Page 10

“ Y ou’re going to what?” I said to Ral a few weeks later, my voice ringing loud with indignation.

He’d managed to coax me into swimming out further than I’d gone before and I was concentrating on treading water, keeping my head above the surface with some ungainly kicks and flails.

“Push you under,” Ral said.

I stared at him, then turned and aimed my ungainly kicking and flailing in a shoreward direction. “No.”

Laughing, Ral darted around to block my escape.

He wasn’t as graceful as Sayan—he couldn’t possibly be—but he was a strong, athletic young man and he made swimming look easy. Natural. He didn’t even have to think about it.

It seemed impossible that I would one day be as confident as he was, but he’d assured me that if I continued to put the time in, then I would be.

I attempted to push him out of my way, and was instead swiftly propelled a few feet in the opposite direction. He enjoyed dominating me in the water a little too much. “Why would you even want to do that?” I demanded.

“Well, Erik, I’m not really here to teach you how to swim, am I?

I’m here to teach you how to spend time in the water with Sayan without being convinced that you’re about to die at any moment.

You don’t need to know how to do all the different strokes.

Now that you’ve mastered floating and paddling, you need to get comfortable not panicking when things get rough and you’re getting splashed and tossed about. ”

I frowned at him. “Sayan can control the water. If it was choppy enough that I’d be at risk of being tossed about, he’d simply calm it.”

Ral smiled, dimple popping, and lifted his brows.

“Oh,” I said.

Sayan would be the one tossing me about, not the lake.

“All right.” I stopped treading water and let myself rise to a floating position on my back for a rest. Now that I could do it, I was baffled that I had found it remotely challenging in the first place. “But why do you want to push me under? I don’t think Sayan would do that.”

“Maybe not on purpose, and certainly not if you ask him not to. It’s about getting you used to the shock of going under when you don’t expect it.

We already know you’re fine when you do it deliberately.

Having it suddenly happen rather than first preparing for it and then doing it yourself is different. Can I give it a go?”

“I suppose it makes sense,” I said, staring at the sky above me. “But—” I cut off with a yelp when he darted forwards, threw himself on top of me, and shoved me below the surface.

Instead of being overcome with panic, I simply thrashed back to the surface with a splutter and glared at him. “That was?—”

He did it again. He leapt at me, put his hands on my shoulders, and drove me down.

I bobbed back up like a cork to see him grinning. “Excellent!” he said, reaching out to shove me again.

I was ready for him, but before he made contact, his eyes flew wide and he shrieked as Sayan exploded from the water behind him, snagged him around the chest, and crashed back below the surface.

I trod water and looked around me.

Nothing.

Sayan?” I shouted. “Ral?” I propelled myself in a circle, scanning the lake. “Sayan!” Thrashing gracelessly back towards shore, I kept going until I felt the lakebed beneath my feet.

A tiny dark speck popped up on the horizon. I saw a flash of movement and heard a distant call.

“I’m all right!”

It was Ral.

The speck disappeared. For a moment, I thought Sayan had snatched him away again. I realised he hadn’t when I caught the faint sound of splashing water as Ral began to swim back to shore.

And when someone slipped a warm arm around my waist and tugged me against a large, solid body.

I gripped his forearm. “Sayan,” I said chidingly.

“What?” He nosed the side of my neck then scraped sharp teeth up and down the tendon.

“That wasn’t nice.”

“It wasn’t supposed to be,” he said, sounding irritated. “He liked it. He was laughing.”

I pulled his arm away and flapped and kicked myself around to face him. His eyes glinted at my graceless movements.

Learning a new skill at my age was very hard on the ego.

The splashing of Ral’s strong, regular strokes grew louder as he came steadily closer.

Sayan vanished again, slipping beneath the waves without a sound. I assumed he’d darted off, until he gripped my hips. I let out an ungodly groan when the heat of his mouth closed around my cock. It was there and gone before I had time to process it.

Ral swam up beside me. “He is so fast,” he said happily. “Erik, you’re going to love it when he does that to you.”

I wasn’t sure I’d enjoy being snatched out into open water quite the way Ral apparently did, but it was possible. I hadn’t thought I’d enjoy swimming at all, and yet here I was, quite contentedly splashing around.

Ral gave me an approving once over. “You’re doing so well.”

That bruised ego of mine, well beaten down after playing the part of wallowing incompetent in front of an immortal naiad and a robust, athletic youth, perked up. “I am?”

