Chapter 8
It took a long time for Dave to heal.
Every shift brought an improvement. It also took a toll.
For the first week of his return, he spent most of his time sleeping.
He woke only to eat, drink, shift, and—when he had legs and we could manage with just me supporting him—let me take him to the bathroom.
He’d barged in on me when I was on the toilet often enough, and been yelled at until he left, that he knew what it was for. We had no problems there.
Presenting him with an empty plastic water bottle with the top cut off so he could fit, and explaining what I wanted him to do with it before we’d graduated to using the toilet, however, had caused a lot of confusion.
Unsurprisingly, when he worked out why I kept sticking his dick in a bottle and standing there, red-faced and nodding with as much encouragement as I could muster, I was the only one who found it awkward.
Dave shuffled his hips about, tucked his arms behind his head, and did what needed to be done with his eyes on me the whole time.
The whole time.
I hoped I hadn’t awakened anything in him.
I’d expected him to be an absolute nightmare patient. This was Dave. My big, beautiful, rambunctious Dave who could be silly, and sweet, and sexual, and who also had the fierce focus of a predator. One who stopped at nothing to get what he wanted.
Me.
So I’d expected that he’d bellow for me whenever he was awake, and not stop until I came to his call. That’s not how it went at all.
I’d expected to have to fend off his amorous advances until he was healed. That didn’t happen, either.
Instead, he was a dream of a patient.
He was…quiet.
And while he continued to slowly and visibly heal as the days passed, things weren’t getting back to normal.
On more than one occasion, I tiptoed into the room to bring him a snack, or something to drink, or simply to reassure myself with the sight of him sleeping in my bed, and found him wide awake.
He’d be lying there, staring at the window that looked out towards the sea, and when he turned to me with a tired smile, there was something distant in his dark eyes.
I’d seen that distance in him before, the first year when he’d tried to stay. I’d watched him fade.
His hair had turned brittle and dull. His lovely, supple skin had dried and cracked. In the end, I’d taken the Rosy Dawn out to sea with him swimming alongside and I’d sent him away, trusting that he would return.
And he, I suppose, had been trusting that I’d be here waiting when he did.
Of course I would be. I’d wait for Dave until the end of time.
I’d spend a lifetime alone on nothing more than the breath of a chance that Dave would come back to me. I’d gamble decades for a single day. I didn’t care. It would be worth it.
He was worth it.
But this distance I saw in him now was different. It wasn’t involuntary. He wasn’t fighting a physical battle of want versus need. This wasn’t the call of the sea that would, whether he liked it or not, eventually force his return.
He was thinking.
I couldn’t begin to guess what he was thinking about.
I woke to a featherlight touch skimming up and down my back, and blinked blearily into the pre-dawn darkness of my room. That long, tickling touch drifted to the nape of my neck, became a gentle squeeze, and fell away.
I pushed up onto an elbow and stared down into Dave’s shadowed face.
He was so beautiful.
He made a soft greeting sound, returning my gaze. We looked at each other for a long, heavy moment.
Dave wasn’t human, although he looked like one when he was on land and when it suited him. Even then, you could see the wild, alien intelligence in his eyes.
He watched me solemnly. I frowned.
He made a sound at me that I was almost sure was my name in his language. Ducking down slowly, holding his gaze, I kissed him. He hummed, parting his lips at my demand and meeting the kiss.
No.
No, he wasn’t meeting it. He was allowing me to kiss him. He was accepting it.
I stared at him. “Dave,” I said. “Kiss me back.”
He sighed.
I bit his bottom lip and murmured, “Kiss me back. Please.”
His hands framed my face, and he sweetly, tenderly…eased me away and settled me on the pillow beside him, facing him.
I gaped.
He gave a short huff of amusement, slid a finger under my chin, and closed my mouth for me.
I scowled and smacked his hand away. He caught my wrist and held it.
Raising my brows, I said frostily, “Let me go.”
He raised his brows back at me.
I tugged. “Dave. Let me go. Let me…ack. Let me go.” I tugged and yanked, and even threw my weight backwards. He didn’t move. Just lay there, holding my wrist, watching me flail like a fish on the line.
I went to peel his fingers back, but he caught my other wrist. I froze. My heart was pounding and my mouth felt dry. I yanked both hands. He didn’t even have to tighten his grip.
“Dave,” I said calmly. “Let. Me. Go.”
He continued to watch me.
I was lying on my side, both hands immobilised.
Well. I had feet, didn’t I?
