Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. Stephenie Meyer owns anything and everything relating to Twilight. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended and in order to keep it that way, No reproduction, copying, reposting, downloading, or any kind of redistribution of this story is allowed. This is to cover my arse as much as yours! And finally, the Original characters, plot, names, nicknames, songs, poems—anything I created from my very own brain—are all the property of the author of this fanfic, My-Bella. Unauthorized use of the material is plagiarism so please be kind and don't steal my creations.
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Chapter 9 – Tempest In Me
Monday, June 2nd
Masen's heavy sigh sounded loud even to his own ears in the quiet room. He'd fallen asleep not long after Whit had but unlike his slumbering friend, he was now wide awake and in need of something to occupy his mind. Actually he was in need of something else to occupy his mind because the dream that had woken him was still in his head. Bella was still in his head.
Only it hadn't been just a dream. A fantasy he could have probably shrugged off, but the dream had been about his time with her earlier in the night. "I like you. Um, I mean, I like how smart you are about marine life." She had started blushing with her self-correction and it had continued for some time after. He'd watched her pink skin slowly fade back to its usual golden tone while he'd turned her words over in his head and wondered which part of what she'd said had been the truth—her initial words or her correction.
In his dream, he had been in the crow's nest with her again and he'd come right out and asked her which was true this time instead of just brushing past it. She had seemed as if she was going to answer but he'd woken up before he could find out.
His hands dug into his hair and tugged while he clenched his eyes shut and let out another heavy sigh.
"Get the fuck out of my room, Mase," Whit groaned from his bed. "Some of us actually need sleep, you restless bastard."
He wasn't the least bit offended by his friend's words; in fact he started laughing. "Why so grouchy?"
"'Cause it's whatever the fuck time when normal people are sleeping and your ass is over there making all kinds of noise."
"Not my fault you're such a light sleeper." His words were met with sounds of rustling followed by a loud smack and Masen's surprised cry. "What the fuck, Whit? You just hit me in the face with a magazine."
Whit's initial reply was only a low, sleepy laugh. "Take your sorry ass across the hall and wake up the one who's keeping you up, you pansy."
"Nobody's keeping me up. I'm just restless."
"Liar."
Masen decided the best way to get Whit off his back was to screw with him. "Know what I think? I think you woke up because you were frustrated you weren't getting anywhere with your dream girl."
"Trust me, Mase, the last thing my dream girl left me was frustrated."
"Dude, what the fuck? Please tell me you aren't getting off in your sleep a few feet away from me."
"You don't have to have sex with a woman to be satisfied by her." Whit quickly corrected himself. "Well you do, but not all men are like that. Some of us don't mind taking things slow and letting them build up. You always want it done and over so you can move on."
"Tell me, oh wise Buddha of the Boat, what were you doing that was so satisfying?"
He couldn't see Whit's face but he could definitely hear the smile in his friend's voice. "Kissing her."
"So you've finally seen her whole face?"
"Nope. But I don't need to see anything beyond her eyes and lips to kiss her."
"Let me make sure I've got this straight … You dreamed you kissed this girl and it left you feeling like that was enough?"
"Yeah."
"How?" he asked really wanting to know. He hoped the answer could solve his confusion problem with a certain brunette across the hall.
"Because I know it's not the last kiss. There's more coming my way so I don't feel impatient or needy about it. When it's time for more, there will be more. It's one of the perks of not denying how I feel about her."
Masen wasn't sure if that was meant to be a dig against him or not.
Luckily, Whit helpfully clarified things for him. "You should try it with Bella."
He shook his head and rolled his eyes, refusing to fall for what was so clearly Whit's attempt to annoy him. "I'm getting out of here so you can go back to sleep. You're obviously delirious from your tiredness," he said as he got up from the bed.
It seemed as if Whit was done talking for the night but just as Masen started to close the door, his friend decided he had one final thing to say. "If you decide not be a pansy, say 'hi' to Bella for me."
Masen grunted and closed the door but not before getting in the last word. "Dick."
He headed downstairs and into his project room, figuring he would get some work in since he didn't feel like sleeping anymore. He pulled out the sketch he'd drawn in his room before leaving Hawaii and headed upstairs to the kitchen with it. He grabbed a magnet from the side of the fridge and used it to tack his sketch onto the front of the refrigerator; it would allow him to see his design and keep it protected from the liquids he was about to work with.
