Page 19 of All You Need is Alien Love (Tentacular Tales #4)

CHAPTER NINE

Vardox easily parried the wild stab of one of Khamos’s blades. The fool was getting sloppy as fatigue started to set in.

With inordinate delight, Vardox spotted his opportunity and let one of his tentacles lash out to slap his opponent right across the face.

The force of his attack sent Khamos reeling, and Vardox couldn’t help but bare his teeth in an evil grin.

The crowd cheered and many laughed, ready to mock Vardox’s inferior opponent.

Khamos seethed with rage, quickly losing his cool just as Vardox had anticipated.

It had been far too long since Vardox had the pleasure of dueling such a vile piece of space garbage.

He was quite enjoying himself.

Everything was going to plan. Vardox would thoroughly humiliate the Katnu space pirate who dared to touch Vardox’s sweet Captain Starblade.

And once he was brought low and writhing in agony, Vardox would cut off his head.

It seemed a fitting punishment for the crime Khamos had committed.

And it wasn’t as if Vardox was entirely unreasonable.

After all, it’s not as if he was going to execute every member of Khamos’s family as well.

Well, he had thought about it, but Vardox wasn’t a complete psychopath without any scruples. As a gentleman villain, he only killed those who deserved it.

— The Tentacular Tales of Captain Starblade , Ch. 161

Kai

Forced to sit at opposite ends of the banquet table from River while we enjoy a lunch break with our closest family and friends is a weird kind of torture that’s part pleasure, part pain.

I can’t keep my eyes off my stunning husband, who looks incandescent with happiness right now. He keeps winking and blowing kisses at me between bites of food.

Before I met him, such behavior from a partner probably would have made me cringe. Public displays of affection were never my thing. However, once River burst into my life and turned my world upside down, my outlook on so many things changed.

The beautiful, vibrant man at the other end of the table has drawn out so many sides of me, including some hidden deep within that I didn’t know existed.

With him, I feel so much more than I ever have with anyone else.

I burn for him with a passion I never knew I possessed.

I can’t stop myself from wanting to touch River all the time.

Even now, my tentacles yearn to break free and curl around him.

My mate never ceases to surprise me and find ways to make me love him even more than I already do.

My mind continuously replays that provocative underwater mating dance he learned just for me and somehow managed to keep a secret the whole time we were preparing for the Sanctioning Ceremony.

I never expected him to do something so elaborate and so damn wonderful, and that embraced my culture with respect and enthusiasm.

Although I probably should have. That’s just who River is.

I really hope he keeps that seriously sexy mermaid tail because I want to see him wear it for me again when we’re alone. It was the icing on the cake of his sexy little number—a River-sized cake I want to drizzle in chocolate and gobble up right this moment.

Damn. I can’t stop grinning like a fool.

A sharp elbow jab to my side jolts me out of my increasingly erotic reverie.

“Starting to feel the pain, huh?”

I glare at my mother, who has a smugly knowing look on her face.

“Buck up, kiddo. If I could get through three days of no sex with your father, then you can do the same for River.”

I have to grip the table when she gives me a hearty slap on the back. Mom really doesn’t know her own strength, even after all these years.

I scowl at her but she just grins back. “Harder than you thought it would be, isn’t it?”

Ugh. How is she always right? It must be a mystical parent thing.

I nod reluctantly. In the abstract, three days didn’t sound so hard when it was discussed.

The reality is a whole different story. At this moment, I’m forced to be within River’s line of sight but too far away to touch him, hold him, or love on him—and it’s sheer, unmitigated torture.

Especially after he did such a stellar job of turning me on.

Right this second, I want nothing more than to blow his mind with hours of tentacular lovemaking. Yet I can’t because we’ve still got two more days of this damn ceremony to go.

You can do this, Kai. River will be yours, and you will be his, forever and always. Just bear with this traditional test of our commitment to each other a little longer.

Grandma Iris chortles from where she sits across from me.

“Never fear, grandson of mine, the pleasure you’ll share after the ceremony will be unforgettable.

The ceremony takes you both to dizzying heights of need and desire, and when you come together at the end, it’s downright explosive.

” She fans herself and reaches over to take my grandfather’s hand.

