Nick finally dragged his gaze away.
“Yeah, that’s … probably a good idea.”
Feeling happier about the entire
situation, Aidan went back to his sashimi.
****
Ian and Bythos finally made an
appearance, taking seats at the quickly crowding table. Nick dug into his
admittedly delicious omelet, deliberately not looking at Aphros, who was far
more amused than he should be, and Aidan, who was giving “innocent water
creature” his best shot.
He had a feeling the two had been
talking about him before he came in from the bathroom.
Of course, if I bring that up, I’m going to sound like a conceited
asshole.
A faint trickle of music sounded. His
gut went cold when he recognized it.
Ian frowned.
“Something
wrong?”
“That’s—I’d better get that.” He forced
himself to his feet. He knew that ringtone, had programmed it himself.
His phone sat on the bedside table in
the guest room, vibrating along with the ringtone. The name he expected to see was
on the screen. Stomach churning, he picked up the phone and hit Talk.
“Hello, Barnard,” he said roughly. “What
do you want?”
He heard a tsk on the other end. “Now,
pet, is that any way to greet your Master?” the familiar voice purred. “Try
again.”
Nick swallowed the urge to tell his
former Dom to go fuck himself. “I’m not your pet anymore. And you were never my
Master.”
“Oh, pet.” A gusty sigh sounded. “Are
you still put out about my decoration?”
He gripped the phone harder. “You
cut
me, Barnard. That’s a hard limit, and
you damn well know it. And then you ignored my goddamn safeword.”
“Did I?” He could picture Barnard
lounging at his desk, the lights of the Gold Coast high-rises gleaming through
the window at his back. I’m so
sorry,
I must not have
understood you. We really do need to work on a better safeword method for when
you’re gagged, don’t we?”
“We’re not going to work on anything.
There
is
no
we
anymore.
Especially since you got me fired.”
“Did I?” Barnard repeated, sounding
amused now. “I hardly see how you can lay that at my feet, pet. That being
said, it’s probably for the best. Your talents were wasted in that pestilential
hellhole. You’ll do much better in private practice.”
“Funded by you?” Nick bit out.
“Of course.
I’d be more
than happy to help set everything up for you, you know that.” A hint of steel
entered the Dom’s tone. “Of course, you need to apologize first, and rather
extensively. I won’t help a disrespectful pet. And I’ll expect the apology in
person, here, tonight.”
So you can
finish what you started?
The incision on Nick’s chest burned. “Yeah, that’s
not going to happen. For one thing, I’m out of town.”
“Out of—where
are you?”
The Dom’s tone was sharp now.
Barnard didn’t know where he was. That
could only be a good thing. “None of your business,” Nick said, working to keep
his voice under control. “Secondly, I don’t want to go into private practice.
I’m an emergency medicine doctor, not primary care, and I’m not switching over.
Thirdly—" He took a deep breath. “It’s over. I rescind my service to you.
And if you try contacting me again, I’m pressing charges.”
There was a pause, then a soft harrumph.
“Are you sure about that, Nick?” Barnard said gently. “Are you quite sure?
Because if you choose this path, there’s no going back.”
He closed his eyes, willing himself
calm. If he couldn’t trust Barnard to stop, and it was obvious he damn well
couldn’t, the relationship was already over. “I’m sure.”
“Ah.” For a moment he thought he heard a
hint of regret in the other man’s tone. “Well, then.
Au revoir, mon plaisir.
”
The connection abruptly cut off. He put
the phone down, absently noting that his hand was wet with sweat.
Is it really going to be that easy?
Somehow he doubted it. Barnard’s
reputation for getting his own way was well known in both Chicago’s BDSM
circles and the financial world. It was severely out of character for him to
simply give up like that.
“What does that dick want?”
Nick turned. Ian stood in the hallway,
glowering. “Sorry, I heard the tail end of it,” he said. “He doesn’t seriously
expect you to come back, does he?”