There was one cabinet that was just for the kitchen equipment he used for his plastics work and it was from there that he pulled out two pots, a metal spoon, a roll of wax paper, and a small strainer with very fine mesh work. He took out a carton of milk and a bottle of vinegar and then opened a brand new roll of paper towels, knowing from past experience that the more he had, the easier it would be to control the mess.
The first step in his process was to spread the wax paper over a small section of the counter. Then he measured out the right amount of milk and poured it into one of his pots which he set over a low heat on the stove. While he waited for the milk to warm, he measured out the vinegar, using one tablespoon for every cup of milk he'd put into his pot. Once his milk was warm enough to form a foam on top and send rivulets of steam into the air, he turned the heat off, poured the vinegar in and stirred the mixture.
He pulled the second pot over, grabbed his strainer and then slowly poured the mixture through the strainer and into the previously empty pot. The strainer now held a thick, moldable, goo-like substance known as casein and it was this substance that he wanted. He dumped the glop onto the wax paper spread over the counter. Then he quickly grabbed the roll of paper towels and after wrapping a few layers around his hand, he gently pressed the towels to the goop to soak up just enough of the excess liquid to keep the casein from being too wet to work with.
With that done, he chose the widest mold in the cabinet and opened it up so that it was in two halves. Working carefully but quickly, he used his fingers to press the casein into the two halves and then locked the mold closed. As the casein dried inside of the mold, the edges of the halves would merge and create a solid shape. It would be dry enough for its first test in a couple of days though he'd still have to be careful with it. He always made his initial prototypes thin to save on time and material so while it ensured they would cure quickly, it also left them susceptible to breakage. He'd dropped one once and it had shattered into pieces at his feet.
He set the mold aside and then cleaned up the kitchen, making it look as though he hadn't been in it at all. He tucked his drawing under his arm, then used both hands to carefully carry his mold down to his project room. He put it on the small shelf above his plan table that he reserved for drying molds.
He filed his drawing away with his others and then looked around his room for what he could do next. Nothing really came to mind so he ended up pulling out the underwater topography charts for the area they planned to anchor the boat so he could study the lay of the land. He grabbed a clear film with blue and red lines and placed it on top of the map and now he could see the travel patterns of local tigers in relation to the topography of the area.
Masen studied and wrote notes and plotted scenarios until his forehead touched the map and his eyes closed one last time.
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"What's he doing?" Bella asked Gopher as she watched Edward crunch yet another sheet of paper in his hands and add the ball to the stack he'd accumulated.
Gopher's chuckle made her grin because she felt it was the perfect mix of mischievous and happy. "Could be something. Could be nothing."
She laughed as she turned her head to look at him over her shoulder. "You really enjoy teasing me, don't you?"
"Don't go thinking you're special, Guppy. I deal my teasing out to everyone on this boat."
"Even Edward?" she challenged.
He grinned wide. "Especially Masen."
"So what is he doing?" she asked as she turned her gaze back to Edward. He was scowling at the drawing pad in front of him, tapping the worn eraser of his pencil against the edge with his left hand and using his right to rub the back of his neck.
"He's sketching his game plan for the tagging we're going to do. From the growing pile beside him, he's either not liking something about the location or his planned method."
"He looks so … so intense." It was impossible for her to not think of the last time she'd seen him so focused—or of how it had felt to be the object of his attention.
"Mase does all he can to plan for every possibility. If anyone ever got hurt in a way that he could have prevented, he would never forgive himself."
"Why are we going to stop for that? I mean, I thought the purpose of the trip was to do research in Africa?"
"Why didn't you ask him this morning when he brought it up during the morning meeting?"
Bella blushed and dropped her eyes to the bowl she was stirring. "I thought I would get a chance to ask him after."
"So go ask," Gopher said as he swiped the bowl and spoon from her.
"But I'm helping you with dinner," she argued, reaching for the spoon and getting brushed aside.
"You're mostly staying out of my way since this is my secret recipe that not even Lee knows. Go ask him."
She felt her face flush again as her eyes darted between the two men. She didn't want to give away just how eager she was to talk with Edward, especially after how easy it had been to spend time with him yesterday afternoon. And last night, she thought. They had talked well past sunset, starting with marine life and ending with constellations. It had been fun and effortless and one of the nicest nights she'd had since before she'd broken up with Jacob. She'd gone on the occasional date here and there but none of the guys had held her interest the way Edward seemed to do so easily.
