Chapter Thirty-Six #2
“We never fight them alone. There are always at least three men to a fight, and we keep close watch,” Tristan reassured him.
“And besides that, they wouldn’t be able to take you from me.
” Memories of Austin had power, simmering in his mind with their own beating pulse.
Tristan would lose himself long before Austin could be snatched away.
“Hm. Alright, then. I made arrangements with Sam’s witch aunt. Inx is instructed to keep the bodies of the slain ghouls so that any of the Troop whose memories end up stolen can get them back.”
It hadn’t occurred to Tristan until that moment that Austin’s unhappiness about him going north was about more than just their separation. “You feared I would forget you as Sam did.”
“I didn’t imagine it being a terrible issue,” Austin said. “Would you have acted any differently just now, even if you’d forgotten me?” The question was both coy and confident.
Tristan’s first meeting with Austin had been memorable in its own right.
A beautiful creature of contradictions washed up on his shore, tired yet deadly, alluring and bladed.
Within the hour, he had banished Tristan from his own bedroom and claimed the room for himself.
Would Tristan have put up a fight had Austin told him to sleep in the stable so he wasn’t disturbed?
And what if Tristan had returned, having forgotten Austin, and found an unknown siren sitting as he had been? Ankles tantalisingly in the water, body so adorned?
“At any point since our first meeting, if you’d asked me to pleasure you, I would have got on my knees. I see your point. This would be no different.”
The answer seemed to take Austin by surprise.
“If you asked me to pleasure you, I would have torn your throat out.”
Tristan grinned and nuzzled Austin’s cheek. “Of course.” Austin was not someone you demanded anything from. You asked, and perhaps he might grant. Though Tristan suspected that with those close to him, Austin was more willing to please than he would ever let on.
“Thank you,” Tristan said. “It didn’t occur to me to make arrangements for memory issues the Troop might suffer. What was the price?”
“I told Sam I’d think about forgiving him.”
Tristan dug his face into Austin’s hair, smiling now. “He got a bargain.”
“Yes.”
The air pressure changed, bubbles surfacing as the legs wrapped around Tristan’s waist became a tail he was pressing against. Tristan’s aching cock once more became the focus of his attention.
He gritted his teeth, fighting the urge that rose sharp and sudden inside him.
It was because they’d been apart, Tristan knew.
His resistance to being teased had degraded in the meantime, and it needed to be reforged.
Until then…Tristan encircled Austin’s waist, rubbing against him. He moaned into his mate’s ear as he trapped his cock between their bodies, the crush between them exquisite in its own right.
“Are you happy?”
“Beyond words,” Tristan murmured. Need rose again, and he reached for himself, stroking his cock as he pushed Austin against the wall. Keeping him close, close, close.
“I think you’re very worked up, actually. Not all blissed out and smug like you usually are.” Austin’s voice was the one that was smug. “Do you like the tunnel?”
“I love it.” Fire was quickly rising in Tristan, lust washing away his ability to think, never mind talk.
“I prepared it for you. This one’s ready for you too,” Austin said. “But I see you’re making do with your hand.”
Tristan went still. Austin pushed Tristan back and made as if to get out of the water.
Tristan seized Austin’s hips, whirling the siren quickly around.
He hoped his lustful appearance wasn’t terribly alarming to Austin.
He knew he was large and intimidating. Not that Austin had ever been intimidated by him before.
Tristan imagined that if he so much as tried to scare Austin, the siren would tear strips off him for it.
Glittering silver eyes gazed up at him, amused. The smile that came with that amusement didn’t pretend to be innocent. “You don’t want to keep going with your hand?”
“No.”
Austin reached into the water. Tristan’s gaze hungrily tracked his fingers as they slipped into his slit, using his self-produced lube to soften his entrance. Once slicked, Austin held himself open.
Tristan trembled.
Austin rested his head on the back of the pool, silver and indolent, the most brilliant creature in existence. “Welcome home,” he said.
Tristan broke with a groan. He buried himself inside Austin, drawing a surprised cry from him.
He had the presence of mind to cup the back of Austin’s head, to protect him from the brickwork, but beyond that, his faculties abandoned him.
He gripped the lip of the pool as he thrust into Austin, fucking him with determined urgency.
Hands gripped his back, and Tristan revelled in the divine as Austin’s gasps reached his ears.
He likes it steady, Tristan reminded himself.
No surprises. So he kept moving in that same urgent pace, burying himself home until, with a cry, his rhythm broke and everything he had released.
He was hyperaware of Austin spasming around his cock, teeth breaking skin as he moaned into Tristan’s neck.
The comedown was devastating. Tristan swore he’d never take his cock out of Austin, and his body listened to the command for once.
The muscle that usually retracted his cock didn’t tighten.
Austin stayed slack and happy in his arms, and he purred to match Tristan when his chest rumbled in utter happiness.
How could that fool of a monarch have ever found Austin lacking?
Idiocy.
“You get to come for, like, a minute. A full minute,” Austin grumbled tiredly.
“I’m a dominant male,” Tristan soothed. “It’s a trait.”
“Do you come that much if you use your hand?”
“No. Only when I’m inside you.” Tristan paused. Orgasm-stupid, he carelessly dove into dangerous waters. “I didn’t orgasm this way with any other.”
“Oh?” Austin said, voice bladed. “Tell me about these others.”