Page 9 of Beneath the Surface (Tendrils of Love #1)
A s he surrendered himself to the enigmatic entity residing in the lake, Quinn Michaels felt a profound shift deep within his soul, an understanding that his existence would be irrevocably altered.
The possibility loomed that he might lose his very soul today, doomed to eternal damnation for inviting the “affections” of this mysterious being.
Perhaps, in the eyes of the world, he was already destined for hell due to his forbidden desires—the judgmental whispers seemed to echo this belief.
His mind, however, forcefully pushed aside the haunting thoughts of damnation that might await him beyond the veil of life.
The inquisitive tendril, slick and sinuous, slithered between his parted lips, its curious exploration venturing into the warm cavern of his mouth.
Quinn lay submerged in the lake's shallows, his body half-floating as he gazed up at the expansive, warm blue sky.
His eyes were half-closed in a tranquil daze, his jaw hanging loose as the small tentacle conducted its intimate investigation.
The tendril tasted the insides of his cheeks, glided over the roof of his mouth, and brushed against his gums before it finally coiled around his tongue with a delicate embrace.
In a rhythmic, pulsing cadence, it squeezed gently, sliding up and down the length of Quinn’s tongue, caressing the appendage with a tender, almost intimate sucking sensation.
At just barely nineteen, Quinn had never kissed another boy but couldn’t imagine it feeling more sensual and erotic than what the tendril was doing to him now.
So much of his youth had been infused with fear—even before his fourteenth birthday.
Fear of being found out, fear of persecution and punishment for being something he had no choice but to be.
Lying in the cool, gentle embrace of the shallows, Quinn surrendered to the tide of sensation, his usual restraint fading as he fully immersed himself in the moment, allowing himself to feel freely for the first time in his life.
Beneath the shallow surface, his member stiffened in response to the oral seduction.
The tentacles, like sinuous serpents, caressed his thighs with a newfound boldness, their movements deliberate and exploratory.
They slithered forward, wrapping around his thickening root and cradling his balls with a gentle yet firm grip.
Quinn shuddered, his body awash with waves of pleasant sensations as the tentacles excreted more of the soothing, slick balm that seemed to seep into every bruise, healing and invigorating his tender organ.
The slime, a shimmering, translucent fluid, served as a perfect lubricant, allowing the tendrils to glide effortlessly up and down his burgeoning shaft.
They moved with an almost rhythmic grace, squeezing with just the right amount of pressure, pulsing in a tantalizing dance, and sucking gently along the stem, creating a symphony of tactile pleasure that resonated through his entire being.
Quinn moaned around the tendril in his mouth as the appendage pulsed in time with the throbbing of his cock, and for a moment it felt as if the lake itself was breathing through him, sharing its vast, ancient consciousness.
An electric communion arced through his body, each wave of pleasure a low, subterranean hum that vibrated in his bones, muscles, and even his teeth.
The tentacle filled his sinuses with that sharp, citrus tang, a taste so pure and insistent it overwhelmed the chemical sting of lake water and blood.
It was as if the thing in the lake was trying to overwrite every memory of pain—every cruel word, every fist and boot—with sensation, with the slow and patient logic of touch.
It delved deep into his psyche… much deeper than just today, reaching further, its feelers touching bruises and wounds, trying desperately to heal.
He did not resist. Some deep, battered part of him—call it the instinct of the permanently excluded—understood this need in the marrow of his bones.
He opened wide, not just his mouth but the hidden corridors of his memory, exposing them like a suppurating wound.
He let the creature taste him: the shy ache of his adolescent longing, the shame of being found out, the hot pulse of terror when the men had cornered him in the dark water, reigniting dormant fears.
Images flickered behind his eyes: not memories, but something sharper and stranger—a transmission of thought, a fragmentary dream constructed from alien sensations.
He saw himself, not as a fragile, battered body on the shoreline, but as an intricate lattice of light and current, a bright configuration shaped by pain, hope, and longing.
The entity’s hunger was not for flesh alone.
It drank from the deep well of what made him different—his scars, his loneliness, the defiance of desire that had set him apart and made him the object of hate.
The tentacle around his tongue pulsed again, and in the rush of sensation, he felt a surge of understanding unlike anything he had ever known.
Then new tendrils, small and glassily translucent, caressed his temples and the curve behind his ears, as gentle as a lover’s hands.
They massaged his scalp, working their slickness into every follicle, and with each kneading squeeze, a new warmth radiated through his skull.
Quinn’s mind cracked open as the entire world narrowed to the orbit of his body and the living, pulsing creature that had enfolded him.
He felt the entity’s thoughts, vast and wild and full of ancient yearning, and realized dimly that it, too, was lonely—a castaway marooned in a world it could never quite touch.
It did not want to consume him. It wanted to merge, to devour the distance between itself and the things it would never otherwise understand.
There was no fear—only the sense that the creature had become a mirror, reflecting his every hunger, each private shame, and refracting it into something beautiful and strange.
Beneath the water, the larger tentacles encircled his thighs and hips with a hungry purpose, the ends fanning into delicate, petal-like structures that fluttered along the insides of his legs.
One massive appendage, impossibly supple and warm, slid up between his thighs and cupped his cock in its damp, living grip.
The sensation was not slimy or cold but alive, a velvet pressure that flexed and undulated with a will of its own, surrounding him in a tight, wet sheath.
Quinn gasped around the tendril in his mouth as a fresh bolt of pleasure shot through him.
The tentacle squeezed and sucked, its inner lining studded with a thousand tiny, soft mouths that fluttered and rippled, each aperture converging in coordinated, undulating waves, sucking, tugging the length of his shaft.
The sensation was so exquisite, so precise, that it almost tipped him into agony; his hips surged upward in instinctive response, seeking more of the impossible touch.