Chapter 24
Kai didn’t so much swim as play in the water like a young seal. Fian didn’t mind. He led his landbride, pulling him through the water until Kai was a laughing mess with saltwater on his skin and in his golden hair.
They were both giddy by the end of it, and when Fian felt the soft pebbles that told him they were close to the shore, he was almost sad their swim was at an end.
“Is that it?” Kai asked in the waist-deep water.
“Yes, that’s home. Come on, I’ll light the dream fire hearth for you to get you dry.”
Kai frowned and lifted a waterlogged sleeve. “How come my clothes are still wet in a dream? I saw your brother walk out of the ocean, dry as a powder puff.”
“Demon magic.” Fian tried his best to keep his color stable. He could have used that same demon magic to dry Kai, of course, but the idea of getting him all snug and warm in his own clothes and lazing in front of the hearth with him—Fian wanted that.
Kai rolled his eyes, but he kept smiling.
They made it to the shore. It was hard to tell whether Kai liked what he was seeing—the pile of driftwood that still needed carving, the studio shed and the little house.
Kai pointed. “What on earth is that?”
“Uh, those are old CDs? I didn’t steal them. I found them when I went looking for driftwood, and I like the colors.” Fian had made them into a mobile that hung from the eaves of the house, sparkling and catching color because he had added glass smoothed by the tides.
“I don’t think I’ve seen a CD in ten years.”
“It’s a shame humans never saw that they could be made into something pretty. Isn’t it such a waste?”
Kai just gave him a funny look, so Fian rushed to open the door for him.
Kai stepped through, looking around the small room. “Wow, this is cozy. And rustic.”
“I hope that’s good.” Fian closed the door behind them. “Let me light the hearth.”
Kai pulled at his drenched clothes again. “I’ll have to take these off, won’t I?”
At those words, Fian froze. What by all the salt in the sea was I thinking? He turned to face his landbride.
“Actually, if you want, I can magic them dry for you. I’m sorry. I just thought it would be nice to loan you some of my clothes and sit in front of the fire with you, talk. I wasn’t thinking.”
A distant look came over Kai’s face. Then he pulled his wet hoodie off, held it out to Fian. “It does sound nice. I want nice things.”
So Fian nodded, took the hoodie, and got to work. He hung up Kai’s clothes, top and bottom, and rushed to his armoire to get something dry for him to wear.
“Oh no.”
Kai walked over to him from the warming fire. “What?”
“Do you remember when you told me to take my pants off in the dream? I did, and they just floated away. I don’t actually own that many pairs. Tentacles, you know. Would you be okay with a long sweater?”
“You lost your pants when I told you to take them off? For real? I caused pants-loss for you?”
“You’re making fun of me, I can tell. I know I deserve it, but I promised you pants, and my only pair are back in the hotel room in the human realm.”
Kai was pressing his lips together. Fian wasn’t sure exactly, but he thought the human was trying not to laugh.
“We both need to go clothes shopping then. The sweater is fine. Hey, I saw you kept the jam I gave you. And put it next to your wooden dick.”
Fian flinched and nearly dropped the garment he was holding out to Kai, who took it and quickly pulled it on over his head.
When Fian saw Kai in his clothes, it was a revelation.
Kai looked like a polished shell in them, even wet from playing in the water.
It wasn’t the sweater that did that so much as the fact it was Fian’s clothes Kai had chosen to wear.
All of Fian’s tentacles twitched and flexed, and one coiled around Kai’s ankle.
“The jam…ah. You know, you gave me that without me asking for it. That’s a special gift in the demon world. It indicates a strong bond, so I put it on my mantle.”
Kai nodded. “It’s just jam I no longer like, but I was mostly talking about the wooden dick.”
“Oh that.”
“Yeah, that.”
Fian couldn’t do anything about his color shifting to red.
“It’s my work, you see. I make things for companies such as Demonic Designs.
That’s where Zazine works. And they are rebuilding this Roman town, and for some reason, the Romans really liked dicks, so I made a bunch of them. They were fun to carve.”
