Iron Seas 03 - Riveted

anything Mary Chandler had to say—and a few sentences confirmed it. He’d met Chandler in the wardroom not long after Annika had left. Judging by her comments now, he’d made quite the impression. Still, he wanted to see Annika’s reaction to her words.
    She didn’t have much of a reaction at all. Tucking her spanner into her belt, she simply nodded again while Chandler spoke. She rose, caught sight of David. Her eyes widened with surprise. Full lips curved into a welcoming smile.
    Chandler abruptly stopped shouting. She glanced over her shoulder. Red flooded her cheeks. She quickly turned away, patting Annika’s shoulder and moving past her, deeper into the engine room.
    Annika gave her a curious glance before starting toward David. His breath stopped. The damp cotton of her chemise clung to her breasts, revealing their soft shape, the darkness of her nipples. Jesus Christ, help him. The sight hardened his cock, thick and aching.
    He forced his gaze up—and froze on her throat, at the necklace made from a leather thong and small bones inscribed with runes. He couldn’t read them. His eyepiece clicked, cycling through his lenses as he tried to see the glyphs, but it wouldn’t matter—the faces of a few runes lay against her skin, concealing the names there.
    He resisted the urge to reach for his own runes, the names his mother had worn. Not here. He’d show her them when he told her his mother’s story.
    Elated by the discovery, he met her eyes, matched her smile.
    Hers widened. With a sweep of her hand, she drew the scarf away from her head…and took a wad of cotton from each ear. David choked back a sudden laugh. So she hadn’t reacted to Mary Chandler’s comments because she hadn’t heard them?
    “Mr. Kentewess!” she shouted. “May I help you? If you’re coming to ask us to quiet the engine, I assure you we can’t!”
    As he shook his head, his gaze involuntarily dropped to her breasts again. Her dark nipples had beaded, pressing against the thin cotton. God. She didn’t even seem to realize—or didn’t care.
    If so, he liked her impropriety. But he absolutely wasn’t prepared for it. He tugged the front of his jacket together, praying it concealed his body’s turgid response.
    Clearing his throat, he forced himself to look at her face again. “Do passengers often ask you to quiet them?”
    “Never directly. But we hear complaints about the complaints!” She moved past him to a workbench, where she tugged the tools from her belt. With a twist of a valve, steaming water from a copper pipe overhead filled a basin. Dipping a cloth into the small bath, she glanced over her shoulder at him. “You can’t sleep?”
    “I wanted to continue our conversation!” he shouted back.
    She nodded, then turned away from him to wipe down her face, her arms. A square swath of blue wool hung on the wall near the door, a hole cut in the center. When she dropped it over her head, the wool covered her in front and back from neck to thighs. She gestured for him to precede her into the passageway, then laughed when he held the door open, letting her go through first.
    In the corridor, she turned to him. “I have to check the warmers on deck! Are you accompanying me?”
    “Yes!”
    She led him forward through the dim passageway, past the companionway he’d used to reach this level. When distance muffled the din from the engine, she looked to him. “We’ll avoid waking everyone in the aviator’s berth if we head to the forward ladder. Should I ask what Mrs. Chandler said? By her expression, it must have been about you. She loves to gossip, but never likes to be caught.”
    Who did? “You didn’t hear anything of it?”
    “No. Is it better I didn’t?”
    Probably. But he still wanted to see her reaction. “She told you that I asked after your watch schedule in the wardroom, and that Dooley teased me about being sweet on you.”
    “Sweet on me?” Her laugh wasn’t what he expected. It could have been cruel, but was warm and inviting, instead—asking him to laugh with her. “I’ve never seen anyone fall in love who didn’t know each other for years first.”
    “Truly?” He’d known several people who’d loved each other within days, his parents and Dooley among them.
    “Yes.” She slanted a playful look at him through her lashes, and he was sorry that they had no need for a stoker on their expedition. He suspected that she’d have fit into their group even more quickly than Goltzius