3. Chapter Three
Chapter Three
Noah
It was cold as shit. I should have been freezing my ass off. Instead, I was hot all over. Seeing Beatrice this excited had a way of keeping me heated.
Fuck. She was so cute, practically bouncing in her boots as she examined the strange artifact in her hands.
I frowned. I didn’t like the way the mask’s many eyes were looking at her. Which was stupid, it was an inanimate object. Nothing to be jealous over. So why were my nerves fraying like a rope at the mere sight of that thing?
I’d been obsessed with Lovecraft’s work, eldritch lore, and the mysteries of the sea since I could remember.
And this was the first tangible proof that everything I’d grown up believing was real.
We’d been ridiculed by colleagues for dumping our savings into this expedition and sailing to one of the most remote parts of the frigid arctic, in search of what everyone else had written off as nothing but a spooky bedtime story.
It should have felt cathartic, finally having proof in our hands that we were right this whole time.
Instead, I only felt a foreboding slithering sensation across my skin. Like invisible tentacles coiling around my limbs and throat, making it hard to breathe.
“Give it to me.” I practically snatched the mask out of her grasp, making her jump.
“Geez. Fine. Someone’s excited.”
My brows furled as I turned the thing over in my hands.
It appeared to be hand-molded, not carved.
How? The thing felt as though it were made of stone, but it wasn’t heavy.
Even with the tentacles clustered around the mouth piece.
It was a wonder none of them had snapped off after all these years. It had to be ancient as fuck.
“This calls for a celebration, yeah? We should get drunk.”
“We’re out of beer.” I didn’t look up with my reply. Couldn’t. I was lost in the mask’s eye holes. There were five of them.
“Noah.”
Bea’s tender voice, and the sound of my name on her lips, had my dick stiff. With that, I tore my scowl from the mask, my expression softening under her blue eyes. “Bea.”
Her throat bobbed with a swallow. “Uh, we could break open that bottle of Kraken we’ve been saving?”
I stared at her in silence, long enough to make her squirm. I’d do it less if it wasn’t so damn entertaining. And I knew, secretly, she liked it.
“Come on, now isn’t the time to tease me.”
I disagreed. It was always a good time to make my first mate squirm. “You mean the bottle of rum we got specifically for when we found the sunken city?”
“Well, we as good as found it!”
“We found a mask. A clue that we’re in the right place.”
“I feel really good about this.”
At least, that made one of us.
“Alright, but if you get shitfaced, it’s to the brig with you.”
She worried her lip. “And, er, just so we’re clear, Captain. What’s the brig at the moment? The toilet or y-your bed?”
Smirking, I shrugged a shoulder and turned my back on her. “Guess we’ll just let the Kraken decide for us.”
***
Beatrice's pierced nose wrinkled at the first drop of rum on her tongue. "Ugh, yuck."
"It's a shot. You're supposed to shoot it. Not sip it."
"But it says spiced rum on the label." Bea grabbed the bottle and glowered at it like it had said something nasty about her mother. "Spiced shit's supposed to taste good. You sit on a throne of lies!"
I plucked the bottle from her hand to pour myself a second shot and slotted it back into her waiting fingers, still curved to the shape of the bottle.
I placed the shot glass to my lips, grinning at the way she shifted her attention to watch me. Her hot blue eyes centered on my mouth, and to my immense pleasure, she licked her own lips as I knocked back my shot.
She probably thought she was being coy. My first mate was never as subtle as she likely believed.
"Come on Bea. Stop ogling me and take the damn shot," I taunted with a tone as sickly sweet as the liquid burning down my esophagus. "Be a good girl for your captain, and do as you're ordered."
A nervous giggle bubbled from her throat. "Oh, so now you’re throwing the captain card at me?”
My answer was another drink—this time from the bottle.
Her cheeks flushed red, and her gaze sparked with determination. “Fine.”
With no further argument, she tossed the shot glass back, and this time, drained the dark liquid in one go.
“There, that wasn’t so bad was it?” I teased as I nudged her open can of diet coke toward her for a chaser.
She smacked her empty glass down on our galley table with a hiss. "I don't get why Johnny Depp was so obsessed with this stuff. Why is the rum gone?" she said in a terrible Captain Jack Sparrow impression. "Maybe because it's gross, Johnny!"
I hid my reverent smile behind my glass. She was so cute when she got like this.
“Eh. It's sweet and will keep ya warm.” My brain was already abuzz with the alcohol. It had been a long time since I’d had anything stronger than cheap beer. “That's enough for most sailors.”
Lounging back in the bench seat built around our tiny breakfast bar, I began to unbutton my shirt.
Her eyes practically popped out of her head at the slow, teasing way I flicked each button with my thumb.
I cocked my head with a barely-there smirk. "Hey, weren't you the one who wanted to get the dark rum in the first place?"
"Only because the bottle was pretty!" she whined, surrendering to another shot once I filled her glass again. "I mean, come on. There's a freaking kraken on the label, and we're hunting for tentacled sea monsters. It was too poetic."
After a tense pause, Bea groaned and buried her rose red cheeks in her hands. "Why do you do that?"
