Page 27 of Chasing Tail
Chapter 15
Taron and I both went to bed satisfied, and things weren’t remotely weird when we woke up. We were getting the hang of this land stuff and didn’t walk out of the bedroom naked again. Beck was waiting for us this time with an entire rack of clothes.
“You must be tired of wearing those clothes you pilfered from the beach. Don’t tell them I said this, but I’d gladly give Chloe and her bedmate my clothes again just to watch that reaction again. Taron is my size, and I can tell a woman’s measurements just by looking at her. These should fit. Does that earn me another kiss?”
I was pretty confident Beck meant me. I didn’t know what had gotten into Taron. Taron stepped forward and gave Beck a huge kiss. I’d give it to Beck. He didn’t flip out or try to hurt Taron. He kissed him back. Honestly, it was a little sexy. A merman would have killed Taron for that. The ones that wouldn’t generally found another merman mate and made their homes away from ours. I found the entire thing rather stupid and didn’t understand why they had to leave.
Beck and Taron seemed to be enjoying their kiss, but when Taron pulled away, he clapped Beck on the arm like I didn’t just watch him like it.
“What was that for, Taron?”
“He asked for a kiss in exchange for the clothes. I like kissing you. I enjoyed watching you kiss him. So I decided to experiment like we did last night.”
“I’m pretty sure he meant me. He could have gotten mad about it and hurt you. Did you get what you needed?”
“His face is scratchy and not soft like yours, but you’ve already kissed him. He’s good at it.”
Beck cleared his throat and smoothed his rumpled shirt down.
“That was unexpected, but not unwelcome. You’re probably going to want to clean up before you put fresh clothes on. When I bought this place, I made just it had an excellent bathhouse added. I’ve already used magic to heat the water for you.”
“What is a bath, and why would we want to swim in hot water?”Taron asked.
“It doesn’t sound pleasant. Just play along.”
“Why are you playing along, Kishi? You’re going to get a tail as soon as you get wet, and it wasn’t pleasant when you got your legs.”
Taron went to stand between Beck and me. I got a whiff of Taron. I sniffed myself. Wow. That was bad. Sometimes, sea snails died in their shells and rotted there. Snails were good eating, but you had no way of knowing if you were going to get a face full of stink and rot when you picked it up until you did it. We weren’t quite as bad as that, but we stunk.
“I think a bath is to get this stink off us. We don’t smell good, Taron.”
Taron turned around and made this big show of sniffing me.
“I like your stink.”
I gave Taron a shove to follow Beck because I didn’t like this. I enjoyed a lot about land so far, but no one stank in the ocean unless they died. I’d happily deal with the irritation and endless itching of peeling my scales if this bath meant not smelling like this anymore.
Beck led us to the back of the house and out a door. There was a garden back here that was quite lovely. I didn’t know what any of the flowers were or if they had a purpose, but they were certainly pretty. There was a smaller house out here, and we followed Beck inside.
There was a large pool of water that took up most of the floor. It wasn’t deep and would be useless for swimming. Still, land-dwellers couldn’t breathe underwater, so they probably didn’t want to drown to get this stink off of them.
I couldn’t properly swim in that pool, but I really missed my tail and wanted to get in the water. So I started stripping off my clothes, and Taron followed my lead.
“Woah!” Beck said. “The two of you certainly aren’t shy. I’m not sure what you are or where you came from, but I get the feeling it’s a very free place, and I’d love to visit and soak up your culture.”
Taron bared his teeth at Beck. He didn’t care that the two of us were naked, and Beck was staring pretty hard at both of us. Taron knew I wanted to get in the water and wasn’t quite sure about Beck knowing the truth yet. Beck held up his hands and started to back away.
“I’ll leave the two of you to it.”
I wasn’t looking at Beck as he left. The pool of water was calling to me. I was reasonably certain there wasn’t a grain of salt in it, but Beck made it appealing. There were pretty purple flowers floating on the surface, and they smelled amazing. Ocean water always smelled like home, but this was nice too.
“Do you want me to guard the door in case he comes back?”
“Get in the water, Taron. I know you miss it, and you reek.”
“That water is pointless for swimming, and it smells funny.”
“It’s not for swimming, and you smell funnier than this water. Get in.”
