“Then there was her comment that there were more reasons that she didn’t want to play the field even at her young age to explore her sexuality, but she wasn’t ready to share those reasons yet.”

  I argued, “That could just be external stimuli, someone she knows could’ve had a bad experience, or perhaps she did herself. Someone in her family, or a close friend.”

  She shrugged, “We’ll find out when she tells us her quickening story, and I could be jumping to conclusions. But you have to admit a warm vibrant bedside manner fits in with her healing and projective shield powers. She’s also a little submissive, at least a little but potentially a lot, which I know you noticed. She’s also never been short with or blown off a fan. Her powers and personality make her a supportive and succoring person in total, added to submissiveness…” she paused for a moment, before talking again.

  “I imagine altogether that would make it a nightmare to play the field. She’d be ripe for abuse from men who only want one thing, so assiduously avoids it and is very picky about who she goes out with. She wants to be cherished and appreciated for those qualities, not abused. Especially because she’s so incredibly beautiful, abusive men must see her coming a mile away, but fortunately she seems to be able to spot them too and avoid dating them.”

  What she said made a lot of sense, but I wasn’t ready to make a conclusion either way. It was possible that was just her base personality type, and the one she chose to always show with her public face. But… it was also possible the quickening had her acting like that always. The danger in that was she’d still be a fully complicated woman under that if it were true.

  Which was something my social dissonance would come in handy for. I could see beneath that, and address her doubts, fears, and needs without her consciously signaling them.

  Which made me perfect for her, in that one way at least, if Thea’s theory was true and not just tilting windmills.

  It also gave an alternate explanation of her outlining my good points during the date, as if reminding herself I wasn’t a user and didn’t just want to get her into a threesome.

  “You’re sexy.”

  She giggled, “You too, master.”

  “Just thought you ought to know.”

  I stole a lingering kiss.

  There was one more indication Thea was right, that she hadn’t mentioned. That kind of thing would also explain Faith’s over the top signaling. She’d seen in me a man that wouldn’t blackhole her giving and warm personality and give nothing back, plus she was physically attracted to me.

  Just the idea of that powerfully sparked my protective instincts as a man, especially after our amazing first date and my deep need and desire to get to know her more. I already liked her a lot, and the idea of taking care of her while she pointed that succor and support at me in a loving relationship really turned me on.

  At the same time, I realized it was early days, and no matter how well we’d fit together that way there were a bunch of other considerations that could turn out to be dealbreakers. Only time would tell, and the only commitment I had was that Thea and I would be dating her exclusively until it failed or she joined us and created our circle of polyamory in the base triad. Only after that, would I consider dating anyone else, and only with her and Thea’s approval and interest in the same.

  Then I cleared my mind of Faith and put all my attention on Thea, as I started round two. We were just getting started that night on our lovemaking. As for Faith, those questions would answer themselves, at least if she continued to date me and going forward Thea as well.

  The deep moan of pleasure that woke me was my own, as my hands entwined in wavy light brunette hair tinged with blonde down below. Hell, Thea was getting way too good at sucking dick. She’d been incredible at it from the start, obviously from research and practice in simulations, but she was gaining that extra edge of amazing as she learned what personally did it for me best.

  “Baby, so good sucking me off.”

  It was a hell of a wakeup call. It wasn’t just the pleasure. It was the sweetly contented sighs and dreamy moans I heard below as she worked my cock with devotion. Her sweet mouth languidly and lovingly bobbing up and down with relish, as her incredibly nimble tongue and suction drowned me in pleasurable sensations. My praise just made her work me a little faster, and moan even deeper in joy at bringing me pleasure.

  When I looked down, her lovingly devoted green eyes looked up at me adoringly, and it still blew my damned mind, every time. The sensual and stimulating sensations of her sweet mouth working my sensitive length and the sharp euphoric waves that rushed into and rocked my body as her tongue swirled the tip was mind-blowing in its intensity.

  I couldn’t help but arch my back and push up even if gently, but that just turned her on more.

  “You spoil me, love,” I accused in a voice filled with awe.

  She moaned, and calling her love seemed to electrify her even more than calling her baby, or my sweet naughty Thea. She started to bob faster, swirl my sensitive tip more firmly, and suck even harder to milk me, all while her gently milking hand on my base jerked me with more force. She added a tiny twist at the apex of her stroke coinciding with those tongue swirls at the apex of her bob, that sent mind-addling pleasure storming through my body. I’d been rising toward completion, but that turned into a headlong rush as she scrambled my mind with euphoria and electrified my body with heavenly rapturous waves of pleasure.

  Her eyes begged me for my cum, but the deep pleasures of her dexterous mouth and hand working in perfect harmonious concert demanded it.

  “Fuck, baby. Too good, I’m going to fill that sweet mouth,” then I grunted and pushed up a little more firmly, couldn’t help it as my balls tightened and my legs went numb.

