Read Online Fairest 02 - The Frog Prince by Adrianne Brooks - Free Book Online Page A

become an expression she’d been able to recognize in an instant as a result of her years around Alex. Back then, Rachel had simply thought that dead eyed devotion that filled the eyes of most men when they came in contact with Rachel was just further proof that the male population were sex-crazed idiots, but ever since her run in with Zaran she’d begun to understand that Alex hadn’t been exaggerating when she’d claimed that her influence over men was a curse. Chris had the same expression on his face as countless men before him, but Rachel knew that unlike Alex, the mermaid had purposefully set her talons into Chris. A suspicion that was confirmed when the mermaid grinned wolfishly at them both, rows and rows of razor sharp teeth a testament to her capacity for destruction and violence. Then, without a sound, the mermaid sunk beneath the surface of the water, disappearing from sight.
    “Shit,” Rachel cursed as she lunged forward, her heart in her throat. She grabbed Chris by the hair and jerked him away just as the mermaid broke through the water. Her teeth snapped on empty air rather than Chris’s head. Rachel swallowed a scream as the mermaid snarled at them before flipping back beneath the waves, her tail sending up a plume of water. Rachel could see the surface of the water rippling outward in rings as the woman swam in circles about their lily pad. Circling them again and again, like a bodacious shark. Rachel turned Chris so that he could look at her. His face was still slack and dreamy and she cupped his cheeks between her hands and shook him, glancing nervously over her shoulder every other second to try and keep the mermaid’s location in the forefront of her mind.
    “Chris,” she said, clearing her throat when she realized just how strained and panicked she sounded. “Chris? You need to snap out of it,” she told him fiercely. He grinned at her like an idiot and Rachel felt her frustration spike. She didn’t plan on kissing him. It just happened. She couldn’t think of anything else to do, and before she could order her body any differently, she was pulling him forward and capturing his lips with her own. The first thing she noted was how good it felt to taste him. To slide her tongue between the firm line of his lips and pull him flush against her. Her arms wrapped around his neck, and her back arched into his chest as she pressed into him. Angling her head so that she could enjoy the heated strength that seemed so much a part of who he was. Honestly, she forgot why she’d been kissing him until he started to respond to her advances.
    One second, he was a statue against her and the next, he was consuming her and growling so that she tasted his hunger like candy on her taste buds as his tongue thrust deep within the cavern of her mouth. Her body grew hot and fevered and her arms tightened around his neck. But then the lily pad began to rock dangerously beneath them. Rachel pulled away from Chris’s touch just as the mermaid rocketed into the edge of the lily pad like a torpedo. Flipping their craft over onto its side and sending the both of them beneath the cold, wet depths.
     
     

Chapter Eight
     
    Rachel had only learned to swim because someone had teased her once about how no black person could. She’d been offended by the assumption that she was falling within some type of stereotype and had set out to prove the assertion wrong, but she had never liked being beneath the water. Had never liked the idea of the ground being so far out of her reach. As a result, she could swim, but not well. There was still a sense of panic about the process that made her flounder when she should relax. Immediately after they were capsized, she found herself spinning beneath the water like a top. Unable to tell which way was up and which was down. Terror seized her and she twisted before she remembered to follow the trail of the air bubbles.
    Rachel broke the surface with a gasp, legs moving furiously to keep