Chapter Seventeen
Austin turned his back on the daylight streaming through the window.
He reached for one of his many plush pillows, hugged it to his chest, and didn’t stir from bed.
It was a wonder Tristan hadn’t booted him out of his estate yet, especially after how irritated Austin had been with him yesterday.
And yet, last night, Tristan had seemed peculiarly pleased to lead Austin back to his room.
That hard, taking edge in him had softened into beseeching once more.
Eli’s hesitant knocks came and went. Outside, the wind was rattling the boards when firm knuckles rapped on Austin’s door. Gusts swirled sand into the air that struck the window and clung to the glass, turning the light murky and his room dim.
Tristan knocked again.
“What?” Austin groused.
The door creaked open. Tristan’s gaze felt like a physical weight on Austin’s body as he took him in.
His perusal started at Austin’s ankles, where he’d kicked the silk sheets down, then travelled up the length of his bare leg to where he’d hitched one hip over a pillow.
Tristan likely had a perfect view of his bare buttocks—Austin had a vague awareness of the silk shirt he’d slept in being rucked up, the bottom seam an annoying band midway up his ribs.
Tristan quickly shut the door, footsteps light as he crossed the room.
The mattress dipped at his back. Tristan grasped the edge of the silk sheets and draped them carefully over Austin. He released a gentle, questioning hum. Austin ignored it.
“It’s close to dinner,” Tristan murmured. “You haven’t eaten.”
Austin mustered a pitiful warning growl. He did not want to get up.
“Are you still annoyed about me calling you plain?”
Austin didn’t even bother answering.
Tristan waited to see if he was getting more than that, and when he didn’t, he slowly stretched out at Austin’s back, lying on top of the sheets. He cupped Austin’s shoulder, rubbing lightly. “Perhaps the ocean will energise you? I can carry you.”
Austin was going to growl again, but then he thought about it. If Tristan carried him to the ocean, that wouldn’t be so bad. There was no way he was walking half a mile down soft, sifting sand. “I don’t like how far away the water is,” he managed.
“In that case, I have a pleasant surprise for you.” Tristan bundled Austin in the silk sheets and lifted him easily. Outside, a gale whipped at Austin’s hair, and with a groan, he buried his face into Tristan’s throat and kept it tucked there until they reached the porch.
Tristan paused at the top of the steps. “Have a look.”
Grey clouds blotted out the sky, hiding the sun and its heat. As Austin turned, a strong gust caught a cresting wave and doused them in sea-spray. He blinked to clear his vision, and his eyes widened. The tide had engulfed the beach.
There wasn’t a speck of gleaming white anywhere, every inch of sand replaced by waves. And these weren’t the lethargic waves that lapped invitingly, baked hot by the sun. These were storm waves.
“Your estate.” Austin clutched Tristan’s shoulders, but what he felt was not worry but a curl of excitement, the keen pleasure of an unexpected delight. He glanced down and could just make out the stone steps of the porch vanishing into black water.
Tristan followed his gaze. “This is the highest the tide rises.”
Wind raced across the ocean’s surface, rippling it as though some formless being skimmed overhead.
Fast approaching sheets of rain blurred the divide between ocean and sky.
The air was thick with ozone and static, a promise of thunder and lightning still to come.
Austin turned an expectant look to Tristan.
The beginnings of a smile formed. “I enjoy storm surges too.”
He descended the steps with Austin bundled in his arms, turning his back when waves crested to protect Austin from the force of their strike. There was an eagerness in the water, a deep enjoyment as the usually tepid ocean revelled in its destructive potential.
A laugh bubbled up as they slid beneath the ocean, and the plunge turned it into an odd echo. The water vibrated around them, responding to Austin’s frequency.
Tristan released Austin as the transformation swept through him, turning his legs into a mighty tail. A wave stole away Austin’s silk sheet. He caught Tristan’s sides, gripping warm scales as he swam them out beyond the shallows.
Austin hitched a ride until they were deep enough that waves didn’t stir the sand into a haze.
He swam down, not even caring that it was barren, boring sand.
He knelt and gazed straight up. The wind created ripples as it raced across the surface, joining the breaking waves to churn the watery ceiling above.
The sheeting rain arrived and blotted out the light, but Austin’s senses had adjusted by then. He felt what darkness hid.
