Page 19 of Sink or Swim

I’d thank her, except I can’t get coherent words out of my mouth. Not when her tongue glides across the head of my cock, throbbing with delicious need.

“Oona,” I pant as I massage her scalp, taking care not to hurt her. But every time I think I’m pulling on her hair a little too hard, she lets out a throaty growl that makes my heart hammer against my chest. This woman is all mine, and I can’t let her forget it. Won’t let her forget it. “Oona, please,” I plead. I’m so close. So, so close. But I can’t get off yet, not when I haven’t made her feel good yet. “Not yet. Not yet, sweetheart.”

Oona quirks a brow mid-lick and stares up at me with wide, curious eyes. “What?” she rasps, then releases my cock. I’m so hard my cock grazes my navel, streaking precum across my abdomen.

“No,” I say. My throat tightens, because the playful expression on her face falls. She looks like I’ve just stricken her. Damn it all. Damn this language barrier and being unable to just tell her what I need.

I stretch out my hand to her, and thankfully, she takes it before standing. We’ll have to do this without words again. We’ve managed before. We’ll manage it again. I step toward her and drag my fingernails down her belly, past her navel until they reach her mons pubis.

Oona’s tail swishes from side to side, and the tension releases in her body. I open my mouth to ask her if she’s ready, but then, without warning, she lifts me into the air. Suddenly, we’re at eye level with one another as she wraps my legs around her waist, moves over to one of the trees, and presses me up against it. Fortunately, she chose a tree that’s shed most of its bark so it won’t tear up my back.

Lust flashes in her eyes as they settle on a deep, fiery red. My thighs tighten around her small waist, right above her hip bones. Then she presses herself into my body and brushes her lips against mine. I deepen the kiss, and her tongue flicks in and out of my mouth as the sweet heat of her cleft moves over my cock.

I could get off like this, easily.

“Oona…” I breathe, and she covers my mouth with hers again in reply.

The fire crackles behind us, keeping us warm despite the drop in temperature. The tip of my cock slips inside of her, and Oona lets out a soft groan of approval into my mouth. I’ve never heard anything hotter in my life. Done anything hotter. I’ve never been fucked by a woman before, as I’m usually the one doing the fucking. But I could get used to this, I decide. My fingers tangle in her hair as she moves her hips back and forth, grinding against me.

Our moans fill the night air, joining the chorus of crickets, frogs, and other sounds of the forest denizens.

She lifts my wrists over my head and pins them there against the tree trunk as her grinding quickens.

“Fuck,” I choke out. “Sweetheart, you’re going to make me come.”

“Good,” she rasps as her gaze locks on to mine.

My eyes widen as she takes me deeper, so much deeper, into her hole. Then she releases my wrists, freeing my hands so I can touch her. I grab her breasts and squeeze them together in my palms. Oona grabs my inner thighs and pries them from her waist, pulling them apart. Creating more room for her to push herself onto me. I burrow into her cunt down to the root, and she bounces me against the tree until my orgasm comes hot and fast in short, powerful spurts.

“Oona,” I growl her name again and again until my throat hurts. “You didn’t come,” I pant as the last of my cum fills her. “You didn’t come,” I moan, disappointment overriding the physical high of my own orgasm.

She continues to grind against my length, and thankfully, I’m still hard enough to remain inside of her. Then, without warning, her own orgasm shatters. She comes undone on my cock with a throaty, low moan. She pounds her fist against the tree, shaking it so hard leaves fall from the branches and a few birds flee into the night air. Her tail curls, tightening around my calf like a serpent as she cries out.

“There’s my girl,” I murmur with a soft, relieved chuckle. I reach for her face and stroke her cheek with my knuckles. Our eyes meet, and she blinks slowly, as though in a euphoric daze. “There’s my girl.”

The tension in her mighty frame relaxes, and she carries me toward the fire to set me down in the soft grass. Exhausted from sex, I don’t move as she nestles in against my back, spooning me. When her hand reaches around my side to pull me into an embrace, I say, “I love you, Oona. I love you.”

She doesn’t say anything back, because I haven’t taught her the word “love” yet. But when she presses her lips to the back of my head and rumbles thickly, I imagine she understands the intention behind my words. At least, I like to think she knows how I feel about her.

OONA

After two and a half weeks of traveling on foot, Nick and I have made it to the other side of the lagoon. We’re exhausted, and while our supplies lasted us the first week, I had to hunt for us during the second. Thankfully, Nick understood the basics of fishing and caught us several trout to enjoy over a roaring campfire. These don’t taste as tainted as the other fish, but they’re still not as tasty as they used to be.

We don’t have any more unfortunate run-ins with boars, but there were a few harrowing moments where he stepped on something nasty, and I had to lick his feet to heal them. Not my fetish. Not my fetish at all. And thankfully not his, either.

I’ve never been this far away from home before. Never needed to be. When I hatched, I stayed in the area and secured myself a cave to live in until a few stupid bears came and ruined everything. That was so long ago. Then I made the tree house fort. But I’ve never had any wanderlust. Never wanted to see what was beyond my lagoon even after the men in their boats would come by, make a bunch of noise, dump whatever, and then leave. Maybe I should have been more curious, because looking at the vibrant skyline of Sugardove City with Nick, I can see the appeal. Sort of.

His eyes are like gemstones, twinkling against the bright lights as he gazes at the city across the lagoon. It’s still far away. A long swim to carry him on my back, but we can make it. I’ll just need to eat a hearty dinner, first. Going under the cloak of night would be best so no one sees him being carried by a literal monster.

When Nick’s fingers graze mine then lace between them, my heart clenches. I let out a soft sigh and hang my head, allowing my greasy, matted hair to fall in my eyes.

He squeezes my hand. “Hey,” he murmurs. “It’s okay.”

It doesn’t feel okay. None of this feels okay. Doing the right thing isn’t always the thing that feels good, I’m figuring out. If he stays with me, he won’t live the way he’s supposed to live. Might not reach his species life expectancy, however long that is. I’m not even sure how long my species is supposed to live. Maybe I’m already toward the end? There’s so much about myself I don’t know, something that used to not bother me but now does.

Who am I, really? And where did I come from? Does it even matter? Without him by my side, probably not. I’ll continue to live the way I always have. It’s worked for me up until … him. But now that I know what love feels like, how can I simply go back to the way things were before?

“I’ll miss you,” I finally say in my own tongue. Then the tears come. Slowly at first, then all at once, like a torrent of rain in the summer.

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