Page 32

Before night fell, Sam was discharged into Eric’s custody with a clean bill of health and the doctor remarking how quickly Sam had bounced back. The guards came by after Adonis had healed him, but Sam’s memory of how he’d ended up with his head knocked in was still notably absent. The last thing he concretely remembered was sending Jasper off with Laurence at the dock. After that, it was a blank void of nothing.

He sat at the kitchen table in Eric’s flat, nursing a cup of tea, racking his brain, but nothing new shook loose despite his efforts.

“I’m a tattoo artist,” Ivan said, prompting Sam to pull himself out of his thoughts and into the present. Ivan leaned against the counter in the kitchen, facing Sam. Eric stood with his back turned, focusing all his attention on the pan he was cooking stir-fry in. At Sam’s left sat Roan, still in Connor’s clothes. Even with his memories returned, it irked Sam. Though Roan telling Sam he could call him by his name, something that he knew was reserved to just him—everyone else had to call him Goldilocks—eased his irritation. “And this memory loss thing isn’t the worst,” Ivan continued, “because you and I didn’t get off to a great start.” Ivan had met them at the flat, groceries bought and the kettle boiling for tea the second they’d stepped inside.

“I remember that,” Sam said.

Ivan groaned. “Seriously?”

“You were talking crap about my dad and I told you not to.”

“I apologised. Do you remember that?”

“No,” Sam lied.

Eric shot Ivan a heated look that said ‘ Apologise again’ , and Ivan met that look with an irritated one of his own.

Roan hummed, rubbing the back of Sam’s neck in a soothing gesture. Given that Roan’s hands seemed to run at a hundred degrees, it felt incredibly nice. He adjusted the golden chain of the dagger that hung around Sam’s neck, something he’d returned to Sam the moment they’d left the hospital. Apparently, Connor had made him take it in case the hospital staff took it off him. Memories of Roan had returned in full – at least he thought so.

“It is good to defend your sire,” Roan told him. Sam was grateful that Roan spoke softly for Sam’s ears alone. “You are right not to yield; you need yield only to me, and no other.” He leaned in, pressing a soft kiss to Sam’s lips. He kept it chaste, not putting enough of anything into the kiss to make it embarrassing for Sam.

“Goldilocks is coming back to you, is he?” Ivan asked, something particularly sharp and pointed in his eyes now. “Bad form to be making moves on someone who doesn’t even remember you, isn’t it?”

Eric twisted, clear unease in his expression as his gaze darted between the two of them.

Roan tensed, shoulders tightening as his gaze fixed right back on Ivan, except he looked a dozen times more intimidating than Ivan did.

“I remember him,” Sam said. He captured the hand that Roan had dropped from the back of his neck and squeezed it. Roan didn’t take his eyes off Ivan, but he squeezed Sam’s hand back, so Sam knew he had the merman’s attention. “All of you, I think. I was at his place checking out nurses for Dad right before my accident.” The accident that Sam still couldn’t remember. It was hard to believe he’d slipped in the garden when everything was bone dry. They told him about a break-in the day before too, but Sam couldn’t recall that either.

Eric nudged his elbow to Ivan’s, and the sharpness in Ivan’s gaze eased. He bumped Eric back and broke eye contact with Roan with a loose shrug and a relaxed smile. “Just making sure everything’s all straight. Shall I start plating up the noodles?” Ivan rubbed Eric’s back as he passed behind him, and the tension eased from his brother’s shoulders. Eric remained a blank slate for Sam, but he remembered now that it had been like that before his concussion.

Four plates of heaped food were set, and a weird feeling washed over Sam as they began dinner. Eric sat at Sam’s right, a bundle of nerves whose eyes kept darting to Sam with each bite he took – either checking that he didn’t choke or if he liked the food, Sam wasn’t sure which. Ivan ate and talked, relaxed, if not for that sharp look he couldn’t disguise behind his numerous casual shrugs. He was watching, on the alert, for something that would set off alarm bells and end with Roan getting kicked out. If Ivan could manage that was another question entirely.

