Deck’s apartment overlooked the water and was painted in cool blues and greens and decorated with surf posters. Nothing fancy but, in Deck’s opinion, nice. On a sunny day, the rooms were bright—not that there were a lot of sunny days in Donovan’s Cove—but now it felt like it was underwater, and that was fine with him.
He hoped Kyle liked the place.
And then he laughed at himself for even being concerned. Kyle had been there before.
But it seemed to matter more now.
He was rewarded by Kyle smiling when he entered. “New board? I didn’t see it earlier.” It was leaning against the sofa, which wasn’t where it belonged but was, as often as not, where it lived.
“Yeah, and Meaghan must really have you rattled if you didn’t notice it when we were up here earlier. I did a dawn patrol this morning—great waves near Lincoln City. I’d hoped to go again in the late afternoon but things got so nutty that it’s still sitting here.”
“I feel like I’ve lived an entire lifetime today.”
“A lifetime in which I haven’t fucked you yet. Come here.” It came out on a growl, as if he blamed Kyle for it. Which was ridiculous, he realized, because if he’d gone along with Kyle’s program, they could have spent the past six months fucking, surfing and seeing if insane sexual chemistry and a mutual passion for the ocean laid a good foundation for the long term.
They probably did. Which was why he hadn’t been with Kyle’s program at first. Long term was scary.
At least it used to be scary. After today, something as relatively normal as being tempted to give up chasing tail unless the tail was attached to a certain otter wasn’t nearly as alarming.
Kyle would probably say he was thinking too much in this moment. Which was ironic considering that anytime that sex wasn’t involved, Kyle was the one who’d get lost in the coils of his own brain. Deck was thinking too much, and about the wrong things. Things that didn’t involve getting naked, getting Kyle naked and seeing how many ways he could come up with to enjoy Kyle’s lithe, tan body.
One way to solve that problem. He reached for Kyle.
Kyle evaded him, sliding out of his grasp and to the other side of the ugly but comfortable old couch as gracefully as if he were riding the curl of a perfect wave. As he did, he shot Deck a heated look that plainly said the game was afoot.
It had taken Deck awhile during Phase One of…well, it hadn’t seemed like it was a relationship at the time, but Kyle coming back made it obvious there was one…to figure out how Kyle liked to play. The otter dodged advances while encouraging more, wanting Deck to force him to do what he wanted to do anyway. Which initially made no sense to a Donovan raised with a happy, fuzzy, magical notion of sex—until Deck decided to play along and realized that it was all right for magical sex to be harsh and edgy as long as the happy, fuzzy part happened afterward.
Scared him at the time. Still scared him a little. But he’d had a long, lonely time to reconsider his position and to read up on BDSM. Kyle’s style of sex might not involve whips and leather, but it was definitely kinky.
A long, lonely time to admit how much he enjoyed wrestling Kyle into submission. Enjoyed the half-playful roughness that still had a searing edge of seriousness. Enjoyed the control he had to find within himself in order to deliver the heavy, sometimes painful, sensations that Kyle craved, and the control he needed in order to revel in the equally heavy sensations Kyle dished out without making his squirelly magic kick in.
And Powers, craving the sweet, sweet satisfaction when Kyle yielded at last.
So when Kyle dodged him, Deck’s cock and his competitive instincts both stirred to life. He reached over the sofa, shamelessly taking advantage of his greater height and longer arms, and grabbed Kyle’s shoulder. “Come back here.”
Kyle twitched away. “Make me.”
A dangerous thing to say. A dual’s body, like a human’s, was mostly water. He could probably draw the water to him and, in theory, the rest of Kyle would come along.
In theory. He’d never heard of anyone actually doing this trick, which, he figured, was because everyone else who’d thought of it feared that the water would come along and leave everything that was solid as a dry heap on the ground. So less magical means would be the answer.
Deck vaulted over the sofa. One of the rickety legs collapsed, but he didn’t care because it put him next to Kyle.
