He stared into Tristan’s face but, after a moment, decided he was telling the truth. Austin’s agitation settled as quickly as it had risen.
“Okay,” Austin murmured.
Seeing that he was mellowing, Tristan bent and pressed a kiss to Austin’s cheek. “I’m sorry for—”
“Oh, youareaware that ‘sorry’ is a word!” burst from Austin before he could stop it. “With all yourforgive-mes,I was certain that Hal had neglected to teach it to you.”
Tristan’s arm slipped around Austin’s shoulders, and a far less beseeching kiss landed on his temple. A rumble rose from Tristan’s chest. “Shall I tell you how your territory fares? Or would you rather keep me here the rest of the night?”
Anothertakingkiss, this one against Austin’s cheekbone. The press of his body, the warmth of his touch, renewed Austin’s awareness of the heat in his lower abdomen. There was another worrying symptom. His cock began to harden. And he felt Tristanagainst his abdomen, clearly undeterred by Austin’s sniping.
Austin released a hard, affected breath. An answering rumble grew in his chest, but he felt his top lip curling back in agitation. Before he’d consciously decided to so much as breathe on the merman, he’d grabbed him by the throat—and held him like that as he gazed up at him.
“I’d offer you a reward,” Austin said, voice so sickeningly sweet it was anything but, “if only your household wasn’t to entertain me without seeking any.”
Desire flared in Tristan’s eyes, the pulse of it beating hard against Austin’s fingertips. The arm curled around Austin’s shoulders tightened its grip as Austin rose onto his toes, letting his fingers tighten. “Such a shame.”
He’d had the vague notion of pressing his own imperious kiss to Tristan’s cheek but found the merman out of reach. Austin leaned in anyway, lips finding the hollow above Tristan’s collarbone, tasting the dried salt of the ocean on his skin.
Tristan’s pulse jumped. The arm bracketing his shoulders loosened, and instead his hands planted on Austin’s sides, fingers curling in to grip.
As it often did, Austin’s mouth ran away on him. It chased after that pulse, and when it struck gold in the crook of Tristan’s neck, his tongue wanted in on the action, and then his teeth,nipping. A gratified groan swelled in Tristan’s throat. Austin tasted its vibration in his mouth.
Restraint shook Austin’s body as he planted his heels back into the sand. He released Tristan’s throat, sliding his hand down until he was holding his chest, keeping the merman at bay. A potent want had a grip on him, and it took a confusing amount of time to contain the sudden surge of desire.
Tristan held him tightly during it, waiting patiently.
When Austin raised his eyes, he found Tristan’s attention fixed on him with an intensity that threatened to undo the work he’d put into calming himself.
With effort, Austin stepped out of Tristan’s grip. “Tell me what you saw.”
Austin retreated to his chaise lounge, pulling a silk sheet over his bare legs, only to immediately kick it off. Not because his skin bothered him—it was entirely painless—but because it felt sensitive. Tingly. As Tristan followed him onto the porch, Austin belatedly recalled the fruit pieces he’d had cut. “There’s your reward.” He gestured imperiously. A second later, he remembered that he said hewouldn’tgive Tristan a reward and scowled.
Tristan perched on the very edge of the chaise lounge, his blue eyes sliding up Austin’s bare legs until they reached his rucked-up shorts. He let out a long exhale, heat flaring in his eyes, and turned away from Austin. After that, he kept his gaze firmly on the fruit.
“The matriarch looked pleased with the crab. There were ten males with her—”
Austin waved a hand. “I don’t keep track of them. She eats them too frequently to keep up.”
Tristan nodded. “She did not share her meal with them.”
Hearing it from Tristan, Austin’s underwater abode wasn’t nearly as inhospitable as he’d grown to think. Austinhad, for a reason he couldn’t now name, assumed that mermen would naturally hate it. But as Tristan described the rocks, the seaweed, the corals, and the huge variety of fish in the area, Austin realised it really was rather lush.
“I have never seen so many razorfish on a shore like that before. Is it a common phenomenon in your world?”
Austin stared at the bright orange slice of fruit in Tristan’s hand, something he’d forgotten coming to him in a flash of enlightenment. “There’s a beach not too far from there where there’s an unusual amount of razorfish, but when I say unusual, the beach looks like this”—he gestured to the white sands currently invisible in the dark—“but every few feet, there’s a razorfish. It’s more than enough to dissuade people from walking it. There are warnings signposted everywhere about how dangerous it is… I liked it there. So I told them all to go to my beach. So many that nobody can take so much as a step onto it without hurting.” He remembered it so vaguely that he was likely drunk when he did it.
“A man was on the shore.”
Austin tensed. “Describe him.”
Tristan described a man wearing plain black trousers and a muted green jacket. He had a beard, wavy brown hair with some silver, and wore a strange hat.
“Liam. Was he okay?”
“He had a chair on the shore and was sitting reading a book. He checked the water a few times. I got the sense he was waiting.”
A gut punch of guilt landed hard in Austin.
