Page 48 of Guarded By the Vodnik

“A nap won’t help,” he said, almost with amusement, but there was a hard edge to his voice.

“No, not a nap,” I agreed. “But I can hold you. Or we can have sex. Or we can find a way for you to be alone. Whatever feels best right now.”

He stopped suddenly, pulling my head back by my nape until I looked at his face. I realized with a jolt there was enough light for me to see. We were close to the surface.

“You’d have sex with me?” he asked, sharp and disbelieving. “After what I told you?”

I blinked, trying to see him more clearly, though it was impossible in the water.

“Yeah. You’d be surprised how helpful sex can be as a release after processing intense emotions. I used to…”

He squeezed my nape, baring his teeth. “No. Don’t talk about how you fucked in the past right now. I can’t… Please.”

I swallowed thickly. Warmth pooled in my belly, insistent and needy, but I did my best to control it. I didn’t want to influence his decision, even though his jealousy was so incredibly hot.

Damn. It was me who needed sex after all that, if only to show him with my actions how grateful I was that he was alive and here. How worthy of love and pleasure he was.

And yes, I needed it for myself, too. Everything he told me buzzed in my guts, cold and squirmy, and I desperately needed to somehow make peace with it so it wouldn’t hurt so much.

But my needs were secondary right now.

“Okay. I won’t,” I said easily. “Just know that I’m here, fully available. Whatever you need from me.”

He shook his head, seeming angry, though as the water rippled, I couldn’t be certain.

“But I told you… Horrible, despicable things. How I… I ran, Zoe. I could have stayed, could have fought, but I ran. I left her behind.”

It felt like my throat was permanently tightened from holding back my cries of dismay and tears. I took a deep breath of cooling water.

“Yeah. You were four, you ran, and you did well. So well. You did exactly the right thing. She told you to run, and she was an adult when you were just a child. She wanted you to be safe. You did good, baby. You did everything right. But it’s okay to feel like you didn’t. It’s okay to feel those things, okay? Just don’t… Don’t punish yourself.”

He pressed me closer, and I felt how fast his heart thudded through his chest. We stayed like that for a long moment until he seemed to shake himself off.

“We will emerge now. There is a safe place we can go. And I’ll do my best.”

I nodded into the crook of his neck, pulling my mask away from my mouth in preparation. With just a few thrusts of his tentacles, we broke the surface. Icy wind whipped my face, and I gasped from the shock.

And then, I coughed out water. My body shook, a violent hacking cough tearing my lungs apart. Vodyan held me, cursing under his breath, his tentacles wrapping around me as I shook. My throat burned, and when I finally took a full breath, the cold air seemed to freeze my lungs from within.

“My sweet girl. I’ll keep you warm. Just need to figure it out,” he said over the rush of the wind.

I blinked, my eyes watering in the cool gray brightness of the day. We were close to shore, a narrow strip of rocky land separating the lake from the forest. I squinted, blinking water from my eyes as my teeth chattered and a few more coughs shook my frame. There was a stone house on the shore, rough-hewn and large. It had its own wooden pier jutting into the lake, the wood blackened and old.

“Fuck. I’m not sure how to do it,” Vodyan muttered. “Zoe? Can I kiss you?”

I gave him a shivery nod. “Yeah. Of c-course.”

He brought me higher with his palm gripping my ass, and his lips, barely warm, pressed to mine. I shook from the cold but kissed him back as best I could, until I realized his tongue grew hot in my mouth, his body warming up fast.

With a needy whimper, I pressed closer, and he wrapped around me, layers and layers of his arms and tentacles emitting glorious, blissful heat. We kept kissing, my moans growing louder as he surrounded me from every side, becoming a cocoon that shielded me from the wind.

He pulled away from my lips and peppered my face with eager, clumsy kisses, each a hot lick against my freezing skin.

“It works, my pretty girl. There you go. All warm and good.”

I had no idea how he did it or how it was possible, but I clung to him with all my might. Water splashed around us, and next thing I knew, we were on the shore, heading for the stone house.

He kept kissing my face like he couldn’t get enough. It was cute and blissful, his lips searing a path of heat down my cheek, along my jaw, up to my lips, and across the other cheek.

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