Page 45 of Something Real with the Sea Monster
“I think you have me confused with somebody else. Are you sure this is smart? What about your fated mate?”
He kisses the top of my head. “You let me worry about that.”
“This will end,” I push. “Probably badly.”
“Or maybe it won’t.”
“Jack, I have to go back to Sydney eventually. You know that.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I—” I pause, mouth still open, but I don’t have a good answer for that. Only a half-baked plan and the certain knowledge that I’m not a small town girl. “—just do,” I finish lamely.
He doesn’t say anything more, just holds me until he’s ready to go again.
After that, I don’t have a chance to worry about where this goes or what we’re doing for a good long time. And after that, my mind is too warm and fuzzy from all the cuddles and the orgasms, and I fall asleep in his arms not even thinking about what I’ll say to Mia in the morning.
TWENTY TWO
Tegan
“I’m seeing Jack,” I whisper to Mia across the café table, looking around through my dark glasses as if the whole town didn’t see me do a walk of shame in yesterday’s clothes back up the hill to Mia’s house this morning.
Mia’s eyes widen, and she claps her hands excitedly. “Oh, you are? Oh my god. This is so perfect. We’re basically going to be sisters!”
“Shhh. Not like that.”
The mournful expression on Mia’s face is enough to bring all my guilty feelings welling to the surface again.
“I mean I don’t know yet what it is. I’m trying not to rush it. You know?”
“Oh. Right. But you are a thing?”
I nod cautiously. I’m still not clear on exactly what that thing is, but it’s something. “Only what about his fated mate?”
Mia’s expression grows serious. “Yeah, I get it. But you know there’s time. You haven’t known each other very long. I don’t know if all krakens glow for their fated mate straight away. Maybe for some it happens later?”
I blink. “Glow?”
Her eyes widen. “I thought you knew.”
“Maybe he thought so too,” I mumble. Wouldn’t this be something he should have brought up by now?
“Well, a kraken male has a physical reaction to his fated mate. His tentacles glow when he’s shifted. You have seen Jack shifted, haven’t you?”
“Ah, yeah.” My mind runs back over the way he looks in kraken form. Green skin, purple tentacles, fins on his neck and under his arms. Gills on his neck. But does he glow?
“It only happens when they’re near their fated mate.”
I snort. “Well I’m pretty sure we’ve fulfilled that requirement.”
“OK, well, were his tentacles glowing?”
“Um… I don’t know? I was kind of paying attention to other things.” I was too busy screaming from all the orgasms he gave me, to be honest. “Besides, I don’t really know what kraken tentacles look like normally.”
