by Dessa Lux
Lir kissed him, murmuring softly to him. Devon returned the kiss and tried, again, to tell Lir what he needed.
“I know, sunlight, believe me, I know what you want,” Lir murmured. “But I don’t want to hurt you, so I had to be sure you were ready. I know you haven’t done anything like this with anyone else. You’re all mine, that means it’s up to me to make this good for you.”
Devon didn’t think being a virgin was supposed to mean the bar was set higher, but he couldn’t pull himself together enough to argue about it. Lir was moving, anyway, shifting his weight onto his knees and settling between Devon’s thighs. His hand on Devon’s hip made Devon move, curling himself up a little more, and then he felt the hot, blunt press of Lir’s cock at his hole.
Devon felt his eyes go wide, and Lir bent to kiss him again. “Breathe, sunlight. I know you have to breathe. Don’t stop now.”
Devon nodded as Lir started to push into him. He felt his body opening around the thick head of Lir’s cock, felt himself giving way, all soft and slick and needy. It didn’t hurt, not really, but—oh, fuck—Lir was big. Devon was stretched open relentlessly, filled in places he hadn’t known he was empty, with Lir’s body braced over him, holding him in place.
“Oh,” Devon gasped, letting his eyes close as Lir just kept on pushing into him, bit by bit. “Lir.”
Lir kissed him, making a sound of agreement against his mouth. He didn’t think Lir knew what he was trying to say—Devon didn’t even know himself—but it didn’t matter. Lir was here with him, inside him, giving him exactly what he needed.
Then he started to move, and Devon couldn’t think at all. He could only feel, the stunned awareness of Lir’s cock inside him turning to the push and pull of pleasure and hunger. Devon cried out, sinking one hand into Lir’s hair, the other grabbing his ass to try to pull him closer, faster, harder.
Lir growled and kept moving, on and on. Devon felt a deeper need building in him, and he begged with his hands, with his wild voice, with his whole body, and didn’t even know what he was begging for until he felt it. Lir’s knot was swelling inside him, teasing his slippery rim and pressing against the most sensitive places inside him.
“Yes,” Devon moaned, wrapping his legs tight around Lir’s hips. “Yes.”
“See?” Lir murmured, rocking his hips and making his swelling knot rub Devon just right. “I know what you need, sunlight. I’ve got you. I’m not going anywhere.”
Devon whimpered, trying to rub his cock against Lir’s body, but the angle was wrong. “Please.”
Lir just kissed him and kept moving inside him, in the little ways the knot allowed as it thickened further, holding them fast. “I know what you need.”
Devon shook his head—he needed more, he needed to come—but Lir didn’t let him, just kissing him and holding him still while his knot tied them fully together.
“Tell me what you want,” Lir murmured, when Devon felt stretched to his limit and teetering on the edge of coming again. “Tell me, Devon. What do you want from me?”
Devon let out a sob, clutching tight. “Stay. Stay and fill me all up.”
Lir nuzzled along his jaw, tested his teeth gently along the exposed stretch of Devon’s throat, and pushed deeper inside him one more time. Devon couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, his whole awareness exploding in wild sensation.
“Here you go, then,” Lir murmured, and Devon felt it then: the pulses of Lir coming inside him, filling him up for real. Lir’s hand slipped between them, pressing against Devon’s belly, and he didn’t even have to touch Devon’s cock before Devon was coming in hot little splashes between them.
Devon’s eyes slid shut and he lay still under Lir, gasping, as he came down from that peak. Lir was still knotted inside him—still coming in those endless slow pulses, and for that exact moment, it was enough. Devon hadn’t known how good it could feel to actually be satisfied during his heat, but that horrible gnawing hunger turned to a glow of contentment that was just as consuming.
He opened his eyes when Lir started pressing little kisses to the corners of his mouth. “What? What?”
“You’re smiling,” Lir murmured. “I like seeing you smile, sunlight.”
