11. Seth
Seth
Perry’s been on anchor watch for the last fifteen minutes, and Nick still isn’t here.
I’m doing my best not to treat every second like it’s being stolen from me.
He might’ve forgotten. He might be too nervous about getting caught to venture down here while Orlov and Jorgensen are in the next room. He might be knocked out in his own bed, with how hard we’ve all been working.
I wouldn’t blame him for it—I’d be glad if he got some extra rest—but that doesn’t stop me from waiting by my cabin door when I get out of the shower. Cracking it every so often to peek out into the silent hall.
At some point, I recognize I’m not being the go-with-the-flow guy I vowed to be, and I resolve to go to bed. But then I hear the sound of footsteps coming down the stairs. It takes everything I have not to run down the hallway, meet him halfway, and kiss the ever-loving hell out of him.
I settle for pulling him in by his shirt as soon as he’s close enough and dragging him inside, locking the door behind us.
Like the needle of a compass drawn north, my body points toward his. There’s a magnetic pull bringing my chest to his chest. My mouth to his mouth.
“Thought you were asleep,” I whisper, tracing his lips with my tongue.
He tastes like toothpaste, he smells like the clean, powdery soap he uses, and his hair is soaked through, water dripping from the ends down my face as I rest my forehead against his.
“Felt disgusting. Needed a rinse.”
“Don’t really care,” I mumble against his lips. “I like you dirty. Sweaty. I like you however I can get my fucking hands on you.”
I thought I’d already found out how red Nick could get, but I wasn’t even close. When I pull back, his face burns brighter than a freshly boiled crab.
How many times over the years have I mistaken that blush for windburn?
I lean in, nipping his flushed cheek. Nuzzling against it while I slide a hand between us to palm the thickening bulge in his sweatpants. “I’m gonna like getting you dirty and sweaty all over again though. Come here, Captain.”
Blood pumps through my veins in vicious spurts as he cups my jaw, dragging my lips back to his. We stumble across the small room, leaving a trail of each other’s clothing along the way.
Finally, I have him naked. Not a shred of fabric interrupting this glorious view of his body. Hard, sinewy bulk with the perfect amount of softness for warmth. That birthmark like a Made in Alaska stamp of authenticity.
He reaches for me right away, but I kiss him chastely. Holding him out by his biceps.
“Not yet.” I let go and reach over to my middle drawer, feeling around for the pot of petroleum jelly I keep in there. “Let me make it good for you, Nicky. Let me be the best you’ve ever had.”
“You’re already the best I’ve ever had.”
I think my heart is trapped somewhere between his palm and the bedframe as his hands turn to fists around the wooden beam in anticipation.
That’s just sex talk, I’m sure. I’m the best he’s ever had because this is fresh in his memory. Not because we got each other off a few times and I humped his ass in the engine room.
I try not to let it go to my head.
But he’s already the best I’ve ever had. I’ve never felt about anyone the way I feel about Nick. Never felt my heart beating out of my chest the way it does when he’s near. And I might be crazy—for him, I am—but everything he’s showed me tells me there’s a chance he feels the same way.
He’s watching me with this look in his eyes I’ve never seen. Rapt. Submissive. Like all his worries disappear when he’s with me.
No one is allowed to see that look besides me.
I take a scoop of the balm and drop the container on the ground beside the bed. I spread it over his cock, and Nick sucks in a breath so sharp, it dries my own lips.
He takes the hand I cut and presses a kiss to the red mark bisecting my palm. “I haven’t been able to get you out of my head all day.”
“Welcome to my every day.”
I capture his lips with my own, my hand working between us. His balls are warm and heavy when I cup him. His cock thickens as my hand travels from root to tip, pausing at the head. Squeezing until he bites out a whine.
“Shhh.” I nip his bottom lip, hand traveling from his dick to his ass, lubing him for me there, too. “Those sounds are just for me.”
Nick pulls me in harder as I apply a little more pressure, oily fingers rubbing in circles. His hole clenches and relaxes. Clenches and relaxes a little more with each pass.
His lips part for me, softening. Begging for me to muffle his pleasure. “I’m trying… I don’t know if I can—”
He cuts himself off, choking back his next breath.
“Get in my bed, Captain.” I kiss his jaw. “And face the wall.”
Nick ducks under the top bunk, glutes flexing delectably as he crawls into my bed and shuffles over to make space for me behind him.
