Page 8 of Something Real with the Sea Monster (Kraken Cove #3)

EIGHT

Jack

Despite my best intentions, I think about Tegan most of the afternoon. Mostly it’s because I’m worried about her. Clearly she’s not OK.

I can put the pieces together. I heard enough on Friday night to know she’s had a bad breakup with someone who was probably emotionally unavailable the entire time she was seeing him. I hate that.

And I hate that I hate that. It rouses something protective in me, though I’ve known her properly for a grand total of twenty-four hours.

I should have backed the fuck off when she mentioned working for me.

Only my stupid monster brain has latched onto the fact that she’s now my employee and there’s an instinct in me screaming that this technically makes her my responsibility.

This is exactly the reason I don’t date. I’m not the dating type. Not because I’m the guy who’s afraid of commitment. I have the opposite problem. I look for commitment the moment I meet someone, which doesn’t tend to go down well. I know it makes me look a little crazy.

When I can’t find any more office busywork to keep me occupied, I flip the sign on the door, grab my wallet, and head out the door. I need noise and distraction. I need to get my mind off my pretty human employee with her head full of clever ideas.

I decide to head to the local pub, walking up the hill and along main street to find it just the same as always. INXS playing, regulars lined up at the bar. Then I pause, nearly tripping over my own feet when I spot a familiar head of perfectly waved blonde hair among the scruffy locals.

I can’t help myself. I’m tugged over as if I’m one of those toys in a claw machine. I walk up to the bar and pull out the stool next to hers. “Hi, Tegan.”

She turns and her mouth drops open in a comical expression of horror and she gasps.

“Oh Jack! I’m sorry. I totally ditched you this afternoon, didn’t I?

” She leans closer to the person next to her at the bar, Tyler Mason, the local mechanic.

Tyler is a few years younger than me. He was in my brother Noah’s class at school.

“He’s my boss now,” she says to Tyler conspiratorially. “Do you think he’ll fire me?”

Tyler laughs into his beer, and a dark little voice inside me wonders how long they’ve been chatting for. They seem very cozy.

I sit and order a drink, pleased when she shifts so she’s turned toward me. “Of course I’m not going to fire you. You weren’t technically working today.”

She lifts her glass and drains the rest of what looks like a vodka soda. “Well that’s a relief. I can’t lose two jobs in one week.”

She looks away, and I catch the tightness of her expression.

God damn it, I hate that expression.

“Want another drink?” Tyler asks.

I glare at him. “Don’t you have something to do somewhere else?”

He just laughs. Tegan flags down the bartender, Kristen, and orders another drink. Kristen ignores all my meaningful looks and goes to make it for her.

Tegan turns back to me. “Not everyone likes to work as hard as you, Jack.”

I open my mouth to respond, but she’s right. I sigh. “No one likes to work as hard as me. I’m not even sure I like it. Sometimes I think it was a bad decision telling Mom and Dad I’d take over the Inlet Views.”

She nods. “Well you know how I’ve always cheered myself up after making a really bad decision?”

She gets her new drink and takes a long sip.

“What?”

“Keep right on making bad decisions. Kraken Cove has a limited scope for that I guess, but I’m an expert. I’m sure I could help you out.” She takes another long sip and then sets her glass down, sliding from the bar stool. I’m watching to see if she stumbles, but she’s steady on her feet.

Maybe she hasn’t been here all afternoon like I thought.

I want to ask her what she means, but she grabs my hand. “Come on. Dance with me.”

I reluctantly follow her into the middle of the room where there’s a bit of space. It’s not a dance floor, but Tegan doesn’t let that stop her. She sways her hips to the music and dances like no one is watching her.

I shuffle awkwardly in front of her, conscious that the whole bloody bar is watching, half of them with their tongues hanging out their mouths, the other half laughing at me, Kraken Cove’s worst dancer.

I glare at Tyler over Tegan’s shoulder until he turns back to the bar and minds his business.

When the song ends, I’m kinda hoping she’s done and we can sit back down, but Daryl Braithwaite’s “Horses” comes on, and Tegan throws her arms around my neck, and suddenly I’m not feeling so reluctant anymore. I’m not feeling like the worst dancer in town either.

Tentatively, I place my hands on her waist and move with her.

Yeah, I’d sacrifice a whole lot more of my dignity for the excuse to have my hands on her some more.

Even if it is only going to be over her clothes.

Even if it is completely innocent, which I’m ashamed to say my thoughts are not while we dance.

We’re pressed right up against each other, and I feel every roll of her hips.

By the end of the song I’m not worried about who else is watching anymore.

The next song is another rock ballad. She stays in my arms, and I’m not complaining. She has her head on my shoulder, moving to a rhythm that no longer has anything to do with the music. Eventually she lifts her head to look up at me. “Take me home?”

Fuck .

