Clarke Hendrix picked the least hospitable spot to spend his summer vacation. Vacation was putting a kind veneer on the tasks at hand however. This was work for his research project and if he didn't come home with results, his funding was going to dry up. When he'd been safe, dry and warm in his office on the Fresno State campus, the trip to explore Scotland to search for several reported sunken Spanish and Dutch trading ships sounded great.
He'd spent his life outside his day job of teaching, diving in Italy, Greece and Egypt looking for artifacts and through wreckage and managed to establish himself as a scholar of note who wasn't just a stuffy book-bound educator like many of his peers. Those trips had allowed him to secure the funding for his real love. Exploring Scotland and discovering lost information about the Celtic people and his heritage. Finding a sunken Galleon packed with gold was the desire of his research partner, but it wouldn't suck to fall into stacks of coin.
Sailing between the northern most points of Scotland off the Shetland Islands and northward, scouring the ocean for possible sites and making numerous dives over the past month was wearing him out. He was no longer a young man and he felt every heartbeat he spent in the icy water. He imagined it sucking the life from him. Feeling his own mortality really pissed him off. He was in good shape for being over forty. He still ran every morning, and spent his free time like this, looking for artifacts in remote locations. Today, standing on the deck of the ship, he felt closer to fifty than forty. His bones and joints protested the cold of the wind the recent dive left him frozen in a deep, previously untouched places in his bone marrow. As he was thinking of ways to convince his partner to call it a day early so he could get some whisky in him, one of the research team came jogging down the deck to him, cheeks pink and wind-blown. Damn the kid was half his age and moved as though the ship wasn't rocking and the wind wasn't trying to claw his face off.
Fuck getting old. The kid, Fredrick, shouted over the wind, "You have to come see this."
He went with Freddie, moving slower and feeling every step in his damn joints as he tried not to get tossed into the churning sea. He swore under his breath. Next year, he was going to Greece. Watching oil slick, bare breasted beauties soaking in the sun between his dives beat the hell out of freezing his nuts off.
Several people were at the side of the railing, looking into the grey water below them. He pushed through the crowd, grasping the wood in his gloved fingers to peer down. At first he only noticed the crests of foaming water around the hull but then the water shifted and he saw the white flicker through the waves. "Is that a shark? Dolphin?" He knew it wasn't as his words were carried away on the wind. That was a person in the water. "Shit, we need to get down there. Why are you all standing around?" Fredrick looked stricken, "We asked some of the crew to help but they said they couldn't. Said that was a Kelpie Professor."
Clarke frowned, "What? Like hell it is!" He looked away from his intern and squinted into the water, seeing the ivory flesh more clearly now as the body shifted and slipped over a wave. He could make out arms and legs now, the hair a dark dangle fanned around the unseen face. Womanly he thought, though it could be his imagination. "Fuck this. I'm going to help her."
True enough, a couple of the crew tried to stop him, "She'll pull you in. She'll steal away your breath and drag you into the depths. Best not meddle with the affairs of the sea folk." Their voices so heavily accented it was hard to understand them, but they all continued to warn him against his folly. Clarke might have been born in Scotland, but he wasn't one of them, he didn't know the risks, this was for his own good.
His mind pushed away the supernatural bullshit with a snort and he shouldered by the men trying to stop him from getting into the life boat. He couldn't live with himself if he had that image of the cold, white flesh floating in the ocean knowing he did absolutely nothing. Even if he couldn't save her, no one deserved to be left at sea. A bunch of crazy seamen weren't going to stop him.
The little boat struggled out towards the body floating on the surface of the water. He was sweating from the effort to row the damn thing out to her. There was no mistaking the womanly curves along the ivory flesh against the dark water now. He dreaded reaching to touch her, fearful of the texture and the cold feel of her flesh but he'd struggled out this far to bring her body back, he couldn't back out now. He secured his oars and gave himself a metal kick to get moving and leaned over the edge in time with the roiling waves and reached for one of those long, graceful limbs.
Her skin was warm and velvety like the flesh of a ripe peach when he grasped ahold of her. In fact, his senses were awash with the sweet fragrance of summer warmed peaches and a summer warmth bloomed through his hand and up his arm from where he'd made contact with her pale flesh. Overhead, the clouds broke and the wind died as a shaft of golden sunshine streamed down from above and settled over him. And her.
Her skin gleamed and twinkled like the dew of water over her flesh were diamonds. As one of the lazy waves pushed against her, she rolled onto her side and her face draw up from the sapphire waters. She was beautiful. Clarke felt his heart squeeze in his chest and his loins ached with a thrill of lust he'd never felt before. Gooseflesh prickle against her flesh as she arched towards his touch, a soft, musical sigh escaped her brilliant red lips. "Clarke." Ruby red hair clung to her high cheekbones in glossy coils, glinting in the glare of summer sunlight. When she arched up from the water, her tight nipples broke from the waves, taunt, red buds against the ivory of her flawless skin.
Azure fingers of sky seemed to peel back the clouds, pushing away the grey of the landscape, more warmth flooded through him and he wanted to peel off his jacket and gloves and the rest of his clothing so he could press his flesh to hers until he didn't know where she stopped and he began. He wanted to be part of her until he heard her screaming his name in pleasure. He wanted to be balls deep in her until his cum filled her tight little womb. His cock throbbed in the too tight confines of his pants.