Roan ate, his attention split between Sam and Ivan, the latter getting on his nerves. Sam didn’t think it was as anything more than a minor annoyance, since Roan didn’t act on it. For that, Sam was grateful.

“Is it okay for you to both be down here?” Sam asked. “I thought you were catching up on work?”

“I wasn’t about to let Eric drive down here alone after that phone call. He was convinced something bad had happened to you. His hands wouldn’t stop shaking.”

Eric cast Ivan an annoyed look. “I wasn’t that bad.”

Ivan smiled.

“But thank you,” Eric added.

“’Course,” Ivan said. “Anyway, to answer your question, Sam, I’ll be heading back for Monday. Eric’s going to take a break for a while to stay here with you. Get everything sorted out.”

Eric’s expression changed, then. Stress and unease filling it.

“I might be moving back,” Eric said. His eyes flashed from Ivan to Sam. “I won’t be intrusive, I swear, I just—It’s too far away. I can’t be that far from you.”

Sam could have pointed out he’d lived away for years, but that would have been a distinctly unkind thing to say. Especially since Sam could see that Eric was still working through feelings of guilt for leaving Sam behind in the past. Not that he should feel guilt for that; he had been a teenager. Sam wasn’t his responsibility.

“Cool,” Sam said. And he made sure he didn’t say it in the flat tone that seemed to trigger Eric. He used a nice voice. Offered a genuine smile when Eric turned to him, dumbstruck. “Maybe we could demolish the house together as a summer project?”

“Oh. Oh. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.” Eric’s surprise morphed to doubt, then to suspicion, and then to something that elevated his voice into a happy note. “I’ve done loads of work around Ivan’s place, so we could renovate it too. Make it liveable again. The garden is still in good shape.”

“Dad always has a list of what needs tending in the garden.” Sam grunted. “He’d never let his robins live in anything but paradise.”

Ivan probably thought he hid that hmm behind a mouthful of food. But Sam heard it loud and clear, and he set his gaze on him, not pretending that his censure went unnoticed.

“What?” Sam asked flatly.

Ivan swallowed his mouthful and immediately his hands were up, palms showing in surrender. “I literally didn’t say anything. Not one word.”

Sam leaned back, irritation and anger rising up.

“Let me guess, ‘why’d he pay attention to the birds’ living conditions, but not his kids’?”

“I didn’t say a word.”

“You were thinking it.” Sam stood, and Ivan was covering his face now, the groan he released one of genuine frustration.

“I’m not thinking anything. It was just a hmm . A polite acknowledgement that you spoke when I didn’t have anything in particular to say on the topic.”

“I don’t believe for one second you have nothing particular to say ‘on the topic’,” Sam muttered. He picked up his empty plate and Roan’s as well and set them both in the sink. “I’ll leave the dishes to you. Concussed and all.”

Ivan was peering out from between his fingers, a glare fixed on Sam. “I was going to do them anyway since Eric cooked.”

For his part, Eric seemed frozen in place, apparently undecided about who he wanted to tell to leave off. Sam couldn’t have said who deserved it. Ivan for his quiet judgement or Sam for not letting that judgement slide.

“You sticking around for a bit?” Sam asked Roan as he walked toward his room.

Roan nodded and rose to follow.

The bedroom that Eric told him was his when he’d entered the flat was small and economical, the window having a view of the street. A gap in the terraces just opposite left them a sliver view of the ocean. It wasn’t far, a ten-minute walk at most.

Sam sat on the bed, and then, as a bone-deep weariness seemed to grab hold of him, he let himself sink back and shut his eyes. Roan closed the bedroom door before he approached the bed. “Lie properly,” Roan urged, and when Sam just hummed – not nearly as judgemental as Ivan’s hmm – Roan took matters into his own hands and physically moved Sam himself.

