Page 5 of Bombshell

My vines, which seemed to have a mind of their own, snaked out of the back of my dress and wrapped around the vials, freeing my hands so that I could get revenge.

While Dallan’s cock was firmly pressed inside of me, holding me in place, it wasn’t the most sensitive part of him. Not by a long shot.

Gripping the two largest tentacles on his face, I gave them a gentle tug, biting on my lower lip when I felt his length jump inside of me.

“Lass—” Dallan began in a warning that I quickly cut off with a kiss.

I was breaking my own rules right now. The ones that drew the line in the sand between us and screamed ‘do not cross!’ The ones that kept me and my emotions in a safe zone.

Forty years ago I’d been the one to make them up, and whether it was to make Dallan more comfortable about the whole thing or myself, I wasn’t sure.

Rule #1: No kissing. Kissing is something people in relationships do and we weren’t in a relationship.

But damn did I love it. I could probably count on both hands and all eight vines the amount of times I’d let myself initiate a kiss with him. Dallan, of course, usually ignored Rule #1. In fact, kissing seemed to be his favorite thing to do and he did it despite my constant scoldings.

I wasn’t sure what had gotten into me today—maybe something was in the air… or maybe it was the fact that it was my sixty-seventh birthday.

Sixty-seven years earthside and all I had to show for it was crippling trauma and a business-with-benefits relationship that I wished more than anything I could change… and yet I wasn’t anywhere near brave enough to do so.

Dallan’s lips moved against mine, the tentacles I was hanging onto like a pair of reins jerking in my hands.

When I finally pulled away and opened my eyes I found his normally pallid green skin flushed a warm pink, the color gathering in his cheeks like ink clouds as he searched my face like he always did when I kissed him first.

Then the ink in the vials started to overflow and I was back in it again.

“We’re going to lose ink if I let the vines have their way,” I told him, my voice raspy as I corked the now too-full vials of the blackest ink in existence and grabbed more, shooing the vines away with my hands.

While they always tried to be helpful, more often than not they just made a mess.

Dallan looked as if he wanted to argue, but I knew him too well. He was close, I could tell by the tightening of his fingers on my breasts and the harsh rise and fall of his chest as his two sets of lungs—one for land and the other for under the water—worked overtime to try and help him regain control over himself.

Putting the last of the vials down in case I dropped them with what was about to happen next, I reached up and put my hands on his shoulders. His skin, which was normally cool to the touch, quickly warmed under my fingers as I shifted in his lap.

“Do I have your full attention now, Lass?” Dallan’s eyes crinkled in the corners as they met mine, glowing almost gold in the dim light of my living room.

I frowned. “What do you mea—”

I yelped as Dallan stood up off of the kitchen chair where we usually did our ink extraction, taking me with him.

“What are youdoing?” I squeaked, my vines snaking up to wrap around both of his biceps as I tried my best not to get dropped on the floor which would assuredly alert all of the artists working below of our shenanigans.

“I’m ancient, Lass, and my back hurts every time we fuck on that chair,” Dallan told me gruffly as he walked us through the beaded curtain that separated the living room of my little apartment from the bedroom.

While I did most of my work in the living room, the bedroom was and had always been my sanctuary. When Dallan had brought me here almost fifty years ago it had been run down, only ever used when he and Cash first bought the shop, but even still the window bench that took up nearly an entire wall had been there since the start.

There had been many an evening spent sitting there, staring out over the foggy bay with a cup of tea in my hand as I tried to figure out my place in the world.

February in Port Haven usually meant an extension of those foggy days and night falling far too soon, bringing my mood down along with it.

Even now the light outside was starting to dim despite it being late afternoon.

Dallan didn’t seem to be perturbed by it, though, as he put a knee on the bed and lowered me down onto it before wrapping one of my legs around his waist. He was studiously ignoring myquestioning look as he slid deep again, the bracelets on his wrist tinkling together as he moved.

He was pushing things today. I should have known he would when he practically dragged me up the stairs earlier despite it being in the middle of the day. Our usual routine was to wait until after the shop was closed completely because, despite the rest of the shop being fully aware how we stock the ink they used on their clients, we’d come to an agreement to never talk about it.

Only Daphne had ever brought it up in the barest of terms and I’d nearly bitten her head off for it.

I wasn’t embarrassed by what we did. Dallan and I were both consenting adults. But even still, somewhere deep inside of me, if we talked about it out loud with other people, then it would mean something that I still, almost forty years later, wasn’t ready to admit to.

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