Chapter Nine Dessert #3
However, with Mercer, that dude could wrap me in a red flag, and I’d know he was just carrying me to safety in it.
“Have you ever done that?” I ask, voice cautious, trying not to sound wary or excited. Just curious. Neutrally, naturally curious.
“No. I’d like any pleasure to be mutual. If mutually desired.” His fingers trace up and down my arm and land softly on the tattoo of Zack’s infant handprint. “Dinner? A movie? Swimming in the lake in the moonlight?”
I swallow. “All of those sound good.”
“How about dinner and a moonlight swim? Maybe a romantic picnic on the beach, with the sunset for dinner and the moonlight for dessert?”
My head bobs eagerly. A date. A real date, with a genuinely nice person—who is also a freaking stud muffin who loves my child. I discreetly bite the inside of my cheek, and it hurts.
Yep, I’m awake.
Zack’s sudden squeal of delight reminds me that he’s just a few yards away. “Wh-when would you like to do that?”
“Friday night?”
“As in three nights from now?”
“Uh-huh. I’ll take care of everything. You just show up with a swimsuit and a sundress.”
I think back to a gauzy white sundress I bought the summer before I got pregnant. Eli loved me in it. Called me his Grecian goddess. Insisted I wear sandals that strapped up to my knee when I wore it to a July 4th beach party.
I still own it. It would cling to my poofy, rounded belly now, and the spaghetti straps and lightly lined cups would do nothing to support my breasts. I’d look pudgy. Saggy. Natural.
Eli would tell me to go in and change.
“I have just the dress,” I say, forcing myself to sound happy and relaxed while, inside, I’m nervous. What if Mercer sees me in that dress and changes his mind?
Good. Then I’ll know. Zack can still take swimming lessons, and Mercer and I can just be friends.
“Well, let’s go in and ask Allison and her parents if that’s okay,” I say cheerfully. “We could—I mean, I could offer to babysit for them some time in exchange.”
“Sounds like a wonderful idea. We’ll ask them,” Mercer slips an arm around my waist, and one tentacle drapes around my hips, too.
Both squeeze me to his size with a warm possessiveness that’s unfamiliar.
The closest thing I’ve experienced was when Eli got a little tipsy at a party and acted jealous.
Mercer knows I’m not dating anyone else. Heck, until him, I planned to live like a nun for the rest of my days. Mercer just wants me close.
Wants me.
I slide my arm around him, too, caressing his broad back, and daring to let my hand wander down to the place where his tentacles meet his body.
As we move, one slips underneath, and my fingers stroke the underside, feeling a maze of suckers, some larger than others, all of which open and close softly at my touch, kissing my palm and fingertips.
He lets out a little hiss and stops, holding still. “Madelyn. Could you... You should move your hand to the top. The top is less sensitive.”
“Oh, gosh! Does that hurt?” I ask, yanking my hand away.
“No, no. The opposite of pain. And not in all cases. It’s more about the place and pressure. And the person.”
“So, that might be something a human wouldn’t know about a kraken? That a woman dating a kraken should know for a future date?” I murmur, one eyebrow arching suggestively, even though I’m trying to keep things PG.
Mercer looks flustered (which is adorable). His tentacles twist and curl on the sidewalk, and he clears his throat several times. “She might want to know that, yes. Though I wouldn’t mind if she didn’t. Touching her would bring me enough satisfaction.”
“With your tentacles, you mean?” That heat that’s been twisting, ebbing, and flowing in my middle rebounds and consumes.
“If she allows it. If she’d like to experience it.”
“What does the experience entail?” I ask, playing with fire and hoping I get a little bit singed tonight.
“Maybe we should put Zack to bed, and then we can discuss it a little bit more?” Mercer suggests. He no longer sounds flustered, but that’s okay. I’m suddenly flustered enough for the both of us.
Zack is babbling a mile a minute, high on sugar and excited about the prospect of a playdate at Allison’s house, although to be fair, he’s more excited about the prospect of playing dinos with her five-year-old brother, Petey.
However, what goes up, must come down, and as I rock him in a hammock of tentacles and Madelyn reads one of his favorite books, the sugar crash descends, and Zack is asleep.
I’m wide awake. I’m having a horrible time not thinking arousing thoughts. My cock keeps giving little nudges under the curtain of my tentacles, wanting to emerge, thick and ridged, longer than most human cocks, I’m sure, but shorter than tentacles.
