"You truly find it attractive?"

"Zeph, you literally light up when you're happy or turned on. It's like having my own personal mood ring, except significantly more attractive and probably more accurate."

He's quiet for a moment, processing this, and I can feel something warm and pleased radiating through our empathic connection. "I have never had a partner who... appreciated that aspect of my physiology."

"Well, their loss is my gain," I tell him, then immediately want to take it back because that sounded way more possessive than I intended. "I mean, you know what I mean."

"As are you," Zeph murmurs, his hands skimming over my skin in patterns that are becoming less about cleansing and more about exploration. "So beautiful in the water. So responsive to touch."

The combination of warm water, glowing light, and Zeph's hands on my body is rapidly becoming overwhelmingin the best possible way. When he guides me to one of the shallower areas and lifts me easily onto a smooth ledge at the water's edge, I don't protest.

"Is this one of those different activities you mentioned?" I ask, breathless as he positions himself between my legs in the water.

"Perhaps," Zeph says with that small smile that makes my heart race. "Are you interested in expanding your research parameters?"

"Fuck, yes."

When Zeph takes my cock in his mouth while the warm current swirls around us both, I nearly lose my fucking mind. The dual sensations of his mouth and the heated water are almost too much to process, and when he does something with his tongue that definitely wasn't in any human anatomy textbook, I have to grip the edge of the pool to keep from sliding back into the water.

"Jesus fucking Christ," I gasp, looking down at him. The sight of Zeph's golden hair fanned out in the water while he sucks my cock is probably going to be burned into my memory forever. "How are you so good at this?"

Through the empathic connection, I can feel his satisfaction at my reaction, the way my pleasure feeds back to him and makes him even more enthusiastic. It's like being caught in a feedback loop of heat and want and fucking incredible sensation.

"More," I demand, because apparently being in an alien spa has made me shameless. "Fuck, Zeph, play with my balls too."

He complies immediately, one hand cupping and rolling my balls while his mouth works my cock, and the combination of sensations while I'm half-submerged in glowing water is unlike anything I've ever experienced. When I finally come, it's with ashout that echoes off the cave-like walls, my release spilling into his mouth as Zeph works me through it.

"That was..." I start, then stop because my brain hasn't quite reconnected to my mouth yet.

"Educational?" Zeph suggests, surfacing from the water with a grin that makes him look absolutely predatory.

"That was fucking incredible," I tell him honestly. "But now I need to return the favor before I lose what's left of my mind."

"You do not need to—"

"I want to," I interrupt, sliding back into the water with clear intent. "And I want to try something."

"What?"

"I want to see how much of you I can take underwater."

The sound Zeph makes is somewhere between a groan and a growl, and his glow flares so bright it illuminates the entire pool. "Jake..."

"Trust me," I tell him, moving closer with a grin that's probably borderline feral. "I'm very motivated to make this work."

What follows is definitely the most adventurous oral sex of my life. Taking Zeph's cock in my mouth while partially submerged in warm, glowing water creates sensations I didn't know were possible. The buoyancy lets me move in ways that wouldn't work on dry land, and when I take him deeper than I've managed before, working my tongue along those ridges while I cup his balls with my free hand, the sound he makes is so fucking hot that I nearly come again just from hearing it.

"Fuck, Jake," Zeph gasps, his hands tangling in my wet hair. "Your mouth... the water... I cannot..."

I pull off his cock just long enough to say, "Then don't. Just let go."

When he finally comes, it's with a shout that rivals mine, his whole body lighting up like a fucking star while he spills into my mouth. The taste of him mixed with the sweet mineral water is something I'm definitely going to be craving later, and I swallow every drop while working him through the aftershocks.

Through the empathic connection, I feel every wave of his climax crashing through both of us, and it's almost enough to make me come again just from the intensity of shared sensation.

By the time we're both sated and floating together in the gentle current, I'm pretty sure I've discovered a new favorite place in the universe.

"We should probably do this more often," I murmur against Zeph's shoulder, enjoying the way the water supports both our weight effortlessly and trying not to think about the fact that "more often" implies a future we definitely haven't figured out yet.