Page 20

Sam woke up well-rested. His head clear, his body feeling amazing. The pillow against his cheek was soft. The blankets were warm and cosy. The arms locked around his waist were roasting. Sam didn’t even want to open his eyes. He was content to drift, doze. He didn’t want to move an inch.

The body behind him shifted. Warm breaths tickled the back of Sam’s neck, a nose nuzzled his hair and lips mouthed over the recently indented bite mark. Goldilocks had his teeth fitted over Sam’s nape before he could be bothered to speak.

“Sleeping, Goldilocks,” Sam murmured. He blindly reached back to bat the merman’s side.

Goldilocks hummed. His movements were lazy as he caught Sam’s wrist and pinned it to Sam’s stomach. Sam’s bare stomach…

Sam opened his eyes.

Daylight illuminated the inside of Sam’s cabin. The blankets that Goldilocks had brought him yesterday were heaped over them, and enough were under him that it almost didn’t feel like he was lying on a wooden frame. The cabin door knocked against the outer wall of the cabin with a thud. The hinges squeaked as it swung, but it stopped halfway open, and the next rock of the boat had it knock gently against the wall again.

Sam squinted his eyes against the daylight and saw Goldilocks’s tail spread out, the length too great to possibly fit into the cabin. The door swung open, hitting the golden scales with a gentle knock, before swinging back once more to the wall.

“Let me up a minute.” Sam eyed the stupid door as it swung open to hit Goldilocks’s tail again.

Goldilocks, kissing the back of Sam’s neck, ignored him. If anything, he did the opposite of Sam’s request and held him tighter.

“I just want to tie that so it stops hitting your tail.”

Sam winced as it hit him again. Unease cut through the peace.

“Goldilocks, you’ll bruise. Stop. How long has that been hitting the same spot?”

Goldilocks stilled. The blankets shifted as he pulled back. “Bruise?” he repeated. “You think that will bruise me?”

Goldilocks gave enough freedom for Sam to rise to his elbows. This time, when the door swung open, Sam saw the exact part of Goldilocks’s tail that got hit. His tail didn’t budge at all. In fact, the impact didn’t seem to cause even the smallest of trembles in Goldilocks’s body.

“Okay, no bruises are going to happen. Clearly. But I’m sure that’s annoying you, right?” Sam asked. It looked like daytime light outside the door, not morning light. Which meant Sam had slept through the night after falling asleep. Sam could see empty ocean, and there was enough chill in the breeze that he was confident he was in his own world still.

“No,” Goldilocks answered.

“We’re in my world right now?” Sam, after a moment of thought, collapsed back into the pillows, reclaiming the comfort. “You’re speaking. Full sentences, too.”

“Your world. Yes. Connor is nearby,” Goldilocks added.

Sam frowned at the skylight directly above him. Goldilocks said the second part of the sentence as if it was an answer to Sam’s statement. “Does Connor being nearby mean something?” he asked. He turned his head so he could meet Goldilocks’s eyes.

“It is easier,” he explained.

“What is? Speaking?”

Goldilocks nodded. “I have been practising,” he admitted after a moment. “It has been…difficult. The Worms learned sooner than I.”

Sam rolled his eyes. “The Worms? Really? Bee and Dew. You should call them by their names.”

“Connor calls them worms.”

“He only calls them that because of Adonis,” Sam pointed out. “And why do you keep talking about Connor like that?”

“Like what?”

Sam opened his mouth but hesitated. He cocked his head to the side and propped himself up on his elbow. “Hang on. I hear music. Though it sounds pretty far away.” He was loath to stand, but Sam did, only to grab the top blanket with a surprised cry. “I’m naked! Why am I naked?” He threw an accusing look at Goldilocks.

Goldilocks gazed up at him from the mountain of blankets. “You undressed yourself.”

“While I was sleeping?”

