“And?”
“It would make a great dessert I could have with every dinner.” I lifted his chin up with my tentacle. “Will you give me more?”
Kaos nodded. “You’d have to take it yourself.”
“Cheeky kitten.” Chuckling, I rinsed myself off, stepped out onto the tiles, and let the water drain.
Kaos was still kneeling in front of the tub, watching me with his head tilted to the side. “You have a scar on your hip. What happened?”
On instinct, I touched the spot on my left side where the skin was thicker but smoother to the touch. “It was a shark.”
“What?” His tail stopped wagging and wrapped around his waist.
“It sounds worse than it was.”
“I doubt that. Tell me.” His expression was not of fascination, but rather of worry.
I lifted him up in my tentacles and sat him on the counter next to the sink. He’d get cold on that floor.
“Well?” He crossed his arms.
It wasn’t a secret, or any embarrassing fact about me, but I haven’t shared that story often. No one had ever been so adamant to know.
“I travelled in the ocean, got lost, and ended up in an area I shouldn’t have. This shark dude and his friends didn’t like my trespassing, so I came out of it with a souvenir.”
He reached out toward my hip but backed away, as if he were afraid it would hurt. “Where were you going? Were you underwater for long?”
I took his slim fingers and put them on my gills on the side of my neck. His delicate touch was so comforting that I put his other hand on the other set of gills.
“I can be in deep waters for several days at a time without emerging. After that, I need oxygen from a bottle or go to the surface for a few hours. That day, I was visiting my grandma, who lives in one of the ocean’s bigger cities and rarely comes up to dry land.” I had been incredibly fucking scared during that swim—I’d dove so deep that the ocean became a vast chasm of darkness.
“That’s so cool. You must be really close with her to travel that far to meet.” Kaos gently traced my gills and observed them move with wonder in his gaze.
“Yeah. She gave me this bracelet then.” I touched the silver hoop with a topaz embedded in it. “I was about sixteen, and itwas my first solo trip to the underwater city.” Grandma had been so proud of me and called for the best doctors to patch me up.
“It’s beautiful, but I hate that you got hurt.” Kaos pulled me by the lower tentacle into a hug, wrapping his arms around my waist. His snarky attitude was a front. He was protecting himself. I understood that more than he would ever know. It was my mission now to keep my walls up. I couldn’t let Kaos in only for us to part so soon.
I stroked his unruly locks and kissed the shell of his left ear, right above the three hoop piercings embedded there.
“I’m fine now.”
Kaos leaned back and grinned. “Oh, you are very fiiine.” He kicked his feet playfully, flashing his thigh-high socks. “And I like that you’re not covering yourself up.”
“You’ve already seen everything anyway.” I stepped between his parted legs. “And I really hate the constraints of clothes.”
“I get that. I like my skinny jeans, but they’re too uncomfortable to wear at home.” Even sitting on the counter, he had to look up to meet my gaze.
The urge to kiss him was strong.
“Understandable. I hope you don’t mind my wearing only boxers. Since my body temperature changes to match the outside, I don’t need much else. So be comfy. This is your home for the next—” I paused and contemplated asking him if he’d made his decision about staying. “However long you want.”
I made a point of not touching him when I said that. He needed to know I was offering him a place, not luring him to stay so we could pleasure each other. Although two things could be true at once in that instance.
He was eyeing my neck as if he wanted to lick it. Or bite it? “Thanks. Can I help you cook next time?”
Recalling how he unleashed carnage when making a drink, I hesitated. What was the worst that could happen?
“Sure. I was planning on baking a cake today.”
