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  Kellen looked unmoved by the emotions that warred inside Derek. “So you’re going home.” When Derek nodded, he asked, “Where’s your talisman?”

  Around Tad’s neck.

  But Derek couldn’t admit that—this whole sham would fall away and Kellen would know he’d won then. He’d know Derek needed him to rescue Tad, and it wouldn’t just be one quick fuck on the beach but a week’s worth of sexual slavery, Kellen’s every sadistic whim catered to and pampered, his every desire satisfied as he strung Derek along until he was ready to return to the sea.

  “At home,” Derek whispered. The lie slipped from his lips, and his eyes rose to meet Kellen’s gaze. “Among Tad’s things. I…I put that away, too, after his death. Let me go get it, and I can meet you—”

  “Yeah, right.” Kellen’s hand tightened around Derek’s wrist, eliciting a gasp of pain. “No. I’m coming with you. You can think about my offer on the way.”

  Taking a step closer, he rubbed his body against Derek’s and his grin turned into a leer. “It doesn’t have to be the beach,” he purred, nuzzling Derek’s neck. His breath was sour and alcoholic and turned Derek’s stomach. Sex with Kellen would be downright nauseating—Derek felt bile rise in the back of his throat at just this simple touch. “Your bed would be much softer, I imagine.”

  His lips covered Derek’s ear with a wet kiss and Derek jerked away, his whole body on fire. Despite his aversion to the merrow, it’d been so damn long since Derek had touched another, felt hands on his body, breath on his skin. In his pants, his traitorous cock throbbed like a beast raging to be set free. His thoughts turned to Tad and he had to choke back a sob. I’m doing this for you, he thought. Whatever Kellen may think, whatever he may hope for, anything I let him do to me means nothing, Tad. I swear it.

  I love no one else but you.

  * * * *

  The ride home was silent, awkward. Derek sat pressed against the driver’s side door as if in the hopes of distancing himself from Kellen as much as possible. In the close darkness of Derek’s sedan, Kellen gave off a faint, fishy odor, a ripe smell that reminded Derek of salt marshes at low tide. He had to crack his window a bit, raise his nose toward the fresh air that ruffled his hair, just to breathe. Earlier that evening, if asked what he’d do to get his lover back, Derek wouldn’t have hesitated—anything, he would’ve said. No price was too large. But sitting here beside Kellen, slapping away the hand that kept lighting on his knee, trying not to gag on the merrow’s dank stench, Derek began to wonder just how far he’d be able to force himself to go to save Tad.

  If he had his talisman, he might have tried to make a run for it, drive to the beach and slip into the waves, take off before Kellen even knew he was gone. He’d always been the faster swimmer. If he’d had his talisman…

  Tad would be here.

  True. If he’d worn the necklace when Tad fell overboard, Derek would have jumped in after him. His body would’ve changed the moment he hit the water—scales erupting along his skin, flippers unfurling from his feet. It would’ve been him who gave Tad the kiss of breath that would keep him alive until they broke the surface. Kellen and his bitch would’ve never entered the picture. The past four months would not have happened, life would’ve gone on as it had been before the accident. There would’ve been no phone calls from Kellen, no late night rendezvous at the Den, no imminent sex act hanging over his head. If only…

  “You know,” Kellen said, his voice gruff and sudden, startling Derek. The hand that kept straying to Derek’s knee tried to find purchase again, but Derek slapped it away. Kellen’s other hand cupped the front of his pants, covering his crotch, the fingers massaging his genitals through his jeans. “Once we get together again, you may find you’ve been missing me all this time. I took a look at your boy’s plumbing and I have to say, my pipe’s a little bit bigger than his. I hang a bit lower, meatier all around. I bet you come the moment I enter you, I’m that thick.”

  Derek’s hands started to shake so hard, he had to grip the steering wheel with both to keep the car steady. “If you touched him, Kellen, in any way, shape, or form, you’re dead. You got that? I’ll kill you myself.”

  Kellen laughed. “I just sneaked a peek.”

  This time his hand didn’t settle for Derek’s knee but curved over his upper thigh, snaking toward his crotch. Derek twisted in his seat, blocking that hand—if Kellen knew how fucking hard he was, Derek would never live it down. His damn dick had a mind of its own.

