Chapter 14
Ipopped the top button of my jeans and slowly unzipped.
Dave’s dark gaze flicked up and he lifted his chin with a low grunt of demand.
I shook my head. We were on my timetable now.
His eyes narrowed on mine and his biceps tightened as he gripped the wood hard enough that it creaked.
“Don’t you break my door,” I told him.
He flared his nostrils at me, gripped even tighter, and shifted his hips in my direction, tilting his pelvis in case I hadn’t spotted the enormous erection that was pointing at my face like it was his own personal true north.
“You’ve already had your fun. This is Joe’s fun time.”
I wished I hadn’t said it like that. Not just because it made me sound like an arsehole, but because he immediately echoed my name back to me.
While his range was truly operatic, his vocabulary as far as human speech went had topped out at four recognisable words in regular rotation—Joe, Jerry, and you dick.
He only sang one of those words. Thankfully, it was my name.
There were many ways he could sing it. All of them were devastating to my composure. Right now, it was a silvery pulse of sound with a red-hot edge that vibrated over every inch of my skin and almost dropped me to my knees.
He gave me a smug look and followed it up with another demanding grunt, rippling his beautiful body in the open doorway.
I stiffened my spine, locked my trembling knees, and pushed my jeans down to my thighs, taking my boxers along for the ride.
His breath caught in his throat.
“See something you like?” I said.
He panted.
I cocked a hip and reached behind me to grab my t-shirt, drawing it lingeringly up my torso and over my head.
The second my vision was cut off, something hot and wet closed around the tip of my dick.
I screamed and hunched over reflexively, tearing my t-shirt the rest of the way off and dropping it to the floor.
Dave was back in the open doorway, looking innocent.
I glared at him. “You’re a dirty cheater.”
“Mm?” He lifted a questioning brow.
It took a lot, but I managed to keep the laughter in.
I wrapped a hand around my shaft and had a quick stroke. Shit. My stomach quivered in reaction. I was closer than I’d thought.
When we’d first played this little game, it had been raining, and he’d been backlit by some atmospheric lightning.
Back then, Jerry and I had still been tossing around ideas about what he actually was.
Merman, siren, merrow, nix. Sea vampire had also been on the table—he had impressive fangs—and his refusal to cross the threshold without an invitation had given it some weight.
We still didn’t know what he technically was. It didn’t matter. He was mine. That was all I cared about.
I did know that he could come on in any time he pleased. He let himself in as often and as unpredictably as Jerry did, although where Jerry used a key if the door wasn’t open, Dave usually came in through a window.
I continued to touch myself lightly. He watched me do it. I watched his face, drinking in the hunger I saw there. The love.
I wasn’t going to last more than another few seconds. My idea of a fun time actually involved Dave’s enthusiastic participation and very physical presence.
He’d stopped watching my cock, I realised, and his eyes were back on my face.
My throat constricted as I looked at him properly, seeing not the lover who was about to make me scream, but the beloved partner I’d nearly lost.
The vicious bruising on his torso had healed completely, leaving his skin clear.
The wounds that had torn up his sides, though…
they were still visible. I wondered if they’d always be there.
Would he scar? A human would. Then again, a human wouldn’t have survived what he’d survived in the first place, let alone been able to heal himself, let alone managed it in a few weeks. Long weeks, but just weeks.
If he’d been a human, I’d definitely have lost him.
Oh, god. I nearly lost him.
I sniffed sharply, blinking away the rush of emotion that blurred my vision and stung in my nose.
Dave made a soft, sad little noise in the doorway. Fun and games forgotten, he let go of the doorframe and crossed the threshold. He kept coming, lifted my face to his, and settled his warm lips on mine. So light, so gentle.
He lifted up to kiss beside each of my eyes and smile down at me before touching his mouth to mine again.
I ran my hands up his sides to hold his wrists as he held me. He gave a barely audible sigh that had me parting my lips, and he eased his tongue inside.
My entire body heated at the erotic slide of it. At the sheer rightness of having him inside me. At the plain and simple joy of physical connection. Wordless communication.
