Page 11 of Entranced By the Nakken (Freedom, Love, Monsters #4)

Casey

“Come to my show,” Casey blurted. The bundle in his arms tensed, and Casey had to physically force himself to loosen his grip. “I’m going to play this song with Sophie and Anna. I’d love it if you’d be there to hear it.”

“Humans will be there.”

That wasn’t a no. “If we find a way around that, would you come?”

Tsunis shifted, moving to their own space on the blanket. Casey hugged one knee to his chest. As though his body revolted the distance, he leaned heavily on the hand closest to Tsunis, and watched their expression change as they considered.

Fuck, they were cute. Their scales glinted in the sunlight. Fucking captivating. Casey wanted to tuck them back into his lap and pull the keyboard on top, trapping them in his arms.

“I don’t see how you’ll make it possible, but,” a glint of excitement shone in their eyes. “Yes, Nymphaiia. If you are to play that song, I wish to be there.”

“Really?” Casey grinned. He’d kind of expected a rejection.

“Yes,” they intoned. Casey barely had time to register the pet name before they got all serious. “But you need practice. Let’s begin.”

“You don’t even know when the show is. Maybe I’ve got years to practice.”

Tsunis’ responding glare made Casey’s heart grow wings and fly away.

As the setting sun cast the brook in shades of pinks and yellow, Casey set aside his keyboard.

He was extremely impressed with himself for surviving this long without devolving into a primal fucking beast from their sheer proximity.

He purposefully placed his hand beside theirs, leaning back all casual-like, allowing their pinkies to brush.

Tsunis stiffened but surprised him by hooking their pinky through his.

They peeked at him and brushed their hair behind their ear, and fuck, Casey was fucking gone for them.

The innocent action had no right to be so arousing, to have him groaning internally.

Then their gaze dropped to his mouth, and he was done for.

“Professor,” Casey drawled, crowding Tsunis’ personal space, his restraint teetering on the edge. “May I kiss you?”

Tsunis’ brow furrowed. Their gaze jumped between Casey’s heavily lidded gaze to his mouth, then, oddly, to his ear, confusion etched in their sharp features. “Kiss?”

“You’ve never been kissed?”

They shook their head. “I don’t know how.”

Holy fuck. Casey sucked his bottom lip under his teeth. They’d never fucking kissed before. Another thing that shouldn’t be as hot as it was. His cock stood at attention like this was its calling in life.

Casey shifted closer to cup Tsunis’ strong jaw and stroke the velvety scales on their cheekbones.

“Kiss. Is that the thing with the tongues?” Tsunis’ breathing was rapid, and the mere mention of tongues made Casey’s cock painfully excited.

“Sometimes. But we don’t have to go that far.” Casey let his thumb drift to their pale blue lips and traced them, much like Tsunis had done earlier. “We press our mouths together.”

“Do it,” they commanded in the same imperious tone they used to make him sing, and fuck if that wasn’t the hottest thing yet.

Casey slanted his lips over theirs, careful to stay gentle through the desperate compulsion to devour them. It was the sweetest kiss of his life, and for a moment it felt like it was his first kiss, too. In a way, it was.

Every cell in his body rebelled when he forced himself to stop. “Okay?”

“More.”

An involuntary groan slipped from Casey’s lips. Fucking fuck, that tone melted his insides. He wanted nothing more than to bend the fuck over and submit, which was beyond unusual for him.

Casey moved his lips nice and slow over first their top, then their bottom lip, caressing each with the inside of his own. Tsunis followed his silent instructions, and soon they took the lead with messy kisses that Casey immediately became addicted to.

Tsunis tasted like falling snow. Like one of those shaved ice in paper cones they sell at the fair, but with a flavor all their own. Casey wanted to drink them down, to lick up every last drop.

He deepened the kiss, licking the seam of their lips until they opened and met his tongue with theirs. An adorable moan slipped from their mouth into his, and Casey swallowed it with a groan, his fingers digging into Tsunis’ hips.

Casey could kiss them for hours, but the single blood cell left in his brain reminded him to be courteous. This was their first time kissing, so it might be their first time doing anything else, too.