He grabbed Kyle’s wrist, intending to reel him in. Instead, Kyle did something that involved twisting and shoving, something that Deck figured would look just about right in a kung fu flick.
Deck ended up on his ass.
Which would have been the moment for Kyle to flee if he’d actually wanted to.
Instead, he swaggered to Deck and straddled his legs, then bent down to give him a deep kiss. Hands tangling in Deck’s long hair. Delicious oceanic smell of him surrounding Deck. Unseen fur stroking and stoking red magic.
Deck rolled with the kiss. Lord and Lady, he could do all kinds of magic, but he’d never be able to conjure anything as miraculous as the power contained in a single passionate kiss.
But under the cover of the kiss, Deck was shifting position, getting ready to spring to his feet. Not so hard after surfing for most of his life—it wasn’t as if the floor were slippery and moving like a surfboard; it wasn’t going anywhere even if he moved carelessly.
Probably. Not unless someone screwed up a spell at just the wrong time. If you grew up at Donovan’s Cove, you knew the laws of physics were more like suggestions.
Deck used his red magic to read Kyle’s energy, waiting for the moment when the kiss distracted him from the game. Then Deck twisted out from under Kyle and sprang to his feet. Kyle sprawled on the floor for less than a heartbeat before he too was on his feet, applauding teasingly. Then he turned as if he planned to run away, not that there was really anywhere to go.
Deck foot swept him and caught him as he fell.
Kyle was heavy, solid in his arms, and while the otter could have grabbed on to him and supported some of his own weight, he chose not to. He wasn’t easy to hold, and he was doing nothing to make it easier. “Ready to give up? Before I drop you like you did me—only you won’t land on your gorgeous ass.” Not that Deck was about to let go. He wouldn’t let Kyle escape, but also wouldn’t let him fall. It was an awkward angle and Kyle might hurt himself.
“You won’t let me go.” Kyle made it a statement, not a question, and yet Deck heard the question underlying the words. Or maybe it was a plea: Please don’t let me go.
Never again, Deck thought. I won’t be that stupid twice.
That thought barreled into his head with the force of a tsunami. The surface of his skin tingled. Deck sucked in a deep breath. Like a drowning man gasping for air, he thought, but he wasn’t sure if Kyle was the blessed oxygen, the threatening water or both.
All he was sure of was need, a driving lust that let him pull Kyle back to his feet and at the same time yank him off-balance into Deck’s hard arms.
Kyle hesitated for a second, as if trying to keep up the pretense of resistance, before his arms closed around Deck.
So hot. Kyle’s heat embraced him as much as Kyle’s arms did. He was all lean muscle, no fat on him, just like his otter form, which maintained its high temperature without blubber, even in frigid water. And his knowing hands were everywhere.
Kyle was trying to undress Deck without actually letting go, hoping to unzip his jeans subtly, as if Deck wouldn’t notice. Deck noticed but he wasn’t about to put up a fight. Instead, he helped, pushing his own jeans down, then stepping out of them. He let Kyle unzip his hoodie and push it from his shoulders, savoring how Kyle’s hands felt on his skin.
Kyle’s eyes were bright, and he let out a little moan when Deck stood naked before him. When he said, “Sure you’re not descended from a god? You’re built like one,” his words were as playful as any otter might want, but his voice quavered with sheer need.
And when Deck tried to come out with a jaunty, nonchalant answer, all he could manage was a lame “thanks” because a firestorm of desire was using up the oxygen in the room and he couldn’t think. Instead, he just looked into Kyle’s dark eyes and smiled.
Kyle’s hands ran over Deck’s skin. They flowed like water, light and graceful, but they burned. Burned away doubts Deck didn’t even know he harbored and left only desire and an unfolding love that, in this moment, he could no longer fear. One came to rest over Deck’s heart, the other lower down. Kyle kept that hand flat on Deck’s belly, but the dual heat of his skin radiated out to Deck’s hard cock.
