Page 11

EDDIE

I t just seemed natural that we ended up in Joe’s bedroom.

There was no discussion about it, no awkwardness, no moment of “Are we going to, or, um...?” Just, at some point, Joe got up and let Hiccup out for her final pit stop of the night, and when he came back to the living room, I was standing there waiting for him.

He took me by the hand. Raised his eyebrows in a silent question I answered with a smile, and then led me down the hallway.

Joe’s bedroom was what I’d expected. It wasn’t very big, and the space was dominated by a plain wooden bed with square posts and a slatted backboard. The bed was neatly made, the doona navy blue. Folded over the end of the mattress was a cream throw rug covered in black dog hair.

An old wardrobe stood against one wall, a dresser against the other—big, solid pieces of furniture that would have an antique dealer salivating.

The scuff marks and slightly battered edges told me these weren’t statement pieces, though.

These were items weathered with use, embodying function over form.

I liked it. I remembered visiting a historical house when I was a kid, where you weren’t allowed to touch anything or open any drawers.

I’d always been drawn more to history’s everyday items instead of art or knick-knacks.

Old irons and book presses, boot scrapers and coal scuttles—things people had used, rather than things you could only look at.

Joe had a framed map on the wall at the head of the bed.

It looked to be a reproduction of one of Cook’s charts—the Great Pacific Ocean, with New Holland on the left, South America on the right, and a lot of little islands dotted in between.

One of those tiny specks was Dauntless—though it wasn’t yet named here.

That wasn’t the only startling omission to modern eyes: underneath the rectangular map was a circular one, with the South Pole at the centre.

The lines of longitude radiated out like the spokes of a wheel.

New Zealand featured, and so did the curling tail of South America and a very misshapen lower half of New Holland.

But where Antarctica should have been, there was nothing at all except the empty ocean.

“It was in the living room when I moved in,” Joe said. “It belonged to the last lighthouse keeper, but he didn’t have anywhere to put it in his new cottage. I moved it in here because I figured I needed something on the walls.”

“I like it,” I said. “It fits the theme of the place, that’s for sure.

Sailors in those days... Going to the places they did, places that weren’t even on maps yet, it must have been like setting out into space, you know?

And stepping onto an alien planet every time you found land.

You never knew what you’d find. Like, I know they were complicit in exploiting and enslaving indigenous peoples and stealing land.

Not trying to glorify any of that. But it must have taken a hell of a lot of courage to get on a ship in those days. ”

“You think so?” Joe asked, tilting his head on an angle. “I don’t know. If the sea is in your blood, then that’s where you have to be.”

Of course he wasn’t just a hot ginger lighthouse keeper—he also had deep, poetic thoughts that stopped my rambling in its tracks.

And okay, maybe his words weren’t that deep or poetic.

But at this point he could have recited the operating instructions for my camp stove, and I’d have thought it the most profound thing I’d ever heard.

God, if I’d been falling for him before, I’d just picked up speed on my downward plummet.

“Is it in yours?” I asked, closing the space between us and cupping his jaw. His beard was softer than it looked.

“It’s Dauntless,” he said with a soft smile. “Saltwater runs in our veins.”

I kissed him. His hands found my hips, and mine found his shoulders.

It had been a while since I’d gone to bed with someone—pale, nerdy history students whose idea of a good time was talking about British naval regulations in the 1800s didn’t do so well on the pick-up scene, funnily enough—but the flutter in my stomach was all down to anticipation, not performance anxiety.

I might have only had two previous boyfriends and a moderately disastrous one-night stand where we’d agreed we’d be better off playing Scrabble instead of going for a second round, but me and Joe? It felt good. It felt right .

Our kiss ended, and I stared at him, wondering if I looked as shell shocked as he did.

In the low light from the lamp on his bedside table, his eyes were wide.

His mouth hung open a little, though one corner quirked as he looked at me, in his typically non-demonstrative smile-that-wasn’t-quite-there.

“Wow,” he said, letting out a breath.

“Wow?” I echoed.

A flush darkened his cheeks and made him ever redder than usual. He ducked his head and rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s been a while.”

“For me too,” I said. “My last relationship ended eight months ago when I came home and found my boyfriend in bed with a theology major.”