He pulled away and shifted until his back met the tree, taking Tsunis with him.

Their chests heaved in sync. Casey stared down at the beautiful creature in his arms, drinking in their darkened cheeks, their shimmering eyes like pools of fucking holy water.

He brushed a strand of silver hair behind their ear fin, trailing his fingers along the tips, watching the pulse of darker blue that raced along the fin under his touch.

Tsunis groaned. “Casimir.”

“Hmm?” Casey hummed absently, needing to hear that fucking sound again more than he needed another breath.

He pinched the bottom of Tsunis’ ear between thumb and forefinger and rubbed up the length of the fin.

Their noises changed, less of a groan and more of a moan, the kind Casey might make if those pouty lips were wrapped around his cock.

“Casimir!” Tsunis snapped.

Casey released their fin and gave them his full attention.

Only then did he notice their hand had fisted in his hair, their face contorted.

Concerned, he trailed his gaze over the rest of their body.

Their knees were slammed shut, but there was a sheen of slickness where there was usually smooth skin, and their hips were moving to an invisible rhythm.

“Oh, fuck,” Casey mumbled. He shouldn’t have looked. His cock was heavy enough as it was, but now it ached something fierce. He looked back to Tsunis’ face, which was glaring harder than ever. So. Fucking. Cute. “We can stop.”

“You don’t understand,” Tsunis growled. They tightened their grip on his hair, and he loosed a low groan, which they promptly swallowed with their hungry mouth.

Casey met their hungry kiss with his.

“My ear fins,” they breathed between kisses.

Casey groaned as Tsunis gave his hair a sharp tug, enough to sting his scalp. He responded by brushing his thumb over the fin in question, ending the caress with a gentle pinch at the tip.

That sound. It seared itself into Casey’s memories.

Before he could do it again, Tsunis put space between them.

They were beyond flustered. This time, Casey managed not to glance between their legs like an asshole.

It wasn’t fair that his cock was hidden under clothes while they were completely exposed.

Granted, his cargo shorts were practically tissue paper, tented so violently that nothing was a secret.

“It’s sensitive,” Tsunis growled. God fucking damn, they were moving their hips, taking Casey’s hand along for the ride. “We don’t kiss.”

“Oh,” Casey mumbled. His brain took a moment to catch up. “Oh! I’m sorry. I’ll stop.”

“I-it’s best that you do.” Tsunis was barely coherent. “M-my…my…mmmmf.”

Casey immediately snapped his hand away, searching for a safer place for it, like their lower back, but that didn’t appear to help them calm down.

He tried not to panic. They were wriggling on his lap, gripping his hair and his neck, looking ready to devour him, so he couldn’t move away without disturbing them further.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to cross a line. Tell me what I can do.”

“My fins–ohh,” Tsunis growled. They gripped him tighter, their nails suddenly sharp as claws. Those captivating blue quartz irises were luminescent, like Casey had seen below the water. “They re-release m-mating hormones.”

“Like, they make you horny?” A tiny bit of relief whooshed out of Casey’s next exhale. He grinned to ease the tension. “Trust me, baby, I’m fucking horny for you, too.”

Their eyes flickered under a filmy lens. A wildness had overtaken them.

“Mine,” they growled, then lunged for Casey’s throat and chomped down, hard, their continuous growl like the purr of a panther that vibrated through Casey.

“Oh, fuck!”

Casey wasn’t sure what happened next, whether Tsunis climbed on top of him or if he dragged them there. Together, they writhed, and fuck, Casey had never given dry-ish humping enough credit before because this, this could make him blow his shorts.

And maybe he had, because he was sure his shorts had dried a bit from the bratty dragon’s outburst, but they were soaked again. Whatever. Tsunis filled his arms perfectly, their waist fitting into his palms like his hands were molded to their angles.

Casey arched his neck, letting Tsunis feast on him. Careful not to touch their fin, he kissed every inch of their jaw he could reach, matching the rhythm of their hips with pumps of his own, chasing the delicious friction.

Tsunis unlatched. Casey hissed. They’d definitely broken skin.