“You complained of being too hot,” Goldilocks explained. “The heat pleased me.” He broke eye contact, gaze travelling down Sam’s body. There was a shine in his eyes. Something predatory as he appraised Sam. The end of his tail lifted up, then down. The finned edges quivered. “Your nakedness pleases me also.”

Sam heated. He grasped the blanket tighter to his body, hiding the reaction his body had to the remark. To the hungry gaze. Mouth dry, Sam swallowed hard. “I…” Sam had never thought his nakedness would be pleasing to anyone, least of all to the most beautiful creature Sam had ever laid eyes on. As absurd as it seemed, as much as Sam’s reasonable side dismissed Goldilocks’s words, Sam also believed him. He believed that gaze was genuine.

“You have strange tastes,” Sam finally managed to get out. He bent, shielding himself with the blanket as he stooped to retrieve his clothes. Sam also believed that he’d undressed himself in the middle of the night since his clothes were kicked just outside the blankets and no further.

“Come,” Goldilocks requested. “I am not ready to rise yet.”

He indicated next to him where there was a spot for Sam. Warm-toned skin peeked out from the covering, and Goldilocks watched Sam with absolutely nothing restful about his gaze.

Sam ducked his head, face burning even more. Sam wasn’t stupid; he could see this was a clear invitation. And after yesterday in the bath…

Sam summoned what bravery he could with a deep breath. “Alright,” he agreed. Sam knelt on the bedding and, under Goldilocks’s careful scrutiny, set the blanket he’d used to hide himself aside.

Goldilocks hummed, a hungry sound climbing from deep in his throat. He reached for Sam, his hand stroking his thigh, before cupping between his legs. Sam groaned, twitching at the touch, and he had to fight to keep his eyes open. He wanted to shut them, but the need to watch burned brighter.

“I like this.” Goldilocks squeezed his sack gently, carefully toying with Sam’s balls between his fingers. “You are not dominant, but you have seed. It is funny.”

“What the hell,” Sam muttered.

“I like how you tighten here as well,” Goldilocks added. “It moves up as I toy with it. Come. I will have you in my mouth.” He tugged at Sam’s thigh, guiding him forward.

Sam wanted to tell Goldilocks that him having balls wasn’t funny . But his mind was too mushy for that. Goldilocks guided Sam until his knees were on the soft blankets on either side of Goldilocks’s head. Sam kept his weight up, not wanting to press down on Goldilocks’s chest and make it hard for him to breathe. The table just behind Goldilocks was the perfect height for Sam to grip.

He stared down at the perfect face bracketed between his thighs and feared for a moment his heart would stop. “Are you serious?” was all he managed to get out.

Goldilocks looked perfectly content with the position, and his hands moved carefully up Sam’s sides. Stroking his hip, the one that had been bruised, carefully.

“You are well enough to mount, I am sure,” Goldilocks said, peering carefully at the skin.

Sam blinked hard, gasping for his breaths. He was overstimulated, big time. And now Goldilocks wanted to talk about mounting him? While his breaths were tickling his sack?

“Oh.” Goldilocks let out a puff. He hummed, pleased. “You have freckles here.” He grasped Sam’s cock, the hard member hovering just above Goldilocks’s cheek, and lifted him up. Sam gritted his teeth as Goldilocks thumbed his length, pressing in harder midway up his shaft. “Here,” he noted. “And here and here.”

Sam curled forward, forehead pressing into the edge of the table. He struggled not to collapse onto Goldilocks.

“I didn’t know,” he said, breathless.

“I like how this place turns red too.” Goldilocks nudged Sam’s tip with his nose. “It looks sweet.”

“It’s feeling pretty angry,” Sam muttered. He could barely keep his eyes open. Goldilocks jacked Sam’s erection with loose, leisurely strokes. He peered at Sam’s tip as he did, pulling his foreskin down and up, watching it closely each time.

Sam felt as though he was committing a crime. It was too good. Too much. Too everything. He pushed his knuckle into his mouth, biting down on it to try to release some of the tension quivering throughout his body.

