“She means your tentacle entering her vaginal canal,” Kane said cheerily through the console speaker.
“Kane!” Theo groaned, dropping her head to rest on Vasil’s chest again. “Tentacle penetration.”
“Tentacular, Theo. Tentacular. You have to say it right if you mean to use it,” Kane replied. “And considering what the two of you did last night, I cannot possibly understand why you’d be so—”
“Just go!” Theo snapped.
“Fine,” Kane grumbled, “but I just might not wake up the next time you call me. Think about that!”
Theo snickered.
One of Vasil’s tentacles brushed Theo’s inner thigh. Her breath hitched.
“I would not be opposed to trying,” he said.
Lifting her head, she met his gaze. “Oh?”
The tip of his tentacle slipped a little higher. “It is only right that we attempt it at least once, would you not say?”
Heat flooded her core in response to both his words and the teasing stroke of his tentacle. Keeping her eyes on his, she raised one knee, spreading her thighs wider.
“At least once,” she agreed.
His tentacle traveled higher, slipping between the folds of her sex until it covered her entire mound. She started when a suction cup pressed over her clit.
Vasil’s mouth curled into a slow, sensual smile. “Kraken females do not possess this.” The suction cup caressed the little nub before closing around it and sucking, creating surprisingly delicate, precise pressure.
Pleasure rippled through Theo, and she moaned, grinding her pelvis against his tentacle. “It’s called a clit.”
His grin widened. “I like it.”
Another tentacle made its way upward, moving along her thigh to her sex. The tip slipped between her wet folds and pressed into her. Theo gasped and bore down on it, fingers curling against Vasil’s chest. His tentacle sank deep before withdrawing almost all the way, only to slide in again; his other tentacle continued to kiss and stroke her clit throughout.
“Do you like this?” he asked, voice husky.
Though it was a struggle to keep her eyes open in her building pleasure, Theo forced herself to hold Vasil’s gaze. Even in the light of day, she wasn’t repulsed by Vasil or what he was. His tentacle inside her was a new, strange, erotic experience unlike any she’d ever had, his suction cups adding tantalizing texture as they slid along her sensitive inner flesh. It felt…good. So good. But it wasn’t enough.
“Yes,” she hissed, rocking her hips. Her hair brushed over his chest. Sitting up, she braced a hand on his shoulder and trailed the other down his body, over the rippling muscles of his abdomen, to stop at his already parted slit. Her fingers delved inside to stroke him.
A groan vibrated through his chest as he raised his hips into her touch. His cock, already slick, slid out into her palm. Theo took firm hold of it; she felt his pulse throbbing in her hand.
“But I would prefer this,” she said.
“Kiss me, human, and it is yours,” he growled, offering a glimpse of his pointed teeth as he cupped the back of her head with one large hand.
Theo lowered her face and brushed her lips over his. When she moved to pull away, his arm stiffened. He guided her back down and kissed her again, his passion bolstered by confidence he’d not possessed the night before. His lips, though soft, were unyielding in their message — she was his, and he’d take whatever he wanted from her.
At that moment, she realized that she was fine with him taking — because she trusted him completely to give equally of himself. This wasn’t a simple give-take; it was a partnership, a relationship. That realization rocked her to her core — and fanned the flames of her desire to new heights.
He withdrew from her sex, leaving her feeling hollow, and coiled his tentacles around her thighs to spread them wide. Tugging her pelvis back and down, he pressed the head of his cock to her entrance. He breached her slowly, pumping into her a little at a time, a bit deeper with each upward stroke.
Theo closed her eyes and panted as excitement flared at her core, traveling throughout her entire body in a tingling wave of pleasure that was only amplified by the slight burn as he stretched her.
“Open your eyes, Theo,” Vasil said, tightening his grip in her hair and ceasing all other movement.
She forced her heavy lids open to look at him. “Please don’t stop.”
“Say you are mine,” he commanded, his eyes like swirling mercury, “and that I am yours.”
