Chapter 8

CHAPTER EIGHT

LEVI

“I had a great time today. Thank you for inviting me.” Once again, Kris and I were on the sidewalk outside my shop and apartment, and I was stalling, hoping he would kiss me so we could continue what we’d started in the car before dinner.

“I’m glad you had fun, and I know my family appreciated the extra set of hands.”

“I can’t believe how quickly that came together. Like I walked into a barn, and when I walked out, I could have sworn we’d somehow been transported to a different world.”

“They have it fine-tuned down to a science.”

“Yeah, I get that now.” A beat of silence settled between us, ratcheting up the tension. “Do you want to come up for a drink?”

“God, yes.”

A laugh tumbled from my lips, echoing on the empty street, and I turned to shove my key into the lock. As I crossed the threshold and started up the stairs, I felt Kris’s heat at my back, and my body tingled with anticipation. It was impossible to keep my tentacles under control during sex, but I thought maybe I could handle it if we just stuck to kissing. Not that that had gone well the two times we’d kissed so far. Kris had thought I needed to get my hard-on under control after our little make-out session in the car, but my tentacles had been out under my coat, and I’d needed to calm them into submission too. They were already twitching under my coat, anxious to wrap around Kris, to feel his skin under the sensitive suckers. But I couldn’t let them out to play until I’d come clean, and I didn’t think dropping that bombshell on him after a long day with his family and when I was hoping he would kiss me was the right move.

“What can I get you? I’ve got beer, wat—” I never finished the list. Kris grabbed the lapels of my coat and turned me, shoving me back against the closed door of my apartment, his lips landing on mine.

His hands moved to my hair, his fingertips scraping along my scalp as he deepened the kiss, tilting my head to the angle he wanted. My hands found their way around his neck, my fingers toying with the hair not covered by the knit hat he still wore.

Ley line magic rushed through me just like it had the two other times we’d kissed, and the power pushed my tentacles away from my skin so they coiled and writhed in the confines of my jacket.

Kris’s thick thigh pushed between my legs, and I dropped my hands from his neck to his waist, pulling him closer and seeking friction against his body. Just like in the truck earlier, our bodies found a rhythm that matched the cadence of our kiss, and I was rock hard by the time Kris broke our kiss, his breaths ragged, to trace his tongue and teeth along my jaw to my earlobe, leaving sucking and biting kisses and a trail of heat in his wake.

“Fuck, Levi. I’ve never felt like this with anyone. Every time I touch you, it’s goddamn electric.” His breathing was still ragged, and his voice was deep with desire and arousal.

“I know. It’s the same for me.” My fingers found his belt loops, and I tugged him even closer so the weight of his body pressed me harder into the solid door at my back. There was no way to miss how hard we both were, and Kris adjusted our positions so our cocks met through our layers of clothing, the contact making my hearts race and my body heat as more of the ley line magic filled my veins until I wasn’t sure what was the magic of Kris’s touch and what was the elemental magic pouring into me from the sea. It all felt volatile like my body was a lit match next to a can of gasoline. My head fell back against the door as Kris’s lips skated down my neck, and my hands fumbled between us as I sought the waistband on his pants, working the button open and the zipper down until I felt the heat of his bare skin.

The tip of one tentacle slid from the cuff of my coat, brushing my wrist as it twined around my fingers, hell-bent on getting to Kris. The second it brushed Kris’s skin, a shudder ripped through both of us, pleasure rolling through me from the top of my head to the soles of my feet. My tentacles were straining the seams of my coat, and I heard the thread giving way.

Shit.

“Kris, wait.”

He stopped immediately, pulling back just enough to look down at me in the darkness of my apartment. I hadn’t even had a chance to hit the lights before Kris had me pinned against the door.

Which might just work in my favor. I could no longer deny my body—my whole body—what it wanted. The tiny touch of tentacle to skin had sparked a feral need to wrap myself around Kris and squeeze him until my tentacles sucked permanent bruises into his skin, marking him as mine.

While I couldn’t have that yet, I had an idea for how I could give us both what we wanted.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m perfect. I just needed a second.”

I pulled him closer again, my hands shoving under his coat until it fell from his shoulders and landed on the floor behind him. My lips found his in the darkness while his hands fumbled with my clothes, opening my pants and shoving my jeans and boxers down my hips while I did the same to him. When our bodies connected again, finally skin to skin, every part of me vibrated. Kris’s arm landed on the door above my head as he braced himself and moved his body against mine, the feel of his velvet length moving against mine enough to make me forget my own name. A tentacle escaped from the confines of my coat and slid down my back, making a beeline for Kris’s cock.

Breaking our kiss, I grabbed Kris’s face, and held it so he was looking into my eyes. The darkness provided good cover, but I was playing with fire, and I needed more insurance.

“I want to touch you so damn bad.”

Kris moaned. “Do it.”

“I will, but I need you to do something for me.”

“Anything.”

“I need you to keep your eyes closed or on mine the whole time, okay?”

Kris’s eyes glittered in the darkness, and I saw him nod. If he thought the request was odd, he didn’t show it. “Okay.”

“Okay.” Using one hand, I tugged him toward me while the other slid between us. I needed to kiss him again, so I did, melding our lips together as my fist closed around his cock. Kris moaned against my mouth, and the tentacle that had brushed his skin before slid along my wrist and wrapped around my fingers.

There were a lot of perks to being a kraken—impeccable swimming speed, excellent vision in the dark, unparalleled strength—but by far the most useful was the fact that kraken tentacles produced a silky slick liquid that made the perfect lube. As my tentacle twined around my fingers, it left the slick fluid behind, allowing my hand to glide along Kris’s shaft easily.