But what if yesterday was some kind of fluke? That worry was the reason she hadn't jumped all over Gopher's suggestion to go to talk to Edward.
"Guppy, how old are you?"
She laughed as she looked up at him. "Don't you know you're not supposed to ask a woman that?"
He shrugged. "I'm tired of not being able to figure it out on my own. Besides, I'll tell if you'll tell. I'm twenty-five until September."
"Oh, I'm September too! Mine's the thirteenth."
"The fourth. And you still haven't told me your age, Guppy."
Her nose scrunched and formed wrinkles between her eyes. "Twenty-two."
"Why are you embarrassed by your age?"
"I'm not. I just … I feel really young saying it out loud. I know I'm the youngest here. I'd have to be with the year Edward, Lee, and Whit graduated."
"The three musketeers are older," Emmett agreed, "But not by that much. Mase and Whit are twenty-six and Lee turned twenty-seven in February."
"She's older than them?" Bella asked with a laugh. "No wonder she bosses them around so much."
Gopher laughed right along with her. "Nah, that's just her way. Now back to you … Don't think I forgot our original topic of conversation. You might be younger than us but I've already seen you hold your own against the toughest critic here. So how come you're not just marching right over there to ask him what he's doing?"
She couldn't bring herself to tell the full truth so she told a half-one instead. "Things are finally smoothing out between us and I don't want to wreck that by interrupting something important and setting his temper off."
Gopher didn't seem convinced or even a little swayed by her response. "Go." His demand was as insistent as the hand on her elbow, pushing her away from the counter.
With a nervous sigh and one last glance as Gopher, Bella slowly made her way over to the table where Edward was hard at work. Just before she reached him, she heard him mutter a curse and watched his arms flex as he ripped up a page and crunched it into a ball. He was just about to drop it onto his pile when he suddenly looked up at her.
She worried at first that she had interrupted just like she'd told Gopher she was afraid of doing but then he smiled—not the cocky one but the really nice one that made her want to spend time around him. "Hi."
He laughed and the full smile became the crooked one that made his eyes brighten. "Hi."
She went from feeling ready to jump out of her skin with anxiety to being infused with a streak of confidence and boldness. "Why are you wasting all this perfectly good paper?" she asked as she sat down across from him. "I mean, you're using a pencil so why not just erase your mistakes and keep using the same page?"
He continued smiling at her while blindly reaching out and grabbing one of the paper balls from the pile. He unrolled it and finally dropped his eyes from hers, watching his fists move across the sheet as he did his best to smooth it out. She saw just a flash of his cocky smile and then it was hidden behind the wrinkled page he was holding up in front of his face.
She gasped and covered her mouth with both hands, trying to stifle her laughter. She could see bits of his face and neck through the page from where he'd worn it through.
"You can only erase a spot so many times before the page withers," he said as he handed the sheet to her.
She ran her fingertips over the thin areas and then smiled up at him. "What are you trying to do? And what's giving you so much trouble about it?"
Edward moved his pad to the side, revealing a map of some kind that he turned around for Bella to see. "This is a topography map of the area we're going to drop anchor in tonight. We haven't personally traveled these waters before but a group we know and sometimes share maps with did and they gave us this." He touched the map and she realized there was something on top of it. "This is the known travel patterns of the tiger sharks in the area," he explained as he moved it to fit right over one particular section of the map."
Her heart picked up speed as she took in all of the red and blue lines. "Is every line an individual … um … one of them?"
"No." He lifted her hand from the table and curled her fingers under, leaving only her pointer finger on the map. "The blue lines are ocean currents," he said as he drew her finger up one of the curvier blue lines. "It's important to know which way the water will drag beneath the surface. It'll help us get Galeos and the skiff into the right positions. If we don't line them up correctly, they could drift at an inopportune moment and throw everything off.
"The red lines are sharks." The way he had his blue eyes trained so intently on her face made her feel like he was waiting for her to freak out, which she didn't blame him for at all after the fiasco at the ocean center.
"Go on," she encouraged.
"This was taken at a different time of year, the most active for this region. We'll probably only see half of this," he said, covering some of the lines with his large hand.
"That's still a lot of … of sharks."
He smiled so wide at her using that nasty little word that it actually made her want to use it again—but only so long as she got that same reaction. If she had to get outside of her comfort level, she should get rewarded.