He could whisper “touch my dick” and Kyle would, whether it came out as an order or a gasp of need. But even though his cock was straining to reach that elusive hand, Deck didn’t say the words. Didn’t grab Kyle’s hand and move it. Didn’t do anything except enjoy the contact.
It was perfect as it was. Intimate and deeply arousing, but not something that would push him over the edge, and it wouldn’t take much to push him over the edge right now. He was usually impatient when it came to sex, but he needed to take this slowly, to savor something long desired as it unfolded.
And Kyle knew.
Of course Kyle knew. Kyle was one of the few nonwitches he’d slept with, and thus one of his few partners who didn’t have some psychic abilities. And yet Kyle seemed to know what he needed better than anyone, male or female, he’d ever been with.
Why had he fought this connection with Kyle in the first place? Other than he was an idiot, of course.
Deck drank in Kyle’s touch and Kyle’s beauty like it was water and he’d been lost in the desert for the months they’d been apart.
Then he dispensed with subtlety, using strength and a bit of saved magical energy gleaned from the desire in the air to rip Kyle’s long-sleeved tee-shirt off, starting at the neck. Kyle gasped and cursed. His hands abandoned Deck’s chest and tried to close on Deck’s wrists instead. Deck threw them off as if Kyle were a child, then set to work on tugging off Kyle’s shorts. Again, Kyle made noises that might have been protests, put up a token struggle. But when Deck started yanking the shorts down, Kyle wiggled to make it easier. Kyle’s eyes were closed, and his hands worked by his sides, making fists then unclenching, as if he wanted to hit Deck or caress him—or, knowing Kyle, maybe both. But he let Deck undress him without a struggle and stepped out of the shorts obediently enough when the time came.
Kyle wasn’t wearing underwear, which made Deck wonder if Kyle ever did wear underwear.
Kyle was tan all over, his whole body golden.
Sometime Deck was going to ask about that, but not right now. It was still early in the summer, and it had been a rainy spring, so he must have been following the surf south. And Deck wanted to hear all the stories—later.
Right now he wanted to get a good look at the beautiful naked man in front of him. And when he’d looked enough to make up for a few of the nights he’d had to rely on memory, he wanted to touch and pinch and bite and kiss and pleasure every inch of that sleek skin.
As if to counter his double-thick otter pelt, Kyle had almost no body hair except in his armpits and at his groin. He was sleek, sleek and perfect, with legs made for wrapping around someone’s hips or neck, and strong arms and amazing abs. His cock rose from a nest of black hair, solid and thick yet just as sleek as the rest of him.
Deck circled Kyle. He tried to move with elegant menace, as if he was performing some sexual ritual. Using his body language to show how possessive he felt right now would make Kyle shiver with lust, and knowing that made him even harder.
Not that the three-sixty view wasn’t doing that anyway.
Powers, the man had a back that defied description, all flowing muscle from years of paddling through surf and swimming in otter form. Deck knew without vanity that he had a surfer’s back himself, along with the good abs and strong arms and legs you developed when you were serious about the sport. But even though he was a bigger guy than Kyle, with bulky muscles like the Vikings on his mom’s side of the family, Kyle had the better-defined back. And, oh Powers, that ass. That ass was perfection.
He’d fucked Kyle only a few times, and that was months ago. But soon he’d have his hands all over that amazing body, and soon after that, he’d be fucking that glorious ass.
He reached for Kyle, undecided if he just wanted to touch him or manhandle him over the arm of the couch and fuck him on the spot.
Kyle evaded him smoothly.
Only in doing so, he’d moved closer to the wall—and closer to the hallway that led to the bedroom. Deck didn’t believe for a second the otter didn’t know exactly what he was doing.
Deck was on him in a flash, one hand on either side of Kyle’s head, pinning him to the wall with his body and, as best he could, with the force of his personality. “Where do you think you’re going?” he asked, but before Kyle could answer, Deck stopped his mouth with a kiss.