It’s too bad his private cabin—with its queen-size mattress—is only accessible through the wheelhouse where Zach stands watch. But hooray for seniority.
The only thing worse than having sex in a twin bunk bed as a grown man would’ve been having to do it in the top bunk.
The mattress is barely big enough for both of us. The platform three feet above us shrouds his light skin in shadows. Not a whisper of air could pass between us, and the bedframe is prodding the side of my ass, but I’m starting to consider the benefits.
There’s definitely something nice about being forced so close to Nick.
My hand follows the strong lines of his back, thumb pressing into the dimple of his left hip before I slide down his thigh and grab his knee. Bending it toward his chest, against the wall. Opening him up enough to play between the muscular curves of his ass.
My fingers glide across the shadows where his skin darkens. Eased by the slickness of the Vaseline as I stroke his hole in slow, back and forth motions until his muscles relax for me.
Fuck. I can’t tell which one of us wants me inside of him more.
Nick reaches back, his fingers twining in my hair and spine arching against my chest. I can feel every short, tremulous breath he draws.
“Better?” I ask, breaching him with the tip of my middle finger.
His body answers for him, hips bucking.
“You don’t have to…” He turns slightly, glancing at me over his shoulder. “Thank you for taking it slow, but you really don’t have to. I’ve… with myself…”
“Nicky, Nicky,” I breathe. “You don’t know what that does to me.”
I slip my middle finger in and curve it at the knuckle. Breaths growing heavy as I wiggle my way inside him.
He spreads his knees more, bearing down. Positioning himself for me like he wants me to know how he’s practiced touching himself. How much he enjoys it.
I think back to that night in his captain’s quarters, the lowered inhibitions I’d blamed on the alcohol. How eagerly he responded to every filthy thought I’ve had of him. How perfectly he came apart when I touched him just right.
I don’t know if I want to hear his answer after how fucking jealous I was of his fake girlfriend for the past two years. But I ask anyway. “Just with yourself?”
Nick nods, burying his face in my pillow as I give him the rest of my finger. Stroking his smooth inner walls until I find the spot that makes his leg muscles twitch and shake uncontrollably.
“Oh, I love that you touch yourself here.” I add a second finger. Slowly stretching him. Watching ravenously as he takes what I give him. “I love that I’m the only one who knows how good it makes you feel.”
He grits his teeth, breathing hard through his nose as my fingers plunge in and out, and his muscles suck me deeper. Welcoming the intrusion.
“Thank you so much for getting your ass ready for me, baby.” I whisper, dropping my lips to his neck. “I can’t wait to play with it.”
Nick writhes against me, one foot propped on the corner post of the bed, his knee on the wall giving him leverage to fuck himself on my fingers.
I need to feel him move on my cock like that, pushing his body onto me, taking as much of me as he can. I want to keep him in my bed for hours and fill him with cum until neither one of us can walk straight.
I’d give every penny I made from our catch to get everyone else off this fucking boat. Right now. So I can bury myself in his ass and find out what sounds he’ll make when I fuck him. Slow and gentle and fast and hard.
But I take what I can instead. I take his cock in my hand and stroke down with every push of my fingers. Groaning into his neck as his pre-cum wets my palm when I massage his tip.
His moan barely makes it into the pillow, and I’m not doing a much better job myself. Every fiber of my being is screaming for more while my throbbing cock is trapped between his ass and my lower stomach. Untouched.
“Seth.”
“Shh.” I press my lips to the crook of his neck, licking and sucking.
“I can’t—I—” he stammers. “Seth—please—”
I let go of his dick and fasten my hand over his mouth to silence his pleas.
“It’s hard for me too. So hard not to make a sound when your body sucks my fingers in like this, and I can feel it around my cock.
But we’re gonna be good, okay? I’m gonna bite my tongue, and you’re gonna take what I give you. ”
I plunge my fingers as deep as they can hit and feel a pinch on the inside of my knuckles. Looks like I’m not the only one biting down.
“Stroke your cock,” I tell him. “Take the edge off.”
Nick’s hand disappears between his legs, moving in frenzied jerks as I touch his ass. Faster. Harder. Matching the pace of his desperation.
“Is your tip wet for me?”
He nods.
I suck in a sharp breath as he bites me harder, his muscles fluttering around my fingers. “I wanna taste.”
