A Merman of Her Own Read online

  Evernight Publishing

  www.evernightpublishing.com

  Copyright© 2014 Hazel Gower

  ISBN: 978-1-77130-810-6

  Cover Artist: Sour Cherry Designs

  Editor: Karyn White

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  DEDICATION

  To my readers, thanks for all your support, and I hope you enjoy the short, fun read. A huge thank you as always to my editor, Karyn White. I appreciate all your help. Lastly to Evernight, thanks for taking my work on.

  A MERMAN OF HER OWN

  Merpeople, 1

  Hazel Gower

  Copyright © 2014

  Chapter One

  “Ask her out. She could be your mate.”

  Clay turned to his friend and old college classmate, Dr. Brett Ross. “I can’t. Not only is she the daughter of my patient, she is way too young for me, and human, too.” Clay sighed and wished he was at least ten years younger than his forty-nine. He knew Alwen was special. Ever since he’d met her almost two weeks ago he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her. But it was extremely rare for Merpeople to mate with humans, so rare that he was still unsure if she was his mate. Humans found it hard to accept water paranormal beings, though he knew the land dwelling beings regularly mated with humans. Another thing that held him back from admitting she was anything to him was Alwen was nothing like what he usually went for. She was average height, five six, but she was very shapely, with large breasts and thick thighs. She was a brunette, too. Clay had only ever dated blondes or a redhead here or there. “Alwen’s not my type anyway. So she can’t be my mate.”

  Brett chuckled. “Yeah, she’s not blonde, thin, and dollar signs don’t flash when she looks at you. The age thing really can’t be an issue for you, because not only are you a Merman, but the last girl Britney, Tiffany, whatever her name was, wasn’t she twenty-five or six? That’s not much older than Alwen, who is twenty-one in a week. Her dad is anxious to recover. He wants to be at her birthday celebration.”

  Clay was frustrated. Brett was right, but Alwen was sweet and seemed younger than what he was used to. Another thing he found hard get past was how she was the total opposite of what he usually went for. Clay was also way too scared to get his hopes up. Clay had always wanted a mate, someone to share his life with, to love and have a family with, but Merpeople were slowly becoming extinct because they weren’t finding their mates.

  Clay studied Alwen, and his body went hard as Alwen smiled at Stacy, a nurse. She opened a container, and a heavenly smell of freshly baked goods wafted his way, drowning out the disinfection smell. Stacy took a cupcake and walked by him.

  Brett straightened from his leaning pose against the nurse’s station. “Alwen made cupcakes today. I thought I’d missed today’s baked goods she brings. Yesterday’s chocolate cake was to die for.” Brett winked. “If you don’t ask her out I will. I wish she was my mate. I’d have no problem marrying the girl so she can cook and I can enjoy her food.”

  Elbowing Brett, Clay almost snarled at his friend for suggesting such a thing. Clay was again astounded at the way he acted and at his thoughts about the girl currently walking over to where he stood with Brett.

  Alwen held a round container in her hands, and a huge smile graced her pretty face. She was the daughter of one of his patients, for Christ’s sake. He had to stop ogling her. “Dr. Grayson, Dr. Ross, I thought before I go in to Dad I would see if you wanted a cupcake. They’re fresh. I made them this morning before I went to work.” The smell of cupcakes surrounded them, overpowering the disinfectant as Alwen lifted the lid.

  Brett grabbed two, shoving the first in his mouth and almost swallowing it without chewing. “Thank you, Miss Gleemen. You’re going to make me fat if we don’t get rid of you and your father soon. I saw him standing earlier. I think he is getting used to the wheelchair, too.”

  Alwen turned her bright smile on Brett. “Yesterday he let me push him around to the vending machine, with only one complaint.”

  “That’s progress.” Brett nodded.

  Clay took in deep breaths of her fresh jasmine scent. His mind clouded with lust, and his body ached to take the woman standing in front of him. Shit, he had to just admit what she was to him, his mate. Clay felt like a randy teen, not the forty-nine year old respectable doctor he was. Imagines of him taking her home to his beach house and making love to her on the sand or having her swim with him as he swam in his Mer-form flashed before him.

  “I can’t thank you enough, Dr. Grayson, for staying my Dad’s doctor and not handing us over to someone else. I could just hug you for all you’ve done. It’s a miracle my father is even alive.”

  Clay almost said, “hug me”, but the rest of her words stopped him. Medically it was a miracle Alwen’s father lived, because he shouldn’t have, and he wouldn’t have if Clay hadn’t used his healing powers on him. Clay tried not to use his powers for things that couldn’t be explained, like Alwen’s father. But as soon as the woman had come in on a stretcher minutes after her father, with barely a scratch from the car accident and begging him to look after her father, Clay had had been willing to do anything for her. A peace had washed over him, and his body had screamed she was his soul mate. He’d ignored it for way too long, sure that his reaction was wrong, but after two weeks of her father being in the hospital and Clay seeing her almost every day, his reaction to her only strengthened.