Edward moved her finger toward an area where the lines were fewer and the blue colors of the underlying map were lighter. "This is where we're going to be," he explained. "Calmer waters and clearer too. Not as many rocky outcroppings to maneuver or plan around."
"Why are we stopping to tag?"
"I promised you we'd take things slow. I don't want your first experience with our tagging to come in Africa where things will be fast and frenzied. I want you to see it under calmer circumstances. It's an open area so the sharks won't be in groups and we'll have a high level of visibility to see them coming."
She wanted to believe what he was saying, that her first view of them in the water with sharks wouldn't be too big of a deal. But the little mountain of paper balls next to her made it impossible. "If it's going to be so much easier, why are you having such a hard time planning for it?"
"This isn't my plan," he said as he pointed at his discarded pages. "This is me making sure my plan is the best one possible."
"Prove it," she challenged.
He laughed as he finally let go of her hand. "You think it's that easy? You challenge me and I give you whatever you want?"
"If you want me to believe you, then yeah."
"Are you used to getting what you want?"
"Only when it matters."
"And this matters?"
"Yes."
He only stared so she stared back, taking in the blue of his eyes and searching for the reason the easy and light tone to their conversation had fled. She was sure he had to know something had shifted. In fact, she was pretty positive that he knew that she knew that he knew and was only pretending not to know. My words are spinning as much as my head, she thought as she resisted the urge to grab said spinning head to see if it would help. He made her feel clumsy and uncoordinated, like he was throwing off her equilibrium with just his stares and his words.
"Hey." Whit's voice made her jump and his laugh that followed made her blush. "Should I come back later?"
"What's up?" Masen asked, still looking only at Bella.
"We're nearing our drop point and you said to let you park Galeos. But if you're busy—"
Edward cut him off with his glare.
"Don't worry about Bella," Whit said as Edward stood. "I'll keep her company."
Edward grabbed his shoulder and shoved him forward while laughing. "You're helping me drop anchor. You can torture the intern later."
"I don't torture Bella. I make her feel welcome. Have you tried that yet?"
"Didn't we look like we were having a nice conversation when you walked up?" Edward asked, looking really annoyed with his friend.
"I don't know." Whit shifted his head and looked right at Bella, giving her that look that said he knew everything she was thinking even if she didn't. "Is that the adjective you would use, Guppy?"
"Oh, what's that, Gopher?" Bella called out while practically sprinting toward the safety of the kitchen. She wasn't completely sure since the sound of her heart beating in her ears had been so loud, but she thought she heard Whit and Edward laughing under their breath as she made her escape.
"~~~^~~~~^~~~^~~~~^~~~^~~~~^"
"You should have invited Bella to watch you park Galeos," Whit commented as he sat beside Masen at the wheel.
Masen snorted. "While I'm sure I could impress her with my nautical skills and perfect parking ability, I think she'd prefer to be in the kitchen right now."
"What'd you do now?"
Masen's lopsided grin reeked of smugness. "I got her to say 'shark'."
Whit narrowed his eyes and pursed his lips for a second, and then his mouth pulled up into a smile. "Well I'll be damned. You're serious."
"She looked like she'd swallowed some kind of bug, but she said it."
"You've got a foot in the door, Mase. Don't do anything to make her slam it on you."
"I know. Slow and steady. Just like with my boat," he said as he nudged the wheel to the left.
"Not too much more or you'll overshoot," Whit warned.
"I just want to get her straight."
"She's straight as an arrow, Mase. Kill the engines and drop anchor."
He trusted Whit's judgment and powered down the engines before releasing the anchor into the depths of the southern end of the Pacific Ocean. "Tomorrow we recon and the next day we tag. We pull anchor Thursday and should reach Africa by this time on Tuesday, as long as the weather holds out."
"Guess that means I'm driving Thursday while you review videos with Bella."
"You can ask Lee to drive if you want a break."
Whit let out a loud snort.
"What?"
"Nothing. Just noticing how you didn't offer for me to review the videos with Bella."
"Why would I do that? She's my responsibility." It took everything in him to control his ridiculous tell and not scratch the bridge of his nose. "I mean, the internship thing is my responsibility."
Whit's smirk made it clear he wasn't fooled. "No, I think you were right the first time."
Masen rolled his eyes at his friend while stepping past him. "I don't have time to play right now, Whit. I've got work to finish before Gopher serves up dinner."
"Oh, yeah. That's totally why you're avoiding what I said."
