TWO
Luke
“Hey, loser, are you even listening to me?” My younger brother, Noah, elbows me roughly and I blink. He’s right.I wasn’t really listening. I was too busy remembering the sight of Mia Sinclair all grown up standing in the doorway and looking up at me like she had just been waiting for me to get home. Standing there wearing my jumper over the tiny shorts I didn’t even see until my second look—OK, my fifth.
God, her bare legs were practically inviting my hands to slide the hem of the jumper up and reclaim all those hidden treasures. The things I wanted to do to her right then made me speechless for a good minute while I drank in the sight of her .
Things I did do to her all those years ago! Another lifetime.
I can’t believe she ever gave me the chance.
I’d been watching her for weeks. I’d seen her around town with her parents. She had a great body—God, she still does from what I saw of it—but the thing that really hooked me was her smile. I only saw it a few times, and it was hidden just as quickly. Her brown hair tucked behind an ear and her eyes instantly flicking to the ground like she was afraid of her own beauty. I couldn’t take mine off her.
Well, that hasn’t changed either.
Now, hours after seeing her again, I can’t help wondering if she’s all tucked up in bed in that big old place all by herself, or if her dickhead fiance came to stay with her. God, dealing with Oliver over the phone is enough to make me want to punch the guy in the face. What’s a guy like that doing with my girl?
“Luke!”
“Huh?”
Noah rolls his eyes. “I said do you think you can do it this month?”
I frown. We were talking about some renovations he wants done on The Snapper. It’s the restaurant attached to my parents’ motel, but it’s been closed the last few years. Noah has a plan to reopen it. Since I wasn’t paying attention, I missed the details of what he asked me to do.
“Uhhh...”
“Oh, man, you are really not with it tonight are you? What’s the matter? You hungry or something?”
I shrug, not wanting to own up to the reason why I’m really distracted. If Noah knew I’m still hung up on Mia, he’d never let me hear the end of it. He’d be the first one to tell me I’m being a bloody idiot. I never told anyone what I found out that night on the beach ten years ago. There’s only one reason a kraken’s tentacles glow. Only one person they glow for...
“Let me make you a fish burger, yeah? I tweaked my recipe for the sauce again and this time I know I’m onto a winner.”
I grin. “Noah, all five of your recipes were amazing. I don’t know why you keep messing with a great thing.”
“Never settle, Lukey. Never settle.” He turns and starts rummaging through drawers, pulling out ingredients while talking at me over his shoulder.
“So, I was thinking sleek and modern. I want to strip back all the kitsch coastal decor and go for something completely different. I want to paint in something grey or aubergine and buy furniture to match.”
I snort. “This isn’t The Block . Don’t start pitching me interior design. I don’t do that bullshit.”
It’s not strictly true. I’ve dabbled. Kraken Cove is small, OK? There aren’t many construction companies, and there sure as hell aren’t any interior designers in our town. I’ve picked up the basics from YouTube and House Hunters International . I always add wainscoting when I do a renovation. I know what the people want!
Noah just laughs. “Whatever. I know you like that stuff. Anyway, I wanna go pick out paint this weekend and then, will you give me a hand the week after?”
“Yeah. No worries.” I watch him quickly batter the fish and slip it into the hot oil, whipping around to slice up the gherkins and tomato so fast it boggles my mind. He tosses it all onto lightly toasted rolls and slathers them with a sauce he pulls from the fridge. Noah moves with practised ease, handling the knife with dexterity. It doesn’t hurt that he’s got two hands and six tentacles to do it with since he keeps a spray bottle on hand to keep his skin constantly wet while he’s cooking so he can stay shifted.
When he sets mine in front of me minutes later, I groan around my first bite. “Mmm. Magic.”
He grins at me, his cynicism lost in boyish enthusiasm for a moment, like when we were kids. “Yeah?”
I nod. “Fuck yeah.”
We eat and chat for a while longer. I hang out, avoiding the moment when I’ll have to go back to my empty home. My place is cold. Especially this time of year. It’s drafty and there’s no insulation. I usually ignore it. I mean it doesn’t bother me once I’m floating in my underground pool. As I descend the ladder and my toes dip into the water, my legs split into four tentacles each and my skin transforms until I’m a blue-green color all over with pink accents at my fins.
A kraken like me needs to keep his skin hydrated and the best way to do that is to sleep underwater. When I bought the place it was for the basement, which I converted into a saltwater pool. Since then, I’ve done next to nothing with the rest of the place.
I should really do something about it. The place is falling down around my ears. Only I kinda bought it thinking—hoping—one day I’d have someone to do it up for. Turns out a house is easy to come by. A mate? Yeah, not so much.
I’m probably being unfair to the other girls I dated. They were lovely, sweet girls .
They just weren’t Mia. Which means none of them was my fated mate.
The next day I’m up way too early. Embarrassingly early, even for me. I kill some time working out, walking up the street to the only cafe in town that serves good coffee. I grab a takeaway and then grab a second one. Maybe Mia would like one.
It’s not that I’m especially excited to start work this morning. It’s just a normal day. One job of many similar renovations for big city wankers who want the perfect holiday home to show off on Instagram where they’ll stay maybe once a year if we’re lucky.