  Since the day she’d first come in he’d found out everything he could about Alwen Gleemen. She was twenty years old and lived with her father. Her parents had divorced when she was little, and she’d moved in with her father when she turned eighteen. She was a part-time shop assistant at a clothing shop, and she taught jazz and house dancing three days a weeks. She didn’t have a boyfriend, but she had a couple of close male friends.

  Clay had put off speaking to his family about what he was feeling and what it could mean. He’d been so worried what they would tell him, and he didn’t want to get their hopes up. He’d heard stories about Merpeople mating outside of their species but was unsure of what he believed. Clay knew at some stage he would have to talk to his family, but he wanted to be sure himself before he said anything. He took a deep breath in and knew he couldn’t hold off any longer. He had to find out if what he thought was one hundred percent true because right now he was having to hold himself back from picking up Alwen and taking her back to his house and making love to her until she admitted she was his and would never leave him and would become his mate, his wife.

  He took a step back and hit the nurse’s station at that thought. In all his life he’d never had thoughts like that about a woman. Surely that meant that he’d been blessed with a mate. A woman he could share his life with and start a family of their own. Clay had been a happy bachelor for many years, but after a while it just got lonely. All he had was his work and swimming around the ocean.

  “Dr. Grayson, are you all right?” Alwen touched his arm. A tingling of need shot through his body at Alwen’s touch. He rested his own hand over hers, enjoying the touch of her skin against his own. This was the first time since meeting her that she’d touched him. He’d touch her as much as he could, a brush of his leg, a hand on her arm, anything to feel her soft, smooth skin. Clay stared into her hazel eyes,
and they darkened to a green as she looked up at him.

  Brett cleared his throat beside him. “Miss Gleemen, Dr. Grayson and I were just discussing something, and I’d like to ask y—”

  “I would like to know if you’d go to dinner with me?” Clay cut Brett off and didn’t let go of Alwen’s hand. He held his breath in anticipation waiting for her answer as her eyes widened and her mouth dropped open. Alwen tried to get her hand back, but he wasn’t willing to give it up.

  She slowly looked him up and down. “Do you mean on a date? Are you asking me on a date?” Alwen licked her lip, and he zoned in on the action, his cock becoming painfully hard as images of her tongue licking it came to mind. A wavy lock fell over her eyes, and he couldn’t help himself. He reached out and tucked it behind her ear, lingering a moment.

  “I realize I’m not being very professional, but I was going to let your father go home in a couple of days. His recovery is going well, and he can come back here every second day for therapy. I thought now would be better than later to ask you on a date.”

  “Yes.” Her eyes hooded, and her face turned a pretty pink. “When would you like to take me out? I’m free most nights except two, Wednesday and Thursday, but I finish at seven on those.”

  “Tonight. I can come and pick you up at seven-thirty tonight if that works.”

  Clay couldn’t believe he’d said tonight, but as soon as she’d said she yes, he wanted to cart her off to his house now. If in fact Alwen was his soul mate and he claimed her he wouldn’t be a free man anymore. Clay didn’t know much about Mer-matings and if they were different from other paranormal beings’, but he did know that once you found your soul mate you were bound to them for life. For the first three months a human mate physically couldn’t leave their paranormal mate. This safety measure was to ensure they couldn’t leave their mate from being scared or horrified with what their mate was. Clay was grateful for this as he was sure Alwen would run when she learned he was a Merman. He wasn’t too sure how they would work the invisible thread that made it so they couldn’t be without the other for more than a couple of hours, or the fact she wouldn’t be capable of talking to any other humans about supernatural creatures. It would be hard with her father. Clay debated for a second if he should wait until her father was more settled, but he knew that that might never happen. He needed to find out if Alwen was his mate and he wasn’t just wishing it.

  ****

  Alwen still couldn’t believe Dr. Grayson had asked her out. Since meeting him she’d fantasized about him nonstop. How could she not, since he was gorgeous, tall, broad-shouldered, muscular, and blond? Alwen bet he spent at least an hour or two a day in a gym. He reminded her of a book cover model for a medieval romance, or even a sports model for some magazine. If she didn’t know he was a doctor she would never have picked it if she’d meet him elsewhere. Now she thought about it, he would make the perfect Macdreamy in a doctor’s show.

  Dr. Clay Grayson made her body burn. Alwen had never reacted to a man the way she did him. All she had to do was think of him and heat flooded to her pussy and her body came alive. She couldn’t even remember the number of times she’d stared at him, picturing him doing so many things to her, things she hadn’t even tried with other guys. Alwen had wondered at some stage if something was wrong with her. She’d told her best friend, April, who laughed and told her she was normal and that heaps of women fantasized about certain men all day long.

  Alwen stood in front of her closet and stared at her wardrobe, unsure of what to pick. She wanted to look irresistible to Clay. But what did you wear when a hot, older man asked you out? Not just any man either, but the man who’d saved your father’s life? The man that had your body feeling like you were in heat anytime he was around. Alwen had no idea. Did she wear what she would usually wear on a date? Well, not that she’d had been on many. She’d been asked out plenty, but most of the time she was never interested. April blamed it on the bitterness of Alwen’s mother and how not one of her mother’s friends were happily married. They were all divorcées and big time man-haters. It had gotten too much for Alwen, so she’d moved in with her dad.