He didn't take the bait Whit was casting; he kept walking down the hall and toward his pad and papers. That was until he saw Lee heading for the table and then he sprinted the rest of the distance, snatching up his materials before she could touch them.
"I wasn't going to mess with them," she protested.
He laughed and playfully jabbed her side with his elbow. "Why do you even try to lie to me?"
"Okay, so I was going to take a little peek," she admitted while pushing against his shoulder.
"I have yet to meet a nosier brat than you."
"Yeah, well I've never met a bigger control freak."
"Oh, Lee. You hurt me so. I'm gonna think you don't love me anymore."
"Damn you reek when you're full of it," she replied, giving him a big toothy smile.
He snorted and then headed downstairs with his materials clutched in his arms, wanting to put them away in his project room before she got nosy again. He usually didn't mind her snooping through his plans before he finalized them but then again he usually didn't have something to hide.
After closing the door to his project room and flipping the lock on it, he set his pad down on the plan table and opened it to the page he wanted to remove. The lines and curves from his pencil came together to form a set of soft yet vivid eyes and a sweet smile.
He always sketched to release tension when he got stuck with his plan development, usually just going for whatever inanimate object was closest to him at the time. He'd planned on using the Pepé Le Pew and Penelope salt shaker set Esme had bought and insisted on bringing aboard. The girl skunk held a sign that read "I'm Salt" while the boy's said "I'm Pepé". They were cheesy and silly but Esme loved them so Masen tolerated them.
Before he'd drawn the first curve of Penelope's shape, he'd been distracted by Bella's laugh. She had been at the counter in the kitchen, standing at the ready with a wooden spoon while listening closely to whatever Gopher had been saying. Masen hadn't made a conscious choice to sketch her—he'd just looked down and found the outline of her eyes. He'd figured since he'd done that much, he might as well go all in and add the rest. He'd managed to get her eyes, the outline of her nose, and her smile but he hadn't had time to add in the way her eyebrows naturally arched to give her a constant look of being up to no good. Or the way the bridge of her nose wrinkled when she laughed freely.
Masen carefully ripped the drawing from his pad and then locked it up in the one file cabinet that only he had a key to open. It was nearly full with MMR items but there were a few things from his mother hidden in there as well, including a music box that no longer worked. Now it also contained a drawing of a woman he had no business watching, much less sketching. He knew that in his head, knew it logically. And yet he couldn't force himself to feel guilty over it or to get rid of the drawing.
In fact, he couldn't even get himself to stop smiling over it as he palmed the key and headed back upstairs to find out if dinner was ready.
Lee pounced before he even reached the top of the landing for the sleeping quarters. "We're anchored," she said as if this should be news to him.
"And?" he questioned, lifting his eyebrows at her.
Her grin widened as she gripped his shoulders tightly and gave them a small shake. "Dinner on deck!"
"No."
She used her thumbs to force his frown into a smile. "Come on, Mase. You know you're going to let me have my way. Skip all the arguing and pouting and just agree now."
"What do I get in exchange?"
"Seeing me smile."
He rolled his eyes and shook his head but she ignored both of those reactions in favor of the small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
"Thanks, Mase," she said as she planted a loud kiss on his cheek. She immediately turned and ran off, leaving him on the stairs shaking his head at her behavior and his willingness to give in to her silly demands. He enjoyed seeing his family smile so much that it made him a pushover.
He climbed the last few stairs but didn't move from the stairwell; he leaned against the short wall that blocked it off from the rest of the floor and took in all of the activity. Esme and Bella were at the edge of the kitchen island filling glasses with ice and drinks. Lee was busy pulling plates and utensils out while Gopher loaded a tray up with the food he'd cooked for tonight. Masen could also see out the open door to the deck where Whit was setting up tables. They were all moving together so effortlessly, as if there hadn't been a change to the crew at all. He wasn't sure if he liked that or not—he also didn't want to think about it right now so he headed over to take the drink tray outside.
Whit had pushed two tables together with three seats on each side so after setting the tray down in the middle, Masen took the seat directly across from his friend. As the others trickled outside with dishes in their hands, the seats began to fill. Esme took the seat next to Masen while Lee settled in beside Whit. Bella rounded out Masen's side of the table after setting down a bowl of biscuits and then Gopher unveiled a tray of fried chicken and took his spot next to Lee.