“Oh my god,” Joe said.

“That’s exactly what the theology major said.”

Joe snorted.

I winked at him. “So let’s not waste any more time, huh?”

That won me a huff of laughter and, more importantly, spurred him into action.

He pulled off his woollen jumper and T-shirt in one movement, revealing a broad chest and a patch of ginger hair between his pecs that narrowed into a trail that darkened as it disappeared into the waistband of his pants. I was going to blaze that trail.

I pulled my jumper and shirt off too, in a much less smooth sequence.

Then, because this was a race I was going to win, I shucked my pants down and stepped out of them.

Rocked that jocks-and-socks aesthetic while I readjusted my glasses, which I’d almost lost in the shirt-removal operation.

Joe, to his credit—or possibly to really underscore his point that it had been a while and therefore he had lowered his standards a lot—didn’t look at me like a man gazing upon impending disaster.

He looked at me like he thought I was the hot one.

Crazy, but my ego would take it.

We kissed again, heat rising, and his hands slid up my sides.

I grabbed his arse and pulled him flush with my body, and we both groaned as our erections met.

God . This was not how I’d imagined my research trip to Dauntless Island turning out, but it wasn’t as though I was going to complain about it.

Joe’s breath was hot on my lips as he broke the kiss so that he could nuzzle along my jaw and throat, making goosebumps prickle all over me.

I wasn’t going to complain about that either—I shoved one hand behind his head to pull him even closer.

He dodged it and leaned back. “I don’t have anything.”

“Okay, but I have a policy of trust but verify.”

He blinked. “What?”

“What?”

“I meant I don’t have any condoms.” He made a face. “What did you— oh . I also don’t have any STDs.”

I widened my eyes in the uncomfortable silence. “I’m so glad that wasn’t awkward.”

He snorted, and suddenly it wasn’t . “Right?”

“Okay, so we can work with no condoms,” I said.

“Yeah,” he agreed, backing me towards the bed. The mattress hit the backs of my knees, and Joe grinned as he pushed me down onto my back. “We can work with that.”

He followed me down onto the bed, bracketing me with his arms. God, he was in good shape.

He was big all over, tall and broad and strong .

He gave the impression he could snap me like a twig, and honestly, I was here for that.

In comparison, I was scrawny as hell. I’d never lifted anything heavier than a page, and it showed.

The only part of me that wasn’t scrawny was my gut.

I didn’t have abs. I had pudge. Joe didn’t seem to mind it though—he worked his way down my body, his beard tickling the hell out of my skin, and paid particular attention to my nipples before kissing a trail down to my belly button.

Then, just when I hoped he’d go even lower, the teasing bastard grinned and worked his way up again.

He stood, his body shades of gold and red in the lamplight. I drank in every moment. He unbuttoned his fly, and it was all I could do not to applaud when he peeled the denim down his thighs. He stepped out of his jeans, then hooked his thumbs in the waistband of his underpants.

“Count of three?” I suggested, doing the same to mine.

“Three,” he said, raising an eyebrow.

I laughed, lifting my hips to shove my jocks down, and then he had one knee on the mattress and was looming over me again. I welcomed him with open arms.

We kissed, and he nudged my thighs apart with his knee, slotting our bodies even closer together.

He wedged a hand between us and held our dicks together, and suddenly I got what he was planning.

I was totally on board. The air tickling my shoulders felt suddenly colder as the heat grew between us.

I tilted my hips up, and Joe groaned as I thrust against him.

Everything was amazing and warm and slick.

I curled my free hand around the back of his neck and pulled him down for a kiss.

It took us a moment to discover a decent rhythm, but soon the room was filled with the creaking of the bed and our breathy moans.

It was so good.

The universe narrowed to just the two of us, just our kisses and the way we rocked against each other. There was no room for awkwardness or embarrassment—just heat and motion and pleasure that built like a rising tide, coiling tighter and tighter until it broke in waves and carried us to the shore.

Joe wasn’t the sort of guy who rolled over and started snoring once he was done. He kissed me instead—a soft, gentle kiss that was like the sexual equivalent of a cool down after a workout—and said, “Wait here.”