“Trust is a huge turn-on,” she admits, and even hearing her say the words makes me hard.
I turn her on, simply by being a decent man, the sort of man she should have? And it’s easy?
Maybe falling in love isn’t as stressful as I thought.
Although curbing my urges around her? That’s creating some serious tension.
“Youare my turn-on. Your smile. You, feeling safe with me. It doessuchgood things to me. Suchungentlemanlythings. So please let me put you down, because if I rush, then you won’t trust me anymore, and I would hate that.”
Madelyn nods, breathless as she mutters words of agreement, and slowly shimmies free of my tentacles. We both look at her legs, covered in circular splotches from my greedy tentacles.
“Was this okay?” I ask, worry muting desire.
“It was like being touched everywhere, all at once. Like kisses raining down on my skin without stopping,” she says, voice awed. She turns a little, and I can see the imprints run all the way up to the top of her thigh, only stopping where her shorts have ridden up and barely cover that forbidden curve of her bottom.
“Ah. Oops?”
Madelyn closes the small distance we’ve made and looks up at me as her hands slide up to my shoulders.
Like waves rolling in, I can’t help but be pulled to her, kissing her lips.
“Not an oops. Remember when I said I didn’t know much about krakens?”
I nod, floating away on the pleasure of her soft, sultry voice and the amused glint in her eyes, a secret look that’s just for us. The lovers.
My mate and I.
“Well, I know one thing for sure now. I’m a big fan of tentacles—as long as they belong to you.”
“Madelyn,” I sigh, and kiss her one more time before I forcibly pull myself away. “Tomorrow morning? Swimming?” I pant.
She nods back, cheeks bright cherry red, gasping a little. “See you at seven. But—but I have a big deadline for a practitioner billing cycle that I have to complete by Friday. I might need to skip Thursday.”
“I can keep Zack busy on Thursday. I’m off at one. I can come get him, and we can go to the park, and the library, and mm!” I don’t get to say anything else we could do. Madelyn is back in my arms, plastering her lips to mine.
“You don’t have to.”
“But I want to,” I remind her.
“I know you do. That’s why I’m kissing you. Because you want to be this awesome.”
“You and Zack deserve nothing less.”
Madelyn looks up at me, and a little frown etches between her brows and across her lips. “But how are we going to be awesome enough for you?”
“You could kiss me again on Friday night?” I hint.
Madelyn gives me a long, burning look, a look that makes everything below the waist throb, and my sensitive suckers remember the feel of latching onto her soft, supple skin. Everything in me turns greedy and wants to grab and devour this soft, luscious treat in front of me.
“I think that can be arranged,” Madelyn whispers, kissing me one more time before I finally escape out the door.
Chapter Ten: Picnic
Zack puts stamps on envelopes as I find the dreaded lace-up sandals—and toss them into the trash. I hated them. The plastic-y laces cut into my legs and made a blister on the top of my foot. I choose white canvas shoes instead, even though they don’t do anything to make me look statuesque or even elongate my chubby, semi-toned calves.
“You and Mercer are going swimming? Without me?” Zack looks miffed, and then he looks back at the small stack of birthday invitations and smiles. Even though we’ve already verbally invited everyone in the small group we’re having over, Zack insisted on sending out the invites that we found at the grocery store. They had diggers on them, and thus, the argument was lost before it was begun. “You can give him his invitshun.”
“Invitation.”