Kyle tasted like ocean and light. No, he tasted like Kyle, and that was better than any metaphor. Deck might have him pinned to the wall, but Kyle was pulling Deck even closer. Their cocks brushed against each other with an electric jolt, and the kiss became something involving teeth and his raw strength and Kyle’s. Kyle’s nails scratched down Deck’s back, leaving a trail of fire, then dug into his ass.
Deck broke off the kiss. “Behave. No drawing blood until later.”
“Make me.” Kyle grinned in challenge.
“You are so asking for it.”
Kyle continued to grin, and to claw at Deck’s butt.
Deck smacked Kyle’s inner thigh, a sharp, stingy blow. Then he raised his hand, cupped Kyle’s chin in a definite message of dominance. “I said behave.”
Kyle’s dark eyes went wide and dreamy and his hands relaxed so he was gripping at Deck, not clawing. Kyle gasped, “Yes,” then kissed him even more passionately, his body arching and writhing against Deck’s as if he wanted to find his way inside Deck’s skin. Deck’s instinct had been right. His arousal jacked to an even higher plateau.
Okay, otters were wired a little funny, or at least his otter was. But Deck could get used to it—at least now that he’d admitted to himself that it gave him an excuse to unleash a part of himself that he’d always kept carefully constrained. Donovans were nice in bed. It was drummed into their heads when they were being taught to use their red magic.
But in this case, Deck’s lover’s idea of nice was rough and dirty, in an erotic way.
And that let Deck go wild too.
Still kissing, he manhandled Kyle down the hall. Kyle dragged his feet like a cat on a leash, but he was also kissing wildly and touching Deck everywhere Deck would let him.
They made it to the bedroom, but not as far as the bed. Once they reached the thick sea-green carpet, Deck forced Kyle to the ground. The two of them wrestled briefly, but Kyle put up only token resistance.
Just enough to make it more fun for both of them.
They wound up with Kyle on his hands and knees on the floor and Deck kneeling behind him.
Deck clamped his hand on the back of Kyle’s neck and pressed his face down toward the floor. Kyle’s muscles resisted, but just before he gave in, he turned his head slightly so Deck could see his grin.
Once Kyle was in position, Deck slapped his ass. “Don’t move,” he ordered. Then he slapped that gorgeous ass a few more times because it felt so good under his hand and he liked the dusky flush that blossomed on the tan skin.
And he really, really liked the way Kyle moaned and pushed back to meet his blows. Okay, technically that was moving, but he wanted Kyle to get in to the spanking, be unable to stop offering his ass for more. Deck kept going until his hand stung and Kyle’s aura revealed he was on the verge of losing his mind.
Deck repeated, “Don’t move,” then slipped away long enough to get the lube out of the bedside table. Too long since it had been used for anything except to ease jerking off. Deck may have pushed Kyle away last fall, but after he did, he hadn’t felt the urge to hook up with anyone else. Not sexy Ben Wanaka, who tried to seduce him on a surfing trip to Hawaii. Not the two uninhibited fox girls, half sibs of Paul’s husband, who made him an offer he ended up refusing, although identical twin redheads should have been a no-brainer.
But as soon as it seemed to be too late, he’d known the only one he really wanted was Kyle.
And now Meaghan, a little voice tickled in his brain. But he opted to ignore it until he’d sated himself and Kyle.
He returned with the bottle of lube, already slicked himself. He’d threatened to fuck Kyle raw, and, the way he felt, that still might happen, but they should at least start out comfortable.
He spread those fine ass cheeks and drizzled lube into the crack between them, then opened Kyle up with one finger.
Kyle pushed back, fucking himself on the invading digit. He hadn’t talked much since they started playing—neither of them had, too intent on sensation and on doing more immediately gratifying things with their mouths—but now he begged, “Come on, Deck. Fuck me. Give me your dick.”
“When I’m good and ready.” Which he was, but he had a point to make. “And did I say you could raise your head?”
Kyle lowered his head to the rug again, but as he did, he moaned, “Please. Fuck me hard.”