He nodded enthusiastically and sculled back a few feet. “Why don’t you see if you can paddle yourself over here?”

“Or we could call it done for the day and go back to the cabin for lunch?”

“Come on. You’re not even treading water right now. That’s cheating.”

“Fine,” I said, lifting my feet off the bottom and splashing over to him. “But we’ll have to stop soon, and?—”

Ral lunged forwards and shoved me under again.

This time when I broke the surface, I lunged back at him and tackled him down.

We both went under in a tangle of limbs. I got an elbow in my ribs, and my knee glanced off something large and hard. I was almost certain that it was his thigh.

As soon as I touched the bottom, I bent my knees and powered upwards.

I broke the surface at the same time as Ral did. We were both laughing.

Until Sayan snatched Ral again.

I sighed, and waited.

The little dark speck popped up even further away, but I got the same cheerful wave and shout.

I sculled backwards until I was standing comfortably, the water lapping at my collarbones. We’d been at it for a good hour and a half, and apparently being fit enough to walk all day long didn’t translate when it came to swimming.

I was tired and my muscles ached.

Expecting Sayan to reappear behind me, I gasped when, out of nowhere, that teasing heat once again surrounded the head of my cock.

At least…

Dear gods in all ten heavens, let it be Sayan and not a fish, or an eel, or?—

I gasped again and groaned when I felt pressure at my hole even as that heat slid down to cover the full length of my shaft. My stomach clenched as Sayan dragged back up with a long, slow suck from the base to the tip.

He released me with a quick, playful kiss and stood, drawing it out in that way he did when he wanted to be admired. Displaying himself for me.

He wasn’t only making sure that I got a good view.

He was making sure that I got a good feel .

He dragged his body over mine as he stood; his chest slid first over my belly, then my chest, then he slipped a thigh between mine and arched over me, a hand secure at my back to help me keep my balance.

Oh, he was dazzling like this.

The sun glowed behind him and light caught in the drops of golden water that rushed over his skin. He was little more than a dark shape in my sun-struck vision, but I didn’t need to see his face to know he was gazing at me with hunger and intensity.

I felt it in the tension of his body, in the hardness that he pulsed slowly, almost absently against my stomach, in the space he refused to let open up between us.

And simply because that was the way he always looked at me.

The sound of splashing grew closer as Ral made his way over to us.

Sayan pushed my hair back and lowered his head to kiss me, settling his warm lips on mine and resting them there. The possessive hand low at my back slipped down to hold my arse.

“That was even faster!” Ral said with enthusiasm.

Sayan tilted his head and parted my lips with his, his tongue pressing in and gliding over mine. I gripped his shoulders tighter.

“I’ll bet no one else in Laskeld has ever gone that fa—oh. Uh.”

Sayan licked into my mouth with deep, claiming strokes. The hand on my arse slid inward. He stroked my hole with gentle insistence.

The sound of heavy breathing broke me out of the erotic spell. I blinked my eyes open and my gaze clashed with Ral’s.

The poor boy was staring at us, his cheeks bright with a hard blush.

“Sorry, Ral,” I said. That was all I could get out before Sayan caught my chin and brought my mouth back to his.

I kissed him quickly and pulled back.

Sayan’s hold on me tightened.

“Sayan,” I said, “not here.”

“Yes. Here. I want you now.”

Ral choked.

Sayan held my chin again and murmured into my mouth, the vibration of his words and the feel of his damp lips against mine making me shudder. “I want you now. I need to be inside you. Let me in, my Erik. I want to feel your body take me?—”

Gods. I got a hand between us and clamped it firmly over his mouth. I couldn’t do anything about the way he was very obviously working his hips against mine.

He sighed.

“It’s…I’ll…it’s…” Ral’s words were tumbling over themselves. “Go. I’ll go, because you’re…uh.”

“Sayan,” I said sharply.

His hold on me fell away. He sank down, gliding backwards in the water. He didn’t say anything, just kept his large green eyes fixed on my face.

Ral was already splashing out of the lake.

“I will come back to you,” I said to Sayan.

“I will wait.” His words were patient. His face was not. His brows were low and his gaze went from me to Ral. His eyes narrowed to glittering slits.

I followed Ral onto the shore, where he was doing his best to scramble into his clothes while still wet. He hadn’t even stopped to dry himself off using one of the towels I’d brought down.

“I’m sorry, Ral,” I said.