"Did it — was it—" I stopped, because I wasn't sure what question I was asking. Was it enough. Was it worth it. Did it hurt when it was over. I could hear all three versions and none of them felt like the right one to say out loud.
"It was what it was," he said. "I did not expect permanence. Permanence is not a thing humans generally offer." He paused. "I stopped expecting it. It was simpler. Now I enjoy each generation who lives on this island, knowing that human lives are brief but warm. The island accepts me as who I am."
I looked at his profile. The line of his jaw, the shell necklace against his throat, the two tentacles resting against his lower back in the afternoon light. Two hundred years of not expecting anyone to stay. Two hundred years of fine, of the channel in the morning, of Tina's coffee and the kids at the reef and the generator fixed in the dark before dawn.
I reached over and took his hand.
"I'm not going to pretend this is a normal situation," I said.
"No," he said.
"But I'm here." I looked at our joined hands — my warm brown against his deep blue, his fingers large and careful around mine. "I only have a few days, but I'm not spending them pretending I don't want to be."
He looked at our hands. Then he looked at me. "I know," he said softly.
We sat on the rocks with the tide pool between us and the cove below and the afternoon going long and golden, and I held his hand. His tentacle curled around my arm and I leaned against him.
***
We ended up in my room without a decision exactly, more like a direction both of us had been facing long enough that arriving there was just the natural conclusion.
He was standing in the middle of my room and he was looking at me with his dark eyes and the ink was already moving under his skin, deepening, the way it did when he was, well,horny.
I crossed the room and kissed him.
He kissed me back like he had been thinking about it. Like unhurried was always going to end up here.
"I want—" I started.
"I know," he said.
"I want your hands on me," I said. "And your mouth. And I want—" I held his gaze, "all of it. All of you. Don't hold back."
The ink bloomed dark across his chest. His tentacles uncurled from his lower back and the room fuller, warmer, with the specific charge of him present and focused and here.
"All of it?"
"All of it," I confirmed.
He undressed me slowly, like every inch of skin was worth careful study. His hands moved over my stomach, my hips, the full curves of my thighs, warm and certain, spanning me completely. He was blue-skinned and beautiful in the low light.
"Marisol," he said, low, like my name was something he had been keeping careful.
"Still here," I said.
I reached for him and found that he was —okay, so this was a thing I had not fully considered when I said all of you, but I was considering it now and my overall assessment was:yes, absolutely, no notes. He was warm and solid and very, very present.
Two thick tentacles curled around my thighs spreading me exactly how he wanted, holding me open. The difference from the cave was immediate. In the cave there was a surprise. Here there was only centuries-deep want.
His mouth found me first.
And then his hair joined in.
The living tentacles amongst the locs that made up his hair slid over my skin like curious blue silk, cool at the tips but warming quickly against me. Two of them curled around my breasts, the tapered ends teasing my nipples into tight, aching peaks with slow, deliberate strokes and gentle suction. Another one slipped lower, joining his tongue at my clit — licking, circling, fluttering in perfect counterpoint while his mouth sucked and licked me open with devastating patience.
He was thorough in the way of something that had all the time in the world and had decided this was worth every second. His tongue stroked deep inside me, fucking me with slow, wet thrusts, then flattened and dragged up through my folds while a hair tentacle flicked rapidly over my swollen clit. Another slid slickly along my entrance before pressing just inside, stretching me gently while his mouth devoured every drop of me.
"Like that," I told him, voice already shaking. "Right there — fuck — don't stop."
