Chapter 44: Chapter 43 - Bells

Tuesday 22 December

~*Bells’ POV*~

“It should be right around here somewhere.”

Still walking, Nat looked at the small machine in her hand that was pointing us toward one of the harder to find geocaches in the area. It had a terrain and difficulty rating of four, so we knew it wouldn’t be a walk in the park to get to it.

I pulled on her shirt to slow her down before she stepped into the river flowing before her. “Nat, pause for a sec and look around.”

“What?” She finally looked up from her handheld device and surveyed our surroundings. “Oh…”

We had come up against one of the many rivers that made their way through the mountains around Matlock. It was lucky that we had come across it at the start of summer. The water that flowed in front of Nat couldn’t really be described as a trickle, but at least it wasn’t the raging torrent it usually was in the middle of winter either.

I looked around. There was no bridge to span the water, and there were trees everywhere. We had been walking for at least half an hour to get to this spot. We had assumed that this cache was going to be hidden amongst the trees. Coming up against the river made me reconsider.

“How far away are we?” I asked, hoping that the tree cover was sparse enough to get a good reading.

Nat shook the machine. “It keeps bouncing around, but it should be about five metres in that direction.” She pointed over the ten-metre-wide river.

I frowned. “That can’t be right.” I took the machine from Nat’s hands and studied the co-ordinates. I cursed when I realised she was absolutely correct. The cache was indeed somewhere in the middle of the river.

I studied the terrain. There were rocks of all shapes and sizes dotted through the water, enough for us to hop from one rock to another instead of a bridge. Presumably, the cache was somewhere along these rocks. All we had to do was find it and log the find.

“Okay, I guess it’d be best if we took our shoes and socks off for this one.” I knelt and started undoing the laces on my hiking boots. I dumped my backpack on the ground as well. It was going to be easier to balance on these rocks without it.

Once Nat was ready, we both slowly made our way out into the middle of the river. We didn’t know what we were looking for, but it couldn’t be too hard to miss, could it? We looked for anything out of the ordinary, anything that didn’t belong.

“I think I might have something here.” Nat had scrambled over to a large boulder that was literally sitting in the middle of the river with nothing but water around it. “This rock… It feels different.”

I made my way over to her. “What do you mean it feels…” I trailed off when I put my hands on it. Ah, okay. The texture of it was all off. It looked just like any of the other rocks in the river, but for the lack of a better word, it felt completely wrong. “You might be right, Nat.”

The boulder barely held the two of us, but we could balance on top of it enough to run our hands all over it to see if we could find any hidden compartments. I came up empty on my side, but Nat started focusing on a small section on her side.

“I think it’s here, but I can’t seem to open it.”

I watched her fingers trace a barely discernible line on the side of the boulder facing away from the flow of the water. She laid down on the rock and studied it upside down, letting her touch lead her way.

“It’s disappearing under the waterline. Do you think it might point to a latch or something?” She lifted her now dripping hand back up, shaking it to fling as much water off as she could.

“Could be.” I scratched my chin. “Let’s swap places. I’ll see if I can get some leverage.”

Nat shuffled to the side underneath me as I climbed over her body. I leaned down to give her a peck on the lips as we passed each other, making her smile. I settled down in the spot she had just left and repeated her actions. The line did indeed lead down into the water. I shifted forward to probe further, seeing if I could find the end point to the line, but it disappeared deeper.

“Careful Bells. Don’t lose your balance.”

“I won’t. I’ve got this.” Moving forward again, I let my fingers delve deeper, then deeper still.

“You should have let me take control, dumbass. I don’t mind getting wet.”

“And how would you have triggered the latch, Wyatt, hmm?” I waited for a response, but nothing came forward. He knew I had him. “And why on earth would I let you around Nat after the stunt you pulled on her the other day?” I lost track of my argument with Wyatt when my fingers brushed against something. I just needed to get my hand under it, so I shifted forward another inch.

“Maybe you should have listened to Nat and got her to hold on to you, because you’re about to lose your balance.”

“Wyatt, for the love of the Goddess above, will you shut—”

My argument suffered a very sudden death as I tumbled off the fake boulder into the water below.

“Son of a bitch!”

“Told you.”

“Bells!!” I heard Nat shout just as my head disappeared under the water.

The current carried me down river a few metres before I re-emerged. I swam to the closest edge, which just so happened to be on the opposite side of where I needed to be. I sat down on the embankment and coughed to get the water I’d swallowed out of my lungs.

“Shit, Bells! Are you okay?” Nat scrambled over the boulders to get to me.

“Yeah, yeah.” I coughed again. “Nothing hurt but my pride.”

At any other time, Nat’s hands all over me would have sent thrills down my spine. At the moment, however, I just felt annoyed with myself, as well as a little embarrassed, that I was sitting there with my elbows on my knees, soaked to the bone and covered in mud.

“Maybe we just need to come back again when the water is lower so we can wade across?” Nat sat next to me and followed my glare at the fake boulder, which had quickly become my nemesis.

“Maybe.” I chewed my cheek, thinking. We would definitely need to find a better way to crack this cache open. We knew it was here now. There was no way I was going to give up on it until we’d logged it.

