4. Chapter Four
Chapter Four
Beatrice
The moment I uttered those fateful words, my captain's shoulders tensed and something dark and thrilling gleamed behind his amber eyes. "If you want me to zip tie you to my bed. All you had to do was ask."
Why would I when this was so much more fun?
Noah lifted me into the air as he rose to his feet with a dark smile curving his lips. My heart skipped a beat at the sailor's drunken cadence. It was strange... stoic and sure. Then again, he was always like that.
He carried me to our sleeping area. Quarters were tight, with only a narrow walkway separating our bunks. It was funny how close his bed was to mine, yet before now it had been forbidden territory.
He playfully tossed me onto the mattress, and instantly, I was swaddled by his masculine scent, salty and spicy, with just a hint of the cigarettes he sometimes smoked after a storm.
I sat up with a nervous giggle dropping from my lips and grabbed his pillow, holding it in my lap while I watched him drop to his knees.
"Oh, time for some Cthulhu worship? Can I watch?"
I was only half joking. While I didn't share Noah's religious practices, I found it fascinating, nevertheless.
I was invested in finding the sunken city because of its effects on ocean life.
He was interested in finding proof of the cosmic god.
Proof meant more followers of Cthulhu. Which meant more people to pray and keep his evils at bay.
That's what I'd always admired about religion. It wasn't devotion to prayer out of some blind sense of dedication. It was out of necessity to keep these waters safe.
Noah chuckled as he crouched and reached beneath his bed in search of something.
"It's not Cthulhu I'm worshipping tonight, Bea."
My stomach whirled with butterflies, and I clutched his pillow tighter to my chest. When he got back up, holding a bundle of thick black zipties, I balked.
"W-wait. You're not actually tying me to your bunk?"
That arrogant smirk cresting his lips had me turning to goo all over his mattress. "You should know me well enough by now, Bea. I don't make empty promises."
All the moisture sank from my mouth straight to the place between my thighs, leaving my tongue dry.
All I could do was watch in speechless silence as he peeled his shirt off to reveal honed shoulders covered in eldritch runes that bled into his galleon tattoo, covering the sails and giving the otherwise normal nautical piece a dark, cosmic flair.
"I, uh..."
Noah titled his head to the side, hiking an eyebrow at me. "Unless you can't handle this. Which is fine, Bea."
It wouldn't be fine. I needed him so bad, it was a physical ache in my chest.
"If I change my mind, will you cut me loose?"
"Of course."
"W-what if I do change my mind? Then what? Where will that leave us?"
I wasn't going to change my mind. Still, as a scientist, I liked knowing all possibilities and their branching outcomes.
"Then we sober up and go to work tomorrow, like tonight never happened."
The thought of forgetting about all this had an involuntary whimper tearing up my throat.
My cheeks heated as he climbed into his bunk and crawled over me, taking the pillow from my arms so that nothing separated us.
"I don't want to do that, though, Bea. And you don't want that either, do you?"
I swallowed and shook my head once. "No. I think I'd rather throw myself into the sea."
"Always one for dramatics," he rumbled, his voice dropping to a dangerously deep cadence that scraped over me, leaving my flesh red and tingling. "Always were one for dramatics."
"Says the literal eldritch fisherman," I retorted. I stuck out my tongue like I often did, teasing my grumpy captain in a way I knew he secretly loved.
This time, instead of scolding me, he arched down and caught my tongue between his teeth, capturing my yelp of surprise in his mouth.
His cavernous chuckle started in his throat and ended in mine as he took both my wrists in a single hand and pressed them to his headboard.
My eyelids drifted to half mast as his teeth loosened their hold on me, only to gain access to my mouth and push his tongue inside.
He tasted like cigarette smoke, rum and dark prayers. The kiss was so deep and violating, it left me trembling beneath him.
The sound of a ziptie tightening in my ear had the little hairs on my neck shooting up. The plastic band bit into my wrists, keeping my arms over my head and anchored to his headboard.
"Comfy?"
I shook my head.
He sat back on his heels to admire me stretched out over his mattress. "Want me to cut you loose?"
Again, I shook my head.
"That's my good girl."
"Do you tie down all your lovers the first time you're with them?"
Before the sentence had fully left me, I knew I’d said the wrong thing. His expression turned steely, and his amber gaze glowered at me through the mess of black hair spilling over his eyes. "You know I haven't been with anyone else since I've known you."
"I do know that. I'm sorry, I was just trying to be funny... I really gotta stop trying to make jokes around you, don't I?"
The smile returned to his face. "They aren't all bad. The last one earned you a night in my bed, after all."
He rose out of bed, turning toward my bunk across the aisle.
Panic lanced through me when he crouched to the ground and reached under my mattress. "Hey! What are you doing?"
I kept all sorts of shit under there that I’d rather die than let him see. It was lonely out at sea. Sometimes, during the day while he was sleeping, or when he was out for a long smoke break, I'd pull out one of my smuttier monster romance novels and one of the toys I'd smuggled aboard.
Relief wound through my chest when all he pulled out was my current read. Darkest Dredge.
The trade paperback was worn from many re-reads.
The cover was one of those illustrated numbers, only this wasn't your momma's bodice ripper with the flowing-haired fabio.
It was of a muscular monster with green flesh and numerous glowing yellow eyes that shone through the dimly lit cabin.
I'd bought the special edition with the glow-in-the-dark cover for novelty at first, but there was something stimulating about the way those knowing eyes bore through me.
"Is this the book that has you moaning when you think I'm not listening?"
"I moan in my sleep sometimes," I said as embarrassment lit up every nerve in my body like a blinking circuit board.
“Oh yeah, do you also sleep with a monster fucker book in one hand and your pervy little tentcle toy in the other? I've heard of sleep walking, but sleep fucking yourself? I don’t think so. Especially with an XL Bad Dragon Ika Tentacle toy? I don't think so.”
My thighs clenched, made sticky from the sweat beginning to pebble my skin. It made my small pajama shorts cling to my upper thighs and ride up with even the smallest movement. “You fucking pervert! Hey!”
My protest went ignored. Noah was already crouched half-under my bunk, pulling out stacks of monster smut, old sketch books, old stacks of maps, and finally, a black velvet bag.
He held up the bag, one of the drawstrings dangling from the crook of his finger. "This thing has some heft to it. Taking up valuable storage space. You should have cleared this with me."
I snorted. "What are you going to do? I'm already in the brig? What's next? Gonna make me walk your plank?"
That last zinger earned a scowl that reminded me why I loved antagonizing him.
I considered myself a bit of an adrenaline junkie.
I wasn't the sort to film parkour videos on top of skyscrapers or skydive, but I was out here on top of the sight of the sunken city.
Who knew what kind of mutations lurked below.
And I was stranded on a small boat with an eldritch fanatic, tied to his bed with him looming menacingly over with my tentacle dildo in his hand.
I liked living a bit dangerously.
"No. I'm not going to make you walk the plank," he growled, his eyes parking with interest as he sat on the edge of my bed and opened the velvet bag. He unsheathed the dildo from its sleeve. “But I am going to fuck you with this thing.”