“Great,” I said, easing myself onto the edge of the bed. Sitting down was definitely a good idea. The fairy lights made everything look soft and romantic, and given that my face tended to go a bit shiny when I’d been drinking, this was a definite plus for me. I looked up at Seth and a silly smile spread across my face. He was so lovely, and he lived right next door. How perfect was that? And it was only the first day.
Seth didn’t seem to notice I wasn’t speaking much, probably because he was putting on music. As a Latin rhythm filled the cabin, he pulled me to my feet and grabbed me around the waist. “I spent a summer in Cuba and learned to salsa,” he said, swivelling his hips like a pro. “Let me teach you.”
I relaxed into his hold, feeling lovely and warm and happy. His arms wrapped around me, like he was protecting me, and then slid a little lower.
“Swing your butt. That’s right.”
As I did as he instructed, I felt sexy and free. I’d needed this. It was exactly the Caribbean fantasy I had envisioned; I should have done it years ago.
Seth and I twirled around the cramped space like experts—or at least it felt like it. We were a swirl of tousled brown hair, sparkling lights, and white cotton polo shirts.
“Time for a turn!” he announced, and lifted my arm to push me awkwardly in a circle. Then, just like a tacky teen movie, he pulled me from the turn into his arms. I was breathing heavily; Seth wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.
I was still laughing when he grabbed my face with both hands and kissed me square on the mouth.
“I’ve been wanting to do that all night,” he confessed. “You’re amazing, you know. I liked you from the moment I saw you.” His face was inches from mine.
“Really?” My battered self-esteem perked up.
“Totally. You’re awesome.” He stroked my arm and then ran his hand up until his fingers were tangled in my hair. My head was spinning, and as Seth leant in to kiss me again, I felt like I was melting in his arms. After years of kissing Dan, I finally discovered what a sexy kiss actually felt like. His lips were warm and soft, and the way he was tracing the outline of my lips with his tongue and nibbling on my bottom lip was very, very erotic. My lady bits fired up with the sweet burn of lust, and my heart was pumping furiously.
On reflection, Dan had kissed like a sucker fish. No wonder I hadn’t felt like sex very often; I’d had to put up with his poor excuse for foreplay first.
The music had become slow and sultry, and I knew what was coming next. Seth pulled off his polo and tossed it aside, revealing a perfectly tanned and athletic torso. Oh, Lordy. My mouth was suddenly dry and I nervously licked my lips, having an eleventh hour panic about whether I still remembered how to do this whole sex thing with someone who wasn’t Dan. Ooh, was that guilt I was feeling? I shoved the feeling away; I’d left Dan. I needed to remember that. I’d nothing to feel guilty about.
Jock’s warning flitted through my mind, but I ignored it, shoving it into a corner of my brain. After all, I wasn’t made of stone.
And on the bright side, I’d had a wax before coming aboard. Just in case.
“Oh Ellie,” Seth murmured, nuzzling my neck, “you’re so beautiful.” He kissed me again and tugged at my shirt.
Wow. Guys like him didn’t fall for girls like me. I’d got so used to seeing myself as a frumpy housewife that it really hadn’t occurred to me that someone like Seth could want me. But there was definitely no doubt about it.
He unzipped my skirt, his hands running all over my body. “Don’t you know how beautiful you are?” he asked. His kisses were getting deeper and I could feel my body responding. My heart was beating like it wanted to leap out of my chest, I was breathing heavily, and my lips were tingling.
My God, thought the one tiny part of my brain that was still capable of rational thought, did I only just leave England yesterday? It felt like a million miles away.
His slow gentle moves became more feverish, and I wound my arms around his neck and pulled him closer. He smiled and buried his face in my neck. I closed my eyes and tried to stifle an overly enthusiastic moan. Oh, Seth…
I was ready for my high seas adventure to really begin.
Chapter Two
A phone was ringing, waking me with a start from a deep sleep. I sat bolt upright and smacked my head. “Ow, ow, fucking owwwwwwww!” My head was pounding and my mouth felt fuzzy, and on top of that I was coming up blank about where I was. Why was it so dark?