Tristan circled at length before venturing into the depths. He returned several times, lugging great obsidian black rocks, some broader than his chest, some nearly the size of Austin himself. Their darkness was so engulfing they stood out with eerie clarity.
Tristan dropped them too close, throwing up sand. It clogged Austin’s gills, and he bared his teeth in irritation. Tristan’s apology hummed through the water but did not stop the behaviour.
Austin was trying to watch the water! Playing with rocks? Was Tristan a child? A dozen cutting remarks were ready for the moment they were above water.
Austin glared at the rocks, but the glare softened as he studied the formation. It was circular. Austin drifted closer, exploring the arrangement.
Austin took the time to carefully kneel in the exact centre of the rocks and hissed at Tristan when he approached, another rock in hand.
Tristan wisely set it aside far from Austin and neared with empty hands.
He circled once above, then curled around the outer perimeter of Austin’s nest, the rocks set in a perfect circumference for his tail to wind around.
He closed the circle, enclosing Austin, his top half leaning against the largest rock, as he turned a watchful eye to their surroundings.
All of Austin’s anger vanished. The urge to reward Tristan with a kiss simmered, but Austin liked being the centre of his nest too much.
He couldn’t bear to leave it just yet. He didn’t know how long had passed before the sentry sweep of Tristan’s head stopped.
His eyes fixed on the middle distance. A grey shape approached, slowly getting larger.
It emerged from the shallows. A merman, whose tail moved through the water with the long, coiling grace of a sea serpent.
Tristan hummed a greeting, and the merman—it felt to Austin like Hal—hummed it back.
Austin tilted his head, curiously examining Hal’s tail as he got closer. It wasn’t large and powerful like Tristan’s, nor was it small like the southern merfolk Bee, Dew and Goldilocks. He thought it was emerald green like Tristan’s, but where Tristan’s was built for power, Hal’s was all length.
Hal kept a healthy distance from Austin’s nest, circling wide under Tristan’s watchful stare, but even from there, Austin could see the emerald green of his tail was unbroken; there were no pale scars like the ones that decorated Tristan’s body.
Austin abandoned the middle of the nest, his instincts urging him to Tristan’s side, where he curled under his arm. His shirt drifted up often in the waves, and the nakedness of his lower half felt vulnerable in front of Hal in a way it didn’t with Tristan.
Tristan pulled Austin to his torso, tucking him between his body and the black rock, shielding him from view. Austin sensed the warning look Tristan sent Hal. Through a gap between chest and rock, he saw the dismissive flick of Tristan’s fins. Hal hummed goodbye and departed.
Austin stayed safely tucked against Tristan and watched the storm in peace while Tristan kept watch. Unpleasant body sensations eventually encroached on Austin’s peace: a pain in his stomach, a pinch in the base of his skull. Irritated, he buried his face in Tristan’s neck and bit him.
A hand cupped the back of his head. Austin felt the vibration of Tristan’s rumble in the water. His tail unwound from the circle, and he bundled Austin in his arms, swimming to shore. The second his head was above water, Austin was speaking.
“I just want a snack, and then we’ll go back in.”
Tristan nodded.
Austin wiggled as Tristan stepped onto the porch, and Tristan carefully set him down.
His wet silk shirt stuck to him. With the way it clung to his upper thighs, the space between was more illicit than when the water billowed it up.
Austin’s face warmed. He glanced at Tristan, who stood stark naked on the porch, ocean water racing towards his feet in rivets.
He was leisurely admiring Austin.
It should have made Austin snap and warn Tristan that he could admire only when Austin was being purposefully provocative. But…Austin enjoyed the abode Tristan had built for him, and he’d already bitten the merman a few seconds ago.
He would let it slide this once.
Face warm, Austin sidled up to Tristan, hands flat on his abs. He gazed up at him. “Are you tired? I can massage your muscles if they’re sore.”
Tristan hummed. “I would enjoy that when we retire for the night. For now though, let’s eat.
” He pressed his hand to the small of Austin’s back and guided him out of the wind and into the lounge connected to Austin’s porch.
The chaise lounge waited beside a low table, its shape barely visible in the firelight.
Beneath the scent of smoke came fruit, cheese, and something savoury. Food. A whole platter of it.
“I’ll fetch light.”
“No.” Austin caught his arm. “It’s fine.”
