Page 38 of Salt and Knot

I make a wounded sound, because unthinkingly I put out my hectocotylus. With her, I can’t help myself. And while usually, that’s only slightly more sensitive than any other part of me, with Isla, of course it’s stronger.

“It’s not a problem is it?” she checks, casting wide eyes at me. “Being out of the water?”

“Not for a while,” I assure her.

That’s enough for her to switch her attention back to my tentacle. She examines the lower part first, where the suckers are larger. Experimentally, she touches her finger to the centre of one, and it part-closes around her. She gasps.

“I can’t help that,” I say quickly. “Each sucker works almost independently. And they like you. They want to grip you.”

She tugs slightly at her finger, testing the strength. It doesn’t budge. My every instinct is to hold onto this woman. It’s who I am. My mate is nearby, touching me. I have to grab her back.

Holding her hand up, the arm hangs just from the connection between her finger and that one sucker.

“It’s amazing.” And she does seem to be marvelling over me.

I fight the urge to preen and show her exactly what I can do.

Instead, I gently flex, and attach onto her entire arm, letting go immediately in a Mexican wave.

She huffs a laugh. “Neat trick.”

Bringing her palm to the suckers side of my tentacle, she presses into me, then releases, playing with the tension. I’m letting her go each time. I’m an enormous, deadly creature making myself into a toy for my girl. I could hold her wrist, curl all the way around her, and I want to. But I’m aware that I’ve just revealed to her that I’m a monster.

She’s still being very brave not to run away screaming.

“You’re so different like this.” She shifts her hands further, until she moves onto looking at the end, where there aren’t any suckers.

I shake as she strokes down the front of my tentacle, over the tip, then back down.

I let out another unintentional sound, and shudder. I’m on the edge of exploding just from that single caress.

“What is it?”

“That tentacle is called a hectocotylus. It has a particular purpose. And it’s extremely sensitive right now.”

“What’s it for?” She’s immediately interested. “And why?”

“It’s for breeding.”

Her gaze dips to my erection.

“Yeah, I have more than one.” I shrug. Kraken anatomy is horny.

“You have a human dick, and a kraken dick?”

“Well, I have eight extra arms instead of two legs, so…”

“But…” She looks at my hips, where the transition between my human and kraken occurs in this half-shifted form, and I can see that she’s wondering how that works when my cock is below the line of the kraken part.

“Evolutionary advantage, maybe?” I suggest. “Perhaps mates preferred to have the choice of which way to be bred. Or to use both. The hectocotylus can expand.” I quirk an eyebrow, like “what can you do” when she splutters. “But it can also be small. Maybe mates liked that.”

“Your, uh, primary cock? Is pretty intimidating,” she agrees, stroking her fingertip over my hectocotylus.

“But to be honest, I’m not sure how a kraken’s mate gets pregnant.” I’m holding it together by a thread.

“You don’t know?”

I shrug, and restrain the urge to gather her closer to me. “It’s not something I ever talked to any of the krakens I’ve met about. I didn’t see the need, since I didn’t have a mate and had given up any hope a long time ago of finding my fated mate.”