Page 8 of Riding the Tide

“Um, yes. Clothes don’t magically appear when we transform. But there are clothes here in the cave. Let me go get dressed then we’ll talk.” The conversation was surreal. Hell, the whole damn thing was surreal.

“You’re not like going to… like run off and leave me stranded here, are you? It’s kind of dark and, I… I don’t exactly know where I am. I mean, I was on the boat then… and… wow, suddenly I’m here, and then there’s you, and… yeah.”

Marcus heard the nerves bleed through in his mate’s voice, and it made him ache. Here was the reaction he first expected. Of course his mate was scared, and he hated that. “By the way, my name is Marcus.”

“Oh, oh that’s a really, um… never mind. My name is Blair.”

“Nice to meet you, Blair. I promise I won’t leave you stranded. Hold on a second while I dress and get you a light. I’ll take care of everything, don’t worry.”

“Okay. Okay it’s just… yeah. Suddenly this got very real.”

“Believe me, I understand.” His mate thought thingssuddenlyseemed real? He stood and made his way to one of the bags which contained clothes. After he dressed in shorts, he lit some of the camping lanterns left stashed in various caves.

“Thank you. That helps a lot. I mean, the light really helps.”

Yep, surreal. Marcus grabbed a few extra towels and one of the lanterns then walked back to where his mate sat.

Marcus stopped just shy of Blair. “Why don’t you come out of the water? I have a couple of towels if you want to dry off. I could probably find you some shorts, too, if you want to change.”

“Oh!” Blair stood up. “I, ah, didn’t realize I was still sitting in the water. Heh. Thank you, that would be great. I’m soaked.” Blair slowly made his way to where Marcus stood.

Of course Blair was soaked. He fell off a boat. Maybe he should check Blair’s head and see if there were any lumps because this whole damn deal was beyond weird.

Blair unbuttoned his shirt, slipped it off, and wrung the water out of it.

Marcus cussed his wayward cock. Now was not the time. He held out a couple of the towels. “Here, give me that. I’ll place it across one of the boulders in the cave. Maybe it’ll dry out some. What size shorts do you wear?”

Blair told him, and Marcus handed him a few more towels so he could finish drying off. He left the lantern sitting on the sand next to Blair so he could see. Marcus purposely turned his back to give Blair some privacy.

Marcus spread the shirt out on a rock then walked over to a waterproof bag that was his. He searched through his clothes for a pair of shorts which might fit Blair. Good thing they were a similar size. Once he found what he needed, he returned down the beach. Desperately he tried to ignore that his mate wore nothing but a towel wrapped around his lean hips.

The closer he got, the more he noticed the tension surrounding Blair. Not surprising, considering he was in an isolated place with something that wasn’t quite human, half-dressed, and no idea where he was. He’d be nervous, too.

Hell, he was, but for a different reason. “Here you go.”

“Thank you.”

Marcus turned around to give Blair privacy again. He searched desperately for something to talk about and remembered Blair’s odd sentence from earlier. “What were you going to say a minute ago when I told you my name?”

“Oh, um, I was thinking Marcus is really a, um, human-type name. Is that… Is that okay to say? And I’m dressed, you can turn around now.”

Marcus turned and took the shorts. “It is a very human sounding name, so of course I’m not going to get offended.”

Blair ran a hand through his hair then picked up one of the folded towels and used it to wring out the excess water. “I wasn’t sure.” Blair’s hesitant laugh echoed around them. Marcus nodded. “Let me put this with your shirt. Hopefully they’ll dry a bit.”

“Okay.”

Marcus hurried over to where he left Blair’s shirt and spread his shorts out, too.

“This is so weird,” Blair called out.

Marcus walked back to where Blair stood. “I have to agree, but please believe me when I say I have no intentions of hurting you.”

No, what he wanted to do didn’t fall in the category of hurting. He took a deep breath to steady himself. Blair was fucking built—all long lines and lean muscles. That bleach blond hair fell around his face in waves, and Marcus wanted to run his hands through it. It was so different from his. And those eyes. They were brown—the color of his favorite food.

He loved chocolate.

“Good to know.” Blair dropped the towel next to the other ones. “Seriously, that’sreallygood to know. Me and my heart—that’s pounding a million miles a second—thank you for saying that.”

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