Theo attempted to press herself down upon him, to take him as deep as her body allowed, but his tentacles held her still. She growled and undulated her hips, managing only a teasingly infinitesimal slide of her inner walls along his shaft.
“Vasil!” she groaned.
“Say it,” he said, lowering his pelvis back to partially withdraw from her.
Her nails dug into his shoulders, and she squeezed her legs together as tightly as she could, desperate to keep him inside her. “Damn it! Yes! Now fuck me!”
“Say the words, Theodora.”
Consuming need ravaged her from within, and frustration flowed in close behind. “I said it!”
“Say. The. Words,” Vasil demanded, capturing her jaw and forcing her eyes to his. “Even if you do not mean them, I need to hear them aloud.”
Something within his gaze struck her like a blow; it stole her breath and stilled her heart.
The lump in her throat was undoubtedly a tangled mass of emotion, but she was in no state to examine it. “I’m yours,” she whispered, moving a hand to his face to caress his jaw. “And you are mine.”
The pads of his fingers brushed over her cheek as he searched her gaze for several moments. Then, without another word, he drew her face down and kissed her, at the same time thrusting his hips upward. She gasped against his mouth as he filled her, but he allowed no time for Theo to catch her breath. He drew back and slammed into her repeatedly, pushing as deep as he could go, his tentacles pulling her down to meet his thrusts. She was a puppet, and he held the strings, manipulating her as he willed.
It was sublime.
Theo kissed him, giving back as much as she took. She craved more of his touch, his scent, his heat, his everything. With Vasil, she didn’t feel alone. She felt…complete. Desired.
Loved?
As crazy as it seemed, it was true. She’d never known love until Malcolm, but he and Kane had shown Theo enough for her to recognize it. This was built on the same base, but it was so much more — so much deeper, so much stronger, so much more uncertain. And that was as exciting as it was frightening.
Vasil’s hands trekked down her sides to grasp her hips, and his movements became more feral. Guttural sounds escaped him to mix with her cries.
Her body quivered, the delicious pleasure permeating her growing with each stroke of his cock until, finally, she broke apart in rapture. Torrents of ecstasy blasted through her as heat flooded her core. Her inner walls fluttered and clamped around his shaft, drawing him deeper.
The fingers on her hips flexed, and his tentacles coiled tighter around her thighs as his thrusts grew suddenly erratic. His body turned to stone beneath her as he roared her name. His hold on her hips strengthened further, claws pricking her flesh, and he pulled her down one final time as he released his seed within her.
Theo fell limp upon his chest, panting hard with the resonating effects of her climax. It didn’t help that those clever little tendrils at the base of his shaft continued stroking her.
Vasil relaxed beneath her, releasing a long, steady breath. He gently massaged her hips; she’d be surprised if she didn’t have bruises in the shapes of his fingers there. But she didn’t mind. The idea that he’d let go so much that he’d marked her was an arousing one.
“Now I can see why human women get down with kraken,” Theo said with a grin.
“Now you see why it is worth your while to get down with me.”
Theo chuckled and raised her head, wiggling her eyebrow
s. “Maybe I’ll have to show you what it’d be like to go down on you.”
He tilted his head, brow furrowing. “I do not understand.”
She patted his cheek. “You will.”
The dull gray clouds were several shades lighter than the choppy waters over which they stretched, but they darkened along the horizon to blur the line between sea and sky. A steady wind, tolerable but carrying the hint of a chill, blew tirelessly off the ocean. Vasil frowned as he surveyed the scene; though the storm had relented some time during the previous night, the weather hadn’t given up. All signs pointed toward another storm before day’s end.
He’d decided after their morning meal hours before not to go to sea today. It was too dangerous to risk going out; better to lose a day of searching to caution than to lose Theo to recklessness.
Vasil swung his gaze landward and settled it upon her. He watched as, eyes downcast, she carefully walked through the shallow tide pool. The wonder and curiosity on her face warmed his chest, but it wasn’t quite enough to stop his attention from wandering.
