14. Catalina

14

CATALINA

Ihave thought about kissing Thane more times than I’ll ever admit in the past few weeks. Almost as much as I’ve thought about his tentacles. His mouth. His mystery cock. The reality so far surpasses my fantasies that I don’t know how to deal with it.

He holds my face between his big hands, cradling me as if I’m precious and he’s afraid he’ll break me. It’s such a marked difference from how he’s touched me up to this point, it makes my head spin.

Or maybe that’s the taste of him on my tongue. I kiss him harder and slide my hands up his chest to his neck. It brings me in contact with his hair tentacles, and I hesitate. Is this not okay? They’re not like snakes, but I don’t know if I should be—

Thane answers my unspoken question for me, wrapping his hair tentacles around my wrists and guiding my hands to cup the back of his head. He shifts closer, wedging himself between my thighs. His larger tentacles slither up over the rock around me.

It’s cool in this cave, or whatever the proper name for it is. I don’t care. I barely feel it with the heat of Thane pressing against me. His tentacles are wet from swimming, but they’re cool, rather than cold. I shiver and take the kiss deeper.

He responds with a faint moan, and then his tentacles lift me, pulling me closer yet, until I feel encompassed by him. If I had the space to think clearly, I might actually believe he cares about me. He sure as hell kisses me like he does.

It’s not real. I’ve told him—told myself—that it doesn’t matter what the motivation for something is, because the result is the same regardless. I think the result of this will be orgasms.

Maybe a broken heart too.

No use thinking about that. No use thinking about anything at all. Not when Thane has wrapped me in himself. He shifts his hands from my face to my shoulders and nips my bottom lip. “If you want this to stop, say stop.”

I might laugh if he wasn’t so devastatingly serious. This isn’t the time to joke. If I say “stop,” he’ll do exactly that, and I need him too desperately to tease him. I chase his mouth, but he stays just out of reach. “What if I don’t want to stop?”

His tentacles hook the backs of my knees and jerk me down, sealing us together. And?.?.?. holy shit?.?.?. there is his cock, and it’s as massive as he is. We’re too close for me to see properly, but it feels just as human as his torso. I don’t know if that’s a relief or disappointment; it’s hard to feel anything but pleasure with his tentacles wrapping around my limbs.

And then it moves.

I gasp. “Is your cock prehensile?”

“Is that a problem?”

“No. Oh god, absolutely not. Do not stop.”

“If you don’t want to stop?.?.?.” Thane bends down, his voice rough in my ear. “Then you say please.”

Oh god. I shiver. He hasn’t done anything to me yet, but the promise is right there in his touch, in his voice. This time, we’re not stopping. He’s going to give me everything I need. “P-please.”

“That’s a start.”

I should leave it at that. But I know myself well enough to understand I’ll continue to bash myself against the cliffs surrounding his heart. The more unreachable he makes himself, the more I’ll want his approval. The more I’ll want him. The only way to combat that is to ask for nothing.

But I?.?.?. can’t.

I draw back a little and worry my bottom lip. “Thane.”

He stills. “Yes?”

It would be so easy to play this safe. I almost laugh at the thought. I flew right past safe the moment I made the demon deal. But that was different. Azazel promised me safety, and maybe I was a fool to believe him, but I haven’t had any cause to doubt his word since.

But this? This is the equivalent of putting my heart in Thane’s hands and asking him not to toss it into the trash. I know how that goes. I’m never enough and yet always too much. If I couldn’t make my own mother love me, how could I possibly make anyone else? Every romantic partner I’ve had has washed their hands of me, and Thane will as well. He has more reason to than most. I heard the sorrow in his voice when he talked about his dead husband. That was a once-in-a-lifetime romance.

How can a fuckup like me compare?

My chest lurches, and my throat tries to close. I swallow hard and try to kiss him again. Thane, being Thane, holds me back just enough that I can’t make the contact that will end this conversation before it starts. “Tell me, Catalina.”

I don’t want to, but I know him well enough by now to recognize the stubbornness in his tone. My sigh is silent but feels like it takes all the strength from my body. We’re doing this, and I have no one to blame but myself. “Don’t leave. After, I mean. Don’t just fuck me and then bolt like you’re afraid I’m going to tie you up and shove a ring on your finger.” The sudden longing for just that hits me like a rogue wave, and I have to pause to get my breath back. “If we’re doing this, I want you to stay the night.” There. That’s a reasonable request. Isn’t it?

