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He gives me a quiet look, but then the corners of his mouth curve and I feel a wave of relief rush through me.
“Thank you, Keri. I am sure it will be fine, but I appreciate that you are so kind and considerate of my needs.”
I can feel my cheeks getting warm, but I nod quickly and pretend to focus on the large building at the end of the road as we get closer.
There is no one there when we arrive, and I’m pleased that The Society has given us free rein of the space and our privacy as we work. Silence greets us as I unlock and open the door, and the motion sensor lights come on the moment we step through the door. If nothing else, that breath of darkness before the lights were triggered would have been enough to tell me just how empty the building is. The lights flick on one by one as we make our way down the hall, our footsteps echoing.
I clear my throat, feeling a strong need to fill the silence so it feels less like the backdrop of a horror movie. “Mr. Clarence said that the third lab on the right has been set up and reserved for us.”
Ro makes a noncommittal sound in his throat in response but doesn’t say anything else as he follows me. There is a sterile, chemical smell from cleansers that I expected, but I wonder if he finds it unpleasant. A lot of fae have a sharp sense of smell and find a lot of things humans enjoy from perfume to cleaning chemicals to be unpleasant. He doesn’t comment on it, but I’m relieved when we come to our lab and open the door to the sharp, bitter scent of seawater. There’s still an underlying smell of disinfectant and whatever was used to clean the lab, but the strong scent of saltwater seems to make Ro relax as he regards the room with open curiosity.
The first thing my gaze lands on is a giant metal hook suspended over a large tank big enough to comfortably hold a dolphin set up against one wall. It dominates the room to such a degree that I barely even look at the padded examination table or the small conference table set up in one corner with a pair of chairs set around it. That damn hook fills my vision entirely like something waiting to be baited to drag a shark from the depths. I swallow uncomfortably as Ro tilts his head and studies it.
“Clever,” he murmurs. “That will be very helpful for getting in and out of the water.”
I blink and look at it again. I suppose so.
He glances over at me and raises his eyebrows. “Shall I get in then? I believe that you wish to start here, I assume to record the way everything looks and works beneath the water.”
I give him a pleased look, happy at his initiative. The less awkwardness, the better.
“Yes, please. I’ll set up the video equipment and get the camera.”
He nods and his fingers skim his waistband—and then he completely drops his pants.
My eyes catch at the bulge of flesh between his thighs, and I turn bright red with embarrassment as I quickly realize that I’m staring. Yet I’m so fascinated that I can’t seem to look away. Nor does he move.
This is very awkward.
Ro chuckles softly, filling me with a fresh flood of embarrassment. “I assume that you wish to take pictures of my anatomical difference in my landwalker form before I get into the water.”
My tongue is stuck to the roof of my mouth, but I nod before hurrying over to fetch the camera from where it’s charging on the conference table. He waits patiently for me to return and then stands still, with his hands out from his sides as I proceed to take photos of his genital sheath and then every part of his body from his curiously unwebbed toes to his smooth, unmarred neck that shows no hint of gills and the surprisingly coarse fall of his hair. The last truly surprises me when I reach forward and touch it after getting a good picture of the thick strands. It looks shimmery and silky, but its texture reminds me of a heavy pelt, like fur from a polar bear or something.
And Ro watches me expressionlessly the entire time so I can’t even begin to guess what he’s thinking. I feel like a creeper invading his privacy, but he signed up for this and in fact made the suggestion to start with the photographs, so I don’t feel too bad for it.
The moment he feels that I’m done, he turns from me and leaps for the hook with a powerful flex of his muscles. The moment his hands curl around it, his body swings with its momentum so that he arcs over the tank and then drops with a splash when he lets go. My awe at his athletic ability takes a prompt backseat when his chest begins to glow and flex and gills push up from his skin, drawing in his first breath of oxygenated water. That glow from his chest brightens and runs down his legs and throughout the rest of his body. It’s blindingly bright, and I shield my eyes and squint against it but am unable to see anything more until it finally settles into a soft illumination. He banks it, seemingly at will and turns toward me with a flick of his fins.
I stare at him for a long moment and his lips quirk as he gives a pointed look to the remote in my hand. Oh, yes! The video recorder. I turn just enough to point the remote at the system and turn it on before I’m spinning back toward him again and moving closer to the tank.
“Ro… can you hear me when you’re in there?”
His head bobs and he speaks, but from my position it sounds completely distorted. My voice is clear to him, but hearing underwater is obviously quite different from speaking underwater. I wonder if it would sound clearer to me if I were in the water with him, but I table that idea for now. Instead, I allow my gaze to trail over him in admiration. If possible, he’s even more beautiful in his true form.
His tail is just as pearlescent as the rest of him, but the scales are a little more obvious there and the spiny fin that trails down his back—his dorsal fin—has several long barbs as does another larger fin that goes down his back. These are milky white. The large pelvic fins just below his hips are as big as platters and tipped with pink, but it’s his fins at the end of his tail that are breathtaking. Just between them I can see the rounded bulge of his sheath but quickly drop my eyes lower along his incredibly long tail to its tip. There are four fins there that extend in a way that remind me a goldfish, giving him greater control of his mobility by the way they spread to stabilize him in place as he desires, and each are pearl pink and brighten to crimson.
I clear my throat as he watches me intently from the other side of the glass. I smile shyly and begin to speak as I record everything that I see in detail both in the tank and then afterward on the examination table when he leaps from the water with an incredibly powerful push from his tail and swings over to it with the help of the hook. My entire body feels flushed with excitement as I watch him move, but I can only hope that I keep it under control as we work together.
If it doesn’t get any better, the next several weeks are going to be absolute torture.
Keri
Every dayin the lab feels like a brutal test of my self-control. Ro is not only sexy but he’s also appealing in small ways that have nothing to do with his appearance or any sort of “song.” That said, today we are recording samples of his singing below and above the surface of the water, and I feel an itch of anticipation that doesn’t bode well for my resolve to not succumb to the flirty male.
And he has resumed full flirting. Especially when I’m in a position where I’m about to touch him, which happens to be the case whenever I take his vitals, as I’m instructed to every day. Like many non-humans he won’t give his blood, but as his scaled flesh seems to be thicker and tougher despite being so supple to the touch, it’s probably a good thing. The last thing I need to do is break needles off in his skin. Just thinking of it makes me wince in sympathy. I think Mr. Clarence has stopped huffing over it now once I showed him the data regarding Aquana skin and scales from the sample that Ro permitted me to take.
Or rather, the sample that he gave me, cut off by his own claws since nothing I have in the lab is hard or sharp enough to successfully scrape it off his inner arm.
This is a lot more technical work than I expected. I figured that most of it would be more like an interview. There is that component too, which occupies a lot of our time together, but the first hour is very much hands on. And I’m still not able to control my blush every time I must touch him.