He pushed Sam onto the far side of the bed, getting him under the cotton sheets, and climbed in next to him. Cotton wrapped around Sam’s midsection rather than bare skin as Roan settled behind him. Sam pinched the fabric of Roan’s sleeve, tugging at it. “It’s bad form to wear my ex’s clothes and get in bed with me.”

A displeased sound rumbled from Roan’s throat. “I was told it would upset you if I wore my own clothes.”

“It would have gotten unwanted attention at the hospital,” Sam allowed. “But now that we’re out of the hospital, I don’t like you wearing his things.” Sam blamed his concussion – though given that Adonis had worked his magic on Sam, it wasn’t any excuse – for voicing the niggling feeling buried deep within him. It didn’t bother Sam. Not really. It was just slightly irritating.

“I see.” Roan withdrew from Sam.

Sam looked over his shoulder and watched Roan undress. He cast the clothes across the room and fixed his gaze on Sam.

“This is better?”

Sam fought to keep his expression level, so much naked skin before his eyes that he didn’t even know where to look. Roan’s entire being was hard to look at straight on, so, plumping the pillow and adjusting it to be comfortable, he rested his head and looked. At Roan’s legs, which had speckled golden scales mixed with golden-tan skin. His thighs were thick, leading to defined hips and a pronounced V-cut of muscle. Roan didn’t have a bodybuilder’s bulk, but he had solid muscles in his core. Anyone who looked at him would know he used those muscles every day. Though, that he used them while swimming around with a tail might not be as apparent to anyone but himself.

Roan reached down to grip his cock, lifting the heavy member to point at Sam. “You may look here too,” he told Sam. He didn’t say it in a teasing way, as if he were making fun of Sam’s inexperience, but rather in a reassuring manner. He’d seen Sam’s skirting gaze for what it was: shyness. Roan approached and stood at the edge of the bed, making it so Sam would have to go to great pains not to look at him.

Roan’s cock was a great and jutting thing, no foreskin over the swollen head, so all of it was on display. Sam followed the line from tip to trunk, where his cock jutted from smooth skin, not a single hair in sight, only a splattering of scales.

Sam’s face warmed as if pressed close to an open fire. He carefully slid across the mattress until he was right beneath Roan. He twisted, pushing his cheek to make contact with the side of Roan’s cock, and without taking his eyes off of Roan’s face, without breaking eye contact, he turned so it was his mouth against warm skin instead.

He felt, rather than saw, Roan’s hand move. He slid it to his base, getting his fingers out of Sam’s way. His lids shuttered down, and in one blink, the human whites turned to deep, merman blue. The gold of his irises shone, twin half-moons peering down at Sam with intense focus.

Sam parted his lips, taking the side of Roan’s cock in a kind of kiss. He slipped his tongue out to slide against his shape in a teasing, wet lick and sucked on the delicate skin as if he were trying to draw the juices from an ice lolly. Or perhaps leave a hickey.

A warm hand slid into Sam’s hair, cupping the back of his head. There was no pressure of any kind, merely support as Sam continued what he knew was just straight-up teasing. His face flamed. He smelled and tasted brine and salt on Roan’s skin, and he tilted his head, travelling his mouth to Roan’s tip.

Sam hesitated. “I’ve never given anyone a blowjob before,” he admitted.

A pleased hum rumbled from Roan’s throat. “Good,” he said. “You may only pleasure me.”

Sam huffed. “So we’re like…a proper thing?” His tongue darted out to run against Roan’s slit, a line of beading juices ending up in his mouth that Sam savoured before he swallowed. The hand in his hair tightened, and there was another pleased rumble. “Mates?” Sam prompted. “Although does that not happen until we have sex? When you mount me?” Sam interspersed his words with kisses. With rubbing his lips against Roan’s tip. With sucking the end, just a little bit, into his mouth, and withdrawing again.

Roan’s tip was slick with saliva, ready for anything.

“I have claimed you,” Roan said, slipping his hands from Sam’s hair to the back of his neck, where a circular indent of teeth had healed over with the oddest golden sheen where scars were usually silver or pink. “You,” Roan added, “have not yet claimed me.”