His eyes dipped to study her body. Though he knew what was hidden beneath her jumpsuit, the sight of the fabric pulling taught over her curves as she moved stirred his blood. Her rounded backside, in particular, caught his eye; he’d have to be sure to focus on it next time.
He smiled. It would’ve been a lie had he claimed their couplings last night and earlier that morning hadn’t played a significant role in his choice to forgo his search. Vasil had never known sex could be so pleasurable. He’d never known he could want someone so much.
He and Theo had gone to the stream together after breakfast, bathed one another, and refilled her water containers before returning to the beach to begin their current trek along the coastline. They were perhaps two hours away from the pod now, by measure of their leisurely pace. Close enough for emergencies, far enough for everything to be new, exciting, and a touch mysterious.
Vasil lowered himself into the tide pool and moved toward her, his tentacles unhindered by the slick rocks and soft sand. Patches of color dotted the pool all over — small sea creatures and clumped plants that thrived in the shallow water.
“Is all this stuff really alive?” Theo asked, glancing at him over her shoulder.
“Most of it, yes,” he replied as he closed the remaining distance between them. He followed her gaze with his own to a school of tiny fish moving just below the surface.
Theo laughed when several of the fish swam toward her boot and attempted to nibble on it. Her laughter was high and light, unburdened by the troubles that seemed to have weighed her down over the last few days. The urgency of his search for The Watch could be set aside for a little while. He wanted to bring Theo there so she could live in relative comfort and security, he wanted to return to attempt to form a relationship with his child, but for today, he just wanted to enjoy Theo’s company.
This was an opportunity to learn about her, to grow closer to her, to have more of the shared experiences upon which their bond was being built. Though his people had never come together as mates based on conversation or something as fleeting as shared fun, things had changed. A lasting coupling required a deeper connection.
Theo skimmed her palm over the water’s surface. The tiny fish scattered away from the disturbance. “Does it look like this farther in?”
“In some places, it looks similar,” Vasil replied, “but mostly it looks very different. The sea is vast and varied.”
“Everything in space seemed to blend together. Just blackness stretching on into eternity, broken by these little points of cold, distant light. If you get lost out there, you don’t ever get found again. It’s so…lonely.”
Before Vasil could consider her words, Theo turned away from him, lifted her foot onto a rock, and climbed out of the pool. She walked away, rounded a larger stone outcropping, and disappeared from his view.
“Vasil!” she called a few moments later, voice brimming with excitement.
He moved to the edge of the pool and hauled himself out of the water to follow her path around the outcropping. She was only a body length or two past it, turned toward the cliffs that bordered the beach’s inland side.
“What is it?” he asked.
“There’s an opening there,” she said, glancing back at him and pointing toward the cliffs. She grinned and ran toward it. “Let’s check it out!”
“Slow down!” he called, hurrying to catch up with her. Once he was close enough, he reached out and caught her arm, tugging her back against his chest.
She came to him without a fight, laughing and smiling, and threw her arms around him. “Damn, you’re fast for someone who doesn’t have legs.”
He couldn’t keep his lips from curling into a smile. “Perhaps you are slow for someone who does.”
Theo snorted, playfully smacking his arm.
“Caves like that can be dangerous, Theo,” he said, forcing his tone to solemnity. “The tide can rise quickly, especially during storms, and many seaside caves flood because of it.”
“Oh.” She looked away sheepishly. “Guess I let myself get caught up in the excitement. This is just all…so new.” Her eyes met his again.
“Well, it’s a good thing no one will ever mistake you for a trained soldier,” Kane said aloud.
Vasil glanced at the gentle glow on her wrist and shook his head. He understood sarcasm to a degree thanks to Randall and Arkon, even if he didn’t fully understand the why of it. With few exceptions, he was used to kraken speaking plainly, and the subtleties and nuances of human communication were still lost on him from time to time.
