Page 38 of All You Need is Alien Love
Kai
Forcedto sit at opposite ends of the banquet table from River while we enjoy a lunch break with our closest family and friends is a weird kind of torture that’s part pleasure, part pain.
I can’t keep my eyes off my stunning husband, who looks incandescent with happiness right now. He keeps winking and blowing kisses at me between bites of food.
Before I met him, such behavior from a partner probably would have made me cringe. Public displays of affection were never my thing. However, once River burst into my life and turned my world upside down, my outlook on so many things changed.
The beautiful, vibrant man at the other end of the table has drawn out so many sides of me, including some hidden deep within that I didn’t know existed. With him, I feel so muchmorethan I ever have with anyone else. I burn for him with a passion I never knew I possessed. I can’t stop myself from wanting to touch River all the time. Even now, my tentacles yearn to break free and curl around him. My mate never ceases to surprise me and find ways to make me love him even more than I already do.
My mind continuously replays that provocative underwater mating dance he learned just for me and somehow managed to keep a secret the whole time we were preparing for the Sanctioning Ceremony.
I never expected him to do something so elaborate and so damn wonderful, and that embraced my culture with respect and enthusiasm.
Although I probably should have. That’s just who River is.
I really hope he keeps that seriously sexy mermaid tail because I want to see him wear it for me again when we’re alone. It was the icing on the cake of his sexy little number—a River-sized cake I want to drizzle in chocolate and gobble up right this moment.
Damn. I can’t stop grinning like a fool.
A sharp elbow jab to my side jolts me out of my increasingly erotic reverie.
“Starting to feel the pain, huh?”
I glare at my mother, who has a smugly knowing look on her face.
“Buck up, kiddo. If I could get through three days of no sex with your father, then you can do the same for River.”
I have to grip the table when she gives me a hearty slap on the back.Mom really doesn’t know her own strength, even after all these years.
I scowl at her but she just grins back. “Harder than you thought it would be, isn’t it?”
Ugh. How is she always right?It must be a mystical parent thing.
I nod reluctantly. In the abstract, three days didn’t sound so hard when it was discussed. The reality is a whole different story. At this moment, I’m forced to be within River’s line of sight but too far away to touch him, hold him, or love on him—and it’s sheer, unmitigated torture. Especially after he did such a stellar job of turning me on.
Right this second, I want nothing more than to blow his mind with hours of tentacular lovemaking. Yet I can’t because we’ve still got two more days of this damn ceremony to go.
You can do this, Kai. River will be yours, and you will be his, forever and always. Just bear with this traditional test of our commitment to each other a little longer.
Grandma Iris chortles from where she sits across from me. “Never fear, grandson of mine, the pleasure you’ll share after the ceremony will be unforgettable. The ceremony takes you both to dizzying heights of need and desire, and when you come together at the end, it’s downright explosive.” She fans herself and reaches over to take my grandfather’s hand. “Why, Jeston and I broke the bed in our marital suite right after the ceremony, didn’t we, darling?”
My grandfather arrived at the very last moment for today’s events. We were starting to think he’d miss out entirely, and Grandma Iris was threatening to bust his balls if he didn’t show up. As if he uncannily knew he was in danger, he appeared just in the nick of time.
Unfazed by Grandma Iris’s comments, my far more stoic grandfather, who’s more like my father and myself, smiles softly in recollection. “That we did, my dear, and we didn’t even care about the huge bill once we got it.”
Grandma’s eyes twinkle as she gazes at him lovingly. “We were far too sated from our marathon lovemaking session to care.”
He takes her hand and kisses it tenderly.
“Aww, isn’t that sweet?” River coos. He raises his glass. “Here’s to keeping the passion alive in our romantic relationships and to always making sure to have a bed replacement budget.”
Grandma raises her own glass with a twinkle in her eye. “Here, here!”
I prop my elbows on the table and close my eyes as I begin to rub my temples. “Please. No more anecdotes about my grandparents’ sex lives.”
My mother waves her fork in the air. “Don’t be such a prude, Kai. Sex is beautiful and natural. When it’s something that both partners enjoy, it should be had vigorously and often.”
“Good galactic amen to that!” Grandma chortles as she leans into my grandfather’s side and pets his still muscular chest possessively.
