Daddy Shark Read online

  Daddy Shark

  By

  MAREN SMITH

  Copyright © 2019 by Maren Smith

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including, but not limited to, photocopying or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, places, locales, and events are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, places, and events are purely coincidental.

  Cover: Vibrant Designs

  Edited by: Maggie Ryan

  To Todd, I love you

  With over 160 titles in print, for other books by Maren:

  If you like Daddy Doms, try:

  Build-A-Daddy

  Daddy’s Little

  Daddy’s Little Librarian

  For BDSM romances, try:

  Masters of the Castle series

  Holding Hannah

  Kaylee’s Keeper

  Saving Sara

  Sweet Sinclair

  Chasing Chelsea

  Owning O

  Maddy Mine

  Seducing Sandy

  Embracing Eden

  Wanting Winona COMING SOON!

  Stateside Doms series

  Her Montana Master

  Chapter 1

  Ommin Jones never meant to be a superhero. Of course, he never meant to go through life with a name like Ommin, either. His mother was to blame for that. Consequently, she was also to blame for twelve years of school-age hell, during which all his classmates called him Ommin Top Ramen. Twice he’d let it slip that he was really named Omen, like the movie, in the hopes they’d take to calling him that, or maybe even Damien, which would have been infinitely more preferable. But no, Ommin Top Ramen had a nicer ring and that was the name that stuck. It could have been worse. As dazed and exhausted as his mother had been after forty hours of labor, had the nurse faithfully copied down the first thing Mira Jones replied when asked, “What would you like to name your newborn son,” Ommin would have wound up “PortendOfThingsToCome Jones.”

  So, yeah. Ommin was squarely his mother’s fault.

  That he was now labeled a superhero, well… that was all on Ommin. And his superpower, which seemed to have less to do with shark skin these days and more to do with showing up in all the wrong places at all the right times.

  Oh, and he could shape shift. Into a fish. Try winning over the girls with that one.

  What the hell was he doing here?

  The waiting area of KJMN’s morning broadcast show was alive and bustling. The recording studio was closed, the red light above the picture window showed it was On-Air. He had no clue who the announcer was. He didn’t listen to talk radio and was only here because of the call he’d received. Or rather, the calls. There’d been dozens of them. Perhaps hundreds, by now. He didn’t know; he’d lost count. Constantly running from, ducking, and dodging the gaggles of reporters camped outside his San Francisco apartment could do that to a guy. Not that he had anyplace to run to. His face was all over the TV. Everywhere he went—the grocery store, the movies, the bus stop, for God’s sake—people stopped, pointed, stared, and one little boy on the sidewalk last night had even asked for his autograph.

  His autograph.

  Like he was a movie star or something. Ommin wasn’t. He was just a guy who happened to be perched on the outer edge of the Golden Gate Bridge, exactly halfway across where the bridge stood the highest and the stormy water below ran the deepest, at the exact same moment when a leg swung over the railing beside him and down climbed a young dark-haired man with that look in his eyes.

  “Oh, hey, man, don’t,” was about all Ommin managed to say before the other simply let go of the bridge. He fell more than jumped, but it was in that minute when he released his grip that Ommin saw something change in his face. For the sparsest of seconds, the mask of hopelessness broke and Ommin caught that bittersweet glimpse of instant regret.

  It was already too late. Gravity had him the second flesh and steel parted ways. There was no grabbing the bridge back again. He fell, his eyes locked on Ommin and filling fast with panic.

  Ommin jumped after him. Because, of course he did. Not that the ocean wouldn’t kill him, too. It would. Oceans were fickle that way, and there was a storm coming in. One that had been brewing for days, turning the waters choppy around the massive support structures and crashing wave after dark, frothy wave against the rocks that locked the bridge in place. But when a guy thought he was the only one there who could help, sometimes a guy did damn-fool stupid things.