I hiked a brow. "Do what, exactly?"
"Tease me. All the time."
The grin I gave her was all teeth. "I don't know what you're talking about."
It was a lie, of course. I knew it. She knew it.
"Oh, piss off, Noah. You're always looking at me like you want to eat me. And here we are—" She gestured to my torso, which was covered in a huge tattoo of a galleon. "Out in the arctic freaking ocean and you're half naked."
"See?" I winked and held the bottle up in toast before taking another swing. "Rum. Keeps you warm."
"Bet I could do a better job at keeping you warm than that bottle."
Well, I’ll be damned. Beatrice was matching my energy. That was rare. Not the first time. We'd attended college together, after all. While we'd prefer to hole up in the library and study most weekends, we'd seen our fair share of parties.
Curious to see just how brave she was feeling with the liquid courage warming her belly, I slid across the bench seat so we were sitting side by side. Her thigh pressed to mine. "Is that a proposition? After all these years, are you finally coming onto me?"
"What, have you been waiting?"
"Not waiting for you to make the first move, no," I finally admitted with a sigh.
"Waiting for what, then?"
Before giving her my answer, I lifted the bottle in a silent offer. Instead of sliding her shot glass over for a top-off, she took an enthusiastic swig from the bottle.
She could complain all she wanted. The rum was exactly what we needed on this cold night. What better way to celebrate than to spill out our feelings like we never had before?
"Work got in the way. This expedition is important, and you're the only one I've ever found who cares about it as much as me. If I chased my feelings and made you mine, I wouldn't be able to put our research first. And I know how important it is to you."
"Are you really saying that you haven't made a move because you don't want to put me before the mission?"
"I wouldn't be able to focus. What man could possibly care about fish, no matter how interesting, with a woman like you in his bed? Especially stuck all the way out here. Fuck Cthulhu—"
She gasped, her hand flying over her mouth. I continued, "It's you I'd worship. Then, I'd be an awful research partner. I'd want to do biological studies all right, but it wouldn't be concerning fish."
"Noah..."
I couldn't stop now. It was like a dam breaking; there was no stopping my confession until the flow ran its natural course.
"Then you'd have to get a new partner. And who?
Good luck finding a follower of Cthulhu at all, let alone someone who can navigate these waters like I can.
And even if you did, I'd sacrifice them out of jealousy. "
Bea sat there speechless for a moment, then slurred, "You're drunk."
"Barely. I've wanted to say all this for a while."
She chewed her lower lip. It was something she often did when mulling something over. For a moment, I imagined it was her lip between my teeth. Her soft moans slipped into my mouth.
She had trouble reading me. She'd said as much before. Couldn't help but wonder if I was doing a shit job keeping my dirty thoughts off my face tonight. Probably not, if her raging blush had anything to say about it.
"So what's changed?"
"The expedition." My eyes shifted to the mask sitting on the galley counter. I'd purposefully placed it so that it was looking away from us, so that it couldn't stare at her with those empty eye sockets.
"We can go back home now."
She nodded slowly. "Oh, right..."
I wasn't going to admit that I felt torn about going back home.
When we first set sail months ago, I couldn't wait to find evidence of the sunken city so we could rub it in our colleagues' faces.
Make names for ourselves in the science community.
Maybe even lead a large funded expedition to the city.
Now, I wasn't so sure.
I more than gave a damn about her.
Since meeting as college freshman in our Lovecraft studies group, she'd become my everything.
Hell, if I had it my way, I'd stay out here with her forever like this and dock only for supplies we couldn't pull from the sea.
"Don't you want to go back now?" I asked.
"Well, yes..." Her hesitance had me sitting up straight in my seat.
"But?"
"But, I don't know. Maybe we should do some more field study.
On the mask. Think about it. We don't know anything about it.
What proof do we have of where it came from and what it is?
We need more data. Without it, who's to say they won't try to discredit us by accusing us of buying it from one of the local village craftsmen or something.
And we won't have any proof to back our story up. "
"Yeah... More research..." I nodded. I wasn't sure if she wanted to stay to do more field testing, or if it was just an excuse to stay out here longer, just the two of us. Maybe both. The reason didn't matter.
She wanted to stay, and that was enough for me.
"So, we stay?" I asked to clarify.
"Food supplies are good for another three weeks or so. No need to rush back so soon. We can stay and research. Gather data."
"Right. Gather data."
No sooner than the words left my mouth, my lips were on hers in a heated kiss that tasted of spiced rum and something that was uniquely her.
Her lips were immediately responsive, and her hands were on my chest in an instant. "Fuck. I've wanted this for so long, Noah."
My arms banded around her, and I scooped her into my lap. The connection was urgent, from years of the torturous question lingering between us. What if?
I always suspected it would be like this: fireworks at first kiss. The validation, knowing just how perfect she fit in my lap, was a hundred times more cathartic than finding proof of the sunken city's existence. Proof of my god's existence played second fiddle to finally holding her in my arms.
"Fucking hell, you feel so good."
Bae leaned back in my arms to hit me with a devious grin that had my cock swelling beneath her. “That's what she said.”