“Let’s head back, yeah? There’s still next week.” Nat put her arm around my dripping form, not caring that she was getting herself muddy.

“Okay.”

Nat got up first and pulled me to my feet. Soaked as I was, I lost my balance again and tumbled us both into the water.

“Smooth move, dickhead.”

“Wyatt, I swear to the Goddess, I didn’t mean that!”

“Keep telling yourself that, Bells. It’s like I’m training a bloody orangutan at times.”

Quickly scrambling off Nat, I guiltily pulled her from the mud. “I’m so sorry, Nat. I honestly didn’t mean to do that.”

I took two steps back to let her get her bearings, then raised my eyebrows in shock when I realised she was laughing.

“You couldn’t let me miss out on the fun, could you?” She leaned down, grabbed a handful of mud, and threw it at me.

A grin spread across my face. Was she serious? Did she actually want a mud fight right now? I followed her lead, bending down and lifting my own handful of mud. “You sure you want to do this?”

Nat cackled as she smooshed more mud into my shirt, then darted away.

“Just remember, I gave you an out!” I ran after her and poured the mud over her hair.

She shrieked, splashing into the shallow edge of the river. I followed her in, kicking up water at her as I went.

Eventually, we tired of our roughhousing and decided to head back. It was getting close to the end of the morning session where we would need to check in both ourselves and our equipment.

Kennedy laughed when he saw us approaching from our hike back. “You went after the river cache, didn’t you?”

Nat laughed. “I’m guessing this has happened before then?”

“Every year,” Kennedy replied happily. “Don’t worry, you’ll get it on your next try. They always do.” He took our equipment, marked us off and sent us off to get cleaned up.

We were laughing when we arrived at my apartment. I opened the door and turned to Nat to kiss her goodbye. We were going to meet up back in the dining hall once we’d showered and changed.

“Well, look who it is.” Tatum’s voice rang out from the apartment.

Freezing in place, I felt the colour drain from my face. I hadn’t expected him to be there. I had spent the barest minimum of time at our apartment since Cody had told me of her ‘deal’ with Tatum, only stepping in to sleep. Even though Cody assured me that Tatum would hold up his end of their deal, I didn’t want to test the theory.

“Hi Tatum,” said Nat. “Long time, no see.” I still had my back to the apartment, so I watched her wave at Tatum over my shoulder like nothing was wrong. It was so easy to forget that Cody and I had spared Nat everything that was going on with Tatum. “Where’s Zelda?”

“Hi brother,” I said over my shoulder, interrupting the flow of the burgeoning conversation. “Just ducking in to grab a change of clothes.” I pulled Nat into the apartment with me and hurried her to my room. She raised an eyebrow at the change of direction, but said nothing.

Tatum followed us to my room but stood in the doorway to watch me collect the clothes I needed. He crossed his arms and narrowed his gaze at me when he saw how quickly I was moving. “Zelda’s with Cody. I thought you knew that.”

“Nah. Bells and I went geocaching this morning,” said Nat. “Cody didn’t want to join us, so I’m not sure where she ended up.” Nat started fidgeting. “I’m glad she’s with Zelda. I feel like I’ve been stealing Cody away from her for too long.”

“Mm…” Tatum made a noncommittal noise that was neither agreeing nor disagreeing with Nat’s statement. He turned to look at her properly. “The three of us went to The Gap on Saturday night and had a blast catching up. It’s a pity you couldn’t join us. Maybe next time?”

I could hear the subtle threat in his words. I had become achingly familiar with these sorts of tones since we turned sixteen, but barely anyone else had.

“Maybe.” Nat tipped her head to one side, almost like she’d picked up on something in the way Tatum had responded, but couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was. Maybe she was more intuitive than everyone else in Matlock?

“You good to go, Nat?” I dumped everything out of the backpack I had used this morning and shoved my clean clothes into it. I grabbed her hand and coaxed her out of the apartment. “We’ll catch up later, okay Tatum?”

“Of course, brother. Can’t wait.” I closed my eyes briefly when I heard the subtle threat once again in his words.

I shut the door behind us and headed for Nat’s apartment, my hand on her lower back to encourage her to keep moving.

“Um, Bells?”

“Yeah?”

“Want to tell me what just happened?”

I clenched my jaw. “Just suddenly felt like spending more time with you. Is that okay?”

Nat didn’t immediately respond. I could feel her eyes on me as we walked down the hallway. It wasn’t until we stopped in front of her door so she could swipe us in that she broke the silence. “For now.”

She led me to her bedroom. “You can go first. I still need to find a change of clothes.” She started looking through her drawers, then paused when she noticed I wasn’t moving. “It’s okay. I’ll use Cody’s shower if it looks like we’re running out of time.” She turned her attention back to her burrowing.

“Okay.” I shrugged and shut myself in her ensuite. Less than a minute later, I was under a steady stream of warm water, washing away the mud that had dried on my body and in my hair from our mud fight. Watching the mud circle the drain, I leaned forward with my hands on the tiles, trying hard to let the water pressure ease the tension that had formed in my shoulders. Just from that brief interaction with Tatum, I knew that his week-long agreement with Cody wouldn’t last. All I could do was try my best to avoid him for as long as possible. It was only a matter of time before he found me and got what he wanted.

