“Fuck,” Max whispered, his breath ragged as he panted. His body needed oxygen, but he couldn’t seem to remember how to breathe.
“Yes,” Rick agreed, and that was a smug tone. Max might have taken offense only Rick had a right to be a little smug. He was a sex god. A tentacley sex god. If it weren’t for their deep commitment to monogamy, Rick could make millions with his tentacles. Billions. God knows Max would sell everything he owned for a good tumble in the bed. He might even sell his soul.
“I won,” Rick said. He massaged Max’s shoulders, firm pressure making flares of pleasure race down his spine.
“You won,” Max agreed. Max closed his eyes, happy to let Rick claim his prize. At one point, Max would have felt guilty about being a selfish lover, but now he knew how much Rick valued this time, the gentle touches, the deep pressure massage, the ability to move Max’s pliant body around the bed, arranging limbs as he liked.
Max drifted through bliss, constantly at the edge of sleep and groaning as Rick touched every part of him, found every sore muscle and soothed it, massaged away every tense muscle.
“I love you,” Max muttered.
Rick paused and settled his weight onto Max’s back. Huh. He was laying on his stomach. When had that happened?
“I love you so much that I value your life over mine,” Rick answered.
That made Max fight his way toward consciousness. “Don’t say that.”
“I speak truth.”
“I don’t have a happy life without you. You are my happiness and my love.” Max needed Rick to understand that. After seeing what Einstein had resorted to, Max needed his husband to know the truth. “I wouldn’t care if you had some terrible accident and lost all your tentacles. You would still be my happy place.”
“You are illogical.”
“I am illogically in love with you,” Max agreed.
For a time, Rick rested on Max’s back, tracing designs against his shoulders. “We are illogical together,” he said.
“We are. I hope we are illogically in love for many, many years.”
“All the years,” Rick said. “Einstein chose poorly. He thought being asked for his great ideas was pleasure. He did not understand illogical love. He did not understand family.”
Max winced. “Most of your people don’t. You, husband of mine, are a special Hidden one because you see a truth that your people don’t understand.”
“I am very smart.”
Max laughed and pulled his arm from under the weight of the tentacles pinning it to the bed so he could playfully tug at his husband. “When you’re not being an idiot, you are an absolute genius.”
Rick blew raspberries against his back. They’d had a difficult visit, but they’d be fine. They had each other, and that was the only thing that mattered. Everything else–everything from cranky government officials to crazy family members–was secondary.
Tomorrow they would sort that out, but tonight.... “Turn the lights off and let’s catch up on some sleep.”
“And snuggling. If I were to chart time snuggling, we would be in a statistically significant period of decline.” Rick sounded unhappy about that.
“That is unacceptable,” Max said. “I demand more time snuggling.”
“Agreed.” Rick grabbed his hat with a particularly long arm tentacle and pressed the light’s remote. The lights went dark and the windows dimmed, blocking all but a dim glimmer of light from outside. Then Rick settled in on Max’s back again, pulling the covers over both of them.
Chapter Twenty One
The car slowed to a stop, jostling them in the overcrowded car. Tentacles and limbs all lurched forward, bumping into each other as the car pulled into the faint shadow of their ship. The overhead lights seemed to have dimmed as the sun set above ground.
Max triggered the door lock, happy to escape. He’d spent the last twenty minutes with someone’s tentacle poking his kidney. None of them wanted to make two trips, but three adults and three almost grown kids were too much for one car.
“Next stop, Earth,” Dee said happily as she arched her back. She had ended up in a back corner of the car and had spent much of the trip with Xander half on top of her. Max had offered to switch seats, but she had pointed out that he was even larger. And they couldn’t have Xander in front where he might accidentally hit the car controls because there were too many people.
“Earth, here we come,” Max echoed. He hoped the military had a rare moment of sanity and allowed him to separate, but if all else failed, James would be happy to create a diversion. And if that failed, a full assault. And Max suspected the other kids would be right behind him.
They hadn’t been shy about telling the Hidden one government where to shove their attitudes–that’s for sure.
