Page 43 of Lover from the Waves

Reaching down, she tugged at something strapped to her upper tentacle—the knife with its crude wooden handle. She placed it in the chest with the other items. “And let it be known to all that my mate waslovedas much as anyone could be loved. Luke…my love for you will persist even should the ocean dry up and the sun fail to rise.”

Features tight, Hera closed her eyes and bowed her head. Her entire body shuddered, and Ector knew that if kraken could shed tears, she would have been doing so now.

She took a deep, shaky breath and reached toward the device. The recording ended.

Chapter 10

Ector stared at the screen, which once again displayed human symbols, unable to do anything but feel his hearts thumping in his still-tight chest. The emotion that had been in Hera’s voice was so raw, so powerful, so undeniable, that her sadness, pain, and love had seeped into Ector.

Kathryn sniffled and shifted in his hold. Ector leaned forward and angled his face down to look at her. Her eyes and cheeks glistened with tears, which sparkled gold and orange in the firelight, and she was wiping at them with the back of her hand.

Frowning, Ector slid his hand up from her shoulder to the side of her head, smoothing down her long, soft hair with his palm. She set the hologram device on the grass, turned her face against Ector’s shoulder, and wrapped both arms around him, clutching him tight.

“Ah, Kathryn.” Ector slid a pair of tentacles beneath her legs and coiled them around her thighs, at the same time lowering the arm he had around her. He gently lifted her off the ground and lowered her onto his lap. Her weight was slight, but the weight of her emotion was almost tangible; he felt it doubly so because he was flooded with powerful emotions of his own. He banded his arms around her as she huddled against his chest. Her tears wet his skin, trailing hot down his abdomen.

“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice thick and quiet. She sniffled again. “I just… They loved each other so much.” She lifted her head, tilted it back, and met his gaze. Her beautiful blue eyes swam with tears. “I…I know what it feels like to lose someone you love. I understand her pain, her suffering. I felt it for years. I never wanted to feel that kind of heartbreak again.”

He frowned and lifted a hand, lightly brushing strands of hair back from her face. “I cannot imagine what it would feel like.”

“It’s like…something was torn out of you, and the hole that’s left behind just wants to swallow everything up.”

Her words produced a hollow ache in Ector’s chest. “You survived that pain, Kathryn. Just as Hera did. Because you are strong.”

She laughed, and the sorrow on her face was briefly overcome by amusement. “Stubborn is more likely.” Her expression quickly sobered. She reached up and cupped Ector’s cheek, biting her trembling lip as she searched his eyes. “I closed myself off. Told myself it wasn’t worth it to risk feeling that way ever again. My girls filled that hole for me, and it was enough for a long time. But…I know now that it’s never going to heal all the way until I open myself up again. The risk, the pain, is worth it.”

Now Ector searched her face, hearts thudding louder than the crackling fire, louder than the sea and the wind. He ran a hand up her spine to cradle the back of her neck. “I… I have lived a long life, Kathryn. There has been good and bad. Whatever I have left, whatever else is to come, I want to face it with you.”

Kathryn smiled, and fresh tears fell from her eyes—but there was joy glimmering in her gaze now. “The sea once took someone I loved, but now it’s given me you. You make my heart feel whole again, and I don’t want to waste the time we have left. I’ll gladly risk anything to spend the rest of my life as your mate.” She slid her hand up, over his siphon, resting it on the back of his head, and leaned forward until her lips hovered near his. “Will you join with me, Ector? As my husband?”

A rush of heat flowed through Ector. He couldn’t tell where it began, but it quickly permeated his entire body, and he knew his skin had already shifted to maroon in an instinctual expression of his desire. He drew in a deep breath; it came out a moment later in a low, hungry growl.

Ector closed the distance between their mouths and claimed hers with a kiss just as powerful and consuming as the one they’d shared at the stream. Prickles of electricity sparked where they touched, quickening his hearts and breath as a rush of need blasted through him.

Kathryn pulled him closer, scraping her blunt little nails over his scalp. Her lips parted, beckoning him to deepen the kiss, to stroke his tongue against hers in a dance more intimate and intricate than any he’d ever performed. Another growl escaped him, forced out by the pleasure rippling down his spine to race to the tips of his tentacles. His cock pushed against his slit.

Without breaking the contact between their mouths, Kathryn rose from Ector’s lap and turned her body toward him. The fleeting moment it took her to move was enough time for his cock to extrude fully from his slit, throbbing and hungry. She straddled him, thighs pressing to his sides, and her pelvis came down directly over his shaft.

The pressure inside Ector increased, intensifying the ache in his cock. It was torture; it was ecstasy.

Kathryn leaned forward, pressing all of her softness against him, and they moaned in unison as she rocked her hips. He dropped his hands to her backside and guided her to repeat the action, again and again. His tentacles curled around her legs, urging on her motions as his suction cups tasted her skin. His grip on her tightened, and his breaths grew more ragged with each gyration.

He’d never felt anything like this, had never imagined anything like this, had never craved anything like he craved Kathryn. The feel of her mouth and her body against his, her scent, hertaste…

He could taste her desire in the air.

Kathryn invaded his senses, and he wanted more, needed more.

Ector broke the kiss. His chest heaved as he studied her face. Her eyes were dark with lust, her lips swollen and pink, and there was a delightful flush to her cheeks.

He plucked at her shirt with his claws. “Remove these, female.”

Kathryn paused, and something flickered in her eyes. She nodded and eased off him. Ector reluctantly released her so she could stand. Looking down, she dropped her hands to the waistline of her shorts and slowly pushed them down, kicking the garment aside once it reached her ankles, granting him sight of more of her supple thighs—but her shirt still hung low enough to hide what he longed to see the most.

She moved her hands to the shirt’s buttons and unfastened them one by one. Ector watched, rapt, as the cloth parted to reveal the skin beneath. But as Kathryn reached her middle, she hesitated, stilling her fingers.

Ector flicked his gaze back up to her face. She wasn’t looking at him. There was a worried crease between her lowered brows, and a small frown on her lips.

He gathered his tentacles beneath him, rose, and eased closer to her. “Kathryn?”

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