Page 55 of Fallen from the Stars

Loved?

As crazy as it seemed, it was true. She’d never known love until Malcolm, but he and Kane had shown Theo enough for her to recognize it. This was built on the same base, but it was so much more — so much deeper, so much stronger, so much more uncertain. And that was as exciting as it was frightening.

Vasil’s hands trekked down her sides to grasp her hips, and his movements became more feral. Guttural sounds escaped him to mix with her cries.

Her body quivered, the delicious pleasure permeating her growing with each stroke of his cock until, finally, she broke apart in rapture. Torrents of ecstasy blasted through her as heat flooded her core. Her inner walls fluttered and clamped around his shaft, drawing him deeper.

The fingers on her hips flexed, and his tentacles coiled tighter around her thighs as his thrusts grew suddenly erratic. His body turned to stone beneath her as he roared her name. His hold on her hips strengthened further, claws pricking her flesh, and he pulled her down one final time as he released his seed within her.

Theo fell limp upon his chest, panting hard with the resonating effects of her climax. It didn’t help that those clever little tendrils at the base of his shaft continued stroking her.

Vasil relaxed beneath her, releasing a long, steady breath. He gently massaged her hips; she’d be surprised if she didn’t have bruises in the shapes of his fingers there. But she didn’t mind. The idea that he’d let go so much that he’d marked her was an arousing one.

“Now I can see why human women get down with kraken,” Theo said with a grin.

“Now you see why it is worth your while toget downwithme.”

Theo chuckled and raised her head, wiggling her eyebrows. “Maybe I’ll have to show you what it’d be like togodownonyou.”

He tilted his head, brow furrowing. “I do not understand.”

She patted his cheek. “You will.”

* * *

The dull gray clouds were several shades lighter than the choppy waters over which they stretched, but they darkened along the horizon to blur the line between sea and sky. A steady wind, tolerable but carrying the hint of a chill, blew tirelessly off the ocean. Vasil frowned as he surveyed the scene; though the storm had relented some time during the previous night, the weather hadn’t given up. All signs pointed toward another storm before day’s end.

He’d decided after their morning meal hours before not to go to sea today. It was too dangerous to risk going out; better to lose a day of searching to caution than to lose Theo to recklessness.

Vasil swung his gaze landward and settled it upon her. He watched as, eyes downcast, she carefully walked through the shallow tide pool. The wonder and curiosity on her face warmed his chest, but it wasn’t quite enough to stop his attention from wandering.

His eyes dipped to study her body. Though he knew what was hidden beneath her jumpsuit, the sight of the fabric pulling taught over her curves as she moved stirred his blood. Her rounded backside, in particular, caught his eye; he’d have to be sure to focus on it next time.

He smiled. It would’ve been a lie had he claimed their couplings last night and earlier that morning hadn’t played a significant role in his choice to forgo his search. Vasil had never known sex could be so pleasurable. He’d never known he could want someone so much.

He and Theo had gone to the stream together after breakfast, bathed one another, and refilled her water containers before returning to the beach to begin their current trek along the coastline. They were perhaps two hours away from the pod now, by measure of their leisurely pace. Close enough for emergencies, far enough for everything to be new, exciting, and a touch mysterious.

Vasil lowered himself into the tide pool and moved toward her, his tentacles unhindered by the slick rocks and soft sand. Patches of color dotted the pool all over — small sea creatures and clumped plants that thrived in the shallow water.

“Is all this stuff really alive?” Theo asked, glancing at him over her shoulder.

“Most of it, yes,” he replied as he closed the remaining distance between them. He followed her gaze with his own to a school of tiny fish moving just below the surface.

Theo laughed when several of the fish swam toward her boot and attempted to nibble on it. Her laughter was high and light, unburdened by the troubles that seemed to have weighed her down over the last few days. The urgency of his search for The Watch could be set aside for a little while. He wanted to bring Theo there so she could live in relative comfort and security, he wanted to return to attempt to form a relationship with his child, but for today, he just wanted to enjoy Theo’s company.

This was an opportunity to learn about her, to grow closer to her, to have more of the shared experiences upon which their bond was being built. Though his people had never come together as mates based on conversation or something as fleeting as sharedfun, things had changed. A lasting coupling required a deeper connection.

Theo skimmed her palm over the water’s surface. The tiny fish scattered away from the disturbance. “Does it look like this farther in?”

“In some places, it looks similar,” Vasil replied, “but mostly it looks very different. The sea is vast and varied.”

“Everything in space seemed to blend together. Just blackness stretching on into eternity, broken by these little points of cold, distant light. If you get lost out there, you don’t ever get found again. It’s so…lonely.”

Before Vasil could consider her words, Theo turned away from him, lifted her foot onto a rock, and climbed out of the pool. She walked away, rounded a larger stone outcropping, and disappeared from his view.

“Vasil!” she called a few moments later, voice brimming with excitement.

He moved to the edge of the pool and hauled himself out of the water to follow her path around the outcropping. She was only a body length or two past it, turned toward the cliffs that bordered the beach’s inland side.

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