Goldilocks’s gaze cut to Sam’s face. “Stop that,” he warned. “You are not to harm yourself.”

Sam lowered his hand, watching the limb tremble as he grabbed hold of a fistful of blankets. “You’re teasing me,” Sam tried to explain.

“This does not feel pleasurable for you?” Goldilocks enquired.

“It obviously does . You can feel how hard I am! I’m dripping on you, for Christ’s sake,” Sam cursed. His precum shouldn’t be smeared onto a cheek that pretty. It didn’t make any sense. Sam quivered, his entire body a bundle of burning nerves. “I don’t know how it works for mermen, but when a person’s dick is that hard and shakes every time you breathe on it, that means it feels good.”

“Yes,” Goldilocks purred. “That is the same for my kind. Do not harm yourself; that is all. This skin here is different.” His gaze flicked back to Sam’s foreskin. With a careful hold, he tugged all of it down, revealing Sam’s tortured tip. “I do not possess this. What does it feel like when I move it? There is no discomfort?”

Sweat beaded over Sam’s body. The longer this went on, the more torturous keeping his weight off of Goldilocks’s chest became.

“The actual skin doesn’t have much feeling, but it feels good for you to move it like that,” Sam attempted to explain. “Because it drags over sensitive parts underneath.” He had to stop to breathe, to try to collect himself before he could continue. “A lot of guys have it removed,” he added absently.

“Why?”

“Sometimes it’s for medical reasons. Sometimes it’s because it can help with sensitivity.”

Goldilocks touched his nose to his tip once more, and Sam squeezed his eyes shut, collapsing against the table. He twisted the blanket into his fist as heat rose in his body.

“You will keep it,” Goldilocks said. “I like it.”

“I’m gonna come,” Sam muttered back, holding on, barely.

“No other is allowed to touch here.”

Sam didn’t think it was the right time to point out that there wasn’t exactly a line of people waiting to touch his cock. Or play with his foreskin. Or his balls. Or lick the freckles he apparently had on the underside of his cock that he didn’t even know about. It might have been a good moment for Sam to admit he had no interest in anyone else touching him.

“I’m gonna…” Sam groaned. “Please.”

“I like your voice.”

This merman was going to absolutely wreck Sam.

Goldilocks grasped him harder and pulled Sam by the cock, so that his length made contact with Goldilocks’s face. Goldilocks shut his eyes, sucking half of Sam’s sack into his mouth. The hard suction undid him.

Fire spread throughout Sam, licking up his thighs, ploughing through his core. Sam’s mind blanked as he climaxed. Goldilocks’s fingers dug into Sam’s hip – the uninjured one – anchoring him as he trembled, and the other pumped his cock through his orgasm.

With a gasp, Sam collapsed, weight falling onto Goldilocks’s chest. He sucked in hard breaths, eyes glued shut as his body calmed down with quakes and twitches. A hot tongue toyed with Sam’s sack, then the underside of his cock. At least it was lower down, where there was less sensitivity.

Sam managed to peel his eyelids open to look at Goldilocks.

Sam’s cock lay on his face, no longer erect and held above. The base was being sucked by Goldilocks while his length rested on Goldilocks’s cheek. His tip nested against his brow. One of Goldilocks’s eyes was shut, semen splattered over his closed lid. There was some on his temple, dripping into his golden hair.

Horror tore through Sam. “Your hair!” he said, aghast. He had been right; this was a crime. It was beyond a crime. Those perfect curls shouldn’t be soiled by anything, least of all semen . “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I have shampoo. I’ll scrub it out.”

Goldilocks grabbed his wrists. “Be still,” he warned.

Sam looked on in horror as Goldilocks moved his head, letting more of the semen drip into his hairline. He didn’t seem to care. His focus was on running his tongue all over Sam. He suckled on his foreskin, moving it about with his tongue. His hands were busy holding Sam’s pinned to his thighs.