  Giving up on choosing without help she got her mobile and called April, who answered on the third ring. “Hey, Alwen, what’s up?”

  “I just need help choosing an outfit to wear on a date.” Alwen waited. One … two … three.

  “A date. You. You’re going on a date? Oh. My. God. Who? Tell me, tell me. No, wait, I’ll be there in ten.”

  Alwen didn’t even get to reply as April hung up. Laughing, Alwen put her phone down on her bed and walked to her bathroom. She would shower, and by the time she’d washed her hair and dried it April would be at her house.

  Fifteen minutes later April walked into her bedroom having let herself in with her key. “Spill.”

  “Well hello to you, too.”

  April rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, hello. Now spill. Who is taking you on a date? Is it that cop that pulled you over for a breath test and asked for your number? Ooh, I know. Is it the guy at the gym you renewed your membership at a couple of days ago even though you never go? Or is it—”

  “It’s Clay. Dr. Grayson.”

  “What! The doctor that saved your dad and you’ve been having naughty dreams about? The doctor who is perfection personified? Wow. Are you sure you can go out with him? He is ridiculously good looking.” April licked her lips. “I mean I’m all for you going on a date, but he is well…”

  “Argh, way to make me feel confident and calm my nervousness.”

  April had the good grace to frown and shrug. “Sorry. I’m not saying you’re not pretty. It’s just that he is...”

  “Yeah, I know I’m big. No matter what I do I can’t get rid of my curves. I don’t know why I agreed to go on this date. My mouth seemed to say yes before my mind could catch up.”

  “It’s not that, and don’t say that about your body.” April winked at her. “Your body isn’t fat. It’s all muscle. It’s done now. You have to look amazing.” April walked into her closet. When Alwen had moved in with her dad he’d given her the master bedroom with the walk-in wardrobe and the en-suite. Clothes started flying out. “Start trying these on.”

  Alwen looked down at the towel still wrapped around her. “Do I wear my tummy tuck underwear? Or do I go sexy just in case?”

  April’s head peeked out of the closet. “I want to say tummy tuck underwear, but if I was you and given any chance to jump doctor hottie’s bones, I so would. So wear the sexiest things you have, and we’ll work your clothes around that.”

  Alwen giggled. Only April would come around, take over her closet and speak her mind. She loved April. She always told it how she saw it and never sugar-coated it. Sometimes Alwen wished she had a filter, especially in front of other people, but most of the time Alwen enjoyed April and wished she was more like her.

  Walking into her closet she opened her sexy underwear drawer. She pulled out a black lacy number only for it to be snapped out of her hand by April.

  “Not that. Wear this.” April waved a red barely there set that April had gotten her and Alwen had never worn. She’d hidden them in her closet, where April had just found them. “I knew when I bought this for you you’d be thanking me.”

  Alwen shook her head and took the skimpy pieces off April. “There is barely anything here. I can’t wear these.” Alwen wasn’t a j-string wearer. She didn’t like a thin piece of fabric between her arse cheeks. The bra she could wear, as her breasts would just fit.

  “Stop complaining and put them on.”

  Alwen knew she’d never win the argument, so she sighed and went back out and changed into the two thin pieces of fabric. April then came to her with a black dress and red shoes.

  “We have to match your shoes to your sexy little nothing.”

  “April, I really doubt he’ll see me in this. I think I should get changed into something more comfortable.”

  “No way. You called me for a reason, so suck i
t up and do as I tell you.”

  Alwen laughed and gathered her friend in for a hug and took the clothes from her. “Thanks for your help. I don’t know what I would have don’t with—” The doorbell rang through the house, and Alwen froze, terrified. “He’s here.”

  April’s eyes lit up. “Yay.” She clapped her hands. “I’ll go answer the door.” She went to leave, and Alwen grabbed her.

  “No. You can’t go.”

  April raised her eyebrow. “You want to go down and let him in, in what you’re wearing?” She grinned. “I’m all for that, but I know you and you wouldn’t do that.”

  Alwen let April go and nodded. “Go. Best behavior, please.”

  April saluted her. “I promise to be on my best behavior for doctor yummy.”

  Letting out a breath Alwen hadn’t realized she’d been holding she smiled at her best friend. “Thanks.”

  April walked out of her room, and Alwen groaned as she glanced at the black number April had chosen.

  ****

  When no one answered he tried knocking on the door. As he finished knocking the door opened, and a gorgeous blonde answered the door. “Hello, Doctor Hottie, come in. I’m April, Alwen’s bestie. Alwen is just finishing getting ready and will be down soon.”

  “Hi, April, it’s nice to meet you.” Clay walked in to the house, and the woman showed him to the lounge room and sat on the sofa.

  “Sit so I can grill you. I’m dying to know more about Mr. Dreamy Doc.”

  Clay chuckled. He’d thought he’d misheard her when she answered the door, but he knew now he hadn’t. “What do you want to know?”

  “What made you after two weeks suddenly ask my best friend out?”

  Okay, after the way she’d acted he should have expected her to ask that. “Why not? The only reason I haven’t done it sooner is because her father is my patient, and I’ve been battling over asking a patient’s daughter out. Alwen is cute.”