  She backed off so her tight lips were just past the sensitive tip, and her hand started to stroke my base at super speed which was so intense I wasn’t pushed off the edge, I was catapulted into ecstatic blissful ecstasy. It was transcendent as she moaned deeply in wanton approval and swallowed rhythmically as she sucked hard, with every single pulse of my cock.

  The little minx even trembled against me, as her eyes went wide with pleasure. A tiny orgasm, but that she had one at all when I blew into the back of her throat and coated her tongue with my seed was incredible to me.

  “Sweet naughty Thea, I love you. What time is it?”

  She crawled up my body with a grin and snuggled into my side.

  “I love you too, so much it hurts. It’s early, master. Right around five. The scanners detected a large concentration of meta-energy in the Pacific, moving toward L.A. It’ll arrive in about an hour.”

  I’d mentioned more than once I didn’t patrol or fight like a hero, but I did fight on occasion. One of the ways I did that was taking out sea monster supers before they hit the coasts. Sure, team titan always took them out fast, but by the time they were far enough out of the water to kill they usually destroyed a half a mile-long swath of the coast, at least a few hundred yards deep.

  They saved most people, a city full, but there were always at least hundreds of deaths.

  So it was better to kill them when they were still far out at sea, which is what I’d been doing the last year. I wasn’t sure if Oracle knew about it or not, since the sea monster never got to the coast it wasn’t a danger to humans, so his power might not bother giving him a vision. I was sure they’d noticed though, that the frequency of the large sea life quickened into monsters had dropped off significantly on our borders.

  I rolled out of bed reluctantly. I could return the favor with my mouth and then pound her besides when I got back. My mouth literally watered in that moment at the thought of her trembling on my tongue while calling out my name, and bathing my face in her satisfaction. I really was becoming addicted to sex, no doubt the pheromones she put off that were designed to seduce me constantly, but also because I was a healthy twenty-two-year-old male still in the sexual prime of my life.

  She was always available and ready for me, and would never say no, so it didn’t take much to get us started.

  I conjured my robes, and then leaned back over the bed to collect a lingering kiss.

  “Would you like to come?” I asked on impulse, not happy with the idea of leaving her behind.

  She beamed, and she rolled out of bed and conjured her sexy white super suit dress that was mostly sheer save around her breasts, and below she was covered in that gold pair of shorts that was little better than lacey thong panties and easily seen through the transparent fabric. The gold boots, and the Egyptian necklace was real though, and included the shields, weapons, and teleporting tech I’d made her.

  “Yes, master. Thank you,” and she kissed me sensually with just a hint of naughty promise in it for later.

  I knew the excitement was about me wanting her by me and her getting to stay at my side where she wanted to be, and less so about fighting alongside me. If that made us clingy, well then, I was. It wouldn’t hurt I didn’t think, she was always with me anyway at least virtually, and the focus of her life and purpose was me, unlike with a human woman that wasn’t unhealthy. It was what it was, and I enjoyed her presence.

  We’d be apart of course, when necessary or at times socially, but otherwise I kind of wanted her around. All the time now.

  Even if she was a hell of a distraction.

  We headed out of the bedroom and to the backdoor. Then out onto the deck and finally down the stairs to our private beach. As we approached the water, I conjured a small submersible with sensors, shields, weapons, and drive.

  It was a little bigger than a car, though the cockpit only had two seats in it and the cabin was small. Most of that space was to accommodate the technology required.

  We got in and closed the canopy. I activated the power systems and interactive holographic controls, and I took us into the ocean.

  “I was thinking, based on what we learned from our plan to completely drain the core of the planet of energy. That it would kill all the supers. It’s not a weapon I’d ever use against a human super, but it occurred to me we could weaponize a phase shift field for sea monsters. If I phased away all the meta-energy from its body, then it should just drop dead.”

  She nodded, “Easier said than done, since you’d need to create a field a mile wide and hundreds of feet high to encompass the whole creature.”

  That was true, the organized meta-energy construct would be as large as the creature.

  I shook my head, “We’ll just destroy the brain, per usual.”

  The creature was about a mile long and half mile wide, fifty feet tall at the edge and four times that at the center. It also had extremely long tentacles, which made me think it used to be squid or octopus before it’d quickened.

  When we were close enough, about twenty miles away, I adjusted the targeting scanners which could identify and target the brain based on the geometry and concentration of meta-energy of the construct. I tried the obvious first and launched a drill head plasma torpedo. That weapon would hit the body, drill inside until it reached the brain, then explode and destroy the brain in totality killing the creature.

  But that weapon only worked half the time, and when it got within range of the tentacles the torpedo was violently attacked by tentacles, only to be crushed long before it made it to the creature’s body.

  The catch in fighting below the water to make sure no people were harmed, was I couldn’t use meta-energy weapons or shields, or I’d destroy part of the ocean along with the creature. My ship would literally become a sink hole as all the water pressure against the meta-energy would see the water not held back, but destroyed.