“Your release is under the skin here,” Goldilocks noted. “I will get it for you.”

Sam shivered in sensitivity, but Goldilocks’s tongue was very gentle as he cleaned him.

“Can I please wash your hair?” Sam whispered. He couldn’t believe he did that. Into his beautiful curls? He should have gotten off on Goldilocks’s chest. He should have given more warning.

“You may,” Goldilocks said around a mouthful of dick.

Sam shut his eyes. He couldn’t look any longer.

Goldilocks spoke again. And then again.

Sam tilted back his head, quaking from the attention. “You’ll have to spit out my dick if you want me to understand.”

Goldilocks stopped sucking on him. “I said your cock pleases me.”

“Great. I’m glad,” Sam muttered, overwhelmed. “Everything about you pleases me, so I think we’re getting somewhere.”

Goldilocks hummed in agreement. He released Sam’s wrist, sliding his hand up Sam’s thigh until he was cradling his hip bone. “The pain here is gone?”

Sam nodded.

“Then we will couple,” Goldilocks stated. “Move down. My form is not stable, and I do not wish to hurt you by shifting suddenly, so we will do it like this.”

“Alright,” Sam agreed. He should probably bring up the fact that he was a virgin. And that he hadn’t ever slept with anyone before, and that Goldilocks’s cock was huge, so they should probably work up to it. But all of those shoulds would probably lead to a delay. To a not today. And Sam didn’t want this to end now. He wasn’t ready for that. He wanted to keep going. He wanted more. More of this bossy, demanding merman telling Sam he was going to mount him.

Goldilocks released Sam’s other wrist and Sam twisted around to face his tail-end. He pushed the covers from Goldilocks’s tail, revealing his erection sticking straight up from the scales. Sam’s hand moved all by itself to grasp Goldilocks’s cock. Goldilocks’s body seemed to produce its own lube, and Sam dipped his fingers into the area at the base, coating his palm in the slick substance. Hand primed, he rubbed him again.

“I can see your balls,” Sam whispered, stuck staring. “Inside. They look cramped in there.”

Goldilocks hummed.

Sam peeked at his face to see his hand was being watched. Goldilocks’s eyes were half-lidded, and he idly ran his hand up Sam’s spine.

“Can I touch them?”

“Yes.”

Sam shuffled down, kneeling at Goldilocks’s side. Carefully, he reached inside. His sack was just inside the slit in his tail that his cock jutted from, and as Sam reached in, they seemed to reach back. Goldilocks adjusted his position. Then he adjusted again. And again. He grunted. “Pull them out.”

Sam swallowed hard. He reached in, finding the inside tight and cramped, and did his best to gently get his fingers behind the squishy balls and guide them out rather than pull. He didn’t want to accidentally hurt Goldilocks because he didn’t know what he was doing.

A clank drifted in from outside.

Sam went still, lifting his head.

There was another knock. Radio voices.

A sail snapped close by. Sam withdrew his hand and lifted up, peering out his window. He winced to see an approaching yacht with full, familiar sails of blue.

“Can you change? Or go into the water?” Sam eyed the stretch of his tail and the small cabin. Even curled up there was no way he would fit.

“What?” Goldilocks’s eyes filled with awareness. He frowned at Sam. “Go?”

Sam nodded to the window. “There’s a boat swinging up. I know the guy on it. He’s going to circle me a few times before he moves on.” He got up, grabbing his clothes to throw on. “You’re too big to hide in here unless you change.”

“Hide?”

Sam pulled up his trousers in a rush, not taking the time to find his underwear. “Your tail?” he pointed out. “You guys always hide, right?” He frowned. “And this guy’s the type to cause trouble, so just this once I think you should…” He trailed off.

The look Goldilocks fixed on him was a squall shy of stormy.

“I’m not trying to hide that I’m with you,” Sam said, voice lowered. “I just don’t want any trouble.”

Goldilocks sat up, tail becoming legs, and as he stood, his face contorted in pain.

