Page 33 of Goldilocks (Salt and Starlight #2)

Sam lay out, feeling exquisitely ruined. Wanted and desired. Used and satiated. Roan stroked Sam’s stomach. Kissed the dip of his collarbone.

“Good,” Roan said.

Sam’s body heated. The simple word washed over him, itching its way beneath his skin and lighting him up all over again. It probably said something about his self-esteem that the word, something he would interpret as dismissive if someone else told him it was all a partner said after sex, somehow made everything even better.

Now that he knew Roan enjoyed it too, his mind relaxed. His body went slack, and he let out a long breath of relief. “It was good?” I was good ? was the unspoken question Sam couldn’t bring himself to ask, feeling too vulnerable for that.

Roan’s mouth moved to the crook of Sam’s neck, tongue and teeth making his skin blossom red. Sam shuddered, loving the feeling pricking over his skin.

“Good,” Roan confirmed, nuzzling his neck. “I knew you would be good for me.”

Sam felt like he didn’t do much of anything, but he could feel Roan’s satisfaction in every kiss, every stroke, in the release seeping out onto his bare skin down below. “Okay,” Sam whispered. “Okay. Good. I’m glad. Let’s do it again then.”

Roan chuckled, low and husky. He shifted his weight onto his elbows and pressed the softest of kisses on Sam’s still bruised brow. “We will rest,” Roan said.

“I’ve been doing nothing but resting all day.”

“Rest. Be good for me, and I will enjoy you in the morning.”

Sam opened his mouth, only to close it without saying anything. He wondered if that kind of flat statement should make him angry. If it should provoke a different reaction, instead of a plumping-up cock. Pretending he wasn’t aroused, he nudged his nose against the side of Roan’s face – who was busy pressing kisses to his neck again.

“What if I’m not good for you?” Sam challenged.

Roan chuckled again. He rose once more and adjusted so that a light press of lips touched Sam’s mouth before Roan settled into position above him, face hovering inches above Sam’s. “Are you threatening to misbehave?” Roan asked him. Everything from his tone to the shape of his eyes conveyed utter amusement.

“Maybe,” he said, his voice coming out shaky.

“Why not try and see?”

Sam just stared at the glittering amusement in Roan’s eyes.

Roan bent once more, placing a soft kiss on the corner of his mouth. “I think you like being good for me too much to test me at all, isn’t that right?” Roan flexed his hips, and Sam tensed up, spine arching away from the mattress as he groaned. The cock buried inside him was still stiff, and Sam was tender around the intrusion.

“You see?” Roan stroked the side of his thigh. “Because you are so tight to make me feel good, it is sore for you.”

Sam bit his lip. “It’s not that I’m tight; it’s that you’re huge,” he grumbled in complaint.

Roan hummed. He withdrew his hips, sliding slowly but steadily out of Sam. He whimpered as the ridge of Roan’s cockhead pulled free with a sting. He suddenly felt very empty.

Roan gathered Sam up in his arms and arranged them to lie on the bed side by side, with Sam’s back to Roan’s chest, his ass and legs against his tail. Sam bit his lip. A hard length pressed against the back of his thighs, solid in a way that had to be uncomfortable.

“I can go again,” Sam murmured, leaning into the hand stroking his side.

“You are too sore,” Roan told him, gentle but firm. “And will be more so in the morning when you wake. If your head were not injured, I would mount you once more, but it is not good for you to be strained when already injured.”

“I’m healed, though.”

“You are not.”

Sam twisted, catching the lips musing against his shoulder into a soft kiss. Roan’s mouth seemed to need Sam’s skin beneath it, as if there was a taste he couldn’t get enough of. Luckily for Sam, Roan seemed eager to search for that taste in his mouth too. Sam parted his thighs, and Roan’s erection sprang up between them, the tip poking his balls, making him whimper into Roan’s mouth. Sam squeezed his thighs together and rolled his hips, and Roan’s erection was slick enough to tunnel smoothly between the flesh.

“Is this good?” Sam murmured against Roan’s mouth, panting.

Roan’s hand slid up the curve of Sam’s throat and cupped his jaw, guiding his face back into place and slanting their lips together. His other hand slipped around Sam’s stomach, fingers digging into Sam’s abdomen as he gripped him. Roan took over. Holding Sam still as he jutted his hips forward, fucking Sam’s thighs. Sam writhed and moaned, his balls getting prodded over and over, his mouth being feasted upon. Sam tried to be as good for him as he could, pushing his thighs tight together, holding still, obediently parting his lips for Roan to ravage his mouth in a dominating kiss. The bed creaked and groaned as Roan fucked, and Sam moaned as the hand on his stomach tightened.

Sam’s strangled gasp was swallowed by Roan’s greedy mouth. His cock twitched wildly as he released, and he dimly realised that neither of them had so much as brushed a finger against his cock. That Sam was clutching the hand around his throat with both hands, and he’d peaked anyway.

Sam’s energy crashed, and his entire body slackened, thighs relaxing around Roan’s tunnelling. Roan tensed and then hot semen seeped between Sam’s thighs, each thrust slicker than the last. Roan’s movements petered out slowly, and he released a hot breath against Sam’s mouth as he loosened the grip on Sam’s jaw, a hold becoming a caress. Sam gasped for air.

Roan nudged Sam to face forward, untwisting his spine, and he buried his nose against Sam’s nape. Every touch, every gesture, every sigh was one of pleased contentment.