“Well, keep up the good work, then,” Devon murmured back, winding his arms around Lir’s neck to hold him close.
*
Devon wasn’t aware of dozing off, but he snapped awake when he felt his heat rising again. Lir was already there, holding Devon close. Devon wiggled his hips and mumbled, “Need you again,” because it was only that right now, only hunger and his cock getting hard—no pain, no fear of it. Lir was with him, and Lir wouldn’t let it get bad.
Lir pulled one of Devon’s legs up over Lir’s hip, spreading him open where he lay on his side. Lir’s fingers dipped into him, and Devon moaned, feeling how wet he was, dripping with his own slick and Lir’s seed.
“More,” Devon demanded, more awake as he pushed back onto Lir’s fingers.
“I’m here, sunlight.” Lir moved his hand to grip Devon’s thigh, and then that thick cock was pushing into him again, easier this time, already familiar and exactly what he needed.
“Harder,” Devon demanded, trying to roll onto his back, but Lir turned them the other way, bringing Devon up on top of him. It meant all of Devon’s weight pushed him down onto Lir’s thick cock, so that it seemed to press even deeper inside him than before.
“Go on,” Lir murmured, settling his hands on Devon’s hips. “Hard as you want, sunlight. Show me.”
Devon groaned but obeyed, heat-hunger driving him. He braced his hands on Lir’s chest and started to move, uncertainly at first and then faster as he found the rhythm and angle he wanted, slamming himself down on Lir’s cock again and again.
He felt Lir’s grip tighten, and then it was Lir moving him, Lir’s hands pulling and pushing him to rise and fall on Lir’s cock. Devon let himself go, relaxing into Lir’s grip as Lir used him just the way he needed. It was a surprise when he came, and Devon threw his head back and howled at the starry sky as his orgasms crashed through him.
Lir’s hands held him down, then, keeping him fully seated on Lir’s cock as his whole body clenched in waves through his climax. He felt Lir’s knot swelling up again just as the rush of it was dying down, and he squirmed and gasped at the intense sensation of it stretching him farther, locking them together. Lir’s hands stayed tight on him, keeping him firmly in place while Lir knotted him. And when the knot was swollen enough to hold him, Lir’s hands began to move again, making Devon rock and squirm on that thickness until Devon was sobbing with pleasure and begging Lir to come inside him.
“Come here, sunlight,” Lir coaxed, drawing Devon to curl down over him, and then Lir was kissing him, his tongue plunging into Devon’s mouth, claiming it, owning it. Devon moaned and gave himself up to everything Lir wanted him to feel.
*
It happened again and again, the peaks of Devon’s heat blurring into nothing but an impression of need satisfied, pleasure driven to the ultimate limits again and again. Devon wasn’t aware of anything beyond that until his heat finally began to fade.
He opened his eyes and saw that the blue of the sky was deepening, darkening. It took him a while to work out that he was lying close to the wall of the house on the western side, in shadow as the sun sank toward the horizon.
It took him a while longer to recognize that the warm-right-good-home feeling singing softly through his body had a lot to do with the fact that Lir was holding him, the full length of their naked bodies pressed together. Devon twisted in Lir’s grip, turning to face his alpha, his sea god, his... lover?
What he saw took his breath away: Lir was sleeping.
His jaw was dark with black stubble, and the black curls of his hair were flattened in places, wild in others. Devon had a vague memory of pulling Lir’s hair, running his hands through it and holding on as he demanded more, harder, now.
From the warm, well-used feeling of his ass, Devon thought
Lir had given him everything he asked for. And, sea god or not, it looked like Devon had managed to wear him out.
And he was still here.
Devon snuggled in against his chest, throwing one arm and one leg over Lir to keep him close, and went back to sleep with a smile on his face.
*
When Devon woke up again dark had fallen, and he was alone. He sat up sharply, or tried to, as he discovered in the process that he was firmly wrapped up in blankets. There were also more pillows tucked around him than he’d realized existed on the island.