“I never said I was perfect,” Theo said.
Vasil brushed loose strands of hair back from Theo’s face, using the tip of his claw to tuck them behind her ear. “You are to me.”
Cheeks reddening, Theo smiled. “Vasil’s definitely at the top of my favorite person list right now, Kane.”
“Oh no,” Kane cried in an exaggerated whine, “bottom fifty percent? How will I go on?”
Theo snickered. “Actually, you’re in the bottom third. I’m my second favorite, at the moment.”
“I would call you cold-hearted were I not well aware that your body temperature is perfectly normal.”
“If you want to explore the cave, Theo” Vasil said, “we can. We just need to be quick.”
“Yes!” Theo stepped away from Vasil. “Let’s go exploring!”
He didn’t release his hold on her arm. “You need to remain near me, understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
“For the record, the technical term is spelunking,” Kane said.
Theo smirked. “That sounds like a dirty word, Kane.”
“It sounds like a made-up word,” said Vasil as they moved toward the cave’s entrance, side-by-side.
“All words are made up by someone at some point,” Kane replied. “The ones that catch on become an official part of the language, and the rest, thankfully, are forgotten with history. I can only imagine how many words would—I know you’re rolling your eyes, Theodora.”
Theo bought her wrist up and crooned to Kane’s blue light, “You know me so well.”
“I’m connected to your nervous system,” Kane said. “I know every move you make, no matter how small. It’s exhausting. You have a tendency to fidget when you’re bored.”
“Guilty as charged.” She tilted her head back as they neared the opening of the cave. “Now enough about me. Keep watch, okay?”
The cave’s mouth stood nearly twice as tall as Vasil was long, wide enough for him to fit his shoulders through with a little room to spare on either side. Water ran from the entrance, cutting a shallow channel through the sand on its journey to the sea, its flow not quite strong enough to be considered a stream. He couldn’t be sure if it was drainage from the last time the tide had flooded the cave or if there was a source of fresh water within.
The dreary daylight didn’t reach very far inside before succumbing to darkness.
Exposed, uneven rock comprised the entrance’s floor. Vasil moved in front of Theo as they crossed the stone. After less than a body’s length of distance — a few meters — the rock gave away to standing water, the surface of which reflected the gray sky behind Vasil up until the point where the shadows claimed their dominion.
He entered the shallow water; it was cooler than the tidal pool had been. Theo stepped in behind him, the gentle splashes of her boots magnified by the stone walls all around. As they passed into the darkness, Vasil made his stripes glow to cast soft blue light on the walls and water.
“You can glow?” Theo asked, her astonished whisper echoing throughout the cave.
He paused when her hands settled on his arm. Turning his head, he watched with a furrowed brow as she ran her fingers over his glowing stripes, back and forth, up and down, her eyes rounded.
“This is sexy. I’m definitely going to have you do this later while you’re—”
“Tentacular Penetration!” Kane said.
Theo stilled for an instant before bursting into laughter. “We so need a new safe word.”
“How about shut up?”
“Works for now.” Theo looked at Vasil, smiled, and brushed a kiss over one of his stripes before stepping away to trail her fingertips along the damp cave wall.
When Vasil continued onward, Theo followed. The air cooled as they moved deeper into the cave. The sound of the waves became a low, pervasive rumbling, felt more than heard. A familiar tightness threatened to grip Vasil’s chest, and his skin tingled with the first hints of a coming itch; this place was isolated, dark, oppressive.
As if she knew what he was experiencing, Theo reached out, brushing her fingers over his back. “It’s okay.”
He squeezed his eyes closed and drew in a long, slow breath. The air smelled of stone and sea — a familiar enough blend to soothe him.
You’ll have moments of…relapse, Theo had said. You can overcome them.
Vasil released the breath and opened his eyes. The walls were in the same place they’d been before — no closer, no more menacing.
Fallen from the Stars Page 15
