Total pages in book: 56
Estimated words: 52553 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 263(@200wpm)___ 210(@250wpm)___ 175(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 52553 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 263(@200wpm)___ 210(@250wpm)___ 175(@300wpm)
I’m not above lying to myself. In fact, I do it often enough to be excellent at it. I’m just so tired of the effort it takes to shore up the fantasy.
Thane catches my chin lightly and lifts my face to his. “You want me to stay afterward.”
I almost chicken out right then and there, but I’ve gone too far to go back now. “Yes.”
He searches my eyes for a long moment and nods, almost to himself. “Very well. I don’t know that my sleeping arrangements will be comfortable for you, but we can try.”
Does he sleep underwater? The thought both repels and draws me, and I’m not sure how to feel. Thane doesn’t give me a chance to figure it out. He kisses me again, and then his larger tentacles wrap around my wrists and guide them over my head.
He’s fully supporting me now; not a single bit of my body is touching the cold stone. His tentacles writhe under me, a thick one wrapping around my waist and another two smaller ones teasing my nipples until I cry out against his mouth.
He eases me a little away from him and, god, the way he seems to drink in the sight of me, splayed open for his perusal . . . The tentacles at my nipples wrap around my breasts and squeeze a bit, as if offering them up to him. It makes my nipples tingle, and I shift, instinctively seeking friction there.
Thane reaches out and hovers a single finger over my left breast. “I like you like this.”
“Like what?” I gasp. “Helpless?”
“Unguarded.” He says the word almost like a musing to himself. “You can’t hide when you’re like this.”
It’s just sex. Even as I tell myself that, his words strike right into the very heart of me. “Thane—” My breath catches as he brushes the tips of his fingers over first one nipple and then the other. They’re particularly sensitive from the decrease in blood flow. He has me entirely wrapped up, and yet he’s barely touched me at all.
Thane’s breath shivers out, and he releases one breast from his tentacle, only to palm me with one big hand. “You truly are perfectly made.”
I almost argue with him. He’s wrong, after all. According to so many people in my life, I’m soft in all the wrong places. My mother put me on crash diet after crash diet growing up, and when I finally drew my line in the sand at eighteen, she resigned herself to passive-aggressive comments about my weight whenever she saw me. My breasts that Thane seems so fond of prompted an ex to suggest surgery to lift them, and I have stretch marks across my hips and cellulite on my thighs. Like everything else about me, my body falls significantly short of perfection.
It’s mine, so I love it out of sheer spite toward everyone who acts like I shouldn’t. But it’s not perfect and never will be.
“I can see you wanting to argue.” Thane circles my nipple with his thumb. He has such a look of concentration on his face that my breath dies in my lungs. Each slow circle makes pleasure coil tighter low in my stomach. He hasn’t even touched my pussy yet, and I have the wild thought that he may not need to in order to make me cum.
“Thane—”
“I find that I would very much like to meet whoever made you feel wanting.” His voice is low and intense and . . . angry? He abruptly drops his hand, but I don’t have time to mourn the loss, because he immediately circles my breast with his tentacle again. This time, he goes a step further and . . .
“Oh shit.” The suckers on his tentacles catch my nipples, sending deep pulses of need through me with each pull. “Thane, please.”
He trails his hand lightly down my stomach, bypassing the tentacle holding me in place. “What can I say to convince you I find you perfect?”
Hard to believe you find me perfect when you leave me the first chance you get.
He must see the thought on my face. I’m having a hard time shielding my true feelings with him. I’m usually better at this. Thane stops just short of my pussy. “You don’t believe me.”
“You could try to fuck some self-confidence into me,” I say hopefully.
“I suppose that’s an option.” Thane’s lips curve a bit, but his eyes stay intense. “If you won’t believe my words, then I’ll have to show you with actions.”
The words send a thrill of something almost like fear through me. I don’t get a chance to argue, though, because he chooses that moment to part my pussy with his tentacles and press his thumb to my clit.
15
THANE
Catalina doesn’t believe me. It’s right there in her hazel eyes, in the way she won’t quite meet my gaze for the first time since we met. I knew she had a painful past, of course; she’s too much of a kindred spirit not to have had that. But I didn’t expect to feel protective of her.