And I would be too weak to stop it. Just like always.

I shut my eyes and sighed. Cody was right. I really was out of options. I needed to talk to someone. But who? There was no way I could take this to Mum. It would devastate her.

My head sprang up when I heard the ensuite door slide open and saw Nat walk in. Without conscious thought, I immediately faced the wall opposite the door and brought my hands down to cover myself. “Um, Nat? I thought you said you were going to use Cody’s ensuite.” I turned my head over my shoulder to watch her.

She shut the door but said nothing.

“Uh… Nat?” My eyes widened when she started undressing. My body instantly tensed. What the hell?

Once she was completely naked — a sight that left me completely breathless once again — she opened the shower door and stepped in with me.

“Nat?” My voice was barely audible over the water streaming from the shower head. I could feel my cock hardening in my cupped hands, yet my mind was still wondering what on earth was happening.

She wrapped her arms around my chest from behind me, her hands drifting up to my pecs, only stopping when her body was fully against mine.

“I’m so dirty, Bells,” she whispered in my ear. “Won’t you clean me?”

Oh, fuck me. I was in some serious trouble here.

Everywhere she was touching me, came alive. It felt like my entire body was pulsing. Groaning, I let my head tilt forward, my forehead meeting the tiles. I could feel her tender kisses on my shoulder as her hands drifted down my torso.

“Nat…” I breathed as her hands continued their travels. One of my hands met hers in a half-hearted attempt to stop her, but we both knew it was futile.

Nat ever so carefully peeled my hands away from my cock, all the time nuzzling my neck. Her fingers tentatively brushed along my length. I hissed as I felt myself twitch.

“Shh…” Nat whispered into my ear. “If you want me to stop, just say the word.”

I let out a chuckle when it dawned on me that she had spoken the exact same words I’d said to her just two days prior. My head fell back onto her shoulder as a shudder ran through me.

I put both of my hands back up on the tiles and slowly pushed myself away from the wall and into Nat. She purred when she realised I was handing control of my body over to her. She wrapped her fingers around my cock and slowly started stroking.

Nuzzling me one last time, she shuffled around me. I lifted one of my arms from the tiles in order to bring her to me, but she surprised me when she dropped to her knees in front of me.

“Nat…? You don’t have to do this…”

“Will you shut the hell up, dude? Let her go. I am totally okay with this turn of events.”

“I know.” She looked up at me with her eyes as big as saucers. “I want to.” Her mouth was suddenly on me, licking and sucking my cock like a popsicle.

My eyes rolled back, and I let out a long moan. One of my hands dropped from the tiles and lightly held her head, feeling it move back and forth, back and forth. She wrapped her fingers around my shaft, helping put pressure where it was needed, and stroked slowly. I felt her other hand cradle my balls, carefully fondling them as she continued sucking.

“Fuck, Nat…”

I felt, rather than heard, her laugh. She knew she had utter control over me, and she was revelling in the feeling.

The hand that had been caressing my balls, let go and moved around to grip my butt, applying pressure to force me deeper into her open mouth, easing up when she wanted me to withdraw. I followed her instruction without question, letting her guide my movements. I heard her moan, which only stoked my desire further and hotter.

“Fuck…” I hissed. “If you keep that up, I’m going to come...”

She looked up and locked eyes with mine, a connection growing alongside the tension. She increased her speed and pressure, not once shifting her gaze from my own.

“Nat…” I started panting, feeling the tension build and build until it finally snapped. “Oh… fuck…”

My entire body convulsed, and even though I was shaking from my release, my eyes never left hers. I felt her swallow, her throat instinctively tightening after each pulse of mine.

I shuddered one final time. She licked my spent cock and stood up, her back to the tiles. She wrapped her arms around me, holding me close, her lips brushing my ear. “Thank you for cleaning me.”

I groaned, pushing her against the wall and bringing my hands to her cheeks and my lips to hers. I could taste myself on her tongue, which only fuelled my desire for her more.

Eventually, she pulled away from me, a sly grin growing on her face. “We should probably think about actually getting clean.”

I laughed, my fingers curling her wet hair behind her ear. “Fair point.” I gave her one last kiss before I released her.

We quickly finished up our shower and were getting dressed in her room. Nat was laughing at something I’d said when she paused, her pants half on.

“You okay?” I eyed her with concern.

“Yeah…” she trailed off, looking distractedly around the room. Shrugging, she finished pulling her pants up and was halfway done with her shoes and socks when she paused again.

“Nat?” I frowned. Something was definitely off.

“Uh… I have to go.” The colour drained from her face as she looked at me with something I could only liken to dread. “I have to find Auden…”

She quickly finished doing her laces and grabbed her phone. “I’ll text you when I’m done, okay?” She all but fled from her room, not waiting for a reply. I heard the front door slam shut moments later.

I stood there wondering what I had done wrong. But then another idea took over, driving all other thoughts from my mind.

She said that she was going to look for Auden.

Maybe Auden could help me with Tatum?