  The outer shields were a mixture of gravity and kinetic in nature, and they were powered by meta-energy which made them incredibly strong. Just in case, the second level of shielding was meta-energy, in case the creature broke through the outer shields the inner shield would just eat the tentacle. Along with a few tons of water before the outer shields reinitialized, but that was better than being dead.

  Despite that, I kept my distance as we reached the creatures, and was at least two hundred yards away to avoid the tentacles reaching for the car sized submersible.

  The water also limited our weapon options. Sure, inside the body, with it healing behind the digging torpedo, a plasma charge would work just fine. But water wouldn’t allow plasma attacks on the outside of the creature. Cold rays were out too, or it’d freeze the water around the submersible and weapon. Lasers, electricity, all of that was a no go with us in the water too.

  Teleportation was also limited, I couldn’t teleport a weapon directly inside the creature, it wouldn’t materialize correctly if it merged with the cells of a sea monster’s body. The water would also be harder to deal with than air.

  In short, it was a pain in the ass to fight under water, but even to save one life would make it worth the trouble.

  I fired a cold torpedo that was designed to go off on impact. It made it about a third of the way to the creature before a tentacle slammed into it, and the explosion formed a block of ice around fifty yards in circumference.

  I moved further down and fired again, then again, until I had all the tentacles in a hundred- and fifty-yard swath frozen in ice. The tentacles struggled against their confinement and the creature made its displeasure known as it started to shake furiously and caused cavitation in the water over a large area. Enough to shake the car sized sub violently. The crack of the ice was easily heard inside the submersible as the creature fought to be free of it.

  Regardless, the ice held the tentacles long enough for my next drill head plasma torpedo to cross the distance and reach the body. That one made it the body, and it started to drill into it. The creature went into a frenzy, and I hoped the waves it would no doubt cause didn’t cause too much harm on the surface and the shore of L.A.

  The ice broke apart, and I moved the submersible away as the creature lunged in my direction. It was surprisingly fast being driven by thousands of waving tentacles, but not fast enough to overtake me.

  “This should be over in a minute.”

  It took time for a drill torpedo to make its way through a quarter mile of flesh.

  Thea smiled, “I know. What else is on the table today?”

  “You mean after we get out of bed much later this morning?”

  She giggled naughtily, and said breathily, “Yes, sir.”

  I winked, “I want to give your enhancement power a try, make sure it works the way we expect it to. It shouldn’t be hard to locate a quickened tree, and you can see if you can make that a titan.”

  I wouldn’t be experimenting on humans, not until we were sure it’d work. Experimenting on super animals was also distasteful, since many of them had near human intelligence. A tree on the other hand, usually quickened when it was being strangled off from sunlight or otherwise threatened. Of course, there were no smart trees, just ones that seemed to grow huge and become somewhat immortal.

  It should be safe enough to test her enhancement power there.

  She nodded, “That’s a good idea.”

  “We should find out. Whatever happens is better than world destruction, but I fear the response when people discover the creation energy in the core is lowering. If we can make more titans, even less powerful ones, out of known quantity heroes. People that have already made the decision to be working superheroes, we could secure the world a lot better than it is now.”

  I’d said earlier, most titans were just like other supers. The grand majority of them just wanted to lead a normal life, and they wanted nothing to do with a superhero and supervillain life. They didn’t want to risk their lives to protect others, and that was okay.

  But with Thea’s power we could make titans out of current heroes that had already chosen the life.

  Dark Succubus, Nightstar, Shadow Weaver, Red Siren, Myriad, Mara, Lady Lightning, and Karma were all prime candidates in my mind. Not only were they good people, but I imagined they hated standing by when their titan mates or friends were risking life and limb. They only stayed out of the fight to not put them in even more danger.

  That would triple the size of Team Titan North America, and it’d make things even more secure from titan supervillains for the foreseeable future. I was also sure Rose would have candidates in mind for the other team titans on the five other pertinent continents. Obviously, Antarctica wasn’t a consideration that way.

  That said I wouldn’t be making the offer unless it was necessary, but it’d be good if we knew that power that she’d created actually worked before it was needed. I’ve never heard of a power like that before, making other supers enhanced permanently.

  The torpedo exploded on the status hologram, and the meta-energy readings in the creature faded and disappeared. Scratch one sea monster, zero civilian casualties.

  I went ahead and teleported us straight to bed, and then allowed the submersible conjuration to dissipate where it was.

  She giggled in excitement, as I kissed her forcefully. It was going to be a fun morning. My mouth was watering, and she was trembling in wanton anticipation, as I kissed down her body…

  Chapter Ten

  We were ready for the barbeque the next day. Thea was currently taking out the last batch of chocolate chip cookies from the oven, which I was sure would go over well.

  The day before we’d tested and verified her power worked as I’d planned, once we’d made it out of bed. When she finished, the tree was bursting with energy, had a trunk fifty feet wide, and a canopy hundreds of feet higher than its neighbors. The bough of the tree was impossibly vast. All that energy went into its health, and its ability to collect sunlight and no doubt water underground, as its roots spread out.