“Do you want to leave?” he breathes, expression tight. “Do you want to go back to the mainland, Cindi?”

His question hits me with a wave of clarity. It disperses the lusty haze and brings me back to reality. Do I want to leave this safe haven and never return?

Is he really asking me that? Is it a real offer?

My answer should be a confident, immediate yes, but I hesitate. The few-second delay it takes me to nod my head speaks volumes. That I never use my voice is even louder.

I need to go back. Have to. There’s no other option. I’m meant to agree. I don’t belong here, and I don’t want to stay here for the rest of my life. I’m feeling the oncoming of stir-craziness after a month. What will I be like in a couple more weeks?

The lines of Ordus’ face soften at my hesitance. He exhales like a boulder has just been lifted from his shoulder, and in its place, an emotion cripples me: hope.

For the first time in weeks, he looks truly hopeful.

Guilt and dread suffocate me, but I can’t do a damn thing about it when he eases out of me, notching another tentacle at my entrance.

My pulse roars. “What⁠—”

“Every tentacle I fit in your sex is another hour I will allow you to spend on the mainland.”

Wait. Does he really⁠—

“One.” He slides a single tentacle in.

Frustration claws at me, question forgotten. I need more. Deeper. God—fuck. It’s not enough. He needs to move.

My mouth falls open on a moan when another appendage slides into me. The stretch is almost too much. He slips in slowly to allow me to adjust to the mind-altering fullness. My pussy stretches around him, taking sucker after sucker. I swear, I can feel him in the back of my throat.

“Two,” he rasps, eyes heavy and glazed over.

Ordus is breathing harder than I am. His breeding arm is off to the side somewhere, but I can still feel his cum dripping down the inside of my thighs.

Two. Two hours on the mainland.

I could accomplish so much with two hours. I can’t think of what right now, but I’m certain I can do something.

A string of curses flies past my lips when he pumps into me, slowly, so agonizingly slowly. His suckers catch on my clit with each pass, pulsing and warming, making me relaxed and wilder at the same time. My vision darkens as bright spurts of white flash behind my eyes.

I don’t know what’s up or down, left or right. I can barely breathe with how—I can’t even describe it. Out of this world. Extraordinary. I’m at the gates of both heaven and hell, and I have no idea whether I’m going to ascend or perish.

My climax hits me, and I don’t know how I react. I think I scream Ordus’ name. I think I slap him. His arms might be bleeding from my nails.

But he doesn’t let up.

He keeps going, and I think he might kill me from it.

Nothing coming out of my mouth is coherent, not a single thought comprehensible. The only thing I manage to register beyond the pure pleasure in my core is his guttural, “Three.”

I’m screaming, sobbing, moaning until I can’t make a sound because I’ve become blackout delirious. When did he put a third one in?

Tears spring from my eyes. I’m trembling. Bucking. Crying for him to stop and keep going. Another orgasm is coming, I can feel it. It’s going to take me out.

Ordus leans down, his long, blue tongue sliding over my cheek to capture my tears. His purrs grow impossibly loud. “Is that all you can take, mate? Three?” His eyes shine with curiosity. “How badly do you want to go to the mainland?” He tips his head to the side, studying me as another tentacle wraps around my leg, up to my core. “A fourth?”

I shake my head. “I can’t—I—It won’t fit.”

The pointed tip prods at my back entrance. “Hmm,” he muses, pushing in slowly. “Here?”

No.

No, no.

Fuck.

I don’t think I can hold it back. My climax is chasing me, coming stronger than ever before. I’m falling, and I know eight limbs will catch me. I’m so far from being in control right now, but at the same time, I have it in my grasp.

I want this. I want to orgasm around this monster’s tentacle, and I want to scream because I fucking deserve it.

I walked through hell. I have the burns to prove it. I want to feel free from everything for one fucking minute. I want to let go.

Just this once.

Because one more second won’t hurt.

There’s a silver lining in all of this, and I want to cover myself in it.

When my climax hits me, I let it knock me off my feet and descend into the dark depths. Fireworks explode around me, erupting blues and browns and golds. And when I finally settle onto the ground, it’s in Ordus’ arms, wrapped up in his safe embrace, my head against his chest, engulfed by his sea salt scent and rhythmic purr that grows louder at my whimper.

The emptiness that follows is so profound, I almost ask him to put his tentacle back inside me. “It aches,” I mewl.

He presses his lips to the top of my head before carrying me to our bed. “I will take care of you.”

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27

Ordus

I can still taste her.

On my tongue, on my suckers, in the pores of my skin. I can taste her, and I feel complete. I was hopeful, but I never thought I’d ever be welcomed into her sex, or press her lips to mine, or hear her say my name with such demanding need.

I throw glances at Cindi as she surfs while I continue building the shelter to install by the beach so she can watch the waves even when the skies open.

I like a lot of things.

I like the meat in a crab’s legs. The smell of the air after a storm. When I put together the final piece of a project and it works exactly how I planned.

I like Cindi’s smile the most.

I like my mate. A lot. Even if she pretends not to like me back, I’d still like her. She’s a fighter. Strong. Smart. Observant. Snappy. When I get angry, she holds her ground—sometimes. Chaotic but organized.

Cindi prefers to sit and watch. That’s what I like to do too. And she’s a tinkerer as well. She has a workroom that’s messier than mine, with just as many unfinished projects.

Most of all, she trusts me.

I’ve spent all morning and afternoon distracted, replaying every moment I spent with my Cindi.

She laughed. I made my mate laugh.

And I made her moan. She was—is so beautiful.

I want to do it over and over again, because it was the most breathtaking thing I’ve ever seen. It is all that has played on my mind, an endless loop that fills me with more joy than I can contain. It was the sweetest melody, more potent than a siren’s song.

She used to always be so dour that her delight is the greatest blessing the Goddess could bestow.

My breeding arm hardens even more when I look at her again—my bulb has been leaking since last night.

Last night was perfect in every way except for the words that left my mouth. Asking her whether she wanted to return to the mainland was foolish. Of course, her answer would be yes. I was an idiot to think what we were doing would somehow change her desire to leave me.

Offering to take her back was even more foolish. She may smile at me and close her eyes when I purr for her, but nothing has changed. The moment we depart this island, she will be plotting her escape. She will run at the first opportunity she gets, and I will drag her back here so she can spend the rest of her days despising me while my territory becomes uninhabitable.

I’m failing my siblings, their deaths meaningless in the name of my mate’s freedom to choose whether to marry me or not. I could’ve spent the past few weeks convincing her to bond to me to save my kingdom, but I couldn’t bring myself to mention it even once. I don’t want to manipulate Cindi into doing anything she doesn’t want to do. She’d only resent me more.