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TWENTY TWO

Noah

There’s something off with Olivia. I had a hunch as we left the Inlet Views, and the moment we step into the water and I transform, I can taste it. My legs split into tentacles, and the second I’m fully shifted they’re searching for Olivia’s skin.

When I make contact, though, her flavor is not what I’m expecting. Of course the sweet, bright sunshine scent of her remains, but it’s muted. Like a dish that hasn’t been seasoned properly.

What the hell? Have I done something?

Most likely. I’ve been pretty preoccupied with my own shit for the last couple days. Relying on her for comfort, treating her like a good feelings dispenser to get my hit whenever I need it.

I should have been checking more closely on how she’s doing. Because it occurs to me now that it’s literally on the tip of my tentacle, that it matters.

It fucking matters if she’s not OK.

I can’t really pinpoint the exact moment when it started to matter. If I’m really honest, maybe there wasn’t one, because hasn’t it always mattered? Didn’t I drop everything that very first night when I found her crying in the cupboard at The Snapper just to make everything OK for her?

I guess maybe the whole fated mates thing might not be such bullshit after all.

On that terrifying realization, I wrap myself around her and draw her close. The water is at the level of her knees, lapping at our skin, waves rolling in. This beach is sheltered. The waves never get big here unless the weather is truly wild.

I pull Olivia close and stroke my thumb along her cheek. “Did I tell you already today you’re amazing?”

The smile that breaks over her face is reassuring, but her flavor hasn’t changed.

“I mean it. I’d be a mess if you weren’t here. Or I would have completely fucked things up with Jack today.”

She smiles up at me. “You didn’t need me. You’re not as bad as you think you are.”

“Not when I’m around you,” I tell her earnestly. “You bring out a better side of me.”

I want to say more. I want to tell her how special she is, but I’m a coward and I’m scared of what all this means.

So I take the coward’s way out, covering her mouth with mine, telling her with my lips and tongue instead.

I tease her lips apart, caressing and licking into her mouth, feeling the way her body goes pliant against mine.

I lift her into my arms and dive with her into the water, rolling and turning us until we’re out into the deeper, calmer section of the bay beyond the sand bank.

Never once does she resist or pull away. Trusting me unconditionally, she gives me complete control until I’m moving for her, breathing for her, thinking how perfect this is.

Just like my feelings for her crept up on me, my need is the same. With her in my arms beneath the water, I’m never going to last for long without having her.

My cock is a throbbing bar pressed tightly against her side, aching to be inside her.

I move her into position and gaze into her eyes as I nudge at her entrance, checking if she’s ready. The little nod she gives me undoes the last of my willpower and I slide home in one thrust, making her gasp out little air bubbles in a rush of motion as they escape toward the surface.

But though I rushed to this point, now that I’m inside her, I have no desire to hurry the rest. I pump into her in lazy strokes, moving my hips in time with our slow breaths, feeding air into her mouth, holding her close.

We hang like that, suspended in pleasure, needing only each other for god knows how long. I can’t keep track. It might have been hours we’ve been out here except her body is still warm and languid in my grip. I focus on that, careful not to keep her out too long.

As she comes closer to orgasm, she becomes more restless, wrapping her legs around me, clinging to me, pleading without words.

Finally I slide the tip of one tentacle to tease at her tight ass and then I fill that hole too.

Gently at first, then daring to stretch her further, close to bursting when she allows me that as well.

Now it’s me who’s restless, who can’t hold back.

I hold her tight and plunder her body, taking pleasure from her little cries that I swallow as I feed her air.

At the last moment, when she’s squeezing around my length, clamping down around my tentacle, I remember we haven’t used protection.

Again.

With a curse, I pull from her body just in time.

Warm orange seed spills from my cock, painting the water around us, charging this moment with the evidence of my desire for her.

Then, because I’m not done, I don’t allow her to be either. I continue to fill her ass, moving a tentacle to replace my cock in her pussy, feeding one into her mouth as well.

This time when she comes again, she’s floating at my mercy, impaled on my body in three places and thoroughly, completely mine.

I savor the look of bliss on her face as I bring her back to awareness with a soft breath of air into her mouth a moment later. The breath turns into a gentle kiss.

Why the fuck did I waste so much time not kissing her?

We rise to the surface and I hold her as she adjusts to breathing for herself again, blinking into the late afternoon sun which feels hot on our faces after the deep water.

Olivia gasps. Tiny droplets of water pebble on her lashes. Her lips curve into a smile. “Wow.”

My chest puffs out with pride. But her gaze darts away a moment later and I’m deflated.

Beyond the rich, deep taste of her arousal and her pleasure, the muted flavor of her uncertainty is returning.

I still haven’t done enough.

How could I when I’ve spent weeks doing the damage?

I wish I could wave a magic wand and make it go away, but of course I can’t. “Olivia, are you sure everything is OK?”

She gives me a smile I don’t buy for a second. “Yeah. Of course.”

I’m forced to take her back to shore before she starts shivering, though I’d rather keep her in my arms longer, feel the curves of her body pressed to mine, taste her with my tentacles.

Instead, I relinquish my hold and we wade toward the sand, finding our clothes and dressing after I’ve dried enough to shift. And I spend the rest of the afternoon brooding about how I get my sunny, carefree Olivia back.