“That hurts? Wait, should I—”

Goldilocks brushed past Sam, exiting the cabin. Sam tugged on his shirt as he followed. “I have spare clothes?”

Goldilocks jumped overboard. Below, the surface was too dark for Sam to see well, but he saw his form enlarge. Legs became a large shadow. The splash of his departure wet Sam’s feet.

“Alone?” a voice sang.

Reluctantly, Sam turned to face the music. Fionn brought his yacht far too close for comfort. The sound of the sails snapping made him wince, and Sam swore that Fionn saw that wince and responded with a smile.

Music filled the air like noise, an overly loud racket that didn’t suit the peace of the ocean. Sam knew that when Fionn was alone, and nobody was around, he didn’t listen to music at all. He only turned it on when people were in earshot.

“No sister? No brother? No nobody?” Fionn taunted. The sails snapped again, a crosswind catching them. The canvas stretched. The yacht dipped to the side, coming dangerously close to colliding with Sam. Sam scowled. Fionn always did this. Showed off his expertise and mastery of the sails with dangerous manoeuvres. The only thing that irked Sam more than the recklessness was that he’d never once actually scraped Sam’s boat, and that only boosted Fionn’s arrogance higher.

“Get some distance before you sink us both,” Sam called out.

Fionn repeated his words back to him in a mocking high pitch. Sam tipped his face up to the sky, the juvenile response grating on his nerves. Was he a child? Seriously? Sam was interrupted for this ?

“Are you praying? What for? Fish? Why don’t you come over, huh? You can clean up after me, and I’ll let you sail with me for the day.”

“Get away from my boat.”

“Don’t be such a loner, Sam,” Fionn called back.

Sam bit back a frustrated groan. “You’re also alone, you know.”

Fionn walked along the outer edge of the yacht, staying as close to Sam as he could. “I have beer.”

“I don’t drink.”

“I have coke too. And lunch.”

“I don’t eat.”

Though it was too far to get a read of Fionn’s facial expression, Sam sensed his hurt feelings charge the air. Sam copied what Fionn had done, walking along his boat to keep him closer. He quickly ran out of space, and Fionn wasn’t moving to adjust his sails to bring himself about again.

“I have schoolwork,” Sam called. “Midterms. I would otherwise.” Why was he trying to soothe imagined hurt feelings?

No mocking jeer rebuffed Sam. The distance between them grew; Fionn’s complicated scowl pointed right at him until he was too far away to make out clearly. Then his blond head turned away, and the sails shifted, turning the yacht about and catching the wind to take him east along the coastline.

Sam hesitated, but with a sigh, put away any notions of trying to catch up to him. Fionn would be fine. Sam went to the cabin and tidied up. He folded and put away the blankets and set the soiled ones aside for washing. Would putting the fur into a washing machine ruin it?

Sam’s phone began ringing at the same time as Goldilocks hauled himself onto the side of the boat. Sam answered without checking the caller ID. “Hello?”

“We’re meeting at Sally’s to study, remember? Abby has our table saved out the back,” Mary said.

Study? Had they arranged something like that? Sam had no recollection of it. But he’d missed so many arranged meet-ups with Mary lately that he didn’t want to give her an excuse and miss another.

“I remember,” Sam lied. “On my way right now.”

Sam turned in time to see Goldilocks frown.

“Good. See you soon.” Mary hung up, not mentioning if she knew he’d lied or not. She probably did and wasn’t bothered fighting about it. Not over the phone, anyway.

“I have to head in. Mary will skin me alive if I ditch her again, and I do need to get studying done,” Sam explained.

An unhappy rumble hummed from Goldilocks’s throat. Wordlessly, he turned and slid off the railing into the water. Sam bit the inside of his cheek, feeling a stab of guilt prodding at his ribs. Honestly, it was probably a major dick move on his part to leave Goldilocks hanging after he’d gotten a blowjob. Sam vowed to make it up to Goldilocks later.