  “Don’t be like that,” Kellen cajoled. His hand rubbed along Derek’s thigh as the other continued to fondle himself. “I didn’t do anything to him, I swear.”

  They drove the rest of the way in strained silence, broken only by the sigh of the breeze through Derek’s slightly opened window. When he pulled into an empty spot in the parking lot of his apartment complex, Derek yanked the key from the ignition and jumped out of the car. The door slammed behind him, loud in the quiet night. Walking fast, he hurried to his building, not bothering to wait for Kellen. By the time he reached the stairs that led to his door, he heard footsteps on the sidewalk and knew Kellen followed.

  Inside he flicked on the light, bathing the apartment in a bright white glow. The living room was disheveled, clothing and magazines strewn about. Empty pizza boxes and dirty cups littered the coffee table. Derek swept them into his arms, carried them to the kitchen, and deposited the whole mess into the trash can. Then he headed down the hall to the linen closet, where he pulled out a threadbare blanket and small accent pillow.

  Back in the living room, Kellen stood in front of the wide-screen television, peering at the pictures of Tad framed above it. Without a word to his guest, Derek dumped the blanket and pillow on the floor, then grabbed his own pillow from where it lay on one end of the sofa. Since Tad’s disappearance, he’d taken to sleeping in the living room, unable to face the empty bed in the room they once shared, but he was not about to give the bedroom to Kellen. Oh, no. Let the son of a bitch sleep on the couch—Derek would return to the bedroom, and lock the door behind him for good measure. There’d be no strange hands roaming his body tonight.

  Derek gathered up his dirty clothing from the floor—he could imagine all too well Kellen jerking off with a pair of unwashed boxers smothering his face—then pointed at the sofa. “You can crash here.”

  Turning from the frames, Kellen frowned at the narrow couch. “I thought we were—”

  “Kellen,” Derek sighed, “it’s late. Almost two in the morning, and I’m dead tired. I’m sorry this didn’t turn out to be the booty call you hoped for but you can’t just spring shit like this on me and expect me to go along with the flow.”

  He almost grinned as the confusion on Kellen’s face faded, replaced by the first dark embers of smoldering anger. “This isn’t part of the deal.”

  “There is no deal,” Derek reminded him. “Not yet. I said I have to think about it. You didn’t trust me enough to let me out of your sight, so fine. You get to sleep on the couch, by the front door, to make sure I don’t slip away in the night. And we’ll talk about this in the morning.”

  With that, he turned on his heel and stormed down the hall to his bedroom. There he locked the door behind him, hot tears burning his eyes and throat, then fell to the mattress that somehow still smelled like Tad.

  Chapter 5

  Derek woke slowly, drifting up through dreams as if rising to the surface of calm waters. Images of Tad clung to him like seaweed, trying to hold him under, keep him in sleep—he wanted nothing more than to drown in his lover’s arms and never wake.

  Insidious memories of the night before swam into his consciousness, wave after wave of disjointed words that echoed through Derek’s sleeping mind, keeping him from wallowing in his lover. Kellen, with that damn cowboy hat cocked at a rakish angle, his fierce eyes as pale and faceted as glass worn smooth by the sea. His “deal,” as he wanted to call it—Derek hated the way his own body had responded to the thought of sex, even with…with that, af
ter such a drought of physical touch. Like a damn dog, eager to please, tail wagging, tongue out begging for more.

  Some men might find nothing untoward in Kellen’s proposal. Good, Derek mused as he shifted position beneath the covers, let one of them fuck him. He remembered no touch other than Tad’s; he wanted no one else to claim him as his lover had. The merrow he used to be no longer existed—that creature died when he came ashore. The human he had become knew only one man, and the thought of allowing himself to be violated by Kellen, of feeling those cold fingers on his skin, of lying beneath that scaly body…Derek gave an involuntary shudder, and hugged the blankets close around his body as he burrowed into their warm depths. No. God, no. Never.