  Ommin was still thirty feet up when the salty mist peppered his skin, forcing his change. It hurt. What was shark skin, really, but a bazillion tiny teeth suddenly growing out through his flesh. But by now, he had felt this same hurt so many times—the skin, the teeth, the spiny fins sprouting from the bones of his forearms and down the ladder of his spine between his shoulder blades—it was almost a secondary sensation. One felt at the very back of his mind. An inconsequential thing no worse than the snap of a rubber band against his wrist, and instantly soothed by the welcoming wet of the sea.

  The young man saw it happen. Seconds before he hit the water, he screamed.

  A smarter person would have held his breath.

  A sane person wouldn’t have jumped in the first place.

  The young man hit the ocean back first. Ommin made himself straight as a needle. He hit toes first, but it was still like diving three-stories into a brick wall. His shark-skin strengthened him, absorbing the worst of the impact, but his toes and ankles both buckled under and snapped. Thank God for accelerated healing. By the time the suck of the water had pulled him under as far as it was able and grudgingly let him go again, his bones were already mending. That first kick did more than sting like a rubber band, but without his healing factor, it would have been a hell of a lot worse.

  The young man now caught in the rushing flow of the ocean current had nothing to help him and that bubbly underwater scream as he was swept into blackness would stay with Ommin for days. It was with him now, echoing in the back of his mind as Ommin sat in the busy waiting room on a chair three sizes too small for a man of his size, watching that solid red On-Air light and waiting for his turn to be interviewed.

  What was he supposed to say, anyway? Thank goodness the guy hadn’t died? He hadn’t. Sharks knew how to use the ocean currents. So did sharkmen, for that matter. Ommin caught up with him in seconds and, hooking the man in both arms, lugged him back to the surface. Where an entire line of people he hadn’t realized were gathering, erupted into cheers. He could see cell phones. He could see camera flashes. Then the spotlight of the rescue boat already arriving pinned Ommin in place amongst the rough waves, and he was caught.

  Within minutes the Coast Guard had both Ommin and his survivor out of the water where everyone could get a good look at him. After a lifetime of hiding who and what he was, Ommin had no choice but to stand in full view on that boat, fighting not to flinch under their gaping stares the whole way back to shore.

  Where news crews were waiting, not just to catch sight of the shark that had saved a man, but to capture on camera the immortal words of the paramedic who said, “I don’t care what he is. That shark’s a fucking hero. This man wouldn’t be alive without him.”

  The papers paraphrased his statement—because, of course they did—and turned it into the headline of the next morning’s paper. It was the leading story on every television and radio news station from six o’clock to midnight. Ommin couldn’t count the number of times he heard that paramedic’s voice interrupted by that telltale bleep while he was at the hospital, wrapped in a blanket and waitin
g for his hair to stop dripping so his skin would shift back to normal. Waiting, one leg jiggling rapidly up and down, to see if he was going to be arrested, shot, or whisked away for study in some secret underground laboratory, where no one would ever hear from him again. And that was kind of sad because, for all the hours that he sat waiting, he tried to conjure up a list of just how many people that would be. He came up with one: his landlord, Mr. Giannelli, and only because eventually his rent would come due.

  No machine full of cogs turned quite as slowly as a hospital waiting room in a city of more than 800,000 people. Inevitably, someone drew the short straw and they had to take care of him. Led into the back, Ommin took every step just knowing SWAT had to be waiting from the shadow of every doorway and around every corner.

  They weren’t. Nobody leapt out at him.

  He took a seat in a curtained off examining area no bigger than the gurney that occupied it, absolutely convinced he was going to get a surprise stab to the neck with a paralyzing injection, but that never happened either. After another forty minutes of waiting— probably for a re-match on the short-straw draw; come on, man, best two out of three… please!—a doctor finally arrived.

  His vitals were taken, all except his blood pressure—they couldn’t get the pressure cuff around his bicep. They checked him over, pronounced him fit as hell, and just before the doctor left for his next patient, he shocked the shit out of Ommin.