Sam went still. There was a flash in the haze of Roan’s eyes – a hint of worry? Or was that frustration?

He opened his mouth but caught himself before blurting out the first thing that came to mind: you want me, of all people, to claim you ? A sea god made flesh? A creature of power and wonder? Instead, he let everything he’d experienced penetrate through his thick skull and then spoke. “How do I do that? I’m inexperienced, you know.” Sam wanted Roan and everything he represented. He wouldn’t let something as small as low self-confidence get in the way of that.

A jolt shook Roan’s entire body. He grunted, eyes losing their half-moon shape as they widened in clear relief. “You do not know .” Roan caught Sam by the shoulders and pushed him unceremoniously onto his back. Roan climbed on top, and what could only be described as a purr rumbled from his chest. Blazing eyes of gold met Sam’s. “Do not worry. It is my fault for not instructing.” He bent, pressing a kiss to Sam’s mouth that ended up with a tongue pushing past the seam of his lips.

Sam’s eyelids slid shut, pleasure tingling through him as that rumbling purr settled over him. He felt it keenly through his mouth, all the way to his throat, as Roan devoured his mouth in an all-consuming kiss. Sam reached up, flattening his hands to Roan’s chest to just feel that purr. So clearly pleased. So clearly happy. And all because he’d realised Sam not claiming him had been done out of ignorance, not choice.

Had Roan been waiting since that day in the bath for Sam to return the favour? Had he been set on this relationship since then? But no. He’d told Eric they’d been dating for six months. Had he been devoted to Sam since the beginning? Since he first realised as he swam his slow circuits around the boat that Sam was drawing him?

Roan pulled back, his hum so pleased Sam’s insides curled in warmth. “You may bite me,” Roan said. “And leave your mark on me as I have left mine on you.”

Sam reached up, rubbing the back of Roan’s neck. “Here?”

“For you, here.” Roan moved so that Sam’s hand slid from the back of his neck to the side, where neck met shoulder. “The dominant one marks the back of the neck.”

Sam rubbed that stretch of skin. “Okay, okay.” He didn’t really like the thought of biting Roan hard enough to hurt, but he could see that was what the merman wanted.

“Wait,” Roan said. He withdrew from the bed, tossed Sam’s blankets off, and then climbed atop him again, knees sinking into the mattress on either side of Sam’s hips. “I will take you in my hand first. You should bite as you climax.”

Sam’s breaths altered as Roan gripped his sweatpants and underwear, tugging them down together, an excited tremble in his hands. Gills flared out on Roan’s neck, no longer passing as scars. He pulled the fabric roughly down to Sam’s knees and, with a sound of impatience, abruptly descended, swallowing Sam’s already hard cock into an eager mouth.

Sam jerked, the sudden warmth and wetness and suction sending a rocket of sensations through him. He threw his head back with a groan, arching off the bed as his entire body quaked in need. He clutched a handful of golden hair in a fist. Self-control slipped through his fingers like a handful of fine sand.

“You said hand ,” Sam gritted out through clenched teeth.

Roan fumbled for a grip on Sam’s cock, circling the base between thumb and finger and squeezed as if to say, ‘Here is the hand.’ His tongue pressed against the bottom of Sam’s cockhead with targeted urgency. There was something both rushed and desperate in Roan’s actions, and the pace crumbled Sam’s mind to incoherent pieces.

He arched into Roan, jaw clenching hard enough to hurt as he tried to keep his mouth shut, to keep his groans internal. Roan grabbed a handful of ass, clenching Sam’s behind and pulling him up, encouraging Sam to thrust into his mouth. Sam’s eyes shut, breaths sounding like hisses as Roan worked him up into a trembling creature of need . His hips started moving, jutting up, seeking out Roan’s maddening mouth each time he withdrew even the slightest bit.

Sam squeezed the hand in Roan’s hair. “I’m close,” he warned.