Panicked, I stared into the dark until my eyes adjusted, instinctively drawing the sheet up to my chest. And then I remembered. Oh, my God. I was on the cruise ship. In Seth’s cabin. I lifted the sheet and peeked beneath it. Apart from a striped vest, which wasn’t mine, I was naked.
“Shit.” The events of last night started flooding back to me. The phone kept ringing.
“All riiiiigggghhhhht!” shouted a voice from above me. A light came on as Seth jumped from the top bunk and landed heavily on the floor. He grabbed a phone from the wall, and thank God, the ringing stopped. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. I’m a-comin’.” He hung up the phone and turned around to look at me. “Hey there, Miss Ellie. Thought we’d all be more comfortable if I pulled down the top bunk and camped out there.”
I hesitated for a moment. Who knew what to say in this sort of situation? It had been years since I’d spent the night with someone new.
“I hope my snoring didn’t scare you off,” I teased, trying to lighten the moment. He looked away awkwardly. I snored? Shit. I had been kidding!
“Well, uh, I have to go to work. I was supposed to be shooting gangway this morning.” He ran his hands through his hair, looking dishevelled and gorgeous. “Please don’t feel you need to rush out of bed. You don’t have to be at work till tonight.”
The pain in my head was turning into more of a throbbing sensation, but memories of the previous night were determined to take centre stage. Basically, I’d been on board for about five minutes, downed drinks like a university student, and jumped right into bed with a virtual stranger. The fact that he also happened to be a colleague I’d see daily for the next six months only made things worse. Flashbacks of sloppy kissing and loud exclamations of pleasure—I mentally cringed. I’d a bad feeling I must have come across as terribly out of practice in the bedroom. I felt like a bit of a twit, really, because the whole thing was so unlike me. And then I thought about getting out of bed and going to work, and immediately started to panic about what people would think of me if they knew what had happened. Arg, I should have known I wasn’t going to be very good at this!
“Should we keep this secret?” I asked abruptly. “It’s a bit weird, right, that I only got here and yesterday and we’ve already…you know…”
“I wouldn’t worry about it,” he said with a shrug. “This is a cruise ship, little lady, not a convent.”
Our night of passion had been one of my exotic cruise fantasies, and he was being refreshingly nonchalant about it, but I still felt awkward as arse. It had been a long time since I’d had to deal with the walk of shame. But before I could skulk back to my own cabin, there was something I needed. I felt around under the covers and quickly scanned the floor. Damn, they were about three feet away, curled up in a little ball right near Seth’s left foot. Bollocks.
“Can you, um, please pass me my pants?” I felt my cheeks go hot. This was embarrassing.
He looked around in confusion. “I thought you were wearing a skirt?”
I suddenly remembered the difference in vocabulary across the pond. Cringing, I said, “My…underpants.” Excruciating.
He looked down and spotted them. As he handed over my pants, uniform, and thankfully, my bra, our hands met and I felt a little jolt of electricity. His hand lingered…then he leaned over and kissed me quickly on the lips. “Thanks for last night, Miss Ellie. I had a jolly ol’ good time,” he said, mocking my accent embarrassingly badly.
“Oh, no problem at all. I’m not normally so…forward…but it was fun.” I
reached under the sheet, trying to struggle into my pants. Where was last night’s carefree Ellie when I needed her?
“Well, we should do this again,” he said over his shoulder as he disappeared into the bathroom. I heard the toilet flush, followed by the shower being turned on full blast. I swung my feet onto the floor, straightened myself out, and looked for a mirror to check how scary my hair and makeup looked after last night. I couldn’t find one, so I rubbed a finger under my eye and groaned when it came away black. I gingerly patted my hair and quickly discovered it was sticking up at the back. “Ugh.” Not the best look. Then again, if someone like Seth wanted to spend the night with me, again, I must have been doing something right…
I looked around Seth’s cabin as I squeezed myself back into my wrinkled uniform. It was the same size as mine, obviously, but surprisingly neat for a guy’s room. The desk held a laptop, iPod docking station, and a few books. At the back of the room were a couple of little chairs and a small, round table, where Seth’s crumpled uniform lay in a little heap.