  But if it’ll bring back Tad…

  How did he know the merrow had rescued his lover and wasn’t just feeding him a line to hook him? In the bar, Derek hadn’t doubted Kellen’s word—there, in that world of light and noise, the fact Tad might still be alive was so incongruous with their surroundings it had to be true. But now in the quiet morning, in the comfort of his own bed, with his eyes still shut against the early light, here, the thought didn’t seem so compelling. Here he wanted proof, though he hated that he needed it, but something to show him Kellen wasn’t lying. It’d be just like that damn merrow to come along after Tad’s death and coerce Derek into having sex with him under the pretense of rescuing his lover. Maybe there wasn’t a mate waiting for him back at the pod; maybe the soul cages really were just songs to sing guppies to sleep. Maybe…

  Maybe I dreamed the whole thing, Derek thought.

  It was a thin hope, but one that hurt less than the knowledge Tad might still be alive just beyond Derek’s reach. Maybe I went to the bar, got drunk, and made the whole thing up in some whacked out attempt to make myself feel better. Tad is gone, Kellen doesn’t exist, and I was never anything more than what I am right now, half a man lying in a bed I used to share with my other half.

  As if goaded into waking at that thought, he slipped from the bed amid a rustle of sheets. A nagging pain throbbed behind his right eye, the remnants of that horrible drink he’d had at the bar. His stomach roiled like a restless sea, but after a long moment of leaning on his bedside table, the feeling of nausea passed and he found he could stand. Two shuffling steps took him to the door; he twisted the knob back and forth a few times until he remembered it was locked. As he unlocked it, his gaze dropped and he caught sight of his bare legs, long and pale, covered with fine tufts of fluffy, red-gold hair. Where they met at his crotch, a thin thatch of coppery curls clung to the base of his cock, the ruddy length still somewhat hard from his dreams of Tad, the tip almost purple in the dim light.

  Even if the apartment was empty on the other side of his bedroom door, the last thing he needed was to flash his neighbors by walking naked into the living room. The sheer curtains that hung in the large bay window behind the couch revealed more than they hid.

  Turning his back on the door, he gave it a tug and heard the hinges squeal open as he headed back to the bed. There, on the floor, lay the discarded pair of boxers he’d worn the night before. He bent at the waist to retrieve them, his sleepy mind already thinking ahead to when he would step into them—

  Warm hands touched the small of his back. With a gasp Derek stumbled forward, against the bed; the hands slipped down to cradle his ass, rough fingers digging into pliant flesh, kneading his firm buttocks, lifting, separating his cheeks. Derek gasped into the mattress, hands fisting in the sheets as sudden lust shot through him. His knees buckled, gave way. The hands worked at him, massaging him, spreading him wide. Derek closed his eyes against the swirl of raw sensation that flooded his body, one traitorous word slipping from his lips. “Yes.”

  A wet, soft tongue trailed down the crack between his buttocks. The hands held him open as that tongue licked its way to the center of Derek’s being. His toes curled into the rug, his hands gripped the sheets, his breath hitched in his throat, caught by the damp ministrations overwhelming his senses. The tip of that probing tongue rimmed puckered skin which trembled at its touch; it licked below Derek’s tight hole to taste his balls, then learned the curve of Derek’s cheeks, first one, then the other, until circling back to his quivering center as if drawn by a magnet to his core. Derek hid his face in the sheets and sobbed Tad’s name into the mattress—his cock stiffened at the thought of his lover on him again, after all this time. “Tad,” he sighed, the word lost in the disheveled sheets, followed by breathless gasps of “God,” and “yes,” and “please, please, please.”

  One hand eased between his legs to grip the erection now pointing out from his crotch, its tip bumping against the bed with a delicious pain. The mouth on him grew insistent, lips kissing and tongue licking, teeth nipping sensitive skin, moving lower to take his balls into its warm, soft orifice. He heard breath panting over his own, hot and heavy, felt it tickle between his cheeks, the nose rimming him, pleasuring him, as the mouth below it suckled and drooled over his aching sac. The hand on his cock rubbed over his balls, then slicked the saliva coating them up his shaft, along his length, until demanding fingers pinched the plum-shaped head of his dick. Derek bucked beneath those hands, their touch, rubbing into the bed, holding onto the faint scent of his lover’s memory as he fought for release. “Yes, yes.”

