My lips meet his again, our teeth grinding, our bodies writhing against each other. It is one of my favorite pastimes with my Dante. I enjoy his taste, the soft mewls he makes. He is perfect.
He pulls back, panting, his cheeks a pretty pink. “Wait…wait.” His hand presses against my thundering hearts. They feel as if they will beat right out of my chest. “I know we’ll get caught up with this, and god, I want that, but I had a surprise for you.”
My eyes widen. “Surrrprise?” It’s a harder word, unfamiliar on my lips, but I know what it means.
Dante blushes. “Yeah. The other day at work, Everest told me that you don’t have lakes or oceans on Erethar.”
I shake my head. “No. Water undergrouunnn.”
“You don’t go swimming or anything like that, do you?”
The idea of placing our bodies in our precious water and potentially contaminating it is horrifying to me. But I am well aware that it is different on Earth. I have read about it. The humans have not been kind to their supply either, and most of it is not usable for them to consume.
But they have so much more of it.
He laughs at my expression. “I guess that answers my question. I wanted to know if you’d like to go see the lake before it gets dark.”
I sit up, my eyes wide. “Now?”
He smiles, his lips a little swollen from the way I bit them as I thrust my tongue into his mouth. “Yep. It’s not that far of a drive. I kind of feel like an asshole for not taking you before today. It’s really cool.”
I will do anything Dante wishes to do, but I also do not want to stop this. “Yes, buuut…” I purse my lips slightly. “Can we keess there?”
He lets out another laugh. “We sure can. The sun will be setting, the waves lapping at the shore. It’ll be so romantic. I think you’re really going to like it.” He pauses, then reaches for his phone and touches the screen before sighing. “I wonder if he got distracted. It’s probably not important. I bet it’s a video of some hot person he wants to ask out.”
I hop up, my tail reaching out and winding around him, pulling him to his feet as well. “Show me laaake,” I say.
He grins wider. “Yes, okay. I’m going to grab a few snacks, and we can go and watch the sunset and kiss.”
That sounds like the perfect evening to me, and I relay that to him in his head. He takes me by the chin and runs his nose over the side of my neck, the way I do when I’m scenting him. I shiver and hum in pleasure before forcing us to pull apart. If we do not stop now, we may never, and I wish to see the water.
“We go. You get snaaacks.”
Dante laughs and steps back, giving me a salute. It’s something he’s done before, and when I looked up the gesture, I read that people in their human army give it to those in command, but it is also used by others as a way of saying yes.
I do it back, making Dante’s lips curl up.
“Goddamn, I’m so obsessed with you,” he murmurs as he rushes off to the bedroom to change. When he reappears, he is in something warmer: a sweater, a hat, and boots.
“My socks?” I ask, and he shrugs.
“If you want to bring them, you can, but you will get sand in them.”
“Saaannnd?”
He nods and then makes a face. “Shit, you don’t know what sand is, do you? Oh my god. I can’t wait to show you this. You’re either going to hate it or love it.”
I cannot wait to find out and am trembling with joy as I climb into the car beside him and he pulls out onto the main road. It does not take long before I see a sign pointing us in the direction of the lake, and I make a happy trill.
“You’re going to love this. It’s not like most lakes, you know? It’s basically a landlocked ocean. It’s got high and low tides, and waves, and…is any of this making sense to you?”
I grimace. “No.”
He grins and takes my hand, kissing my palm. “The point is, someday we’re going to travel, and I’m going to show you other lakes, and probably rivers and oceans. And forests! And they’ll all be really different, but I think you’ll like them. There is so much to see outside of our little city. So much of Earth you will love.”
I think this, too. Not just because the human world is so vast and diverse, but also because I will be with my Dante. We will drive in the car and hold hands and kiss in so many places, and for moments, I will forget the pain I was in before I met him.
Leaning back, I watch as the scenery whips by, and eventually we turn down a small road which leads to a massive black parking lot. There aren’t many cars. I assume it is due to the cold, as humans tend to be very intolerant of weather.
