Page 44 of Music of the Ocean

It didn’t move. It didn’t falter. He thought of the last words his captain had said during the premission briefing, the flat, procedural tone, the dismissal at the end. “I guess you’ll do, Lieutenant.”

He remembered the burning, salt-metal taste of the water as he’d touched the ocean. He recalled the luminous bluish purple of Indigo’s skin in the dark, the way it had illuminated the churning water around them, the way his tentacles circled his wrist so gently.

Maybe that was what he’d wanted—to matter. To be chosen, even if only by accident via the cunningness of a planet that had outwitted every other mind that had come before.

Saxby reached out, hand trembling, and for a moment he imagined what he must look like from the outside—a lonely, confused man, shaking in an alien city, reaching for the impossible.

He wanted to ask Indigo if this was real or just a necessity or if there was even a difference anymore, but the words stuck in his throat. Then, he closed the gap and let his hand rest against Indigo’s palm.

The sensation of skin meeting the slicker surface of something not quite human was familiar and alien at once. Indigo’s fingers curled around his, gentle and insistent, and a jolt of warmth surged up Saxby’s arm.

Indigo’s gaze was steady and unblinking, and the thousands of words still unsaid between them seemed to crystallize into a single, unifying resolve. There was no going back.

Saxby looked up at Indigo, at the alien face and the ancient eyes, and wondered if Indigo saw the same future he did.

Indigo closed his hand around Saxby’s and held it for a moment, then released it and turned briskly toward the corridor. “Come. You need food and rest before the next round.”

Indigo led the way, moving with a new urgency.

Saxby followed, eyes flicking between the luminous map and Indigo’s back. And how hadn’t he noticed how muscular that back was until now? Stunned, he quickly checked to make sure his shields were up because the last thing he needed was for Indigo to catch that stray thought.

Hell, he wasn’t sure how he felt about it, so how could he explain it to Indigo? But there was no denying he found Indigo attractive.

The memory of Indigo’s hand closing warmly over his lingered. There was a quiet certainty in it. A softness wrapped in a confident grip. He wondered how many human hands Indigo had held and immediately wished he hadn’t when something hot and ugly uncurled in his gut.

Well now, jealously? Where had that come from?

It was impossible, this kind of longing. He wondered if he was being rewritten moment by moment, and if the planet was somehow running experiments on him. Were all his feelings a side effect of alien chemicals and telepathic projections?

But he’d never felt this kind of need for anyone in his entire life. That was fact and it didn’t matter how it came about.

The corridor’s light reflected in the glossiness of Indigo’s beautiful bluish-purple skin. For a moment Saxby imagined reaching out, running his hand down the curve of Indigo’s arm, following the line of muscle to the elegant web of his hand.

Saxby shut down the fantasy before it could gain momentum, but it lingered like an afterimage in his mind. He tried to refocus on tactical awareness, situational context, a whole checklist of things he was supposed to care about.

But each time his thoughts slid back to Indigo’s movements, the calm authority in his voice, and the way he seemed to anchor the whole alien city through force of will alone.

It was impossible not to compare Indigo to the officers he’d served under. Each one had been a study in hierarchy and forced intimacy. None of them had ever made him feel less alone.

Indigo, for all his otherness, felt present.

Saxby risked another look at Indigo’s back, the play of light across the subtle ridges of his spine, the faint shimmer where his skin caught the glow. It was impossible not to appreciate, in a purely aesthetic sense, the beauty of his form.

Saxby tried to convince himself this was intellectual curiosity, nothing more, but the warmth in his chest told a different story.

Then, there were the tentacles. Saxby swallowed as he glanced at them. His mind really wanted to explore those possibilities. He imagined their texture, the possibilities of movement, and all the things they could do.

How they could wrap around a wrist, a throat, or hell, something far more intimate like his fucking dick.

He tried to suppress the thought, but it was insistent. How would it feel to be held, not just by a hand or an arm, but by dozens of powerful limbs? Would each one be capable of both strength and precision as it trailed over his body. Would they be cold? Gentle? Or hot and hard?

Would it be overwhelming or would it feel like being known in a way nothing else could match? And speaking of hard, that was what he was becoming. Shit, could Indigo scent his desire? The thought was mortifying but also thrilling.

Without meaning to, Saxby sped up, drawing almost even with Indigo. For a moment, their arms touched, and a single tentacle brushed his elbow. It was a light, accidental contact, but the sensation sent sparks up Saxby’s arm.

Indigo glanced sideways, eyes narrowing in what might have been curiosity or amusement.

Saxby flushed. He tried to look away, but the afterimage of Indigo’s tentacles lingered in his mind. He wondered, again, if this was chemical reprogramming by the alien city or if it was something personal, like his own desire, unmediated.