Page 8 of Captured by the Cthulhu (Monster Mates #3)

Chapter 8

Uncharted Waters

Ashe

Safe in Roark’s arms, I feel weightless as he carries me across the room. A question that’s been burning inside me suddenly rises to my lips. “So this is—” I start, then have to swallow hard when one of his tentacles brushes the sensitive underside of my breast. “This is your first time?”

The lighthouse beam sweeps across us, illuminating his expression—raw with such wonder that it steals my breath. His tentacles cascade around me, creating a sanctuary of limbs that feels impossibly intimate.

“I’ve waited lifetimes,” he says, “without knowing what I was waiting for.”

Something primal and hungry unfurls in me at his words. All those lukewarm dates with cautious men who treated me like I might shatter, all those nights I had laid awake wanting more , wanting something I couldn’t name… Maybe I’ve been waiting too.

“Show me,” I whisper, reaching for him. “Show me what you’ve been waiting for.”

His tentacles respond before he does, surging around me with barely controlled need. One slides beneath my shirt, the suckers creating patterns of pressure against my skin that make me arch into his touch. His pupils dilate as he watches my reaction, cataloging what makes me gasp, what makes me press closer.

“Your skin,” he murmurs, awe threading through his voice. “So warm and responsive.” A tentacle traces the waistband of my jeans. “I want to feel all of you.”

I nod, my throat too tight for words, and lift my arms as he carefully draws my shirt upward. The cool air hits my skin, immediately followed by the velvet heat of his tentacle as it traces the lace edge of my bra. My nipples harden beneath the fabric, and he makes a sound—half purr, half growl—that sends heat pooling between my thighs.

“I dreamed of this,” he confesses, a tendril curling around my breast, a sucker finding my nipple through the lace with unerring precision. The sensation—gentle suction mixed with the slightest scrape of texture—pulls a whimper from my throat. “Of learning every sound you make. Every place that makes you tremble.”

His eyes hold mine as his clawed fingers work at the button of my jeans, sliding the zipper down with a deliberate slowness that has me squirming. “Please,” I breathe, not even sure what I’m asking for. More. All of it. Everything he can give me.

He seems to understand. His movements become more confident, less hesitant, though there’s still a reverence to his touch. A tentacle slides lower, beneath the denim, exploring the slick heat it finds there.

“Ashe,” he groans, his voice dropping so deep I feel it vibrate through my bones. “The way you feel…”

Words desert me as a sucker finds my clit through the thin fabric of my underwear. The gentle pull creates a sensation unlike anything I’ve experienced—pressure and release, delicious little pulses that have me arching off the bed. His other tentacles tighten around me, supporting me as I shake apart under his careful exploration.

“Yes,” he breathes, watching me with something like wonder. “Show me what you need.”

In response, I tug him closer, my fingers exploring the junction where tentacles meet torso. He shudders when I find it—a specialized tentacle nestled between the powerful base of his limbs, thick and visibly swollen with arousal. It’s nothing like human anatomy, yet unmistakably male—textured with subtle, spiraling ridges beneath my fingers, and slick with its own natural moisture.

“Fuck,” I breathe, wrapping my hand around the base where it’s thickest. His whole body goes rigid, tentacles tightening around my thighs and waist. “You’ve been hiding this?”

His laugh is strained. “I wasn’t sure if it’d be too much.”

“Too much?” I stroke the length of him once, twice, watching his face contort with pleasure as the tentacle twists and curls against my palm with a mind of its own. “I’m literally naked with a cthulhu in my lighthouse bedroom. I think we’re past ‘too much.’”

His tentacles twitch against my skin, the suckers leaving little marks I know I’ll find tomorrow. “You taste like flowers blooming by the beach,” he murmurs, the words almost dreamy as the suckers on his tentacles pulse against my inner thighs. “Did you know that? Salt and sweetness. My kind memorize through taste—each suction cup has a memory of its own.”

The thought that he’s cataloguing me, learning me on a cellular level, makes me dizzy with want. “So you’ll remember?”

“Forever. Every spot that makes you gasp, every place your pulse races beneath your skin.”

I guide his specialized tentacle toward my pussy, beyond teasing now. “Then give me something to remember too.”

His eyes flash molten gold in the dark, and his tentacles lift me effortlessly as the tip of his specialized tentacle presses against me—alien and perfect—and my breath catches at the girth of him.

“Careful,” I whisper, though my body is already yielding, wanting.

“Always.” Two tentacles wrap around my waist, controlling my descent with maddening slowness as he starts to fill me. The stretch burns in the most delicious way, my body accommodating his inhuman size inch by inch. “Though you take me so well.”

I sink further onto him, gasping as the specialized suckers along his cock pulse against my inner walls, creating sensations that radiate outward in waves. His other tentacles support my weight completely, allowing him to control the pace as he gradually sheathes himself inside me.

“You feel—” His words dissolve into a groan, the gold in his eyes flaring brighter. “Nothing like I imagined. Better.”

I roll my hips experimentally, and the noise he makes—half growl, half moan—sends a fresh rush of heat through me. “You imagined this?” I rock down harder, taking him deeper, feeling his cock twist slightly inside me, finding spots I didn’t know existed. “When?”

His tentacles tighten, one sliding between our bodies to circle my clit with teasing precision. “Since you touched me without fear.” He thrusts up, careful but unmistakably hungry.