It went on and on, that slow and quietly tender kiss. It stoked my need for more, the ache building steadily, burning brighter. Burning away all the anger, the fear, the doubt, until everything was back to how it should be. Me and Dave, together in the moment. And what a moment it was.
My hands drifted from his wrists, up his thick forearms, and on up to his shoulders. I dug my fingers into the heavy muscle and hauled him closer. He growled into my mouth, arching over me.
“Dave,” I managed to gasp out, pulling away to suck in much-needed air.
He followed my mouth to nip at my bottom lip before setting his teeth to my Adam’s apple and chewing.
“Guh,” I said, and fisted his hair to yank his head back.
His eyes were heavy-lidded, the pupils dilated and the dark indigo of them almost black. His face was flushed. The absolute naked desire he didn’t hesitate to show had me squirming with embarrassment.
He chuffed, picked me off my feet, slung me over his shoulder, and toted me over to the sofa.
My sofa was an enormous, sturdy block of furniture with exceptionally firm cushions. After the third replacement, I’d chosen one that looked like it could survive a rugby team having a homoerotic scrum on it. Then at least it would have a chance of surviving me and Dave.
Dave dropped me on it and dropped himself on top.
He straddled me, big thighs bunching on either side of my hips, and bent down to kiss the tip of my nose.
I pushed him away—he was so weird about noses—and redirected his lips to where I wanted them. He obliged with a filthy, wet kiss—much more my style, thanks—and then pulled away to stare down at me.
He sat back on his heels and ran his hands over my chest, feathering light touches up along the ladder of my ribs.
My lack of gills still fascinated him. He drew a finger over my torso back and forth a few times where gills would be if I had any, and sent me an unimpressed look before delicately pinching a rib between finger and thumb.
It didn’t stick out that much.
“I already have Jerry on my case about my eating habits,” I informed him. “I don’t think I’m up for any more criticism today, thanks. Especially coming from someone who ran off and spent a week scoffing ninety percent of the fish in the North Sea.”
I was vaguely concerned that he’d caused an economic crisis.
Dave’s attention had moved on to my jeans which, along with my boxers, were still bunched at the tops of my thighs.
He tugged them down to my knees, got distracted by my dick, and paused to stare.
He settled his hands flat on my stomach and dragged them in to frame my entire groin, letting out a low, throbbing rumble of approval.
“It’s all for you,” I said, shooting for confident and ruining it by sounding breathless.
His lips were parted and he absently touched his tongue to the point of a fang, still staring.
“Dave,” I protested, throwing an arm over my eyes.
He sent out a little pulse of sound that shivered over my entire body but was mostly centred on my cock.
I panted and arched my hips.
As soon as my arse lifted from the cushions, he slid his palms under my buttocks and squeezed possessively.
“Okay,” I said. “Okay, jeans all the way off. Get them off me. Come on.” I attempted to sit up and do it myself but he simply leaned in and bodied me back.
He shuffled about and dragged the jeans down to my shins, lost patience, ripped them down the centre seam, and tore them off.
I didn’t even care. Why would I? With my clothes finally out of the way, when Dave laid himself down over me, I felt him everywhere.
He moaned with approval and flexed into me, working his body in a long, slow ripple.
He was watching my face. I could tell, even though my arm was still covering my eyes.
Dave moved over me the way only he could, using his muscles to massage every single inch of me that was exposed to him. His strokes were rhythmic and strong, driving the air out of me in soft puffs. But they weren’t enough.
I squirmed about and managed to hook a leg around his hip. Yeah. Yeah, that was better. I could pull myself in now, tighter, closer, work my arse and rub—
He chuckled and unhooked me.
“Argh. Dave.”
He crooned something back at me, never stopping his slow, pulsing movements.
“Give me more. I need more. Let’s go.”
He traced a light whisper of a touch along the arm I still had over my eyes.
I reflexively clamped it tighter, even while I was telling myself not to be ridiculous.
Dave had unravelled me again and again. He’d seen me lose control before.
For god’s sake, he saw me lose control on a daily basis. Every time he fucked me, I lost it.
I didn’t know why…
No.
I knew.
I was keeping part of myself back from him, wasn’t I?
Dave had known what I was doing before I did.
Dave wasn’t having any of it.