“Why, Jeston and I broke the bed in our marital suite right after the ceremony, didn’t we, darling? ”

My grandfather arrived at the very last moment for today’s events. We were starting to think he’d miss out entirely, and Grandma Iris was threatening to bust his balls if he didn’t show up. As if he uncannily knew he was in danger, he appeared just in the nick of time.

Unfazed by Grandma Iris’s comments, my far more stoic grandfather, who’s more like my father and myself, smiles softly in recollection. “That we did, my dear, and we didn’t even care about the huge bill once we got it.”

Grandma’s eyes twinkle as she gazes at him lovingly. “We were far too sated from our marathon lovemaking session to care.”

He takes her hand and kisses it tenderly.

“Aww, isn’t that sweet?” River coos. He raises his glass. “Here’s to keeping the passion alive in our romantic relationships and to always making sure to have a bed replacement budget.”

Grandma raises her own glass with a twinkle in her eye. “Here, here!”

I prop my elbows on the table and close my eyes as I begin to rub my temples. “Please. No more anecdotes about my grandparents’ sex lives.”

My mother waves her fork in the air. “Don’t be such a prude, Kai. Sex is beautiful and natural. When it’s something that both partners enjoy, it should be had vigorously and often.”

“Good galactic amen to that!” Grandma chortles as she leans into my grandfather’s side and pets his still muscular chest possessively.

He blushes and kisses the top of her head.

“Aren’t they just too adorable?” River asks dreamily.

I shudder.

Iyarans have much longer lifespans than humans, and we begin to age at a much slower rate once we reach adulthood. Consequently, my grandparents don’t look all that much older than my actual parents.

Given the long hold we have on youth and vitality, our species is known to indulge our libidos for many decades, which is one reason why we take finding mates so seriously.

Nevertheless, I don’t need my grandmother sharing intimate details of her sex life with my grandfather.

They’ve always been like that though. Iyarans are very vocal about sex, especially back on the home world.

However, after living among humans on Earth for most of my life, I’ll admit that I’ve internalized their more comparatively prudish tendencies around discussing such matters openly.

Particularly with my family members who have no filter.

I have no shame about having sex, I just don’t want to listen to the very detailed stories about my grandmother’s and mother’s sexcapades with their mates, particularly because I have to look my dad in the eye at work and call him “Sir.” I didn’t need to envision any other contexts for that terminology with my father. Thank you very much for that one, Mom.

Benji, who’s seated beside my brother a little further down the table, leans over him to speak to me.

I have to bite back a laugh when my brother goes momentarily cross-eyed as Benji’s long hair brushes against his lap.

“I just wanted to tell you your underwater moves were wicked cool, Kai. How did you stay under there without breathing for so long?”

Mal makes a pained, high-pitched whimper that I fully intend to tease him about later. It’s only right that I do so as his older brother.

I clear my throat loudly to help him out.

“Iyarans once possessed gills when our species was more fully aquatic but as we evolved, we became more land-dwelling and lost our gills over the centuries. However, we still possess powerful lungs that can help us hold our breath underwater for much longer than the average human.”

Benji’s eyes widen. “Whoa, that’s super cool, man.” He leans back a little and darts a glance at Mal. “Does that mean you can do that too?”

Mal, whose face is still rather flushed, nods and shifts awkwardly in his seat. “Uh, yeah. Although Kai’s really the most talented swimmer in the family.”

Benji glances down at Mal’s lap and my brother makes a strangled noise.

“So I guess you’ve got some of those purple tentacles too, huh?”

My brother looks like he might pass out, so I “do him a solid,” as River would say, and step in.

“All Iyarans possess tentacles,” I explain. “It is part of our aquatic heritage that we haven’t lost. But our tentacles serve many purposes. Their function is not purely for movement in water.”

River snickers and waggles his eyebrows suggestively. “Tentacles can do so many things—and go so many places.”

A slightly stoned Benji leans back in his chair and nods his head, stroking his short beard.

“That’s pretty rad. I mean, extra appendages could be useful for so many thi—” His eyes widen and he beams at Mal. “Dude, I should totally get you to try and help me with my pottery some time. I wanna see how your tentacles can work the wheel.”

Mal’s mouth keeps opening and closing as he does an imitation of a fish out of water trying to breathe on dry land and failing miserably.