I should have seen this coming. I think I probably did. It still catches me off guard. Everything about this woman has me off balance, flustered. I need to get her out of here. I can’t be her one-night stand, but I can’t explain that here. “Come on.”

Thank god for the cool sea breeze as we step out of the pub and onto main street. It clears my head a little.

We walk down the hill in silence. I’m still tangling with the words in my head, trying to find a way to explain to her why we can’t do this, when I find we’re standing at the door to the Inlet Views.

As I slide a hand into my pocket to get out the key, she slides hers around my waist and up my body, making the key almost impossible to retrieve when a huge bulge stretches the front of my jeans.

God damn it, she’s not going to make this easy.

I manage to get the key and extricate myself from her arms long enough to let us in and head for the stairs. As soon as I start climbing, I realize my mistake. Since she’s behind me, she has the perfect access to squeeze my ass.

I smother a groan.

When we get to the top of the stairs, I spin and catch her in my arms. “Hey.”

Her gaze is focused on my mouth. She leans closer, and I know she’s expecting me to kiss her.

I want to kiss her.

It feels like something is physically yanking me off balance when I pull away. “Why don’t I get you a drink of water?”

She laughs. “You’re the tallest drink of water I’ve seen in this whole town. And I’m thirsty tonight.”

“Listen, you’ve had a few. Let’s talk. Let’s order in. If you still want to fool around after that…” I don’t finish the sentence because what I should finish it with is then I’ll have to disappoint you .

She pouts. “I’m fine.”

I take another step back. “Tegan. I really think you should—”

“You can stop right there. Don’t tell me what I should do. You don’t know me.”

“No, that’s just it. I don’t. And you don’t know me. I don’t think we should go there. Not…today.”

Tegan presses her lips together, and I realize she’s struggling not to cry. “Why did you bring me back here just to reject me?”

Shit. I hastily get out a glass and fill it with water. “Here. Drink this.”

Instead of taking the glass, though, she glares at me. Then she grabs it and tosses the water straight into my face.

There’s a horrible ripping sound from my jeans. My legs split into eight tentacles, which burst my pants at every seam. The glass smashes onto the kitchen tiles, and Tegan gasps.

I react instantly. Keeping three tentacles on the ground, I wrap the others around her and haul her off her feet, slithering away from the shards of broken glass and bringing her to safety.

It’s an automatic reaction. I don’t even notice the prick of sharp glass in my skin until I stop, and by then I’m much more focused on the sweet, heady scent of her skin, magnified a hundred times by contact with my tentacles on bare arms and legs.

Oh fuck.

Fuck!

If I was finding it hard to resist her before, that was nothing.

Now that I’ve tasted her, I can’t even unwrap my tentacles and set her down.

All I can do is stare at her, my heart lurching around in my chest, my whole body on fire with awareness of her curves, her sweet flavor, the way she wriggles in my grip.

And then the unusual glow in the room registers, and I stare in horror at the tips of all eight tentacles glowing a bright, iridescent purple: a sight I’ve never seen before.

Why would I?

A kraken only glows for his fated mate.

This is it. The moment I’ve been waiting for, but it’s all wrong. She’s drunk. She’s hurting. I’ve hurt her and rejected her. How am I supposed to backflip on that now?

Fuck. How do I handle this?

I move forward a little more, and the crunching from beneath me reminds me about the glass. I force myself to set her on the sofa and slide back. “Just let me clean up the broken glass, OK? Then you can yell at me as much as you like.”

Thankfully, she doesn’t protest. She just tucks her legs up under her and rests her head on her arms, which makes her look vulnerable.

That’s like a spear wound to the guts, but I can’t focus on that right now.

I need to get myself under control and dry enough to shift back so I can try to have the semblance of a proper conversation with Tegan.

I need to explain why I couldn’t have sex with her tonight, but why I absolutely want her to hang around and talk to me and let me get to know her.

My heart thuds in my chest as I hastily sweep up the glass. Would Mia have told her what my glowing tentacles mean? If not, how do I explain myself?

I rush to the bedroom and yank off my damp clothes. By the time I’m shifted and dressed again, I look back into the living room, expecting to see a frustrated Tegan glaring at me.

Instead I find her asleep. She’s slumped over the arm of the sofa with her hair covering most of her face. I can’t help reaching out to brush it away, letting the backs of my fingers graze over impossibly soft skin.

I draw back with regret. At least this solves the problem of telling Tegan—well, everything. Gently, I lean down and lift her, expecting her to wake. She hardly stirs at all, which worries me. I debate for a long time whether I should take her back to Luke and Mia’s or let her stay here.

In the end, I tuck her into the human bed in my bedroom that I almost never use and turn away with regret to leave her a note for when she wakes in the morning.

You fell asleep and I didn’t want to wake you. I’ve gone underwater to sleep but help yourself to anything you like in the morning.

Jack