Roan pulled off his cock, eyes glowing as he fixed his gaze on Sam. The look in his eyes now wasn’t just relief, it was wild. Wanting. His own cock was jutting up, quaking, and a shimmer running down Roan’s leg caught Sam’s eye.

He shook with the effort of not fisting himself to completion, his body and mind both burning for release, and instead nodded to Roan’s legs. “Are you about to shift?”

Roan’s groan was one of frustration. “It is hard to remain in this form. I may shift if you mark me.”

Sam rose onto his elbows, scanning Roan, the bed, the room. He moved, shuffling up the bed until he was hitting the headboard. “Shift first. If you’re paying attention while you do it, I won’t get hurt.”

Roan’s top lip rose and quivered. “If I shift, I will mount you.”

“Shift.”

“I said—”

“I heard.”

Their eyes met.

Roan, clearly already on the cusp of losing control, nodded. He retreated from Sam, pulled his trousers and underwear off all the way, and tossed them aside. He guided Sam’s legs apart, making sure there was room between his legs for when he shifted – a blur where two legs became one tail of molten gold – so nothing was caught beneath the immense bulk.

Sam, flat on his back and trapped beneath Roan’s body, boxed in with arms on each side, legs obscenely parted around that tail, trembled. Roan shifted, and his cock rubbed between Sam’s hip and cock, a mini tunnel for him to rub against.

“I’m a virgin,” Sam groaned.

Roan kept doing that motion. That little hip thrust that was smearing precum into his skin; it felt so maddeningly wet that Sam’s body started to overheat.

Roan rumbled. He bent, jamming his mouth against Sam’s ear. “Good,” he said. Roan shifted his weight to one arm, and his hand descended Sam’s body. He stroked his chest, feathered his fingers against ribs, circled Sam’s cock to give him one hard pump, squeezing out his juices in a way that made Sam whine, and then Sam watched as Roan took hold of his own cock and squeezed. A generous amount of slick gushed out, landing on Roan’s hand and Sam’s abdomen. It ran into the dip of his hip, into the valley between cock and thigh that Roan fucked with languid thrusts.

Fingers slick, Roan slid a fondling grip over Sam’s balls, against his taint and then his ass. He rubbed against the ring of muscle before pushing a finger inside. Sam ground his head back into the pillow, gasping. Roan withdrew a finger, and then two slipped in.

Sam tensed. “I need more than a second to adjust!” he complained.

Roan grunted.

Sam peeked to see that Roan’s eyes were fixed on his hand, fingers moving in and out of Sam in time with his lazy thrusts. Roan got to three thrusts and grunted again. “Adjusted?” he asked.

Sam practically growled at the merman. “No.”

Roan did one more thrust. “Adjusted?”

“Roan!”

Roan raised his gaze from Sam’s ass to his face. “You are taking them without difficulty,” he said, a petulant note in his voice.

Technically, that was true. But Sam had seen videos about this part before, and in what he’d seen, there was definitely more prep than five seconds. Either that, or none at all, and Sam wasn’t doing none when Roan was that size. Sam’s cock was hard, his tip brushing against Roan’s warm abdomen with each of his thrusts, but his own idea of what should happen grappled against his actual knowledge. Unsure, Sam shifted his position.

Roan was more experienced than him… “I don’t know,” Sam said, nerves catching in his throat. “But I feel like it’ll hurt if you go too fast.”

Roan’s head cocked to the side. “I will not hurt you,” he said, and his voice lost the petulant note, replaced with a patient tone. “See? You take three fingers with no pain.”

There wasn’t pain, but there was a stretch that had Sam moaning. Roan did three thrusts, four, and with a careful eye on Sam’s face, five.

“I swear if you ask me if that’s ‘enough’…” Sam’s threat trailed off.

Roan grumbled, ducking down to press a kiss to Sam’s cheek. He thrust his fingers and cock, and soon Sam was maddened for another reason entirely. Not enough prep transformed into too much, and the teasing touch of Roan’s warm abdomen brushing against Sam’s cock became too much of a tease to endure.