The admission triggers something primitive in me. I lean forward, nipping at the place where his neck meets his shoulder, tasting salt and something wild. “I’m not afraid now either.”

“Good.” He surges up, his cock twisting deeper inside me until stars burst behind my eyes. “Because I need—”

He breaks off, but his body finishes the thought, tentacles coiling around my thighs, spreading me wider as he starts to move in earnest.

Each thrust hits deeper than should be possible, the spiraling ridges of his specialized tentacle creating friction against places I didn’t know could feel so good. One tentacle curls around my throat—not squeezing, just holding—while another plucks at my nipples with precise, teasing pressure.

“Harder,” I demand, past caring how desperate I sound.

His eyes narrow, pupils blown with need. “You don’t know what you’re asking for.”

“Then show me.” I claw at his shoulders, drunk on the feel of him. “Don’t hold back.”

Something shifts in his expression—restraint giving way to ancient and primal instincts. His tentacles lift me as he withdraws almost completely, then they slam me back down onto his length. The force of it punches a cry from my lungs, pleasure so intense it borders on pain.

“Like this?” he growls, repeating the motion until I’m babbling incoherently. “Taking all of me? Letting me fill you so deep you’ll feel me for days?” His tentacle beard brushes my cheek as he leans in. “I want to feel you come around me,” he says, his rhythm turning relentless, perfect. “I want to feel you squeeze every drop from me.”

The implication—that he could fill me with himself—sends a shock of heat straight to my core. It’s ridiculous, impossible, and yet the primitive part of my brain doesn’t care. I clench around him, suddenly desperate to feel him lose control.

“Do it,” I pant, my nails digging crescents into his shoulders. “Come inside me. Make me yours.”

The words trigger something in him, and his tentacles constrict around me as his pace turns frantic. “Mine,” he growls, the word more sound than language. “Mine.”

The possessiveness pushes me over the edge without warning. My orgasm crashes through me in waves, a sound escaping my throat as my inner walls pulse around his cock. He follows an instant later, his massive form tightening around me as he empties himself inside me, the sensation of being filled by his warm cum leaving me gasping.

For long moments, we stay joined, his tentacles supporting my weight as we both struggle to breathe. His hand traces my cheekbone with something that feels dangerously like tenderness, wiping away tears I didn’t realize I’d shed.

“Are you…?” he starts, concern edging into his voice.

“Perfect,” I assure him, pressing my forehead to his. “That was perfect.”

He makes a low, rumbling sound of contentment, his tentacles loosening their grip but not releasing me entirely. Instead, he shifts us both until we’re lying on the bed, his cock still nestled inside me, my body cradled in a living cocoon of limbs that feels impossibly secure.

I should feel strange—tangled with a creature from the depths, filled with his seed, marked by his suckers. Instead, I just feel… whole. Like I’ve finally found the piece of myself I didn’t know was missing.

“Well,” I say, finding my voice oddly shy despite what we just did, “that was…”

“Indeed,” he agrees, a tentacle lazily tracing patterns on my hip.

I laugh, the sound slightly breathless. “For someone who claims to have had no practice, you’ve got some moves.”

His tentacle beard twitches with amusement. “I may have had some time to… contemplate the possibilities.”

“Is that what we’re calling it now? Contemplation?” I poke his side, grinning when he mock-flinches.

For a moment, we just lie there in comfortable silence. It’s weird how not-weird this feels—being wrapped in tentacles, my body still humming from the touch of a creature I didn’t know existed not too long ago. The whirlwind of it all should probably scare me more than it does.

“What happens when you’re healed?” I ask finally, voicing the question that’s been hovering at the edges of my mind. “After the stitches come out?”

His tentacles shift, not quite tensing, but definitely not as relaxed as before. “I suppose I return to the sea.”

“Right.” I trace a pattern on his chest, not meeting his eyes. “Of course.”

“Though…” Roark hesitates, a tentacle gently tucking my hair behind my ear. “The storms come frequently this time of year.”

I look up at him, catching his meaning. “They do, don’t they? Big ones too. The kind where no one questions why I’d stay locked up in the lighthouse.”

“That is so.”

It’s not nothing, but…

“Would that be enough?” I ask, not sure if I’m asking him or myself.

His expression softens. “I’ve learned to take what joy I can find, where I can find it.”

That hits me harder than I expect. Because he’s right. What are we really doing here, other than grabbing a moment of connection in the middle of our separate lives? I barely know him, and he barely knows me, but here we are, intertwined in my sheets, planning clandestine meetings like star-crossed teenagers.

“The world’s changing,” I begin. “Maybe someday…”

“Someday,” he echoes, but I hear the uncertainty in his voice. This town, with its history of hunting sea monsters, with its old families still telling tales of beast-slaying heroics—it might not be ready for whatever this is between us.

His tentacle slides down my arm, drawing me closer against him. “But tonight, you’re here, and I’m here.”

“Very profound,” I tease, but I get what he means.

We can worry about the future when it comes. Tonight is just… tonight.

“Sleep,” he murmurs, his tentacles drawing the blanket over us both. “The lighthouse won’t run itself tomorrow.”

I smile against his chest, already half-dreaming. “You better have breakfast ready for me in the morning, then.”

His low chuckle is the last thing I hear as I drift off, wrapped in tentacles and possibility.