“Apparently he does.
Or
did, anyway.”
Nick tossed the phone back onto the side table. “He
doesn’t like to be told no. And he’s enough of a prick to spread the pain
around to anyone around me. I think maybe I should go.”
“Oh, hell no.”
The blond’s
glower turned furious. “You’re my guest for as long as you want, and Whitfield
can go fuck himself if he doesn’t like it. Besides, you’re the Bearer of the
Rod, remember? You’ve got some serious training ahead of you with Chiron, and it’ll
be easier for you to do it here.” He waved towards the kitchen. “Oh, and did
you forget the injured merman eating sushi in there? If you take off, what am I
supposed to do with him?”
Nick growled under his breath. The last
thing he wanted was to get Ian mixed up in all this. “I don’t want to cause
trouble for you, you asshole.”
Ian stared at him,
then
burst into unexpected laughter. “Oh, man,” he chortled, leaning against the
wall and wiping his eyes.
“Oh, God.
Nick, seriously,
Barnard Whitfield at his prissiest is the least of my problems right now.”
Bythos appeared behind Ian, resting a
large hand on the blond’s shoulder. “I’m sorry to intrude, love, but our guest
is finished with breakfast and wants to get in the water,” he said. “I thought
his physician should approve that first.”
Nick’s attention clicked back to the
kitchen and the man—merman—waiting there. “Is he going to change back if he
gets in the water?”
“That’s the idea,” Bythos said. “You
might want to put on some swim trunks if you’re going in with him.” One thick
eyebrow went up easily.
“Or not.
It’s up to you.”
The thought of swimming naked with Aidan
brought back memories of that insanely hot dream from earlier.
Yeah, inappropriate boners, just what I
need.
“I’ll wear my trunks,” Nick muttered.
****
Ten minutes later he stood waist-deep in
the cove’s crystalline water, letting the waves wash against him.
Just like in the dream. Fuck my life.
As if on cue, a long, blue-green tail
rose up, slapping down on the surface hard. He twisted away from the splash.
“Seriously?” he called. “How old are you, anyway?”
The tail disappeared beneath the water,
and Aidan’s head surfaced instead. The merman grinned at him. “You already know
that.”
“It’s a saying,” Nick said, bending his
knees so that he dropped down into the water until his position mimicked
Aidan’s. “It means act your age.”
Aidan made
a pfft
noise. “Where’s the fun in that?” He moved closer, eyes turning teal with the
reflected light from the water. A long, thick tail brushed against Nick’s legs,
scales prickling against his skin.
Another image from the dream popped into
his head, rubbing against those sleek scales. He swallowed and backed off a
bit. “How’s the l—the wound?”
“It feels a lot better.” Aidan rotated,
and an elegantly shaped fluke popped above the surface. It waved at Nick before
sinking back into the water. “Still aches, though. Want to check it?”
“Yeah.”
He squinted at
the shoreline. “We should have done that before we got in the water, though.”
“No problem.” With a twist, Aidan dove
under the water and headed for the beach. Nick followed, watching as Aidan
wriggled into the shallows without changing form. Pulling himself onto the damp
sand, he turned over and leaned back on his arms, sleek fish tail extending
into the water. “How’s this?”
“That works.” Nick sat down more
gingerly, studying the mer’s tail. In daylight he could see it was tinted a
deep moss green around the waist, shading to midnight blue at the sleek,
powerful flukes. The scales reflected a rainbow iridescence that gleamed in the
bright morning light.
The puncture wound was a peach-grey flaw
in the iridescence. Cautiously, he pressed around it, waiting Aidan’s face for
any sign of pain. “This is healing amazingly fast,” he admitted. “Lift up a
bit, let me see the other side.”
Aidan rolled onto his other hip. Nick
steadfastly ignored the beautifully defined muscles in the mer’s back, focusing
on the exit wound. It looked as healed as the entrance wound. He patted Aidan’s
thigh/upper tail. “Okay, you can sit back.”
