“Adonis,” Connor repeated, pissed. He looked anxiously at Laurence, trying to spot anything hard he might have collided with that he might have gotten hurt on.
Adonis’s growl became a rumble in his chest. His eyes were fixed dangerously on Laurence.
“Sorry, Adonis,” Laurence squeaked. “I didn’t mean to touch the marks. I didn’t know you wouldn’t like that.” He got himself upright and stayed as far back as the paddleboard allowed.
Adonis’s rumble lessened. His top lip curled back once more, and he let out a threatening growl. “Don’t.” He seethed.
Laurence nodded quickly.
Adonis finally relaxed his glower but kept a distrustful eye on Laurence. It had Laurence looking half-terrified.
Connor reached down to cup Adonis’s face, forcing him to look at him. Anger swept through him, hard and fast. “If you ever push him like that again, we’re done. I’m not being withanyonewho’ll hurt my kid brother for any reason. You understand?”
Adonis’s eyes widened, and his gills flared out. “He—” Apparently, emotion stunted Adonis’s ability to talk because the word came out garbled before cutting off.
“I don’t care what he did. You’re bigger than he is and a lot stronger. You could seriously injure him.”
Adonis cut a glare toward Laurence. With an angry sneer, he pushed away from Connor and disappeared into the water, splashing his tail and spraying them both.
The ripples of the water settled back into normal waves, and Connor lost sight of where Adonis darted off to.
“That was a bit mean of you,” Laurence eventually said.
Connor jolted, snapping his head toward Laurence. “Mean ofme?”
“He didn’t push me very hard, Connor,” Laurence said. “If he’d used any strength, I would have gone into the ocean, not just fallen back.” Laurence sat with his legs crossed. “He probably doesn’t get that I’m your precious kid brother.” A smile twitched Laurence’s lips into a grin as he said it. “So imagine getting mad at a partner for being unhappy with someone touching the hickey they left?”
“I didn’t say precious.”
“You should apologise.”
Connor looked away from Laurence, annoyed. He wasn’t trying to be mean. He just—Adonis was big and strong. And while Connor didn’t think he would hurt either of them, he wasn’t taking any chances. He wasn’t going to sit there for any aggressive behaviour directed toward Laurence.
“Do you want to head back?” Connor asked as he surveyed the water.
Laurence looked at him in surprise. “No. Do you?”
“You’re not scared? At all? Despite the fact he could very easily drown the both of us, and there’s nothing we could do about it?”
Laurence opened up his sketchbook, rolling his eyes at Connor. “You’re a bit dramatic sometimes. He was just jealous.” He opened a page and looked around himself. “Adonis, I drew a picture of you and Connor together. Do you want to see it?”
A few seconds later, Adonis popped out of the water at Laurence’s far side. Laurence held up the sketchbook, showing the picture he’d drawn of Adonis resting his head on Connor’s lap. His eyes scanned the page, and his gills flared open. He snorted and disappeared back underwater without so much as a glance at Connor.
Laurence grinned at Connor. “He liked it.”
And he was apparently angry with Connor. And now that Laurence had sided with Adonis, Connor worried about the tone he’d used. He could have told Adonis not to push Laurence without the threat…
“I’m going to swim,” Connor said. He put on the snorkelling headpiece and dipped into the water. He let his body adjust to the cold and paddled out, setting his face to look down into the water. He found Adonis swimming directly below him on his back, purposefully deep enough that Connor wouldn’t be able to see him from the board.
When he realised Connor could see him, he bared his teeth and turned around so that he was facing away from Connor.
Okay…Connor had clearly upset him.
Connor took a deep breath and dived, swimming under the water until he reached Adonis on the ocean floor littered with rocks and seaweed. Adonis, despite himself, obviously couldn’t resist looking at Connor as he approached.
Connor brushed his hand against Adonis’s scales and used his tail as leverage to climb up Adonis’s body, eventually wrapping his arms around Adonis’s chest. He pulled the mouthpiece out and pressed his lips against the bite mark on the back of Adonis’s neck.
Adonis shuddered. Connor could feel the sound that would have come from his throat had they been above water. He floated above Adonis, trailing his eyes down to watch how his gills flared out with each breath—that vulnerable flare of pink exposed to the ocean every few seconds. His hair hung in the water around his face, his entire being something ethereal as he floated.