“God, Levi. That feels amazing.” His hips punched into my fist, and my tentacle got in on the action wrapping around Kris’s dick next to my hand, creating a longer, tighter channel. “Oh, fuck.” His eyes fluttered closed as my tentacle twined around him even more, covering my hand and the entire length of Kris’s cock.

The smooth skin covering his hard length felt amazing against the sensitive flesh of my suckers, and the sensation made me shudder.

Kris’s hand that wasn’t supporting his weight against me and the door, slid between us, reaching for my cock, and he started to glance down.

“Uh-uh.” I used my hand to lift his chin so he was looking at me. “Eyes up here, remember?”

“Fuck, Levi. I want to feel you too.”

“I know.” My lips found his as I willed my tentacles to uncoil from his shaft and slowly removed my hand. My dick was rock hard, and while I rarely used my tentacles to get myself off, I wanted to feel my tentacles wrapped around both of us.

Kris’s cock was still covered in slick, and when I wrapped my hand around both of us, I couldn’t stop from moaning against his lips.

Pulling back a little, Kris rested his forehead against mine as he caught his breath, his ragged breaths fluttering against my skin as his gaze held mine. His hips pumped into my fist, his length rubbing over every inch of mine, and stars like those that twinkled over the darkest oceans sparked along the edges of my vision. “Why does this feel so good with you?”

I couldn’t answer. Maybe there wasn’t one. Since the moment I’d met Kris, since the second we shook hands, I knew there was something cosmically special about him, and since that day, I hadn’t been able to think of him as anything other than mine.

The second the word passed through my mind, my tentacle rejoined the party, almost like it was agreeing Kris belonged to me, and it wanted to stake our claim.

Kris’s hand thumped against the door as my tentacle encircled us from base to tip, applying the perfect slick pressure. There was no way Kris hadn’t noticed that something very different was happening here, but he stayed true to his promise, his eyes staying locked on mine. His trust unlocked something deep in my core that made heat rush through me in a way that had nothing to do with the pleasure building in my core as my tentacle undulated around us and our hips rocked as we chased release.

Our kisses turned sloppy and disconnected, brushes of lips as we panted and moved together, lost to sensation. My tentacle slid over the heads of our cocks, mixing our precum, and Kris whined, his hips moving faster. “I’m so close. Fuck, Levi, I’m gonna come.”

“Me too. You feel so damn good.”

My tentacle pulsed around us, and Kris let go, his head falling back as he came on a long guttural moan that vibrated against my chest. The heat of his cum on the sensitive flesh of my tentacle made my eyes roll back in my head, my skull thunking against the door as I came, Kris’s name on my lips.

I willed my hearts to slow and my tentacle to uncoil, and it slid slowly from between our bodies until it retracted under the cuff of my jacket, leaving a sticky trail of slick and cum along my arm in its wake.

Kris’s body was pressed tight against mine as he used the arm he had braced against the door to hold him up. His eyes were closed, his breathing was ragged, and his heart beat so hard in his chest I could feel it against mine even through the layers of fabric between us.

My hands skated over his back and sides as we both came down from the high of our orgasms. I hadn’t had a sexual encounter that good in years, and I had a feeling it had more to do with the man in my arms than the actual mechanics of what we’d just done.

For a long time we stayed wrapped up in each other, enjoying the moment.

Until the sound of breaking glass downstairs forced us out of our afterglow.

Kris straightened and took a step back, tucking his spent dick away. “What the fuck was that?”

The hair on the back of my neck stood on end. I pushed off the door and buttoned my jeans. “I have no idea.”

But that was a lie. My gut was telling me I knew exactly what had happened. I could feel it in the air, and my tentacles writhed, this time ready for a fight instead of a fuck. It just didn’t make sense.

Turning, my hand found the doorknob, and I had the door open before Kris grabbed the back of my coat.

“Where are you going?”

“To investigate.”

“No way. What if there is someone down there?”

I knew there wasn’t like I knew my own name, but I couldn’t tell Kris that. “There won’t be.”

He looked around my dark apartment, taking in the stacks of still packed boxes littering the living room. “Do you have a baseball bat or anything?”

“No.”

“Fireplace poker? Cast iron pan? Literally anything heavy you could use to knock someone out?”

I rolled my eyes. “You’re not going to let me go until I have something to use to defend myself, are you?”

“Absolutely not.”

His concern was sweet even if I could easily defend both of us against any threat regardless of whether I had a weapon at my disposal or not. “Fine.”

I fled into the kitchen and came back with two small but heavy frying pans. I handed one to Kris, who tested the weight in his hand before nodding. “Do you want me to go first?”

“It’s my shop. I’ve got it.”

“Okay.” He gestured for me to lead the way, and we tore down the stairs. There was no need to be quiet. I already knew the threat was gone. They never stuck around long.

At the bottom of the stairs that led to my apartment was a door that led into the back of the storefront. My keys were still in my pocket, and I pulled them out to unlock the door, struggling as I attempted to juggle my keys and the frying pan. I flipped the switch to turn on the lights the second I stepped over the threshold.

Kris followed me out to the front of the shop. The plate glass window out front was shattered, the glass blown into the shop and crunching under our feet as we got closer. Upstairs, I felt a pull on the magic like when you picked at a loose thread on a sweater, tugging until the thread came free and started to unravel the whole thing. The feeling was even stronger now, the tugging sensation running straight through my core and making me feel like I might vomit or pass out. A pungent, burning metal smell hung in the air, the acrid scent making my throat tighten and confirming what I’d already guessed to be true.

There were sea wraiths in Lifeboat, and the ley line magic couldn’t keep them out.