Page 76 of Jewel of the Sea

He shifted, propping himself up on an elbow, and turned to look down at her. She moved onto her back, hair fanning out over the bedding.

“There’s nowhere else I would rather be,” he said, cupping her cheek in his palm.

She peered up at him, a soft smile on her lips, and cradled his jaw in her hand. “Me too.”

After a moment, his gaze trailed downward, sliding over her body. Human and kraken anatomy bore many similarities, at least on the surface, but she should have appeared alien to him. She should’ve been little more than a passing curiosity, easily sated and subsequently forgotten. Yet she tantalized him. Aroused him.

She was beautiful in every line and curve, and he cherished every smile she gifted him.

Her arm fell to rest beside her head. “Do you want to see me, Arkon?”

Hearts stilling, he stared down at her; had he heard correctly? Her legs parted as she slid a foot along his tentacles.

Arkon swallowed. “Yes.”

Aymee raised her hands to the collar of her shirt, unfastening the top button and allowing the fabric to billow open before moving down. Arkon watched, enrapt, as she revealed her skin little by little. His breath quickened when her fingers hovered over her stomach, and his claws dug into the bedding when she touched the final button.

Once it was undone, she grasped the edges of the shirt and drew it slowly apart.

Arkon’s breath fled, and heat suffused him.

She lay bare before him. Her breasts were small but full, tipped with dark nipples, and her flat stomach dipped before meeting the flare of her hips; farther down, an enticing patch of black hair. With one knee bent, she parted her thighs, allowing him a glimpse of the pink flesh between her legs.

His pulsating shaft pressed to the inside of his slit. His tentacles — sliding restlessly, hungrily, along her legs — tasted her growing arousal in the air, and it sent a shudder through him.

“I see you, Aymee,” he rasped, “and long to do more.”

“You can touch me, Arkon,” she beckoned.

He settled a trembling hand on her stomach and slowly trailed it up, brushing between curves of her breasts with his fingers. Her skin was warm, soft, and responsive. When he covered a breast with his palm, she closed her eyes and arched into his touch.

Shifting his tentacles, Arkon lifted his torso and held himself over her. He placed his free hand on her other breast and stroked her beaded nipples with the pads of his thumbs. She released a soft sigh.

“You can kiss them.” She smiled. “I’m yours to do with as you please, Arkon. Touch me, kiss me, taste me. Anything.”

Something tightened in his lower abdomen. He absently ran his tongue along the points of his teeth, more mindful than ever of the delicateness of her skin, and lowered his head. She caught his face with her hands and forced his gaze to hers. Her eyes were deep, dark pools, and he tumbled into them.

She lifted her head and skimmed her lips over his mouth. “Love me, Arkon,” she whispered, then released him.

Love…

He’d longed for Aymee’s love, but he hadn’t realized it could go both ways — that he would come to love her, too. It seemed an immense oversight, a sign that he had indeed lost his wits. Somewhere along the way, his fascination had evolved into something more. Into something that existed independently of her feelings for him, though it was in many ways fueled by them. Something as simultaneously simple and complex as the word that impossibly encompassed it.

Love.

Arkon lowered his mouth over one of her nipples and did as she’d said — he kissed. But that fleeting contact, that tiny taste, wasn’t enough. He encircled it with his lips and flicked his tongue over the tip. She inhaled sharply and lifted her chest. Urged on by her reactions, he sucked her nipple into his mouth while caressing the other with his palm and the pads of his fingers.

Aymee’s hands flew to his head and pulled him closer. Her moan flowed through him like a strong current through the ocean, and her scent strengthened, pushing his desire to a new, unimaginable peak.

Despite his thrill in her reactions, he released her nipple and trailed his lips down her body; heneededto experience the source of that scent, thattaste!

Her stomach quivered as his lips brushed over it. He glanced up to find her watching him, her lips parted with her soft panting.

When he came to the small patch of hair at her pelvis, he ran the backs of his fingers through it. It felt different than the hair upon her head, coarser, and was heavily perfumed with arousal. Coiling a tentacle around each of her thighs, he spread them wide.

She was beautiful. The petals of her sex were slick, unfurled and ready to receive him, and here her scent was at its strongest.

His mouth watered.

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