He was still trying to unwrap himself and frowning at the pillows when Lir said, “Are you okay? Did your heat come back?”
Devon went still and looked over to see Lir standing in the doorway of the house, holding a big box in his hands. He hurried over, setting it down just on the other side of the pillows before he tugged the blankets free, wrapping his arms around Devon’s body and pressing a kiss to his forehead.
Devon snuggled into the touch even as he tried to process the fact that Lir had only left him—after carefully wrapping him up in blankets and barricading him with pillows—to get...
“Please tell me that’s food,” Devon said against Lir’s chest, as his body woke up to the fact that his heat was over and he was too hungry to be tired.
“It’s food,” Lir said, loosening his grip and darting in to press a kiss against Devon’s mouth. “You need food, right? You couldn’t eat before.”
Devon nodded and licked his lips, becoming aware of his thirst, too. “Something to drink, first?”
“Here, how about this first?” Lir pulled an orange out of the box, and Devon moaned at the smell of it, sharp and perfect.
His mouth ached for it, and he snatched it greedily from Lir’s hand, punching a finger through the peel and tearing it messily. Juice ran over his fingers and the bitter scent of the pith struck his nose along with the sweetness of the fruit, but he couldn’t think of anything else until he’d crammed a quarter of it into his mouth, juice bursting under his teeth.
As soon as he did, Devon realized how that looked, greedily stuffing his face. He looked at Lir, but Lir was busily peeling another orange—with his fingers, a little clumsily, like he’d never done it before. Juice rolled down his finger, and Devon remembered Lir’s fingers in him, infinitely careful. It made him feel a weird, almost protective tenderness instead of hot, which meant his heat was definitely over, and in its place was...
Lir licked the juice off his finger and then held out a quarter of the orange with a hesitant smile, and Devon’s heart jumped. He tried not to think of what it meant, what he was feeling, and leaned forward to eat the offered orange section directly from Lir’s fingers.
***
Chapter 9
Lir managed to feed Devon three oranges and most of a freshly-grilled fish before Devon curled back down into his nest of blankets and pillows.
“Thanks,” Devon murmured, his eyes heavy and his words slurring. He was nearly asleep. “For staying. I’m okay now.”
Lir just smiled, feeling that same warm feeling, his own personal sunlight heating him like the surface of the sea. “Good. Sleep, then.”
Devon’s eyes closed, and Devon went limp and quiet. True to his word, it was real sleep now. There was no restless current just under the surface, and nothing like the desperate way Devon had clung to him for a night and a day before, even when he didn’t seem conscious otherwise, even when he seemed utterly exhausted.
That had been his heat, obviously. Now it was over, and he didn’t need Lir.
When Devon’s heat first started, the urgency of it had pushed everything else out of Lir’s mind—the urgency and the mind-melting pleasure of joining their bodies together in that way. Lir had felt wholly contained in this one place, this one form, doing nothing but giving Devon everything he needed and sharing the intensity of pleasure with him.
He wasn’t sure how ordinary land-dweller bodies even contained it all, when they weren’t used to expanding to take in the awareness of vast reaches of the sea and all the life they contained. But that was why Devon had become so incoherent, he was sure, so entirely overwhelmed. That was why Devon had needed Lir to take care of him, to mate with him and guide him through it.
Devon needed him.
Lir had known that, more or less. He had saved Devon’s life, made a place for Devon to live. Devon would have died otherwise. But he had needed Lir for this, too, this act of connection, this impossibly intimate joining that would produce something new between them.
Lir had never made anything like that. No one had ever needed him to; no one had ever needed him for much of anything at all. His domain was interesting, and he liked to keep up with what was happening in all the different corners of it, and now and then he made things happen. But the sea didn’t need him, particularly. The sea was the sea, and it kept on going no matter how much or little attention Lir paid to it.
