamboo Menendez, the shifter who’d been hired to kidnap her. Monroe had gotten away… barely.

Koenraad needed to find his young son, and that meant he spent hours every day away from her while he carefully searched the Caribbean Sea near Brady’s last known whereabouts. She understood why he had to do it. Brady was dangerous. He’d attacked one human already. The penalty for that was execution, and Koenraad had risked everything to cover it up. The faster he found Brady, the better.

But she was terrified when Koenraad left, and even though she hid it, he surely knew.

All this training was supposed to make her feel more secure, but it didn’t.

If anything, it proved how woefully unprepared she was.

Chapter 2

After showering and putting on a fresh pair of board shorts, Koenraad found Monroe sleeping on the aft deck, her lemonade glass nearly empty, her book shut beside her on the lounge chair.

Her thick hair, now thoroughly sun streaked, was tangled from the water and the wind. Her long, dark eyelashes fluttered softly against her tanned cheeks, but she didn’t wake.

He stared at her ripe, luscious body with appreciation. As a large male, he needed a strong woman. A sturdy woman. It was like Monroe had been made specifically for him. The visual of her full breasts nearly overflowing her bikini top made him want to wake her in a thoroughly wicked way.

Monroe was stunning, and every day he found her more and more irresistible. It had been that way even before he’d claimed her as his mate.

Memories of the mating came back to him, and as he thought of the smells and sensations of that night, heat scorched through him. They’d had sex plenty of times since then, but he longed to mate with her again. To indulge his true nature and to push her to her limits.

As a shifter, the urge was sometimes so powerful that it ached.

Monroe would be up for it, too, but he’d hurt her the first time. He was well-endowed to start with, and as a shark shifter, he had attributes that human males didn’t.

He didn’t like hurting her. Sure, her pain called to something in his nature, but he now worked harder than ever to keep the animal inside him controlled. Soon, though, he’d need to find a safe place in calm water so they could mate again.

They couldn’t return to the crater. Not with Victoria hunting Monroe.

Monroe’s lashes fluttered, and her brown eyes, which reminded him of striated miter shells, opened. She didn’t see him immediately, and as she pulled herself up to sitting, he appreciated the gentle swaying of her breasts and the soft rocking of her hips.

Yeah, he needed to take her again, and not on a comfortable mattress. He wanted her in the water.

She suddenly looked over at him, and her body jerked in surprise. You scared me! How long have you been there?

Instead of answering, he bent to kiss her soft lips. The heat in his lower body intensified. Even though he hadn’t willed it, both his cocks had swollen to their full, heavy lengths. Before the mating, he’d never had a problem controlling himself; using both had required a conscious decision on his part.

That, unfortunately, had changed. It was hard enough to ignore one unwanted erection, but two? Impossible.

What he needed, he decided as he straightened, was to jump into the ocean and cool off.

Monroe rolled onto her side and reached for her glass, giving Koenraad a glimpse of the mating scars on her back. Any shifter who saw her would know she was claimed.

Koenraad stepped into the galley to grab the pitcher of lemonade. He refreshed her drink, then poured himself a tall glass before sinking into the chair next to her.

Do you want to get rid of me? she asked. Throw me back and try to catch a better mate? Her tone was light, her brown eyes sparkling, but Koenraad could smell her apprehension.

Never, he said.

Even though I suck at fighting?

He smiled. We’ll work on your wrestling moves tonight. Naked. In bed.

His cocks got harder, and he turned away so she wouldn’t see him wince, though there was nothing he could do about the bulge in the front of his shorts.

He left when the sun went down.

Swimming away from Monroe was difficult, but there was no perfect solution. He had to search for Brady, and he couldn’t very well take Monroe with him.

At least she was armed, and he hoped she’d be less shy about firing a gun at an intruder than she was about stabbing him with a flexible rubber knife.

He picked up the search where he’d left off the evening before. The choice made little sense; Brady wasn’t a dropped keyring just waiting to be picked up.

But Koenraad had no leads, and he had no help. If he was going to find Brady, it would be through brute determination, just like the first time he’d found his son.

Never mind that it had taken eighteen months and that Brady was now older and savvier.

The best chance at capturing Brady had already slipped through Koenraad’s fingers. He’d nearly killed himself searching right after discovering that Brady had escaped from the inlet. There hadn’t been any trace of the young shifter then, and hunting now was probably a fool’s errand.

But Brady was his son, and despite everything, Koenraad would never give up. Never.

It simply wasn’t an option, and thank goodness Monroe understood that.

Koenraad kept to the swaths of clean water untainted by the sick that permeated stretches of ocean in dense formations. Dozens of shifters had descended on Tureygua to help out, but their efforts had been useless. No one knew what it was.

Now they waited for a good storm to disperse the sick. One threatened to bash the islands in the next few days, but whether this storm, like the last few, would turn back out to the open ocean was anyone’s guess.

But the sick wasn’t Koenraad’s problem anymore. Patrolling Tureygua was no longer his job.

After hours of frustrated