Page 36 of Hook, Line, and Tentacle
“I love you,” I tell him, voice cracking with it. “Come with me, Cal. Please. I need to feel it. Need to feelyou. Need to be yours.”
The sound he makes is torn from someplace deep. His hips punch down, slamming into mine one last time, and he comes with a low moan. I feel his knot swell inside me, anchoring him.
Pleasure cracks through me seconds later, curling my spine, flooding my limbs, trembling tectonic. I fall after him, gasping and held in the warm press of his skin. He stays inside me, buried deep, tentacles curling protectively around us both as he collapses his weight over me.
Cal kisses me like I’m drowning again, only this time it’s with something like relief, because I’m drowning inhim, and he’s drowning in me too.
Epilogue
Thought About It
It’s been almost a year, and Cal still makes me feel like I’m going to catch fire just by looking at him. Which I do, often, and with little to no shame.
He’s changed in lots of small ways since that stormy night that almost stole everything. Not so much that anyone else might notice easily, but I see it. I feel it. His smiles come quicker. He lingers longer when we’re out in town and chats happily at the coastal research co-op I’ve set up while I finish work. He even has a few guys he’ll go out for drinks with sometimes. Some women still look at him like a tidal wave they’d like to drown in, even when I’m stood right there. I don’t blame them. The man’s obnoxiously good-looking.
The sharp stubble has been traded in for a neatly trimmed beard that I cannot stop touching, especially when I’ve got his face between my thighs. His hair’s longer, too, usually tied back when he’s in the shop or at home, and exponentially more fun to tug on until he makes the prettiest noises.
His body has changed a little too. I made no attempt to hide how much I loved his soft edges right from the start, even if he didn’t agree or understand at first. Now he’s a little softer, a little heavier. I am obsessed, and unable to be even marginally normal about it.
He’s still broad as hell, built for hauling crates and helping the guys down at the docks—but there’s a little more of him now, at his waist, around his stomach, where my hand loves to settle when we’re curled together at night. It’s like his body finally got permission to stop bracing for the next blow. Like love softened the edges the sea had long ago sharpened into flint.
He’s warmer when he sprawls on me, and I love it. The full, grounding weight of him. The way he melts into me now, like he knows I can hold him, and he’s safe.
He always is.
I watch him from the kitchen, pretending to clean something while he reads on the couch, lounging like a god with his legsspread wide and a tentacle flicking lazily at his hair where a curl flops down over his forehead. His shirt’s ridden up to show a soft slope of warm skin, dusted with dark hair.
I want to lick it. I want tobiteit.
I’ve been teasing him.
For weeks now, I’ve been circling the idea—whispering suggestions, letting my hand slip between his legs when we fuck, dropping the occasional filthy comment.
I’ve also said it flat out, eyes locked on his. “I want to peg you with one of your tentacles.”
He didn’t answer verbally, but his eyes flared that impossible ultraviolet. All of him stilled for half a second. And then one of his tentacles gripped the leg of the table so hard the wood groaned. So, yeah, I think he likes the idea.
Tonight is the night, that’s what I’ve decided. I want to see just how much he likes it.
I drape myself over Cal’s lap on the couch after dinner, one leg tucked between his, the other slung over his thigh. One of his tentacles has slipped up under my—his—sleep shirt and is tracing lazy lines up and down my spine. His skin is warm beneath me, still a little damp from the shower, and I can smell the hint of his shampoo on the air—something dark and green and sharp, like a forest after a long, heavy rain, right before everything bursts into bloom.
There’s a movie playing on the TV, low and ignored. My wine is on the coffee table. I haven’t touched it in fifteen minutes because I’m too busy touching him.
“You’re warm,” I murmur into his neck, kissing the space just beneath his jaw. His beard is soft, and I lift a hand to scrub my fingers through it. He gives a low hum. He likes that almost as much as when I stroke my fingers through his hair.
“Mm.” His hand curls around my thigh, thumb drawing soft little patterns. “You’re always cold.”
“You love keeping me warm.”
“I love everything about you.” He says it so easily, not even looking at me, like it’s a simple fact of the world. Like gravity or the tides.
I grin against his skin. “Even when I’m annoying?”
“Especially when you’re annoying.” A tentacle flicks teasingly at my hip. “You know that.”
I shift my weight over his lap, tilting my hips a little until I feel him stir under me, thickening through the fabric of his sweatpants.
“Cal.”