Thane doesn’t answer immediately. In fact, he’s quiet long enough that I start to doubt how reasonable my request actually is. He wants me—we wouldn’t be in this position if he didn’t—but wanting to fuck and wanting to cuddle are two very different desires.

I almost take it back. My body throbs with thwarted desire, and I need him to make me cum, to fuck me until I can’t string a single thought together. If he calls a halt to this now and takes me back to my room, I might actually die.

But it hurts when he leaves. I’m not naive; him staying might only mean he wants to fuck me enough to agree to the rest of it, but?.?.?. surely I don’t deserve to be so blatantly used.

If he’s going to use me, the least he can do is lie to me a little to soften it.

Aren’t I using him too?

I would love to say I am. That all I want are this man’s tentacles and his clever hands and his stern commands to provide me with a temporary escape. It feels like a lie, though.

I’m not above lying to myself. In fact, I do it often enough to be excellent at it. I’m just so tired of the effort it takes to shore up the fantasy.

Thane catches my chin lightly and lifts my face to his. “You want me to stay afterward.”

I almost chicken out right then and there, but I’ve gone too far to go back now. “Yes.”

He searches my eyes for a long moment and nods, almost to himself. “Very well. I don’t know that my sleeping arrangements will be comfortable for you, but we can try.”

Does he sleep underwater? The thought both repels and draws me, and I’m not sure how to feel. Thane doesn’t give me a chance to figure it out. He kisses me again, and then his larger tentacles wrap around my wrists and guide them over my head.

He’s fully supporting me now; not a single bit of my body is touching the cold stone. His tentacles writhe under me, a thick one wrapping around my waist and another two smaller ones teasing my nipples until I cry out against his mouth.

He eases me a little away from him and, god, the way he seems to drink in the sight of me, splayed open for his perusal?.?.?. The tentacles at my nipples wrap around my breasts and squeeze a bit, as if offering them up to him. It makes my nipples tingle, and I shift, instinctively seeking friction there.

Thane reaches out and hovers a single finger over my left breast. “I like you like this.”

“Like what?” I gasp. “Helpless?”

“Unguarded.” He says the word almost like a musing to himself. “You can’t hide when you’re like this.”

It’s just sex. Even as I tell myself that, his words strike right into the very heart of me. “Thane—” My breath catches as he brushes the tips of his fingers over first one nipple and then the other. They’re particularly sensitive from the decrease in blood flow. He has me entirely wrapped up, and yet he’s barely touched me at all.

Thane’s breath shivers out, and he releases one breast from his tentacle, only to palm me with one big hand. “You truly are perfectly made.”

I almost argue with him. He’s wrong, after all. According to so many people in my life, I’m soft in all the wrong places. My mother put me on crash diet after crash diet growing up, and when I finally drew my line in the sand at eighteen, she resigned herself to passive-aggressive comments about my weight whenever she saw me. My breasts that Thane seems so fond of prompted an ex to suggest surgery to lift them, and I have stretch marks across my hips and cellulite on my thighs. Like everything else about me, my body falls significantly short of perfection.

It’s mine, so I love it out of sheer spite toward everyone who acts like I shouldn’t. But it’s not perfect and never will be.

“I can see you wanting to argue.” Thane circles my nipple with his thumb. He has such a look of concentration on his face that my breath dies in my lungs. Each slow circle makes pleasure coil tighter low in my stomach. He hasn’t even touched my pussy yet, and I have the wild thought that he may not need to in order to make me cum.

“Thane—”

“I find that I would very much like to meet whoever made you feel wanting.” His voice is low and intense and?.?.?. angry? He abruptly drops his hand, but I don’t have time to mourn the loss, because he immediately circles my breast with his tentacle again. This time, he goes a step further and?.?.?.

“Oh shit.” The suckers on his tentacles catch my nipples, sending deep pulses of need through me with each pull. “Thane, please.”

He trails his hand lightly down my stomach, bypassing the tentacle holding me in place. “What can I say to convince you I find you perfect?”

Hard to believe you find me perfect when you leave me the first chance you get.

He must see the thought on my face. I’m having a hard time shielding my true feelings with him. I’m usually better at this. Thane stops just short of my pussy. “You don’t believe me.”

“You could try to fuck some self-confidence into me,” I say hopefully.

“I suppose that’s an option.” Thane’s lips curve a bit, but his eyes stay intense. “If you won’t believe my words, then I’ll have to show you with actions.”

The words send a thrill of something almost like fear through me. I don’t get a chance to argue, though, because he chooses that moment to part my pussy with his tentacles and press his thumb to my clit.