Page 16 of Hook, Line, and Tentacle
“Well, in human terms, I promise I’m not. You’re not stealing my virtue or ruining something.” I snort. “I’m not some kind of untouched woman, Cal.”
Something about that seems to short-circuit him. The tentacles tighten around me possessively, and I feel their tension curl across my skin, hot and alive. I swallow hard—but the liquid static rolling down my spine isn’t fear.
I shift forward, hips canting upward just enough to press against the thick, hard line already forming beneath his clothes.
“Does that bother you?” I ask, soft and needling. “Knowing there’ve been other men before you? You haven’t even gotten inside me yet, but they have.”
A growl rumbles low in his chest. It vibrates against my sternum, through my bones and right into the center of me.
I huff a breathy little laugh and lean up, nipping at the side of his throat. “You don’t like that, do you?”
“If you gave me a list of their names,” he mutters darkly, “I’d kill them.”
The heat that punches through my gut is immediate and mortifying.
Jesus Christ. Why is that hot?
I swallow hard. “There’s an easy solution.”
He stiffens slightly, then demands, “What is it?”
I press my lips to his throat again, mouthing against the soft, stubbled skin there. “I think you need to claim me. Dirty me up. Get yourself all over me so there’s nothing left of them. Only you.”
A low rumble sounds in his chest, climbing up his throat so I feel it vibrate against my mouth. Then, without warning, he lifts me like I weigh nothing and tosses me over his shoulder.
I shriek, but it breaks into a laugh as my fists thud uselessly against his back. “What the hell are you doing? Caveman much?”
A sharp smack lands across my ass—not with his hand, but with a tentacle—and I jolt, heat flashing up my spine.
“My kind are much, much older than cavemen,” he says.
I’m still trying to process the tentacle spank, but I manage to ask breathlessly, “How much older? How old are you?”
He makes a low, disagreeable sound. “How old are you?”
I gasp in mock outrage. “It’s rude to ask a woman how old she is.”
“How old do you think I am?”
“I don’t know—early forties? Which, for the record—hot. I’m twenty-eight, and I love an age gap.”
He presses a hot, open-mouthed kiss to my thigh while I’m still slung over his shoulder. As he climbs the steps back toward the shop, he asks roughly, “Is that right? What’s your upper limit on age gaps, little trespasser?”
I hum thoughtfully. “Anything over twenty-five years might be pushing it. But I consider myself fairly open-minded.”
He drops me onto his sofa without ceremony. I didn’t even realize we’d made it into his apartment. I bounce once, legs falling open slightly as I catch my breath.
“You consider yourself open-minded, do you?” Cal echoes, a hint of amusement in his voice.
“Yes.” It slips out breathless, barely audible.
His smirk is devastating. Sinful. He stands over me like some kind of sea-drenched demigod, all shadows and soft bulk and sovereign power.
My pulse skitters. “Are you about to test that?”
He chuckles. “This body is forty-three. But it’s been forty-three for… over a hundred years.”
My mouth goes dry. “How—uh, how many over a hundred?”
