Page 4 of Hook, Line, and Tentacle
The ocean is dark, but the water is warm. I’m in it, but I’m notstandingin it—I’m being held. Lifted, or cradled, almost. A hand presses low on my stomach, not hard at all, but heavy enough to know it’s there, and know I like the feeling. Another slides around my thigh, wet skin against mine, stroking the inside of it with a touch that makes me feel a bit dizzy, then hot all over.
Something coils behind my hips. I know it can’t be a hand, because there’s already been two of those. This is something thicker, smoother and more dexterous. I don’t know what it is, and for some reason that doesn’t frighten me, because it moves like it belongs there.
I breathe in salt and heat and something I can’t name and don’t really understand, because it floods my lungs like it should drown me, but I keep on breathing.
A voice murmurs something at the back of my neck, deep and low, the syllables strange and round. I don’t understand a word, but I don’t need to because I canfeelit. The sound of it ripples straightdown my spine and settles between my legs like it was poured there on purpose. Lava or electricity or fire. I shift, and the hands shift with me.
There’s no hesitation. Just touch and pressure and need.
My hips roll up into it, greedy for every stroke, every wet, obscene slide of whatever’s inside me. I don’t remember it slipping inside me, but there it is.
It’s thick and hot. It moves like it knows what it’s doing—like it’s done it before. I grip around it, clenching so tight I feel it pulse back, deeper, harder,more.
My legs shake. My breath catches. Distantly, I hear the crackling of the mattress cover, although the attic room I fell asleep in feels thousands of miles away from me right now.
The heat builds fast, sharp and relentless, curling tight through my belly until it hits all at once, all over me. Every nerve sings. My body seizes around the pressure, muscles drawn so tight it borders on painful.
I come with a cry I can’t swallow. It tears out of me and echoes. My thighs snap closed. I pulse around nothing, and I feel so suddenly bereft when I wake up gasping, sweat slick at the back of my neck and the plastic wrap of the mattress damp under me.
My hand is between my legs, shoved into my soaked underwear. I’m still aching, still clenching with aftershocks, still needy for more. I grind down with the heel of my palm, almost reflexively, chasing that same pulse, that same pressure, like my body can’t let it go, even though I know it’s already gone.
It gives me this weird, choked feeling like I might cry, because whatever it was, I wanted to keep it. I sit up slowly, legs trembling. The attic is quiet except for the creak of the floorboards and the steady sound of water ticking through the pipes. The air smells stronger now—brine and cedar still, but also something heavier and more alive. The window pulses with the silver-gray light of early morning. I cross to it barefoot, rub grime from the glass with my sleeve, and lean in close to look out.
Down by the shoreline, someone is standing on the dock—and I think it’s Cal.
He’s bare from the waist up, hoodie discarded in a heap behindhim. His back is so broad it makes my mouth water, all muscle and shadow and long, carved lines between his shoulder blades, sliding down to softness at his middle. He braces both hands on the dock railing, head bowed like he’s catching his breath. His chest rises and falls with so much effort I can see it from here.
I press my hand to the glass without thinking. He doesn’t move, but I swear something shifts behind him. The light blurs like something deep and fluid and not quite part of this world is draped behind his body—but it’s so dim I can’t tell, and when I blink, it’s gone.
He lifts his head and turns, gaze cutting straight to me as if magnetized. I jerk back and stumble, heart racing. I don’t know if he saw me watching him.
The hum in the attic picks up again, faint but insistent, and I sink onto the edge of the bed, palm still damp with condensation from the window. I drag it down my bare thigh, and goosebumps rise in its wake.
It’s been a long time since I’ve had a dream like that. Then again, it’s been a long time since I’ve come like that, too. I press my legs together, breathing deep and slow and steady, then I force myself up to strip the plastic off the mattress and put the sheets on.
I don’t know what the hell that was.
I don’t know where I went, but I think I want to go there again.
Chapter 2
Alone Not Lonely
The bell above the bait shop door doesn’t ring, because I don’t give it the chance. I slip in quiet, like maybe if I don’t startle him, Cal won’t throw me out again.
I’ve been trying his patience for days, at this point.
He’s behind the counter like he always is, the sleeves of an unfair Henley shoved up, shoulders bent over the table like he’s trying to intimidate the fish into gutting itself. He has the blade in one hand, steady as anything. It moves through flesh like air. Like the fish was never alive to begin with.
He doesn’t look up, though he knows I’m here. His jaw ticked. His shoulders hiked just a touch. He’s proven himself to be very good at reading people, but I can read him too.
“You’re very antisocial for someone who works in retail,” I say, kicking a heel against the counter opposite him, sipping on my iced coffee. I made it myself, in my favorite cup—pink plastic, shaped like a juice box.
“Not in retail,” he mumbles.
“You have a register.” I point at it. “Retail.”
Still no glance in my direction. I lift myself to sit on the counter now, legs dangling. Cal puts up a Herculean struggle not to look, and I fail to contain my smirk as a result.