The mer did, and his motion made a slit
along the upper front of the tail gap a bit. Inside, something shifted.
Nick blinked in surprise. “Is that a
cloaca?”
Aidan glanced down at his lap. “Dunno.
We call it a pouch.” He ran a finger along the slit, widening it. Inside, Nick
could now see a thick, green-tinted penis that shaded to red at the tip.
“For the obvious reason.”
Nick leaned closer, fascinated.
“Internal genitalia for streamlined swimming.
That makes
total sense. Does it contain your scrotum, too? How far out can you—” He
stopped, grimacing. “Jesus, I’m sorry. That’s intrusive.”
The mer chuckled. “No, you’re just
curious, plus you’re a physician. This
is,
what,
comparative anatomy?” He reached into the slit, pulling out his flaccid shaft
and stretching it a bit. “When I’m in this shape my sack is attached to the
pouch’s inner wall, but my cock comes out when it gets hard.”
“So mers have sex? I mean, in mer form?”
Aidan gave him a sidewise glance.
“Uh, yeah.
How do you think we have babies?”
“I wasn’t sure. With your tails, I
thought you might do it like fish.”
The merman hooted. “Laying eggs and
milting them? Gods, do I
look
like a
tuna to you?” He tugged on his cock again, and Nick could see it getting
thicker as blood flowed into it. “Trust me, mers like to fuck just as much as
humans do.”
Nick felt an answering thickening in his
swimsuit. The remembered sensation of a legged Aidan rubbing up against his ass
that morning didn’t help. “Yeah, I can see that,” he said hoarsely.
The mer stretched out on the wet sand,
still idly stroking his cock. It was three-quarters hard now, and stood proudly
out of his pouch. “So, I’ve showed you mine,” he said, smiling. “Can I see
yours?”
Nick felt his mouth open, but nothing
came out.
“That’s not—” he finally managed.
“I mean, I
don’t think ... it’s not appropriate.”
“Why not?
I’m not going
to touch you or anything.” The mer glanced at Nick’s lap, where his cock was
already starting to push out against the blue material. “I’ve just never seen a
human hard-on before. I want to see if they’re different from ours.”
“I’ve seen you naked. Trust me, they
look the same.”
Aidan’s head tilted to the side
playfully. “Mm, you’ve seen me naked. You haven’t seen me hard until now. For
all I know, human dicks sprout spikes or turn blue when they get hard.” He lay
there, idly stroking himself as the wavelets washed around him. “Come on, Nick,
just take it out and show me.”
This is a bad
idea. This is such a bad idea.
Hoping like hell nobody at the cottage
was watching, Nick jerked down his waistband and pulled out his half-chub.
“Okay, there.
Happy now?”
Aidan sat up suddenly, jaw dropping
open.
“Holy gods.
Is it
supposed
to look like that?”
Nick stared at his own lap. “What are
you talking about? It looks pretty much like yours.” He paused, comparing their
equipment. “Well, except for the color. And I’m circumcised.”
Aidan was still staring at him in
horrified fascination. “What’s circumcised?”
Oh.
“Removal
of the foreskin.
It happened when I was a baby.”
Now the mer looked furious. “Why would
someone do that to a baby? That’s just wrong.”
Nick couldn’t help laughing briefly. “It’s
a cultural thing. Most American boys are circumcised.”
“Does it hurt?”
“Now?
No.
Although apparently I’m not as sensitive as guys with intact
foreskins.”
He reluctantly nodded at Aidan’s shaft, which
was,
yeah filling out nicely, damn it. “Like yours.”
“Huh.” The mer pinched up a bit of his
foreskin, then let it go. “And it doesn’t hurt when you rub yourself?”
How did I get
myself into this? Oh, yeah, I swore an oath.
“Well, it helps if I have some
kind of lube,” he admitted.