I really couldn’t believe I’d slept with him. I hadn’t been with anyone other than Dan for years, and while I was looking for fun, I hadn’t intended to play ‘How’s Your Father’ with someone quite so soon. Mind you, I wasn’t complaining. Seth had the accent, face, and body of most girls’ secret (and not-so-secret) fantasies.
A knock at the door interrupted my thoughts. “Seth? Please hurry up!” It was a woman with an unidentifiable accent. “We were supposed to be on gangway five minutes ago. Justin is going to kill us!” Knock, knock, knock. “Seth!”
The door flew open and a short girl with wavy black hair burst into the cabin. “Oh, it’s unlocked. I hope—” She saw me and stopped short, staring. “Oh. You must be that new girl.”
Damn. So much for getting out of there before anyone discovered me and started labelling me as some wanton whorebag. I’d thought these doors automatically locked from the inside…
Naturally, I had to play cool. “Oh, hello, I’m Ellie. Really lovely to meet you.” I stuck my hand out.
She just looked at my hand without shaking it, and then looked back up at me. “You seem to have settled in.” There was no trace of a smile on her heart-shaped face. I figured she was South American, or maybe Spanish; either way, she was astonishingly beautiful, and I suspected I might hate her already.
The sound of the shower stopped. “Hey, Maria, how many times have I told ya not to come into my cabin without being invited?” Seth called from the bathroom. “I really need to get that lock fixed,” he added, almost, but not quite, under his breath.
“Sorry, Mr Big Shot,” she said sarcastically, watching me with narrowed eyes.
“What was that?” He stuck his head out the bathroom door.
“I said sorry, I forgot,” she said, smiling with total insincerity. “I see you have a guest.”
“Ellie, this is Maria. Maria’s a fellow photographer, from Brazil. Maria, Ellie is our new Pic Stop girl from England.” Seth came out of the bathroom, drying his hair, a towel casually slung around his waist.
Maria and I caught each other eyeing his toned torso. “We’ve met,” she mumbled, and swung around so that her back was to me. Her curvaceous figure was barely contained by her tight work skirt. I’d inherited my mum’s flat bum and cursed the fact I’d never look that good in mine. I was hoping eventually I’d fit into my uniform and look stunning, but right now I just felt like a cow in a skirt too tight for me. Far cry from Maria’s glamourous figure.
The tension in the room was very uncomfortable. I wondered if Maria was not the type to have fallen into a fling so quickly. According to Seth we didn’t have anything to hide, but I didn’t want to get a colleague offside so quickly, either.
“I just popped over to find out from Seth if, um, I could come and help today.” I stumbled over the lie and felt my cheeks going red.
“Oh yes, obviously that is what you were doing.” Already halfway out the door, she said over her shoulder, “Do not bother. We do not need help.” Then she was gone.
“Sorry about her,” Seth said, touching my shoulder. “She’s not very nice to other girls…” He kissed me. “I have to get going. Oh, I should warn you, Justin is weird about photographers getting together because it can cause too many problems. So we have to keep things on the down low.” Oh. That was disappointing, but I understood. “Anyway, see you later on.” He disappeared down the hall.
Once he was gone, I waited a few moments before I slipped out and paused outside my cabin, just next door. Thank God Caitlin was cool. The last thing I needed was to worry about my roomie judging me. On the bright side, even if Seth and I couldn’t have a relationship out in the open—I’d still met someone! Despite the embarrassing morning-after and the lack of sleep, my spirits were high; I couldn’t wait to see Seth again.
I came down to earth abruptly as I found myself staring at my door, and realised I’d no idea where my key card was. Had I seriously lost it already?
Sighing, I knocked timidly at the door, and hardly had to wait before Caitlin flung it open.
“Hiya,” I said sheepishly, slinking into the cabin. “So… I guess you were right about the gorgeous men who were up for a good time. Am I a complete embarrassment to newbie photographers everywhere?”
Caitlin let out a gorgeous peal of laughter. “Oh, my dear Ellie, you are fucking hilarious! I totally don’t care what you get up to, and if needs be, I’ve got your back.” She shut the door and turned back to me. “Anyway, sounds like you had a damn fine welcome last night.”