It was land-dwellers who needed the sea to have gods. Not because they couldn’t imagine it any other way, but because they were small and soft amid the sea’s vastness, and they needed someone to hear them when they cried out.
Lir couldn’t remember anything that had ever felt as good as being what Devon needed, being able to provide for him, pleasure him, as no one else could. Even now, with Devon sleeping peacefully, Lir didn’t want to leave. He might wake up hungry, or frightened, or lonely, or cold. He might have some whim Lir could fulfill.
He might look at Lir again and smile that sunlight smile that made him feel warm. He thought it might reach all the way down to his hardest, darkest depths if it touched him often enough.
He wanted to stay by Devon’s side so that Devon would be happy and safe, protected and provided for. So that Devon would stay, too. Because if he didn’t, if Lir lost him...
For just a second he knew what it would be like if Devon was gone, if one day he disappeared without a trace, leaving nothing behind.
Lir remembered what it was like.
There had been no note, no last word or touch that he knew to treasure when it came, no feeling of a passage beyond his borders. He had simply felt the sudden absence, and then...
In the next second Lir was up and gone, his form shifting to nothing like a land-dweller, nothing Devon could see without thinking he was having a nightmare. He scrambled away across the sand and into the waves, where he let himself dissolve, to become one with the sea and forget.
*
With his awareness stretched across his entire domain, Lir was as aware of one particular little splash through the sea’s surface as he was of everything else. But he knew that splash, and it brought him rushing back to one particular place, drawing himself up into one particular shape.
His head broke the surface, and Devon was sitting on the damp green margin of the island, dangling his feet into the water. He’d put on a shirt and shorts, but his knees and the tops of his ears would still burn if he stayed out here for too long.
Devon gave a startled little laugh at Lir’s appearance. “Is that all I have to do to call you back? Stick my feet in?”
Devon kicked his feet, stirring up a tiny, playful storm, and Lir drifted over and caught his ankles, grinning helplessly back. “I can feel all of the sea in my domain. Of course I can tell when you’re in it, even a little bit.”
Devon blushed at that, and Lir hauled himself up and out to sit beside him, banishing the water from his skin so that he could curl his arm around Devon without getting his clothes wet. Devon snuggled close to him immediately, resting his head on Lir’s shoulder.
“Did I say thank you?” Devon asked. “That was... you were perfect. It was perfect.”
Lir kissed the top of his head. “You should have any perfect thing you want, sunlight.”
Devon snorted, twisting closer, and looped his arms around Lir. “Well, I just want you. So that works out.”
Lir smiled, even as he felt a faint stir of uneasiness, somewhere in the depths of himself.
Why had he left Devon’s side? He remembered Devon thanking him, but then just the absence of thought that came from spreading himself out so thin through his domain that he hardly had a self at all.
Well, whatever it had been, it was evidently gone now, and he was here with Devon. That was what mattered now: taking care of Devon.
“Come on,” he said after a moment, getting up and tugging Devon with him. “I seeded some grasses and things in that little ridge, I want to see if anything stuck. And our house needs a roof, doesn’t it?”
Devon’s hand touched his belly, his smile turning shy, and Devon said, “I hope so.”
It was too early to tell what would result from Devon’s heat, of course. Conception was a chancy thing for the air-breathers who carried their babies inside.
“Our house needs a roof,” Lir declared more firmly. “Once I can get land-things growing on the island I’ll have to let the rain come, and you won’t want to be sleeping under the stars then.”
Devon’s shy smile widened, and he squeezed Lir’s hand. “Well, we’d better get started, then.”
*
The next several days were busy ones.
After a lot more research about houses and how they were built, Lir went and asked George to send him wood to frame out a roof for the house. A ship arrived the next day—without Caroline—bearing timbers and shingles as well, and yet more crates of supplies. Luckily the island kept growing so that all the things they were accumulated didn’t fill it up. By now the island had room for a half-dozen more houses if they were packed in rather closely.