  Then one slick finger entered him, so swift, so unexpected, Derek raised his hips up off the bed to drive it into him as far as it would go. The hand on his dick tightened in an almost painful grip and the mouth on his nuts clamped down as if pressing grapes between those tight lips. Derek fucked the bed, rocking back against the finger in his ass, humping as he rubbed the swollen tip of his dick against the mattress, so close to coming.

  “Tad,” he sighed, over and over again, an image of his lover firm in his mind. Derek recalled the morning of that fated boat ride, when they laid together in this same bed—the finger in him belonged to Tad, the hand on his cock, Tad’s. A series of rapid little sounds escaped him, uh uh uh, a mindless rhythmic beat that matched the sex in his mind until, finally, his cock spasmed and he felt an orgasm rip through him like the tide. Yes.

  Derek fell to the bed, exhausted. The mouth released him, the finger in him slipped free. Then a warm body stretched out over his—he felt a hard cock ease up between his buttocks, the thick length igniting Derek’s desire all over again. He wanted to feel that in him, he wanted to sit back against that, and he whimpered into the sheets to keep from begging to be fucked. Strong hands rubbed up his back, over his shoulders, to run through his hair. Every inch of Derek’s body shuddered at that touch.

  Hot lips kissed his ear. Then Kellen’s voice breathed into him, filling him with a revulsion that belied his raging libido. “That one doesn’t count,” he whispered.

  Derek’s mouth worked around the words he wanted to say, and he had to clear his throat twice before he found his voice. “Get off.”

  Those lips curved against his ear into a wicked smile. The hands strummed down his sides, tickling under his arms, over his chest, down his hips. “Don’t worry,” Kellen told him as he stood. The air felt cool on Derek’s heated skin, almost cold. “I will.”

  Derek buried his head in the sheets, too ashamed to move or cover his nakedness. Tad, his mind cried out. More than anything, he wished it were Tad behind him, and his body ached for his lover’s tender touch. Beneath him, the mattress was damp from his own cum and the rush of sex had left him feeling used, soiled, deflated, like a discarded condom. He wondered if Kellen had gone, but couldn’t face the man and didn’t dare turn around to look.

  Then he heard low grunting from behind him, heard the familiar frisking sound of skin on skin, and realized his old friend was masturbating behind him moments before the first hot drops of jism struck his ass.

  * * * *

  How long he stayed like that, face hidden against the bed, Derek didn’t know. By the time he rolled over, Kellen was gone. In the kitchen, the clatter of pans suggested that his friend rooted through t
he cabinets, looking for something to eat. Self-loathing filled Derek like a disease, making his throbbing head pound in fury, his heart stutter in his chest. Slowly he pushed himself up from the bed, out of his own drying juices. Then he stood and, in a sudden rage, yanked the sheets from the bed. He heard the fitted sheet rip near the headboard but didn’t care—he pulled it free, a snarl twisting his lips. The audacity of Kellen to take him, here, here, where Tad’s memory still slept! This one doesn’t count. Like hell it didn’t. Derek felt violated, despite the fact his body had been a willing participant in the act. He felt used, and betrayed, here in his own home.

  His throat stung as Derek choked back his emotions. He couldn’t do this, let that…that man touch him again. It hurt too much, his body wanting one thing and his mind another. He felt pulled in two different directions, caught in a vicious undertow that threatened to rip him asunder.

  Heavy footsteps in the hall alerted him to Kellen’s return. Derek dropped the sheets to the floor and crossed the bedroom to slam the door shut. As he threw the lock, a hand slapped the other side of the wood at the level of his face and he jumped back. “Dere,” Kellen called out. The knob rattled. “You up?”

  Without a word Derek turned his back on the door. He needed to clean up, pull himself together. Whatever he’d done with Kellen earlier meant nothing, he told himself. Out loud he repeated it, as if speaking the words gave them weight. “Nothing.”

  The reverberation of his voice seemed to hang in the air, suspended, so he spoke again. “It was nothing, Tad. I promise you.” Returning to the bed, he stooped and began to gather up the dirty sheets. “He caught me off guard, that was all. It meant nothing to me. My body reacted the way it’s supposed to, you know? But I swear, my heart wasn’t in it.”