“Ummm, you heard?” I was okay with her knowing everything, but hearing everything was another story entirely. I felt myself blush yet again, and cursed my pale complexion.
“Dude, don’t be embarrassed,” Caitlin said, slapping me on the back. “These walls are pretty thin. We’ve heard it all, believe me. Besides, you’re talking to a woman with one hell of a history with men on ships. In fact, first night sex is a lucky charm. If I don’t get lucky my first night on board, I feel like a complete failure.” She laughed so hard that she snorted. “Just remember to keep it light and never get too emotionally involved.”
“Oh, no chance of that,” I said, sitting down on the bottom bunk. “He is gorgeous and, well, you know, sexy…” We both giggled. “But it’s clearly just going to be fun.”
“Not to mention a great distraction after leaving that shithead fiancé of yours,” she said. “As I always say, to get over an old relationship, you’ve got to get under someone new.” She snickered, and then said, “My mom never approved of that philosophy, as she’s dying for me to tie the knot, but it’s always got me through the dark moments.” Caitlin looked very serious for a moment, and then continued, “But let’s not focus on that now. We can save that for a sad night of story swapping over a lot of wine. What I want to know right now is how you ended up in the sack with Seth. I want all the details.”
Not one for sharing my playbook with a stranger, I faltered for a moment. Then again, I’d just had the most exciting night in years, and possibly of my entire adult existence. I really needed to offload at least a few of the gory details.
Unfortunately, my stomach had other plans. Until that moment, my mouth had felt like cotton wool, but suddenly, I felt the saliva building up in my mouth, and the nausea hit me like a slap in the face. I lurched into the bathroom and threw up.
Outside the door, Caitlin was laughing again. “Oh, Ellie. You’re well and truly one of us now!”
I knew I should be laughing at myself, but I was way too embarrassed. “Sorry, Caitlin, I’m feeling pretty rough.”
She fussed around me like a mother hen, handing me a bottle of water from our fridge and pushing me into the shower. “You just get freshened up and we’ll go to breakfast. Nobody will know anything.” I was grateful for her help and breezy lack of judgement.
A shower made me feel almost human again, and I was gagging for something to eat by the time we got to the staff mess. We
arrived at the same time as a thin-faced girl with a long nose and lanky brown hair, and before either Caitlin or I had a chance to speak she’d put out her hand, a smile on her face.
“It’s Ellie, right? I’m Jacoline,” she said. She had a strong South African accent. I took the proffered hand and was treated to a firm handshake. “I’m one of your fellow photographers. We’re so excited you could join us. Welcome to the team.” She released my hand, sniffed the air, and then said, “Let’s go in and grab some breakfast.”
The buffet spread was impressive. Caitlin explained we essentially had the same food as the passengers, but that down in the crew mess, they got whatever the cooks felt like making that day.
“Trust me,” she said, “you don’t want to be on the receiving end of a chef with a hangover and a taste for braised dog.” She stuck out her tongue. “Blech.”
I blocked out the mental picture of cooked canines and chose a traditional English breakfast. I was hoping the grease would settle the queasy feeling still lurking in the pit of my stomach.
Caitlin and Jacoline were already nattering at a million miles an hour when I joined them.
“Oh, Ellie, you have just GOT to meet the man in my life,” Caitlin said excitedly, pulling me into the seat next to her.
She hadn’t mentioned a current man the night before or this morning, so I was intrigued and wondered what fine specimen of manhood she was loved up with—no doubt a gorgeous man with broad shoulders and a devastating smile.
Something caught her eye and she squealed. “Here he is now!”
I turned to see a guy making a beeline for our table with open arms. Chinese, or maybe Filipino, I wasn’t quite sure, he had bleached blond hair, was wearing a skin-tight mesh top and was swinging a pink feather boa. Perhaps not quite the winsome beau I’d envisioned.
“Ellie,” Caitlin said, “meet my very best friend in all the world, Nick Canlas.” She pulled him into a very long cuddle. They air-kissed, cooed, and preened.
Sex, Lies, and Cruising Page 3