Dinner was their usual fare of food, teasing, pretend annoyance, and silly laugher. Only now they had Bella's comments and laughter added to the mix. Masen noticed she wasn't as vocal as the rest of them but she also didn't seem afraid to join in when the conversation went in a direction she liked. It was impossible for him not to notice that most of her comments followed something Whit said and he wondered once again if she might be his friend's dream girl.
As the eating wound down, Lee's need to be a spectacle took over and she soon had Gopher on his feet, dancing to oldies like The Supremes and The Temptations. Esme always said Lee had an old soul when it came to music and the two of them could often be found listening to this type of music together.
Lee's laughter floated on the night breeze as Gopher twirled her close to the dinner table and then away again to the sound of "I Can't Help Myself" by the Four Tops. It never failed to amaze Masen that a man who took up so much space could be so light on his feet. This right here—Lee's easy smile and lighthearted behavior—this was why he let Gopher stay around. The man gave her the love and attention she needed, things Masen hadn't been able to do for her. It just wasn't in him to be that way and while he was fine with that, he knew she hadn't been. She had needed more and Gopher was her more, even if he tended to be a bumbling baboon from time to time.
"Okay, that's it," Esme announced as she stood and threw her napkin onto the table. "I'm tired of watching Lee have all the fun. Who wants to give me a whirl?"
Whit jumped to his feet and held his hand out to her. "Let's show 'em how it's done."
Bella's giggle caught Masen's ear and he glanced over at her, finding her sitting with her elbows on the table, her chin in her palms, and a huge smile on her face. Her eyes were trained on the two dancing couples moving around to The Temptations "Ain't Too Proud to Beg" as if they were in some kind of dance contest. He rolled his eyes, wondering why he put up with this insanity from his family. Although, he did have to admit watching Whit kneel into a split and slide himself back up was always fun to watch, especially with how it made the women whistle and turned Gopher green with jealousy.
"Come on, Mase," Whit called out while twirling Esme under his arm. "Grab Guppy and join us."
"You know I don't dance to this stuff," Masen replied, giving Whit a warning look. He knew the songs and the bands but just wasn't in to dancing to any of it—a fact his best friend knew well.
"It's easy," Bella assured Masen. While he'd been busy glaring at his best friend, she'd gotten out of her chair and was now standing at his side, offering her small hand. "My uncle taught me so that means anyone can learn."
"Why's that?" He had asked the question more as a reason not to get up than to really get an answer.
She blushed but didn't look away. "Because when it comes to dancing, I tend to have two left feet."
"Go on, Kid. Take her up on her offer," Esme encouraged.
"Come on," Bella said, shaking her hand at Masen. "At the very least you can use the excuse that your mother made you do it."
Her teasing was unexpected and it pulled a laugh out of him. It also got him out of his chair, albeit reluctantly. He slipped his hand into hers, letting her little fingers close over his palm and attempt to drag him over to the others. Had he chosen not to follow, she wouldn't have been able to move him an inch much less the four feet he ended up going with her, all the while rolling his eyes and shaking his head.
"Don't look so much like I'm making you walk the plank," Bella complained while grabbing hold of his other hand. "It's just a dance."
Masen didn't think anything with Bella was ever going to be "just" anything. It certainly wasn't "just" out of kindness that he had let her drag him over here to dance. It was because as much as he hadn't wanted to take hold of her hand earlier, he didn't want to let go of it now.
"See, it's easy," Bella said as she held tight to his hands, pulling and pushing his arms and leaving them doing some kind of crazy dance that couldn't possibly have had a name.
He laughed and he wasn't sure if it was at the goofy smile on her face or the fact that she had zero ability to dance. "I thought you said your uncle had taught you."
"He gave it his best shot," she said as her face colored with her blush. "Sorry I'm not very good. You're probably really regretting giving in to Esme now."
The song changed and Masen could feel her fingers relaxing, readying to let go of him. Instead of letting it happen, he laced his fingers through hers and used the new grip to pull her right up against him. Before she could react to the change, he had let one hand drop to wrap his arm around her waist, spinning them in a tight circle and getting a startled laugh out of her.
"You said you couldn't dance," she accused, laughing again as Masen twirled her away and then back into his arms.
He looked down into her flushed face, mirroring the silly grin she was wearing without realizing it. "I said I don't dance to this, not that I couldn't. Oldies aren't my thing."