“I’m ready,” Sam insisted.

Roan slid a fourth finger in and continued with that, pressing kisses to his jaw, face buried in Sam’s neck where hot breaths teased already heated skin.

“For your cock,” Sam elaborated.

Roan grunted. “I will prepare you more. So your mind is at ease as well.”

“It’s at ease.”

Roan hummed. “Are you sure? I have learned to be very patient with you. I can wait longer. That is very nice of me,” he added.

A demented laugh bubbled from Sam’s chest. “Roan, get that cock in me so I can mark you,” Sam insisted. “Otherwise, I’m going to come from you grunting against my ear.”

Roan froze. Sam saw the gears of his mind churning, and he waited with his breath held to see if the teasing would continue or not. Roan’s fingers slid from Sam, and his cockhead kissed the newly emptied space. Sam unconsciously tightened in anticipation. He looked down, getting a glimpse of where Roan’s cock lined up at his entrance, balls tight at the base, and then quickly flashed his gaze elsewhere. He looped his arms around Roan’s neck, gripping a handful of back and shoulder.

Roan hummed, kissing the soft underside of Sam’s jaw, his throat, and then his neck. “You are doing perfectly,” Roan complimented, even though Sam was doing literally nothing. Roan gripped himself and guided, sliding forward into Sam with firm pressure.

Sam squeezed his eyes shut, breath catching as Roan’s cock speared him open, far larger than his fingers had prepared him for, a scalding presence that advanced slowly but surely, until Sam’s eyes were tearing up and firm balls were pressing against his ass.

“Breathe,” Roan encouraged as he went still.

Sam sucked in a sharp breath, then another. Roan rubbed a soothing hand against his thigh. Sam’s legs were spread wide to make room for Roan’s tail. The scales were soft against his skin, the texture an interesting tactile distraction as Sam got used to the feeling inside of him. It was…a lot. A lot a lot.

“Is this okay?” Sam murmured, not even knowing what he was asking.

Roan rumbled in response. He flexed his hips, carefully withdrawing and advancing in a rocking motion. The purring continued as he nipped the skin beneath Sam’s ear, biting down hard, and then following up with open-mouthed kisses that sucked the abused flesh into the heat of his mouth.

Everything was hot. Sweat beaded all over Sam’s body as the tortuously slow pace seemed to exert every muscle in his body until he was quaking and clinging to Roan desperately. Roan moved, lifting so that his weight was off Sam’s chest, and the rocking gradually transformed into thrusts.

Sam tried to absorb all of it. The squeak of the mattress, the spring that gave way during each thrust. The squelch soon turned to slaps as Roan’s thrusts sped up, intensified, and balls collided with ass loud enough to draw a sound. Roan’s rumbling was louder than his breaths, and Sam’s gasps were louder than it all.

Roan drew out grunts and moans, desperate curses until finally, he had a song of please please please pouring from Sam’s lips as his cock struck tortuously against a bundle of nerves inside that set his entire body alight.

Sam stopped breathing. His body jerked and convulsed erratically as his cock began twitching. Roan grasped Sam’s cock, pumping him with a firm, slick hand as Sam’s orgasm swept through him with an overwhelming force. Incoherently, Sam yanked Roan closer, a mouthful of skin beneath his teeth as he bit down.

Roan’s hips jutted forward, a snarl on his lips as he climaxed.

Roan pumped Sam’s cock until he began to twitch, sensitivity replacing the fire.

Sam’s own pleasure petered out, and he whined as he grabbed Roan’s hand, stopping the jerking on his now over-sensitive cock. Roan gripped Sam’s hips instead, weight dropping as he tunnelled hard into Sam with pleasured groans. Gradually, his thrusts petered out too, and he went still with his cock buried deeply into Sam.

Cum slipped out – Sam could feel it running down his crack – but though he spared a thought for the sheets, in that moment, Sam couldn’t care less. He held Roan to him as they caught their breaths.