  Laying his bare hand on Ommin’s shoulder, he’d patted him twice and said, “I think what you did today was both stupid and brave. There’s a guy in surgery who would not be alive right now if you hadn’t jumped after him. Don’t leave just yet. The police want to talk to you, too.”

  Now he was going to get arrested. The cops stayed with him long enough to take his statement, buy him a cup of coffee, ask if there was someone they could notify—and then one shook his hand and said, “You did good, buddy.”

  A nurse brought him a piece of birthday cake from the breakroom.

  An orderly asked if he could take a selfie with Ommin for his four-year-old son who’d seen the whole thing on the news and now wanted to be a sharkman superhero instead of a cowboy when he grew up.

  After that, it got surreal.

  Twenty reporters with microphones and cameramen were waiting for him when he left the hospital. He’d never been swarmed so hard and fast in his life. He was two inches taller than the tallest man there. He outweighed everyone by at least fifty muscular pounds. But he’d never been so unnerved in his life, and they chased his ass all the way to the bus stop like he was a crying bitch… only without the tears. Because he didn’t want to break out into sharkskin in the middle of San Francisco. Or have that blasted on the ten o’clock news, because… yeah, that would pretty much run him out of town.

  Twice as many reporters were waiting when he got home. And how they’d known how to find his home address, he still didn’t know. But they did, and boy, did they ever show up in droves.

  They were camped on the sidewalk and the narrow street. They cluttered up the hallway, the stairs, all three floors, all the way to his front door. He managed to hold it together until he got safely inside, but just because he was home didn’t mean everything magically became okay or normal.

  It didn’t.

  That was when the phone calls started. Newspapers, television stations, the porn industry, for crying out loud—because, of course the porn industry would. And nothing—nothing—that had ever happened in his life compared to how shocking, mortifying, offensive, and demoralizing it had been to hear that caller say Ommin could have his choice of who, what, when, and where; but all everybody wanted to know was whether his abilities ended at sharkskin or did he also have two penises? Like a normal shark.

  So, not only was he not a normal man, he wasn’t a normal shark, either.

  That’s when Ommin lost his temper.

  And that’s when KJMN called. This time the caller had been a woman, soft-spoken and cheerful, both optimistic and professional as she asked if Mr. Jones was home and might she speak with him?

  “Do you want an exclusive?” he challenged, rather than asked.

  “Uh,” she stammered before shock gave way and excitement took over. “Yes, please!”

  And so, here he was. Squeezed into a waiting chair that seemed made for a kindergartener, one leg jiggling wildly up and down, sternly telling himself if he heard any hint of a penis-oriented question, he was going to Google seaside towns in Mexico without TV or news service, and he was going to move there.

  “Mr. Jones?”

  Ommin looked up from his fists and straight into the sea-green eyes of the most stunningly attractive woman he’d ever met in his life. Admittedly, he hadn’t met a lot. When one couldn’t bear to be away from the ocean and yet shifted into something less than human at the slightest hint of a salt-water mist, one tended to stay out of public as much as possible.

  She smiled. She had pretty teeth and pink lips, the color of which amplified one another perfectly. Her golden hair was twisted up in a hasty bun, with stray wisps sticking out between the pins. It was a look that struck him as both sloppy and professional, both of which extended to her dress. Business casual—white slacks, white shirt, blue suit jacket buttoned up the front, just not high enough to hide the tiniest hint of a coffee stain upon the vee of her cleavage.

  He ripped his gaze off her coffee stain before he could be accused of staring at her boobs. “That’s me.”

  Sticking out her hand, she said, “Hi, I’m Britney Collins.”

  His hand completely engulfed her much smaller one. He was careful not to shake too hard, not wanting to hurt her. But as he was releasing his grip, he noticed something on her wrist—the looping blue-ink swirls of a tattooed word mostly hidden by the cuff of her jacket. His glimpse of it was too brief; he couldn’t read it. And when their hands parted, she went back to hugging her papers again and her smile once more caught him up in its thrall.