Not that Mia Sinclair is like most big city folks. Quite the opposite. She actually likes Kraken Cove. Not just the pretty pictures.
Even with all my time wasting, I still turn up at her house at half past seven. I hesitate with the tray of coffees in one hand and the other poised to knock. I wish I could take back my comment about the jumper. I could see right away I embarrassed her. She rushed to take it off and give it back, which of course I didn’t accept. After all, it’s probably the closest I’ll ever get to touching her again.
It feels weird to knock to be honest. I have the key. I’ve had the run of the place since I started work on it. The place almost feels like a second home. These two are really going all out with it, too. They want the best of everything and they can afford it, too .
God, they must be minted to pay for all this. Just goes to show why a girl like that never looked twice at a guy like me.
I’m lucky she even looked once.
When the front door swings open, my jaw drops to the ground. Her brown, shoulder length hair is rumpled, the blonde highlights emphasising the way it flows in gentle waves. Her smile is wide and genuine, exposing the slightly crooked eyetooth I’ve always thought was adorable. Her long, long legs are bare again. She has on the ridiculously short pyjama shorts she was wearing yesterday, only this morning she isn’t wearing my jumper—more’s the pity. All she has on top is a thin white singlet doing nothing to disguise the way her nipples have stiffened into peaks in the cool morning air. OK, maybe not such a pity...
I’m instantly as hard as I was all those years ago when I somehow convinced her to let me touch her. It’s a hundred times worse than yesterday when she was wearing my jumper over it.
Coughing, I turn and mutter something about leaving my phone in my truck. I practically run back to my Hilux like some sort of weirdo. I open the passenger door and lean over the cabin, pressing my eyes closed for a moment. As if that’s going to help me erase the image of Mia Sinclair, my fated mate, girl of my fucking dreams, looking like she’s rolled out of my bed after a hot night where I got to live out all my fantasies. OK, about one tenth of my fantasies, since it’d take weeks to get through all of them.
I told you I’m pathetic, didn’t I?
I groan and palm down my cock, willing him to behave. I still grew up human. Back when I was young, monsters and the whole paranormal world was still a secret. My family and I did our best to fit it. Which means we follow human customs for the most part. And I know it’s weird to have vivid dirty dreams after ten years... about another guy’s woman? About a woman who is far, far too good for me. Always has been.
“Everything alright?”
I turn fast, pasting a stupid grin on my face. “Yeah. Don’t mind me. I just remembered I forgot my phone. I mean I didn’t remember it before. That’s why I had to—”
I shake my head at the word vomit spewing from my mouth. You’d think I’d never met a woman before, when that is blatantly not the case. There’s always been something about Mia Sinclair that scrambles the five actual brain cells I possess.
“You know what? Nevermind. You want a coffee? I picked up an extra at Coral Breeze Cafe.” I hold out the tray and Mia gives me one of her gorgeous smiles that crinkles the end of her cute nose and makes the freckles on her cheeks stand out more.
“Oh, thank you so much. That’s so lovely. I’m actually not really a coffee person, but I was just about to have some tea. Wanna come inside?”
“Yeah, I definitely want to come inside.” I could slap myself. I don’t know why every second thing that comes out of my mouth when I’m around Mia sounds like an innuendo. OK, I do, but I’m trying not to think about it.
I make a mental note that she likes tea, not coffee, then scold myself for bothering.
Not. Mine.
Mia’s warm voice cuts into my thoughts. “Hey, I was thinking, none of those samples you showed me yesterday is quite what we had in mind. Do you mind if I head up to the tile shop in Nowra? I might be able to find something there.”
“Absolutely. Anything you want. It’s my job to make you happy.” I need to shut up. Immediately. I take a sip of coffee to cover my awkwardness.
Mia smiles. “So you’re laying the floor in the ensuite today, right?”
I nod and dumbly follow her into the pastel pink nineties-style kitchen next on my list to renovate. The smell of raisin toast and tea and coffee permeates the space, making me think of lazy Sunday breakfasts and sunlight streaming through the large glass windows of my childhood home. It’s somewhere between a dream and a memory and so vivid. For a moment, I’m shaken.
When I look over, Mia is watching me with a quizzical look on her face.
I clear my throat. Pointing at the wall, I tell her, “You know, I’ve been thinking. It’s a shame to waste this northern aspect you got right here. If we knocked down this wall and put in a big window here you’d have the winter sun all season and this room would be so much brighter. I know your fiance wanted to keep the living room separate, but I just thought I’d mention it. I hope I’m not overstepping.”
She beams. “I agree! I’ve been thinking that, too. And then we could have a big table right here.” She stretches her hands wide to indicate where she’d put the furniture. “Imagine sitting here on a Sunday morning with a steaming hot cup of tea and a book.”
I stare. Because I can imagine it. All too well .
Only in my mind, I imagine her with her cup of tea, hair tucked up in a messy bun just like it is now, wearing my jumper with nothing underneath and having just escaped from my tentacles after I’ve wrung more orgasms from her than she ever thought she could have.
I suck in a breath, on my way to being rock hard again beneath my worn jeans. Snatching the piece of toast she hands me, I lift it in a half salute. “Better make a start lifting those old floor tiles, huh? Thanks for the toast.”