One of those cute giggles of hers slipped out as she set her free hand onto his broad shoulder, burning him through his shirt without the slightest clue she was doing it. "Don't worry. Your secret is safe with me, Edward."
He knew she'd meant the dancing but he couldn't shake the feeling that her words could apply to other things if he let them. What was it about her that made him have such crazy thoughts? It wasn't like he had a secret he wanted to share anyway; he just felt he could if he did.
"My feet don't feel like lefties." The soft way she'd said the words mixed with the way she was currently blushing made him feel like she hadn't meant to let her cryptic words out of her head.
"What do you mean?"
She lowered her head, looking between their bodies at their mingled feet moving together without the slightest falter. "I've usually stepped on my uncle or tripped him by now."
"I'm obviously a better leader then."
Her eyes met his once again, full of a light and humor that matched her laugh. "You think so?"
He grinned while his fingers pinched the end of her ponytail between them and then gave a light pull. "I know."
She tugged his hair right back but instead of it being a playful tease, it ended up reminding them both of a dark corner, a pulsing beat, and a heated kiss that had seemed endless at the time.
He could feel it building, that desperate need to consume her lips and taste her tongue. If he stayed here, lost in the deep brown of her eyes and the scorching heat of her body pressed to his, he would kiss her and everything he was trying to accomplish and protect would go to shit in the time it took for his mouth to descend on hers. If he left, he knew he would take that desperation with him, that it wasn't just going to disappear just because she was no longer touching him. But he would also leave with her trust still intact.
Masen forced a smile as he reluctantly stepped away from her. "Thanks for the dance, Guppy. I've gotta head below and finish getting supplies ready for tomorrow's recon. Before you know it, we'll have some tagging video for you to review to get you comfortable with our aquatic friends."
She smiled but it looked as forced as his felt. "Okay, then. Goodnight, Edward."
He wanted to say something to make it better, to let her know this was for her own good. Instead he just headed inside and down to his project room, throwing himself into charging camera batteries, checking lenses and waterproof casings, and making a list of tools for Gopher to have ready on deck in the morning.
"~~~^~~~~^~~~^~~~~^~~~^~~~~^"
Bella stared at the bright little screen on her phone, wishing she had a signal on the device. She missed Alice's voice and wanted to hear her lilting speech and tinkling laughter. She wanted to get lost in her sister's long, winding stories that never failed to turn an ordinary day into an extraordinary adventure.
She closed the phone and set it on her chest, letting out a slow breath while her eyes adjusted to the change in lighting. She was lying on the small sofa of the observation deck, having originally planned to watch the stars come out and search for constellations. White points of light against a dark night sky should have been easy to focus on; all Bella could see were two green eyes and a set of pale lips, the bottom one full and the top arched just a little to create the most mouthwatering smirk she'd ever seen.
Never should have touched him beyond what was needed for dancing, she chastised herself. He obviously didn't want any reminders of their first meeting—he'd told her he wanted to act as though it had never happened. And in her defense, she hadn't actually meant to remind him, only to tease him the same way he had done to her. Her mistake had been in keeping her hand in his hair where he'd let go of hers immediately. But she hadn't been able to help herself, not once the silk of his hair was sliding between her fingers and the heated skin of his neck was pressed to her palm. Until that moment, she hadn't realized just how closely they were dancing. With that one touch, she had become highly aware of every place his body touched hers and how long it would take to get rid of the distance between the others.
And that look he'd given her! He'd felt it too. She was sure of it. Only he had wanted to get as far from it as possible while she'd wanted to figure it out and understand why she felt so drawn to him.
With a heavy sigh and an even heavier heart, Bella pulled herself into a sitting position. It was getting late and tomorrow was going to be a huge day. She wanted to go on deck with everyone, at least until they started getting into the water. She needed to be awake and paying attention, keeping a close eye on her reactions to make sure she didn't freak out the way she had at the ocean center.
Bella glanced up at the sky one last time, hoping for a falling star to wish on to ensure tomorrow was a successful day for both her and the team.
There were none.
"Right. On me then," she said as she headed inside to get some sleep.
A/N: Hello, Passengers! We hope you enjoyed your tour with the Team Masen Crew. LOL Join us again in 3 weeks when the crew gets into the water to Tag some Sharks! For those interested in seeing that sketch Masen made of Guppy, EternallyAddicted has put it up on the blog! www (dot) masenmarineresearch (dot) blogspot (dot) com
Thanks for reading!