Page 59 of Whispers of the Deep

It was close enough. He nodded before gesturing to the water. “There are hot springs that come out of the vents in the sea. Many of the creatures there are startling, but they will leave us alone if I am close to you. You can get warm there, but we cannot take the heat with us.”

Her brow furrowed in confusion, but then she smiled at him and he forgot how to breathe. “I trust you, Arges. Wherever you plan to take me, I will go.”

Again, that blind trust that he hadn’t truly earned made his hearts race. This woman, she gifted him such wonderful trust without ever needing him to prove himself.

“Thank you,” he murmured, holding out his arms for her. “We can leave the box for a while. I know there will be valuable conversation that it misses out on, but the vents are no place for a crab made of metal.”

Byte poked its head out at that. “I am not a crab,” it muttered.

“You understand me quite well these days.” Arges slotted his hands above Mira’s hips, tucking his fingers into the valley that always entranced him. “And here you are, saying the translation is not ready for human ears.”

“It isn’t,” the robot muttered. “I’ve told you both that countless times.”

He did not intend to waste more time arguing with the creature. Instead, he lifted Mira into the water, allowing her to slink down his body until it almost made him groan. She was so different from him, not at all compatible and yet... the longer he spent with her, the more he wished it were not true.

Usually he would hold Mira against his chest and drag her through the water. But this time, she turned to face him as she had in the beginning. When she slipped her toes against the fins of his hips, he had to grit his teeth against the sudden spike of pleasure.

“You have no idea what that touch does to me,” he murmured, his hands flexing against her hips and drawing her tighter against him. “It is a private touch, and you give it so freely. I can count on one hand the amount of people daring enough to touch those fins, let alone with such confidence and ease.”

He wanted to explain to her how personal it was. How touching him like that was an advance by females of his kind. That she was telling his body that she was ready to mate, that he should release the cock he hid beneath a panel of scales.

But she did not mean to do that, and he should not antagonize himself with such thoughts.

And yet... They journeyed away from the cave and her strange fins flexed against him. Toes, he remembered her calling them. Then her fingers stretched up to his neck. Usually she held onto his shoulders, but this time she brushed her fingers through his gills. They flared for her, fluttering even though he was moving fast enough to flatten them with the movement.

He tilted his body, slowing just barely and swimming as though she was lying on top of him. “That touch as well. It has meaning, achromo. I know you do not know it, but that touch boils my blood.”

He was burning up from the inside out. Wanting to touch her. Wanting her to touch him more. And he knew it was impossible, but oh... He had never been one to shy away from temptation.

Mimicking her touch, he scooped his hands underneath her hair that she had allowed to flow freely. She rarely did this, and he was going to take advantage of this unusual opportunity. Her hair was so long, and such a pretty color. It coiled around his fingers, clinging to him as he wished to cling to her.

Even though he knew she couldn’t see him right now, he still wanted her to feel him. Perhaps that would work to his advantage. She couldn’t see the differences and could only feel the webs on his fingers. He traced a long nail down her jaw, watching her skin dimple even as they arrived at the vents.

He could feel the warm water instantly. It was almost too hot for him, but he heard her long, relaxed sigh. It was at least lit here, so she could see through the small fissures of red that warmed the water. Even the strange, pale crabs with long legs and antennae that moved in their direction watched as he brought her closer to the heat.

“Tell me when to stop,” he murmured, slowly turning her in his arms, so she was facing the warm vents. “And I will keep us where you find it most comfortable.”

She shivered, and he could assume it was the depth of his voice in her ear that affected her so. “Arges?”

“Yes, kairos?” Perhaps he leaned a little too close. Perhaps he slightly nuzzled his lips against her ear as he said the words.

“I’m going to remove my suit. It keeps me warm in cold water, but keeps me cool in warm water. Just the top, but... Will you not look?”

She asked the impossible. He had to hold on to her. The currents were far too strong for her to stay in one place without them whipping her away from him. So that meant she would be pressed against him, skin to skin, for the first time. He would surely die remaining still and not looking or touching everything he’d never seen bare.

Still, she had asked. And he had promised that he would take care of her.

Mindful of the device on her face, he moved her hands, so that she reached behind herself to grip his hips. If she slid her fingers around the fins at his hips, holding on a little too tight with that nimble grip, he had to ignore it. And then, with gentle hands, he reached for the back of her suit. She called it a zipper, and she’d shown him how it worked many times.

He’d been fascinated by it, but now, with the red glow playing on her front and the sudden brilliance of his own luminescence, he drew that zipper down to reveal her back. All that lovely, pale skin looked almost white in the blue light shimmering through his chest now. Every gill on his body stood straight out, vibrating with need as he saw the delicate hollows of her ribs and the expansion of her breath. In and out. So delicate. So impossibly thin skinned.

Oh, he could see her veins underneath as well. The slight flex of her shoulder blades as she tightened her grip on him, even as he drew the suit down her shoulders.

Voice guttural with desire, he leaned forward to murmur in her ear, “I have to draw this down your arms. If you wish to continue facing away from me, then I will have to touch you.”

With no way for her to confirm if she understood, all he could do was reach his arms forward and gently slid the suit down her front. It was difficult to remove. She’d said before that it was tight to maintain her body pressure or something along those lines. He couldn’t even think about what she’d told him before when the pointed peaks of her breasts brushed his forearms.

She made a little noise in the back of her throat and he thought he would never forget the sound. He wanted to bite down on her neck. To grip her hips and pull her back against him, as he would have done with one of his own kind. But then he would not know what to do. Her tail wouldn’t coil with his. He wouldn’t even know where on her body was the right place for him to slide against or touch or linger.

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