Kai took the piece of wood in question off the mantle. “This is…hard.” He looked at Fian with a perfectly straight face. “I read up on octopi. I read your piece of wood is one of your arms?”
“That’s more for regular octopi. I have a skin fold. I would have shown you last time, but you were so sensitive and…” He shrugged.
Kai looked down at the carved cock, rubbing it firmly. “You really made me feel good. When I woke up that day—that’s today I guess—it was like a new part of my life was about to start. Or perhaps that’s too poetic. I just felt better than I had in a long time.”
“I made sure to undo some of the magic they had done to you as well, of course.”
Kai nodded. “I see. Thank you. What if I wanted to have sex with you again?”
Fian gasped. “What, now? After everything that happened?”
Kai sighed. “I don’t know. Do you think I should live like a monk for a while? Not touch anyone or let them touch me?”
“T-that’s not what I meant. Before, I maybe shouldn’t have, but you were so eager, but now, I—”
“What about what I want?” Kai asked, looking up from the cock. “I mean, unless you don’t want me.”
Fian was wrapped around Kai in moments, his tentacles coiling around the human before he could consider if that was wise. Kai gasped.
“I want you. I want you so much. I think I wanted you since the moment I walked into that store and saw you there. I know that only just happened, but the best things don’t need more time than a single meeting, a single glance.”
“Then let’s have dream sex again. I want to, okay? I really want to, and this time around, I actually believe it’s real.” Kai looked up at Fian, eyes like the most precious amber smoothed by the tides. “I want to see that skin fold.”
Another tremor ran through Fian’s tentacles. It’s him telling me to take off my pants all over again.
“Okay. In front of the fire? I read in a book that it’s really romantic, having sex in front of a fire.”
“I don’t know about that. Never tried it. Maybe I should.”
Fian nodded, and without letting go of Kai, he pulled a knit blanket, the duvet, and his pillow off his bed. Kai was laughing, but Fian remained focused, spreading everything out close to the dream fire.
Then he frowned. “I’m not sure it’s soft enough.”
Kai groaned. “I remember why I told you to take off your pants now. Come here.”
He reached for Fian’s hair and pulled him close. Fian was delighted and opened his mouth, tasted Kai, who clearly wanted to be tasted.
Whether it was Kai wiggling in Fian’s arms or Fian losing strength in them, the two of them ended up on the improvised bed, Fian looming over Kai, Kai chasing his lips when Fian tried pulling back to admire a treasure greater than anything on any sunken ship that lay sleeping on the ocean’s floor.
While he was still kissing, Kai tried taking off his sweater. He moaned with frustration when that didn’t work, and they broke apart.
“Hold this,” he told Fian and handed him the carved cock.
“I think we should put this here.” Fian placed it on a low table, one he’d made from leftover wood to hold his cup of coffee in the mornings.
Kai looked at it. “It’s watching over us.”
“You’re right.”
“Maybe that’s why the Romans had all those cocks around, because they liked being watched?”
“I don’t really know, but you can ask Zazine. She probably knows more about it.”
Kai gave him a mischievous grin. “I can’t talk to your friends about your dick, Fian.”
Fian pouted. “You don’t like the carving?”
“That one was nice. Feels good in my hand. What about the other one?”
Fian stilled. He wasn’t sure. He didn’t want to push. Kai needed care like any person needed care, but then again, he might need more than most others. Fian wanted to give it, wasn’t sure how.
“What do you want to do with it? Or better yet, what don’t you want me to do with it?”
Kai sat up. “Can I see first?”
Fian nodded, ran his hand down his belly, and framed his fold with that hand. Kai looked down, his mouth falling open when Fian pushed out his cock, hard and glistening already.
“It’s beaded.”
“That’s just how it looks. It’s normal.”
“Gorgeous. But really big. Triple-XL.”
“Thank you.”
Kai looked up at him, and there was a shadow that fell over his bright eyes. “I don’t not want to bottom. I like taking cock. But I don’t know if I can do that right now. What you did last time with your tentacle felt really good though. Can you do that again? And I want to touch this.”
Fian nodded. “Anything. Anything and everything you need.”