“Oh, Glacia,” Tsunis exclaimed. They pulled away as though stricken, and Casey got the barest glimpse of two double-lined rows of sharp teeth stained red before they slammed a hand over their mouth. “Oh, Glacia, no, no, no.”

“What’s wrong?” Casey wanted to smooth their hair back, tell them it was okay, but allowed them to take the space they needed. “The bite? It’s okay, I don’t mind—”

“No!”

Casey flinched, and Tsunis’ face fell further. They slunk off his lap and curled around themself. Casey’s blood lined their lips, and goddamn, that really fucking shouldn’t be hot at all.

“You don’t understand.”

They sounded so small. Casey hated it.

“Help me understand then.” He reached out then clenched his fists at his sides. “I want to understand.”

Tsunis groaned and buried their head between their knees. “It’s a mate mark.”

Casey nodded along, eager to understand, but Tsunis didn’t elaborate. He touched the bite tenderly, hissing when it stung. There were many pinpricks where all those fucking teeth had been, and his hand came away bloody, but he gave a lopsided grin.

“I’m not pissed about a hickey.”

A frustrated noise sounded from behind the curtain of hair. “Then a hickey isn’t comparable.”

“If you’re so sure I don’t get it then let me explain something.

” Casey fought to keep his tone light. “I want anything you’ll give me.

I don’t care if it’s bite marks or kisses.

I don’t care if your ways are different than what I’m used to.

Fuck, I don’t even care if it means that when you find your way home, I’ll feel as…

.as…as hollow as I did last time you left.

” He reached a tentative hand toward them and brushed a strand of hair over their shoulder, patiently waiting for their full attention.

When two pools of glittering diamonds peered back at him, he hammered the final nail. Fuck it. “I want you, Tsunis. As much of you as you’re comfortable with. For as long as I can have you.”

The air stilled. Tsunis eyed him critically, their piercing stare flaying him open as it bounced from his gaze to the mark on his neck. They sighed, and he knew he’d won. “I can’t believe I marked you.”

“I want your marks.”

“You don’t know what you’re saying.” They dropped back onto their palms, relaxing their legs forward, fins sprouting below the water.

“Doesn’t matter. Nothing will change how I feel.” He touched the bumpy surface of his neck, bloody fingers be damned. “I liked it. It was hot. It felt like we were connected.”

“You felt that?”

Casey snorted. The thought of it had him squirming to rearrange his pants again. “Oh, yeah, I fucking felt it.”

Tsunis’ cheeks deepened, the color traveling to the tips of their fins. Whatever they were trying to tell him clearly held significance, and it bothered them that they couldn’t find the words. Or maybe they were annoyed at Casey’s incompetence. They glared into the water with thinned lips.

“Hey.” Casey reached out with his left hand and hooked their pinkies together once more. “I’m yours.”

Tsunis’ eyes bulged.

“Isn’t that what you kept growling? You greedy thing, wanting me all to yourself. You didn’t have to take a chunk of my shoulder to convince me.”

“Say it again.”

They almost sounded like themself again, and Casey couldn’t help it. “You’re greedy.”

“Say. It. Again,” they growled, leaning into his personal space, all teeth and menace.

“There you are,” Casey cooed, tipping their chin with his knuckle. “I’m yours.”

“Mine,” Tsunis sighed and all but collapsed onto Casey’s mouth.

Casey kept his distance this time and didn’t let Tsunis take the hungry control that their mouth wanted to. As much as he’d love to discover all their hidden treasures, he ended this kiss on a gentler note.

If Tsunis was going to leave someday, Casey wanted their time together to be meaningful, not filled with angst and uncertainty. He’d take it as slow as necessary. He wanted to belong to Tsunis for as long as possible.

When the time came for Casey to go home, Tsunis dropped into the water and watched him pack from so far below that only their nose and up was visible.

“Don’t forget,” Casey said as he knelt at the water’s edge to kiss the top of Tsunis’ head. “I’m yours.”

A shimmering dragon followed him all the way to his car.

When he reached his sedan, his grin was impossible to smother. Giddiness filled him in a way no casual fling could match. He pulled out his phone and texted Sophie.