His fingers hit my cheek before my lips, leaving a sticky trail before he finds my tongue and feeds me his pre-cum. More than anything, the taste of Nick's arousal sends a bullet of desire straight through me.
I can feel the groan building in my chest. It’s only a matter of time before I lose my shit when everything about him is designed to set me off.
I unclamp my hand over his mouth. “Turn around.”
As soon as he does, he kisses me like he’s forgotten about everything else. Like getting off is secondary to connecting us together. I could kiss him like this for ages, reveling in our closeness, in the rough scrapes and bites and the fervent tangle of tongues.
It goes on and on. Until our lips are lax and kissing loses all structure to become more of a meeting of mouths. A tease of everything that can be done with them. A preview of everything I’m going to do to him.
I sit up and turn around carefully—a lesson I’ve learned after banging my head on the top bunk enough times.
My face lands somewhere between his knees, but he understands what I want immediately, shifting down until his cock hits my chin at the same time as I feel his warm breath on my balls.
I take his dick into my mouth and wrap my arm around his waist, feeding him mine. Silencing his next groan around my length and then silencing mine with his.
Nick’s hips jerk, chasing the warmth of my mouth as my hand slides back down. Two fingers hook inside him where they belong, massaging. His throat constricts around the head of my cock every time he tries not to make a sound.
His quads flex as he thrusts now, shamelessly enjoying my mouth while I enjoy the way he savors me. Laving over every inch of my shaft and balls, licking up my pre-cum. Grabbing my ass and gagging himself on me.
The soft frizz of his hair brushes against my thighs and the coarse grit of his beard tickles my lower stomach.
The blur of pleasure with him sucking me, filling me, surrounding me, is thicker than a foggy summer morning in the Aleutian Islands.
But his exploration cuts through it. His finger slides between my cheeks, moving back and forth in light strokes. Teasing me the way I teased him open.
The visual of that powerful body both bending to take me and bending to fuck me finally breaks me apart.
I shudder, and before I fully explode, Nick thickens and spills onto my tongue. Salty, generous pumps of cum that I drink down while he grabs my ass and forces me to soak in his mouth until I burst seconds later.
For a moment, I lay my head on his thigh. Both of us still twitching as I caress his bare skin until I’ve recovered enough to move without flopping onto the floor. I only have one pillow, so we share it. Face to face, nose to nose, as we come down from the dopamine rush together.
Outside the boat, rain begins to fall on the deck. A musical scattering of water droplets on metal. Just a few, at first, but it rapidly escalates to a full-blown symphony. Cymbal crashes of lightning off in the distance. The rhythmic smacking of swells against the hull like mallets on a timpani.
It’s twenty-two degrees and dropping, the storm coating everything on deck in ice I’ll have to knock down later. But I’ve never been more warm than I am now. The sort of warm that heats from outside in and inside out.
Nick breathes a little fuller now that the background noise masks the sounds within the room. He drapes an arm over me, snuggling closer as I sift my fingers through his hair and commit the way he feels to memory. Hoping it’ll keep me warm when we’re back to work again.
“Funny,” he says. “I can’t sleep for shit when it’s raining while we’re out there. Anchored though, it’s like Dramamine.”
“It’s the best. When I don’t have to be on deck in it.”
“You’ve got that right.” His smile slowly fades as he presses his lips wherever they land. My neck, my collarbones, my chest. “I should’ve asked you to stay, at Dutch. I wanted you to.”
“I wanted to stay, too.” My heart throbs at the thought of him leaving again, my fingers curling reflexively against his scalp and around his waist. “But it’s okay. I understand.”
His eyelids flutter open, still heavy. “Do you want me to stay now?”
Always. I always want you to stay. “Only if you want to,” I force myself to say instead. “I don’t want you to do anything you’ll regret.”
“I’m sure.” His lips take mine, gentle and earnest. Beneath my palm, his heartbeat is steady. “I’ve regretted it every day—not spending the night with you when I had the chance.”
I pull the covers up to our chins, holding him tighter as the swells roughen.
His breathing slows and evens out, and I’m not far behind. Sleep looms as I drink my fill of the peace washed over his features. The lines on his face completely smoothed. His lips parted. His eyelashes, so light in color, it’s difficult to notice how long they are until he’s veiled by darkness.
He mumbles something. It might not even be conscious, but I murmur back to him anyway.
“I’m sure about you, too.”