Page 1 of Darkest Dredge

Chapter One

Beatrice

“Fuck,” Captain Noah groaned as he wrestled a very full crab pot over the boat railing. “That’s a big fucking boy.”

I glanced up from the sketchbook spread over my lap with an ear-to-ear grin, practically vibrating with mischief.

He shot me a salty look over his shoulder. “Don’t you dare say it—”

“That’s what she said!”

The captain didn’t crack a smile. Meanwhile I was laughing my ass off. Not because the joke was funny. Nope. The real fun was in ragebaiting the grumpy captain with my over-enthusiastic shenanigans.

“One more terrible millennial joke out of you before we dock, and it’s to the brig with you.”

His threat had me scoffing. “Not much of a threat there, Cap. Considering we don’t have a brig. Not unless you’re talking about the bathroom on curry night.”

He didn’t so much as bat an eyelash as he heaved the crab pot onto the deck with a thunk.

“Oh, come on, that one was funny.”

“Won’t be so funny when I take you up on your suggestion and cuff you to the toilet.”

“Ew.” I wrinkled my nose. “Pass.”

The man dropped to a crouch as he tugged thick gloves over his tattooed fingers. The nights out here in the frigid northern Pacific were black as squid ink, and the lights affixed to our vessel didn’t do much to permeate the curtain-thick fog that seemed to follow us everywhere. Yet, Captain Noah Visser’s piercing amber gaze cut through the murk like a hot blade through butter.

“Fine,” he growled. “I’ll cuff you to my bed then. That’ll make for a better punishment anyway.”

Noah’s ocean-deep baritone nearly knocked me off the overturned bucket I was seated on. Great Gulf of Mexico. Our ballsy expedition to some of the most remote waters on the planet hadn’t killed me yet. But spending months at sea trapped on a small fishing vessel with this specimen of a man just might.

We'd known each other since college. This wasn't the first, or even the hundredth time he'd flirted. He loved teasing me. But damn, ever since we'd set sail on the voyage we talked about for years, he'd doubled down on his affinity for making me squirm. Maybe it was all the isolation. After all, it was just the two of us out here.

Registering my incandescent blush, he turned back to his task of unloading the crab pot with a teasing hum. "With all the reading you do, you think you'd pick up some better jokes, Bea."

"I'm a biologist on a research mission. I've packed journals and relevant reading material. Not 1001 Jokes to Learn on the Can."

At that, Noah peaked back at me through the fog and snickered. "Relevant reading material? You mean all the monster fucker books you keep stuffed under your bunk?"

The burn in my cheeks blazed so hot, it spread through the rest of my body like wildfire. It was true that it wasn't all non-fiction books I read in my free time. So I loved monster romance, I wasn't ashamed. He'd seen my dorm in college. Caught a glimpse of a tentacle toy I'd had in a drawer while looking for a lighter. It wasn't exactly a secret. Didn't mean he had any right rifling through my shit.

Noah going through the storage beneath my mattress felt as invasive as if he admitted to raiding my underwear drawer.

"Excuse me. You have no business looking under my bunk, asshole."

"I agree, and I didn't look under your bed. Why would I? I know what kind of pervy shit you keep under there. Saw you up late reading last night. Started reading something new. How was the last book?"

"Really good," I answered after a beat. "The ending threw me for a loop."

"Nice. We should get you some more once we dock."

At that, my smile returned in full force. The book I'd been reading last night had featured a hunky half-man, half fish monster on the cover. There was no way he'd missed that. It would have been easy for a guy to get weirded out by that and treat me like some weird fish pervert. Instead, he not only played cool, he encouraged me to read more.

You weren't supposed to fall for your best friend. Especially when he was also your business and research partner. But my god, Noah Visser was making it next to impossible to abide by that universal rule.

"So…" I cleared my throat, desperate to change the subject, and nodded at the metal cage writhing in a tangle of chitinous limbs in the pale moonlight. "Anything good in the pots tonight?"

"Maybe," he hummed. "Cthulhu willing."