And tentacles, like I told Madelyn, are so useful. So multi-purpose. I can picture them wrapping around her naked body, bringing her to me, holding her in place as I slowly work my length inside of her...
I can imagine them penetrating her, too, teasing every opening, my suckers leaving a thousand kisses on her skin at once, overstimulating her into a needy puddle of pleasure.
She deserves that. I already know this Eli character was a horrible, selfish man. It doesn’t take a genius to know that Madelyn probably never experienced the love of a truly unselfish man—let alone an unselfish kraken with eight tentacles, two arms, and one cock, all for her.
“Well. He’s out. Tea? Coffee?” Madelyn shuts Zack’s door softly behind us.
“No, thank you.” I want you. I barely seal my lips in time to prevent the shameful admission.
“I think I’ll have some tea. I’ve been so tired lately, I—”
“I could go if you need to rest. Or work?” I offer quickly.
“No!” Madelyn is even quicker to answer, and we share a guilty smile.
“I just don’t want to keep you up if you need your rest,” I explain.
“I haven’t had a real grown-up conversation without a kid underfoot in months. I need that more than an early night,” Madelyn assures me.
“A grown-up conversation about grown-up things,” I clarify, sidling up until I’m close behind her. “About these?” I allow two of my tentacles to criss-cross around her waist in a brief embrace.
“Maybe I need kraken lessons, the way Zack needs swim lessons. Sorry, I bet that was the wrong term. I just meant that I don’t know much. At all. You’ve been spoiling us, Mercer. I’ve felt like I’m living in a dream lately.”
“Funny, so have I,” I counter.
Madelyn’s hand comes to rest on top of the tentacle that brushes her hip.
She strokes along the thicker, firmer skin on the outer surface before her fingers drag gracefully down to the tip.
“You carry dishes with these. Pick up things with them. I never knew they were sensitive. Or that touching them was intimate. I don’t want to do the wrong thing. ”
“You’re not. You can’t touch them in a wrong way, because... Because you’re my romantic partner, or you will be, one day. I hope. All of your touches are welcome and enjoyable.”
“But only on the top?” Madelyn clarifies, and bless her sweet heart, she looks so anxious and earnest, as if she’s truly interested in studying me. In knowing me.
“No, you can touch the other side, too. The underside is very sensitive, and the suckers are always curious about everything.”
Madelyn’s fingers gently trace a wiggling line between rows of suckers, and I have to smother a groan. My suckers reach for her skin, opening and closing as if they can taste her.
“That feels good?” Madelyn asks. “Like... Like a kiss?”
“Better than a kiss. Well, better than most kisses.”
No. Do not think about her kissing your tentacles. Or your cock. Don’t think about how you want to taste her, and kiss every inch of space between her thighs. To taste every inch of her skin, all those lines and sags she keeps mentioning like they’re something wrong or unattractive.
“I’m probably being wildly forward and inappropriate asking all these things,” Madelyn says, and her warm skin is suddenly removed from mine. “I feel so rusty at the whole dating thing, but also like this is whole new territory. I’m so afraid of making a fool of myself.”
I nod, and this time I put my arm around her shoulders. “We can be worried together. If it helps you feel any better, you’re the first human woman I’ve ever kissed.”
“You’re my first kraken.”
“I’ll keep you safe from making a fool of yourself if you’ll protect me from the same thing,” I offer.
Madelyn laughs and sinks into my embrace. “That’s a deal. Although I imagine you don’t need protection from much.” Madelyn’s eyes rake over me, something appraising in their stare. “Wow. You seem like such a comfy size around Zack, but I can never get over how big you are. In a good way!”
“The tentacles take up a lot of room. But they can also be very compact. They can create protective cocoons if necessary. When a male and female kraken want privacy, they can make a net of their intertwined tentacles. For us? I can just wrap you and Zack in them and protect you. Or just you.”
Madelyn hesitates. “It always looks so amazing when you rock Zack.”
“I can do the same for you if you want.” My offer is eager, so eager that I’m picking Madelyn up and cradling her in two tentacles before she can protest.
“Oh. Oh, my gosh. This is like heaven. Like being weightless. But not for you, I guess.”
“You weigh very little. It’s like holding a pillow,” I sigh in contentment, and sway Madelyn next to me. She looks up at me with a relaxed smile, her hand coming up to rest on my chest.
“Well, I’m very pillowy,” she says with a rueful smile.