Page 29 of Hook, Line, and Tentacle
My fingers stroke over the tentacle again, gentler now, and I huff a small, surprised laugh. “I mean, I would say this seems like the worst hangover ever…” I gesture vaguely at him, the tentacles, the eyes, the monstrous breadth of him. “But I quite like this, actually.”
He chuckles softly, a low sound against my hair, and presses a kiss to my temple. “Yeah. That’s how I felt at the time. And… well, for the last hundred and twenty-one years.” His voice drops. “Until I met you.”
I nudge his side with my elbow. “So let me get this straight. You turned into a tentacle man when you were forty-three. You’ve had over a century to figure out this whole… whatever this is. And you’ve never been with anyone, even before?”
He glances down at me with a slow blink. “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” I say flatly, “you’rehot, Cal.”
He lets out a bark of laughter, startled and a little disbelieving. “I’m also reclusive. Not very friendly. Bit of a shut-in. Apparently, I can even be scary.”
“Well,” I murmur, snuggling closer, “you’ve been a very good landlord to me. The orgasms are a nice touch, I have to say. Really above and beyond.”
He growls, deep in his chest, and kisses me—hard, hungry, like he needs the taste of me just to keep his balance. When he pulls back, his eyes are glowing again. “I am not your landlord, and you are not my tenant. You’remine, and you’ll be staying exactly where you belong.”
“Which is…?” I grin up at him, already knowing.
He slides a hand over my stomach, one tentacle curling possessively around my thigh. “Right here. In my home. In my bed. With me.”
“I think I can agree to that,” I say solemnly, like I haven’t been sleeping in his bed the past week. The warmth in my chest swells so fast I almost say it then.
The real thing. Thebigthing that’s far too big to say after only a week.
Instead, I blurt, “I can’t have kids.”
Cal stills instantly, but his eyes stay steady on mine. “Okay.”
I swallow, rushing to fill the silence. “I just… I thought I should say it. Because this feels serious. Like, very serious. And I didn’t want—”
“It’s all right,” he says, gently but firmly, his hand smoothing up and down my back. “It’s okay, love.”
I nod, once. Then again, because it’s hard to stop. “I was pretty sure I didn’t want them anyway. I always thought… the world’s kind of a mess, you know? And I didn’t want to raise a kid in it. But when I found out I couldn’t—”
I break off, breath shivering.
He tilts my face to his with one hand, eyes searching. “You wanted it to be a choice,” he murmurs. “You wanted it to beyourchoice.”
“Yeah,” I whisper. “Exactly.”
And the look he gives me then is so full of understanding it almost breaks me wide open. He pulls me into his arms, every inch of him curling around me, like the ocean closing in. Safe and endless and dark and warm.
I press my face into his chest, breathing in the salt-warm scent of his skin, the faint ozone crackle that always seems to cling to him like a storm barely held at bay.
“Do you feel that way?” I ask softly.
He hums low. “What way?”
“You said…” My voice catches, and I stroke my fingers absently over the tentacle curled around my thigh, grounding myself. “You said you’d do this all again. If it meant finding me. So… do you really feel that way? Like maybe, if it had been a choice—maybe you’d have chosen this, if it meant you’d find your way to me?”
He stares at me. The moment stretches, too long, too quiet. It rings in my ears like a scream.
My cheeks flame. “Oh my God, that was so stupid.” I groan, pulling the blanket over my head, instantly mortified. “That was super out of pocket, forget I said anything. You don’t evenknowme, and I just asked if you’d voluntarily get turned into a tentacle man against your will for the sake of a mediocre fuck—”
He rips the blanket off my head and cuts me off with a kiss so sudden and fierce I gasp against it. All his tentacles tighten, pulse, wrap around me in a wave of heat and desperation. His voice is a growl against my lips. “Don’t youdaresay that. Not to me. Notever.”
I blink up at him, breath caught halfway in my throat. “Okay,” I whisper.
His hand cups my cheek. “You’re perfect. And yes, I would. I’d choose any and every awful thing that’s ever happened to me. Again and again. Because it led me to you.” His voice dips into a rasp, raw and ringing with a truth so absolute I feel it in my bones when he says, “I love you.”