Sam found the hand massaging semen into his stomach and wound his fingers through Roan’s. Ruined and sated, he relaxed totally into Roan. Content to submit to his gentle domination. “I was okay for you?”

“Very good,” Roan answered at once. “You are a good mate,” he reassured Sam.

Sam squeezed Roan’s fingers. “You too.”

***

Sam blamed the two consecutive orgasms for the fact that he slept like the dead, not a single thought given to Roan’s golden tail, which the blankets couldn’t hide, nor the unlocked door that led to them. Sam woke with early morning daylight illuminating the room. He peeled away from Roan’s warm arms long enough to find the ticking sound, a large clock hanging on the far wall, and saw the arms pointed to 5 a.m.

With a grunt, Sam flopped back into the sheets and nuzzled his way back into Roan’s warmth.

Roan stirred. He replaced the blankets over Sam’s shoulder and wrapped his arms around Sam once more. He didn’t say a word, and his breath only altered for one inhale, so Sam suspected that he hadn’t actually woken up, merely reacted to Sam’s moving around in his sleep.

Sam tried to ignore the dull throb in his behind and fall back asleep. While the throb was oddly satisfying, the itchy feeling was not. Nor was the mess between his thighs. “I’m a degenerate,” Sam muttered, reaching down to feel all the dried semen stuck to his skin. “I gotta shower,” he murmured to Roan. With as little movement as possible, a bleary-eyed Sam got out of bed and stumbled zombie-like through the dark flat until he was in an electric shower being pelted with scalding water.

Sam stood under the stream for a long while, letting the water soothe his sore muscles. All of him was tired, despite the fact that Roan had done the heavy lifting, and Sam blushed to himself as his mind crawled over the details. His cock gave a half-hearted twitch, and acting like a degenerate who’d only recently discovered a working limb between his legs, Sam turned his thorough clean into an enjoyable one too.

Sam saturated himself with honeycomb soap, thoroughly washing between his legs and eventually lathered up his fingers to probe at his delicate insides. He bit his lips, phantom pleasure racing through him even as there was a distinct soreness to his washing. After the shower, Sam dug out a washcloth and set about getting Roan as clean as he could. His cock had sunk back into his tail, and unlike Sam’s skin, one wipe seemed more than enough to clean his scales of the dried semen.

Roan roused during the cleaning and rolled onto his back. His tail fin flicked up, and he blinked. “Come.” Roan tugged on Sam’s hand, urging him toward the blankets.

Sam resisted that tug. “I need to eat. Do you want to come out or sleep in for a bit?”

Roan rose onto his elbows. The blanket covered only part of his tail, a large portion hanging out over the edge and trailing on the carpeted floor. Sam followed Roan’s gaze to the fin which twitched but remained a tail. Sam turned his attention back to Roan’s face and studied that concentrated look. “Can you not shift back?”

Roan frowned. “No.”

Sam thought of Roan’s remarks about how things were easier with Connor around. And while he might not understand why or what that meant, he could accept that it was a thing. “I’ll go get Connor,” Sam said. “I don’t like you being stuck so far inland.”

Roan grunted. “It is uncomfortable.” And it seemed that the discomfort was in more than just his tail, as he rubbed his arm, his very skin seeming to itch.

Sam sat on the bed, wincing at his own personal discomfort, and focused wholly on Roan. “Thanks for coming anyway. I know that leaving the ocean isn’t the easiest thing to do.”

Roan leaned in, rubbing his face against Sam’s neck. “I am mated to a human. I will compromise.”

“How about I compromise next and get you to the ocean?” Sam suggested. “I have to sort some things with my college, book some time off and all…Decide whether or not I’m going back.” Which Sam didn’t know if he would. He’d have to play catch-up and study and take exams and all these things that he just didn’t have any interest in.

Sam’s gaze trailed to the neat bite mark on Roan’s neck. A mark which, according to Roan, meant they were mates. At the very least, they were boyfriends. They’d had sex. Roan didn’t seem like he was about to ghost Sam and shatter his heart, and Sam was too far in now to even try at any semblance of emotional detachment.

“You may pursue studies you are actually interested in,” Roan said, speaking in a measured tone, “without affecting your independence. Or you may pursue your artistic talents at leisure.” This time his tone had a very purposefully implied ‘Like I think you should’ .

Sam’s lips twitched as he repressed a smile. “I haven’t painted you in a while. Maybe I could spend the day doing that?”

“Yes,” Roan said. “I will model for you.”

Sam didn’t stifle the smile this time. He gave in to it. “Maybe you could do some nude modelling for me, since we’re mates now?” He ran his hand over the stretch of tail Roan’s cock had disappeared into and groaned in delight as the scales shifted and a cockhead prodded at his palm.

“I will do as you wish.” Roan leaned in, rubbing his forehead against Sam’s as he shut his eyes. Curious, Sam pressed as hard as he could, keeping his hand flat on Roan’s tail to trap his cock inside. Sam grinned as Roan snarled, jutting his hips to try and get past Sam’s hand.

“I have to push so hard to keep it inside,” Sam said.

Roan growled.

The head of Roan’s cock prodded at Sam’s palm, demanding it be let free. Slick escaped where the cock couldn’t, and once Sam’s hand was lubed up and Roan was shaking in agitation, Sam turned his hand, letting the cock escape only by pushing up through his lubed grip.

“I’m too sore for sex, but if you’re up for a hand job…?”