Chapter 8 #2
“Dave,” I sighed. “What am I going to do with you?”
I didn’t even need to dry him with a towel anymore; his skin sucked up the droplets.
I eased the towels I’d tucked under him to protect the bedding and, as I’d suspected they would be, they were bone dry. He’d sucked the moisture out of those, too. Like a giant sponge.
I tossed the towels into the laundry basket by the bed. Resting a hand on his flat stomach, I rubbed gently. It made a dry, whispery sound.
“Time for your moisturiser!” I told him, and tried not to sound too overeager. There was no way to make it not sound creepy.
He couldn’t tolerate Nivea’s moisturiser for men any better than he’d tolerated the body wash. He couldn’t tolerate any of the four other brands I tried, either, even the baby ones.
I gave in and called Jerry for help again.
He skipped off to the pharmacy in town, lied to the pharmacist’s face about some problems he was having, and came back with an enormous pump bottle of lotion which the pharmacist swore was safe for moisturising sensitive skin absolutely anywhere Jerry needed to be moisturised.
Anywhere.
We tried it on a small patch of skin on his inner arm first and when Dave didn’t break out into hives, I went to town with it.
And, yes. Maybe I had looked up a couple of how-to massage videos on YouTube.
All right, I didn’t find them on YouTube. Dave wasn’t complaining.
I straddled him happily, squirted a couple of pumps of lotion into my palm, and got on with the horrible task of anointing my beautiful lover.
He lay quiescent beneath me, watching through slitted eyes as I moved from his shoulders and arms down to smooth it over his long, cobbled torso.
I steered clear of his wounds, which had all now entirely closed and scabbed, and kept the pressure light as I skated my hands over the bruises.
They hadn’t improved as much. I suspected that, as bad as he looked on the outside, his internal injuries had been worse.
The room was quiet apart from our breathing, the ticking of my bedside clock, and the occasional wet sound as I liberally applied the moisturiser.
I finished with his chest and abs and moved down to his hips and around his waist. I tucked my fingers beneath him and squeezed a little, feeling the give of his flesh where his muscled back became the first swell of his arse.
I shuffled down a few inches.
The room was less quiet now.
I wasn’t the only one breathing heavily.
Sliding my hands down and under him again, I looked up. His eyes, burning, were locked on mine.
“Dave.” My voice was ragged and desperate. I squeezed his arse in a tentative question. It was…it was all right to ask, wasn’t it? I waited and held his warm, supple buttocks in my hands, and—
Neck arching, he gasped and shifted.
I’d seen him in his merman form more in the last few days than I ever had before.
I wouldn’t ever get used to it, but I was getting better at the splits.
My thighs snapped wide as his tail appeared between them, wedging me open, and I gripped him easily.
I didn’t even wobble anymore. Didn’t have to catch my balance or anything.
I feathered my fingers along his hipbones, tracing the very border between his pale skin and his deep emerald and indigo tail. He made a rumbling sound in his chest.
Keeping my eyes on his, watching for any hint that he wanted me to stop, I slowly dragged a flattened palm in and down, and pressed so, so lightly right…there.
He gasped again, this time raggedly, and his erection surged out.
We nearly always made love when Dave was in his human form. Nearly always wasn’t always. I’d encountered this absolute monster on a few glorious occasions, but not that many.
What with it being an absolute monster and me needing a few days to recover afterwards.
I tentatively reached out, pausing to check his face before I touched it.
He arched his back, lifting his hips towards my hand, and moaned when I took hold of him.
The air was punched out of me at the feel of his hot, rigid length. God, it was so smooth like this. Hot glass. There were no ridges at all. I ran my fist up to the top, where the head was almost indiscernible from the shaft, and squeezed gently before sliding it all the way back down.
Dave’s arms were up by his head, flung onto the messy mound of pillows. He’d bunched his hands into fists and his knuckles shone white. His body between my legs shuddered and he rolled demandingly up into my touch, eyes shut and teeth biting into his bottom lip, head turned to one side.
He...
I stopped.
He did not look like he was having a good time.
While he had his moods when it came to sex and we’d covered the whole spectrum from his default playfulness to rude demand to raw, aching tenderness, every single time we’d been together, it had been based on a foundation of clear and uncomplicated want.
Now, his brows were pinched together, and he frowned. He was moving into my hand, giving the appearance of pushing for more, but…
No.
No.
He didn’t want it. I knew he didn’t. I couldn’t feel it.
This wasn’t for him, it was for me.
I snatched my hand away. His eyes slitted open and pinned mine.
His jaw tightened and he gave a pained grunt as he shifted back to human form. I was still reeling about him humouring me—or whatever the fuck that was—and I didn’t react quickly enough. He pushed up to sitting, snagged me around the waist, and had me under him before I could even blink.
Oh. Here. Here. It was where I wanted to be, where I needed to be. The weight of him on me, his big body crushing mine, his heat coiling around me, it was all I’d dreamed of for months and months and—
He growled something, gripped my chin in a hard hand and held me for it as he shoved his tongue rudely into my mouth, rolled off me, and was gone.
What the fuck.