  “Would you follow me, please?”

  The chair got up with him when he stood. Before he could grab the arms, it popped back off again and made the loudest, attention drawing clatter he’d ever tried to nonchalantly walk away from. His face burned. He hoped he wasn’t blushing. Guys shouldn’t blush, it didn’t look anywhere near as good on them as it did on women. On Britney, in particular. She was walking slightly ahead of him, her head tilted down, her eyes wide but she was smiling, and yeah… she was blushing. He caught glimpses of it every now and then when she stole her quick peeks back at him. Or when she tugged at her hair, trying to tuck that stray wisp of a curl that had escaped her sloppy bun back behind her ear. It was too short to stay there, so she ended up tucking it a couple times before they reached an empty recording room.

  “Here we are,” she said, getting the door for him. “Office sweet office.”

  He walked in. Already they were not alone. The room was split into two parts—the part he was standing in had a long table with multiple comfortable chairs and a center switchboard with plug-ins from which two headsets already lay ready and waiting. A giant picture window offered him a stellar view of the hallway they’d just walked down, and another gave him a technical view of where the magic actually happened. Two male attendants were already inside, pressing buttons, loading tapes, drinking coffee and laughing, all of which he could see through the window and none of which he could hear. Not so much as a whisper.

  “Take a seat,” she encouraged. “These should be a bit bigger and more comfortable for, um”—she waved her hands, gesturing to all of him—“a man of your, um… size and, um”—she blushed even hotter. He did too. If his face got any warmer, he was positive he might spontaneously combust—“…your, um… extremely muscular build.”

  “Thank you.” Was she flirting with him? This seemed a lot like flirting. A less socially awkward guy probably would have known for sure, but Ommin wasn’t that guy. Ommin was a guy who worked a nightshift custodial job at the university so as to limit the number
of people he came in contact with, and who hung out quietly by himself on a bridge that was fast becoming a favorite hopping off point for suicidal people.

  Still, hoping he was reading the situation right, he flexed an arm, at which point her blush went from pretty pink to flame-red magenta, complete with giggles.

  She felt his arm.

  “Wow,” she mouthed to the guys in the control room.

  One was too busy setting up his station to pay much attention, the other had a look on his face similar to Britney’s. “Wow is right,” he mouthed back, then fanned himself.

  “You must work out a lot,” she said, selecting a chair and dropping comfortably into it. Crossing her legs—no nylons, just soft bare skin with only the slightest tan—don’t be a creeper, Ommin, don’t look—she then lay her prepared list of questions on her lap.

  Ommin slid into a chair beside her, picked up the spare headphones that had been set out when she picked up hers, and slipped them over his ears. He adjusted the microphone.

  “Are they working?” he asked, but he knew they were when he heard himself through the earphones.

  She beamed. “Yes, they are. We don’t have to jump in right away, though. We can just talk for a minute and get comfortable, if you like.”

  “I’ve never done this before.” He supposed that was obvious, and he did his best to cover his awkwardness with a laugh. “You lead, I’ll follow. How about that?”

  “That works, um, but”—she hesitated, then did her best to cover her own awkwardness with a half-chuckle of her own—”I do feel like, in all honesty, I should tell you know that I, um”—she rubbed imaginary crinkles out of her pristine questionnaire—”I’ve never done this before, either. See, I’ve only just got my degree and I, um, I’m still in my internship. I have done announcements here and there,” she rushed to assure him. “Plus, I filled in once when someone was sick. You know, over the midnight shift. It’s just that when everything hit the news, I thought yours would be such a great story, especially since no one seemed to have asked you yet. So I called you. To be honest, I never in a million years thought you would say yes, much less offer me an exclusive. In fact, I was fully expecting you to hang up on me.”