Page 48 of Echoes of the Tide

She slapped her hands against his shoulders, shoving him until he had to move back. He licked his lips, still staring at her chest, clearly incapable of looking her in the eye when he could instead look at her breasts.

“Maketes!” She forced him to free her, wriggling out of his grip so she could duck underneath the water and cover herself with her hands. Glaring, she muttered, “Would you just look at me?”

“I am looking at you. All that wondrous, full flesh. Seeing you like this makes me want to bite you.” Baring those sharp teeth, he added, “Only if you wished, I suppose. But I would like it known that I very much would like to.”

Heat flooded through her at the image her mind conjured. Him looming over her, rutting into her like an animal with her neck in his teeth. And it wasn’t... It should have been terrifying. It should have been an image that made her disgusted. But it didn’t.

Not in the slightest.

“Explain the breathing,” she ordered, although she felt like there were more words unspoken. Explain the breathing before this gets out of hand again.

He sighed, then flicked his tail and moved all the way across the pool. “I need space from you to talk.”

“Is it that bad?”

“No, you’re too distracting. I can’t think with all...” He waved his hand up and down, dunking it into the water so he could gesture to her entire form. “All of that. It’s too much. My mind can only do so much.”

And that might have been the nicest thing that any man had ever said to her.

She blinked a few times, then moved through the water so she could brace herself against the lip of stone. There was something unnerving about treading water without knowing what was beneath her. Especially without Maketes to hold on to her.

There was plenty of space between them now, but she also leaned over the edge and yanked her shirt over her head as well. Just for good measure.

Dunking back into the water, she braced herself and then turned to look at him. “Better?”

Those heated eyes looked over her and groaned. “No. Now look at you. That shirt does nothing to hide and everything to somehow make you even more tantalizing.”

She glanced down to see that the shirt had become entirely see through. Clinging to her breasts, the fabric creating little hills and valleys along her skin that was... pretty. Was this the first time she’d ever looked at her own body and thought it was pretty?

That thought definitely needed to be unpacked later, but not right now. Even if it took the entirety of her self control to yankherself out of the water, sit down on the lip of the stone, and cross her arms over her chest. “Talk.”

“I don’t want to talk right now.”

“I do.”

“What do I get if I tell you?”

Oh, this devious man. He looked at her with all that hunger, and she wanted to promise him everything. She wanted to tell him that there was a lot more she could do and now that they weren’t only friends, she wondered if maybe she just... could tell him that.

So she tilted her head to the side and was braver than she’d ever been in her life. “If you’re good, I’ll show you what humans do with their mouths and cocks.”

“Excuse me?” His eyes had widened.

“Cocks don’t just go into pussies.” Even though at the words she spread her legs a little wider, just to get his attention. “They’re also good for sucking. You like what I did with my hands? It’s ten times better with my mouth.”

He dunked completely underwater, like he’d forgotten how to swim. One moment he was there, staring at her with an open mouth, and the next, underwater. He came up spluttering, wiping his face clear of water before opening his eyes and gaping at her again.

“What?” he said.

“You heard me. Just tell me what I want to know, and maybe I’ll entertain the idea.”

Maketes swallowed so hard she could hear it. “There are two other human pairings with my kind. Both of them realized that we have a tentacle that is seemingly there for breathing purposes. We haven’t used it in a very long time, but have realized we can connect with your species underwater. It is unnerving from what I’ve heard, but it keeps you alive. Thetentacle is fairly long on its own, and seems to be a bit stretchy, so you don’t have to stay in my arms at all times.”

She could feel her eyes getting wider and wider with every word. She could breathe underwater if that thing was in her neck? She supposed the goo made sense now. The thick liquid likely made it so the tentacle couldn’t pop out easily and also made sure that there was an air-tight seal on it.

Maketes took another deep breath and kept going. “It is a permanent reconfiguration of your body. I’m sorry I didn’t ask permission. I was told that I have to ask permission before I did it. But the water was flooding the room, and you were going to die if I didn’t do it. So it seemed better to ask forgiveness later after I was certain that you were alive rather than try to mime in the water what I was doing. Besides, you passed out.”

“Oh,” she mumbled.

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