Page 60 of Ruining His Smirk
“Hello?”
I pushed the door slightly farther and cautiously stepped through the doorway. Nate’s cabin was larger than mine. Two bunks occupied one side of the room instead of one, with more floor space between them and a wider desk beneath the portholes. That made sense. He was a senior scientist aboard the ship, while I was a temporary guest. His cabin was also less tidy than mine.
“Hello?”
No one answered. He must have left already. I looked around, hoping to quickly find what I’d come for. Books lay in uneven stacks on the desk. Papers had migrated all across the floor. I looked over at the beds. Yes! I’d struck gold. I hoped he would never change his untidy habits. Two sweaters lay in a jumbled heap across the nearest bunk.
Quickly, I crossed the room and picked up the larger one. It looked loose enough to fit me, though I was going to test the limits of whatever thread held the shoulders together. Once I put it on, it settled snugly across my chest and arms but did not appear in immediate danger of tearing.
It smelled like him, though, and that made me feel a strange sensation in my stomach. Had I ever known the smell of a person before? I stood in the middle of his cabin wearing his sweater like some kind of lovesick thief.
Jesus.
As I turned toward the door, I noticed the open sketchbook on his bedside table. A seal filled the visible page, rendered in quick dark lines. I moved closer and picked it up.
There were penguins on the next page. I turned another page.
Whales. They were only sketches, but every one of them felt alive. Nate was talented. I was oddly proud. I snorted at myself. As if I had anything to do with his talent.
I turned another page and froze.
My own face looked back at me. It was only a few quick marks, yet the resemblance was unmistakable. The set of my mouth. The line between my eyebrows. The way my head tilted slightly when I was listening to something I did not entirely believe.
That’s when I noticed he had dated the page. I flipped backward until I found the first drawing of me. It was dated the first day of last year’s celebration gathering. I knew the date myself because I’d thought about it ad nauseam.
I was everywhere. The more recent pages were full of me. That strange sensation tightened low in my stomach. Nate had been watching me. Watching so closely that he could draw the tendons on my arms in excruciating detail. I couldn’t stop myself from turning pages. Like a greedy bastard, I wanted to see everything. Every little peek inside his mind.
The next two pages had my face burning up. It was a full spread of extremely detailed art. A knight stood in full armor, broad-shouldered and imposing, one hand resting on the pommel of a sword. It was my face. The knight was me.
There was a problem with the design of the armor. It had a gap exactly around one very particular section of the knight’s body.
His cock hung free.
I stared. It was absurdly erotic. Heat began climbing my neck. On the facing page, the same knight appeared from behind, planted wide-legged in an icy field as though preparing to defend Antarctica from invasion. The knightly grandeur remained. Again, the armor did not.
My bare ass had been rendered with considerably more care than the surrounding armor. Nate had apparently studied the exact curve of both cheeks with the seriousness of a man documenting a newly discovered species.
I slammed the sketchbook shut and fled the cabin.
* * *
On the deck, under the evening sky, the submersible sat beneath the launch crane, surrounded by crew completing the final checks before departure.
I jogged down the helipad and reached Nate, who stood with the captain and crew.
“We’ll remain in contact, as always,” the captain was saying.
“Yes, Captain.”
“Oh, hello, Garrett.” The captain turned to me.
“Evening, sir. I apologize for my lateness.”
“Ah, no worries at all!” He thumped me on the back. “I understand this will be your first descent.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’re in excellent hands. Nate here has extensive experience piloting these dives.”