A fire crackled in an open fireplace protected by a metal grate, casting the room in just enough light to turn everything into shadow. A human shape hung by the fire. A robe?
Tristan approached the fire and took it down, wrapping a length of fire-warmed fabric around Austin before dressing himself similarly. Austin took Tristan by the wrist and guided him to the chaise lounge. He let Tristan sit in the nice spot with the backrest.
Austin sat next to him, glanced unseeing at the table, then at Tristan, and waited.
Tristan studied Austin’s face and posture, then the deliberate emptiness of his hands.
At length, he reached for the table. After a few moments of contemplation, he picked something up and brought it hesitantly to Austin’s mouth.
Austin parted his lips, taking the morsel into his mouth carefully.
Not that he would be terribly upset to accidentally bite Tristan’s fingers.
Tristan’s eyes flared as a soft shiver worked its way through his body.
He tore his gaze from Austin, studying the table anew, and picked out another morsel, staring hard at Austin’s mouth as Austin took it from his hand.
After a few bites, Tristan brought Austin juice to drink and then returned to the food.
Austin’s stomach eventually started to swell, and he turned his chin from the next offering.
Tristan offered juice—Austin turned his chin the other way—and then the merman flattened himself to Austin’s side, butterflying kisses down Austin’s temple, cheek, jaw, chin.
Austin shut his eyes, basking in the attention.
Tristan cupped his cheeks, pressed a kiss between his brows, then the bridge of his nose.
Austin tilted his face up in invitation.
Tristan’s lips brushed against his. A test, to see Austin’s reaction.
Austin released a soft, entreating sound.
Tristan pulled Austin onto his lap, gathered him to his chest, and kissed him.
Austin, pliant as warmed clay, shaped easily against him.
His limbs folded around Tristan, his lips parted on a gasp.
His tongue tried to establish dominance as it always did, but Austin’s body was too sated for a show of strength.
Tristan cupped Austin’s nape, fingers slipping into his hair, supporting his weight. The arm wrapped around his waist pinned Austin to Tristan’s firm chest. Tristan’s rumble all but masked Austin’s softer purr.
Tristan explored his mouth at his leisure, the hand holding his waist sliding down Austin’s side, thumb brushing hip bone, the swell of his thigh muscle. There, it stopped. Squeezed. Then travelled back the way it had come. This time, his hand slipped under Austin’s shirt, warming bare skin.
At Austin’s hip, Tristan hesitated.
Austin shifted his weight, offering his front for the merman to touch if he liked. Tristan did. He took Austin in his palm, stroked his hard cock, gently squeezed the tip. Brushed light fingertips over his tightened balls, then moved on.
Austin made a soft, protesting sound.
Tristan broke the kiss, breathing hard. “We’ll miss the chance to work on your nest while the tide’s in.”
Austin’s lids weighed as much as mountains, and keeping them open was almost beyond him.
“I’m hard.”
For a second, he thought a third person in the room had spoken. Someone needy. Someone desperate. Someone who begged. Certainly not Austin. And yet the soft whine filling the air tickled his throat as though he were the one making it.
“Me too, my dear.” Tristan kissed his cheek. The swell of his cock pushed against Austin’s buttocks.
Austin became very aware of its length and bulk. “I don’t like pain.”
“I intend our joining to bring you pleasure, not pain.”
A modicum of control returned to Austin.
Thoughts flitted by, loud as the storm battering the windows.
He caught his lip in his teeth. Tristan leaned in to suck it free, humming happily to himself as he did.
Differing wants flared, but he really did want to return to the nest while he could.
He also wanted Tristan to keep touching him.
“I want both.” It lacked the bite of an imperial command, too needy.
Tristan tensed, eyes widening in surprise, then narrowing in suspicion. “I wish to please you, and I will do all you ask of me. But I do not get the sense you would enjoy pleasure and pain both. Perhaps—”
Austin’s eyes snapped back to Tristan’s face. “No! No—don’t hurt me.” This time, his voice packed too much horror to be commanding.
Tristan immediately bared his throat.
“Of course not. Explain to me what you meant.”
“I want you to touch me, and I want to go back to the nest.”
Tristan considered this. “Shall I touch you in the nest?”
Austin’s limbs trembled.
A smile tipped up the corners of Tristan’s mouth. “We have found our solution.”
Without preamble, he stood, Austin bundled in his arms, and marched them back into the storm and beneath the wild waves.