The words sounded like they’d been torn out of him: hoarse, broken, lost.
They went straight to Deck’s cock so he couldn’t tease any longer, couldn’t open Kyle up finger by finger, couldn’t pretend patience he didn’t feel, couldn’t keep trying to control the situation.
All he could do was fuck like a madman, and that was what he did.
When he thrust in, not bothering to go slowly and sensually, Kyle let out an oof that might have been pain. But while there may have been some discomfort—a rough entry, no matter how much you wanted it, could smart—Kyle slammed back to meet him, as if pleasure far outweighed any twinges.
Deck grabbed Kyle’s hips, withdrew, then drove in even deeper.
Kyle gripped his cock like a vise. Deck felt it everywhere, not just on his dick. Kyle was moaning, an eerie keen that occasionally broke into an otter’s chitter, but it was a good sound because he was fucking back with all his considerable strength, clamping down with his internal muscles. The room blue-shifted as if they were fucking inside an incredible wave. The ever-present shushing and pounding of the surf below the house grew louder. Deck’s eyes were open because he’d wanted to watch Kyle’s beautiful body as they joined, but instead of seeing Kyle with normal vision, he saw him with witch-sight, limned in red magic, his aura shaped like the man Deck was fucking but also like a man-sized otter. He hadn’t meant to raise power, but he was, and it was more power than he’d raised in a long time.
“So good. So hot and tight. Oh Powers, Kyle, I’ve missed you.”
“Missed…you…too.” Kyle’s voice was distorted, almost unrecognizable, and Deck didn’t think it was just because his face was down on the carpet. “Need…need…”
But he couldn’t articulate what he needed, so Deck was left to guess based on what he craved himself. Deck drove his nails into Kyle’s ass hard enough to leave deep welts. Then he shifted position, draping his body over Kyle’s. He couldn’t penetrate as deeply or as roughly at this angle, but it seemed more intimate, and he craved that after the long separation.
He slipped his hand under Kyle and grasped the other man’s cock. Kyle wailed as Deck began to stroke and tug.
To the rhythm of the fucking.
To the rhythm of the waves crashing outside, and the waves he always felt inside him the way a normy was subliminally aware of the beating of his heart.
Everything was tangled together. Deck no longer knew where he left off and Kyle began, where land left off and ocean began, where sex left off and love began. The room spun and swirled and he felt like he’d wiped out messily, caught up in a violent wave so he no longer knew which way was up. Then Kyle’s body—or was it his? He couldn’t tell anymore—went very still, tensed. Come spurted onto his hand as Kyle cried out Deck’s name.
Deck’s orgasm broke over him hard. Definitely a wipeout, held down by wave after wave, but instead of drowning, he was learning to breathe water. Power swirled around them, red and ocean blue.
What the hell was he going to do with it? He hadn’t meant to collect all this power; especially with a thunderstorm going on, he didn’t dare hang on to it.
Meaghan needed all the help she could get, and their magic was compatible. With the last bit of brainpower he could muster, Deck shunted the power at Meaghan, directing some of it to her rickety shields. He let the rest bathe over the woman, muttering a prayer that it might make her stronger.
Then he let himself collapse to the floor, using his weight to pull Kyle with him so they were spooning. In a few minutes he figured they’d stagger to the bed, but right now he just wanted to hold Kyle close and revel in the warmth of his body, the smooth heat of Kyle’s skin under his hands.
And try very hard to embrace the moment and not think too hard.
Fucking Kyle raised oceans of power, even though he hadn’t been aiming for that at all. All that swirling magical energy had to mean something.
His magic hadn’t danced for Kyle, not the way every other Donovan in the world described the experience of having sex for the first time with their true life partner. Not this time, not any of the times they’d been together before.
But something had happened, sure as wave and rock. Something magical, something emotional, something deep as the Marianas Trench.
Just nothing he could put into a normal Donovan context.
Didn’t that just figure?