Thane reaches out and hovers a single finger over my left breast. “I like you like this.”
“Like what?” I gasp. “Helpless?”
“Unguarded.” He says the word almost like a musing to himself. “You can’t hide when you’re like this.”
It’s just sex. Even as I tell myself that, his words strike right into the very heart of me. “Thane—” My breath catches as he brushes the tips of his fingers over first one nipple and then the other. They’re particularly sensitive from the decrease in blood flow. He has me entirely wrapped up, and yet he’s barely touched me at all.
Thane’s breath shivers out, and he releases one breast from his tentacle, only to palm me with one big hand. “You truly are perfectly made.”
I almost argue with him. He’s wrong, after all. According to so many people in my life, I’m soft in all the wrong places. My mother put me on crash diet after crash diet growing up, and when I finally drew my line in the sand at eighteen, she resigned herself to passive-aggressive comments about my weight whenever she saw me. My breasts that Thane seems so fond of prompted an ex to suggest surgery to lift them, and I have stretch marks across my hips and cellulite on my thighs. Like everything else about me, my body falls significantly short of perfection.
It’s mine, so I love it out of sheer spite toward everyone who acts like I shouldn’t. But it’s not perfect and never will be.
“I can see you wanting to argue.” Thane circles my nipple with his thumb. He has such a look of concentration on his face that my breath dies in my lungs. Each slow circle makes pleasure coil tighter low in my stomach. He hasn’t even touched my pussy yet, and I have the wild thought that he may not need to in order to make me cum.
“Thane—”
“I find that I would very much like to meet whoever made you feel wanting.” His voice is low and intense and... angry? He abruptly drops his hand, but I don’t have time to mourn the loss, because he immediately circles my breast with his tentacle again. This time, he goes a step further and...
“Ohshit.” The suckers on his tentacles catch my nipples, sending deep pulses of need through me with each pull. “Thane, please.”
He trails his hand lightly down my stomach, bypassing the tentacle holding me in place. “What can I say to convince you I find you perfect?”
Hard to believe you find me perfect when you leave me the first chance you get.
He must see the thought on my face. I’m having a hard time shielding my true feelings with him. I’m usually better at this. Thane stops just short of my pussy. “You don’t believe me.”
“You could try to fuck some self-confidence into me,” I say hopefully.
“I suppose that’s an option.” Thane’s lips curve a bit, but his eyes stay intense. “If you won’t believe my words, then I’ll have to show you with actions.”
The words send a thrill of something almost like fear through me. I don’t get a chance to argue, though, because he chooses that moment to part my pussy with his tentacles and press his thumb to my clit.
15
THANE
Catalina doesn’t believe me. It’s right there in her hazel eyes, in the way she won’t quite meet my gaze for the first time since we met. I knew she had a painful past, of course; she’s too much of a kindred spirit not to have had that. But I didn’t expect to feel protective of her.
The wave of sheer rage makes me shake, and I have to close my eyes and focus on breathing for a moment. I am not particularly violent by nature. I defend my territory to the best of my ability, but my first response will never be violence if there’s another course of action.
Yet I want to find whoever hurt Catalina and drag them into the deep. Hold them there until the last of their air escapes. Leave them behind for predators to find and dispose of.
The force of my feelings surprises me.
Equally surprising is how much I want to wrap her up and hold her until that lost look leaves her eyes. Until she believes she’s worth fighting for. I don’t understand where these impulses come from, and I feel a bit like...
We have a legend among my people. Long ago, we had a queen named Tatiana who fell in love with one of the Cwn Annwn and had a child with them. Then the realms parted unexpectedly, and she was separated from her love and her child. She fell into despair and descended into the depths to mourn. She stayed there so long, her grief so strong, that the coral reef eventually overtook her, her body calcifying.
I feel like that.
Except I’ve awoken.
“Thane, I swear to god, if you’re about to say something gentle, I might scream.” Catalina’s voice is ragged, her fingers digging into my tentacles. “Please don’t ruin this.”
I understand in that moment that she won’t accept kindness from me. Not tonight. Not like this. But I know what she will accept. I take a breath and let this strange mood settle over me. I don’t know what it means, or if it means anything at all. Maybe Catalina is simply the catalyst for my breaking out of unending grief. Even now it’s there, lingering along the edges. I don’t think it will ever go away, and part of me never wants it to.
I can give her this, though. I don’t know if it’s what she needs, but it’s what she’ll accept, and that’s almost as good. “Catalina.”