I drew my knees up, braced my feet on his big thighs, and pushed, straining away from him in a furious arch.
I got absolutely nowhere with it. I knew Dave was strong. I very much enjoyed his shows of strength and his physical dominance.
I did not enjoy it today.
I heaved and pulled and it did no good whatsoever. After a thorough, furious bout of writhing, I had to concede defeat. I stopped, panting and red-faced.
Dave leaned down and kissed my forehead.
My...?
My forehead?
Forehead kisses???
He released my wrists.
I stared at him. He stared back.
Something deep inside me flared with absolute, utter panic.
“Now you listen up,” I said, ignoring the way my voice came out cracked and shrill.
I poked him in the chest, careful to avoid the mottled bruises.
“Don’t you go getting any stupid ideas in your head about…
about…just, listen. Listen, Dave.” I scrambled up to hands and knees and cautiously straddled him, keeping most of my weight off him.
He blinked up at me as I lowered my upper body down, bringing us nose to nose.
“I love you. You’re not going anywhere. I don’t know what’s going on in your stupid head, but if you leave me, I swear to god, I will hunt you down.
Do you hear me? And I won’t do it alone.
I’ll bring Jerry. You think about that.”
He cocked his head, brows flexing, gaze going from my mouth to my eyes and back.
He shifted from human to merman with a tiny, pained groan.
I yelped and fell forwards, catching myself on his chest. He hissed in a sharp breath. “Sorry, sorry,” I said. “Oh my god.” My legs were cranked wide, inner thighs protesting at the stretch.
He grabbed hold of my hips and made a stern noise when I tried to move.
I went still.
And then the dick calmly lifted me up and off him, set me on the bed, and closed his eyes.
He snored.
Jerry stared at me. “Uh, I don’t think so, Joe.”
“No? Well, I do.” I drained my coffee, dropped another pod into the Nespresso machine, and pressed the button.
“How many of those have you had today?” Jerry asked.
Enough to burn a new hole in my stomach lining. “There’s only so many times a man can be rebuffed before he has to take the hint.”
“And you think the hint is that Dave is over it. Over you.”
The coffee machine wheezed itself to a tired finale and I swiped up the cup, cradling it between chilled fingers. It was early summer, and today, the weather was pretending that it was February. “Yes.”
“Because he doesn’t want to have sex.”
“Yes.”
“Yeah, I still reckon that’s got more to do with the fact he’s banged up, and on top of that, he hasn’t been in the water once since we got him up here.”
“He wouldn’t let me out of his sight or his reach when he was actively bleeding, Jerry. Now his wounds are all but healed, it’s only the bruises left to go, and we could actually be together if we’re careful about it, and he…he doesn’t want to.”
He pushed me away.
“You’re probably right.”
I sucked in a breath. “I knew it!”
“As in, he probably doesn’t want to be careful. Can’t say as I spend much time thinking about the pair of you having a romp, but if I had to guess, I’d say he likes to toss you about a fair bit.”
My cheeks heated.
He gave me a knowing look. “‘Course, it’s probably more simple than that. Prob’ly, he just feels like shit.”
Jerry had a valid point. Dave wanted me there with him, I was confident enough about that.
He’d demanded it. There had been lots of gentle touches, both given and received.
Whenever I put my hands on him, he reached back.
There had been soul-gazing. A lot of it.
An uncomfortable amount, to be honest. Sometimes, I’d woken with a tingling sensation all over me that made me suspect he’d been watching me sleep.
I had to be patient, that was all.
Things would get back to normal any day now. If I could make all those grand, romantic statements about how long I’d wait for him to return to me, I could wait to be reunited with his dick.
Which happened sooner than I thought, and went worse than I’d feared.
I was giving him another of those bed baths he loved, and things got a bit…lingering.
I had it down to a fine art by then. I’d ordered some extra-large, extra-absorbent bath towels from John Lewis, along with a lightweight tarp to go underneath. I’d also bought a few new shower puffs that he couldn’t get enough of, and the mildest of baby soaps.
We’d learned that Dave couldn’t tolerate Nivea’s finest body wash for men the hard way.
By ‘the hard way’, I mean he’d scratched himself all night long until I’d threatened to duct tape my ski gloves on him, then went and got some soothing ice cubes to run over his hives.
Having spent this long away from the sea, all of his skin was irritated now. I moved him from one side to the other, wiping him down and tutting at the way he was visibly drying out. He wasn’t quite at the flaking stage yet. It wouldn’t be long.