When she nodded, Christophe gestured for her to lead the way. They had only taken a few steps when the ship lurched, groaning and sending things toppling and crashing off tables. Chairs that weren't nailed down slid every which way, and Shouts of surprise rang out. He barely caught Serena before she took a nasty spill down the short flight of stairs on deck that led to where her cabin was located.
"What was that?" Serena clung to his coat as he kept her steady.
"Not sure." It was like they'd been caught in a storm, yet the sky was clear and the wind minimal.
Starboard, someone cried out, "What's that in the water?"
Trepidation sank its claws into him. He had a notion of what it could be and didn't want to be right. Still, he grasped Serena's hand and led her toward the railing. Blue-green light swirled deep beneath the surface, growing larger, spinning, twisting.
"A vortex." Serena took a step back, raising her free hand to her mouth and staring at him as though for the first time. "I saw that light before I met you. I thought it was from the fireworks..." She searched his face, as if hoping he'd tell her it was something, anything, but what it truly was.
Christophe recalled the loud bursts like gunfire and the bright explosions of colored lights when he'd opened his eyes. He'd heard of such things before by others who had traveled to the Far East, but had never seen them for himself. His gut ached like he'd been punched.
It had come back for him.
Everything he'd allowed himself to believe he could have, he couldn't. He'd been given a beautiful, caring woman and he wouldn't get to keep her. He'd brushed off every thought of this possibility because it hadn't suited him, but it was here. Why else would it have returned?
He believed Serena had accepted the truth of how he came to arrive aboard the ship. If not entirely, enough to be with him regardless. Now there was no doubt etched into her features as she stared over the railing. There was something disconcerting and startlingly real when witnessing that swirling abyss.
"Christ!" Josiah ran to the railing beside them and looked over and back at him. "You're for real?"
"Aye," he said sadly as the man gawked at the water and then him.
"I can't believe this." Someone shouted Josiah's name and he rushed away.
A chill swept over him as he looked over the railing. If he went back through, would it swallow him whole this time, or spit him back out in his own time? Something unseen tugged at him like a child seeking attention, and he gripped the railing tighter. The ship lurched closer to the maelstrom. "Looks like it's calling me home."
"Home?" Serena echoed, shaking her head. "No. No! You just got here. Why would it send you here and then take you away again?" Her voice was meek. It shredded him.
Heart breaking at the notion of leaving her, he hugged her close, keeping a firm hand on the railing as whatever tugged at him with ghostly hands did so a second time. Beckoning. Seeking. He'd not felt anything like it the first night, but he was not as far from the center then as he was this time. But that wasn't his biggest concern.
How would he survive without Serena back in his time? "I don't know. What I can say is life is often unfair. I'll treasure these days with you far more than you can ever imagine."
She pounded his chest, causing no great damage. "Stop talking like you're going to leave me." She shoved his shoulder again and again, then grabbed fists full of his jacket and yanked him close, trembling. He barely heard her next words, "Don't leave. Take me with you."
He wasn't even sure how or if that would work. What if she drowned? Besides, she was too precious for his time. Serena didn't belong there, as he didn't belong here. He'd fooled himself into believing it was possible to start over with her. To start anew. To love a woman who had conjured him to her through time.
A voice came through the things he'd been told were called speakers, but Christophe wasn't listening to what it said. People were panicking and running. Others were taking photographs over the railing on small, flat things called cell phones. He didn't know what was the most absurd: the items people carried in their pockets in this century or the whirlpool.
The tugging at him from the vortex became more urgent as the rushing water began to grow louder. Before, the tugs were whisper light, but the newest one had him crashing against the railing. Serena cried out as it jarred her against him.
"What just happened?" She blanched.
"I think it's trying to take me over."
Her eyes grew wide. "What?"
Below, the glow became brighter, larger, drifting closer. The ship started to turn with it, trapped in the current of its outer rotations. Screams erupted around them as the ship moved even closer to its center. Would it take them all or him alone? The longboat hadn't appeared onboard with him, which he'd found odd at first but had merely assumed the ocean had kept it.
And if it had...what did that mean for the ship? For Serena? I can't let her die. Can't risk her life for unknowns.
Far below, a shark swam around the churning maelstrom, and he wondered if this was the third encounter with the same creature. Mrs. Baker's words about how things happened in threes made him shiver as he watched the shark glide past. Taunting him. Heralding his failure to keep the woman he was coming to love.
Or maybe it was still waiting for that lost meal.
Serena’s hair billowed around her, and she shook her head. Saying words he couldn't decipher. All he heard was roaring water twisting and turning and spinning and pulling. If he didn't let it have him, it would take all of them just to claim him. Christophe hoped she'd understand what he had to do to ensure she lived.
Chapter Eleven
How could this happen? Was she so unlucky that as soon as she opened her heart to a man, accepted the reasons of his being there that made no sense, he would be taken from her forever? The eerie glow in the water revealed a whirlpool, spinning like an emptying drain. The cruise ship struggled to maneuver itself out of the edge of it, but it the vortex was widening.
Christophe placed his hands around her wrists and pushed her away. He said something, but she couldn't hear over the deafening roar of water and the screams on deck.
"What?"
He leaned closer. His breath was warm against her ear, but she still couldn't hear him well. He leaned back and she shook her head, asking him to repeat himself. He didn't. Then he turned and placed a booted foot on the railing like he was going to climb over.
"What are you doing!" She pulled him back, but he gave her a sad look and didn't reply. He was freaking her out. He wouldn't jump into it; that was suicide...unless he thought it would take him home. But what if it didn't? Too many ifs.
"Christophe." She flung herself against him, nearly falling when the ship lurched again. "Please, don't leave me." She hoped he could hear her as she spoke loudly against his ear. "I'm so sorry I wasted so much time being so difficult and disbelieving." Everything he'd claimed had been true all along. The vortex in the Bermuda Triangle existed, and it was trying to take him from her. Christophe was a pirate from 1715. And she was falling for him. Completely.
He wrapped her in his arms and laid his cheek against the top of her head. She could only hear bits and pieces of what he shouted. "You ha...ight to... I messed...from the st...but don't. I don't wa...last memories...to be bad."
Serena fought the tears threatening to spill, and mascara stung her eyes, making it all the more difficult to accomplish. When she glanced toward the upper deck, she took a step back. Mrs. Baker stood there, watching them with a freakish calmness no one else around her possessed. She raised her palm and wiggled three fingers.
Three? What does that mean? It didn't make any sense.
Christophe cupped her face in his hands, causing her thoughts to scatter. Tears were forming in his eyes. She knew then he didn't want to leave her either. It should help, but it made her despair worse. Why hadn't she believed him sooner. She'd wasted so much time she could have spent with him.
He was flung against the raili
ng again, but the ship hadn't moved. The maelstrom fought to take him. Maybe to right the inconsistency of him crossing through in the first place. Or maybe she hadn't believed soon enough. Would it take the ship with him? Was that why he had tried to jump? God, this hurts. She needed to think. There had to be a way out of it.
Three... What did Mrs. Baker mean by three?
And then it hit her. Three hundred years. Three nights. She knew that much, but that didn't help now. Had the older woman told her anything else about the number three?
Yes.
Stories of time travel among her people, like fairytales, always contained obstacles of three. What did that mean for her and Christophe though? What were they missing? Did they need to do or overcome something three times?
Christophe spoke to her, but the shouts of panicked passengers muffled his words. Crew members with serious expressions were running toward the employee stairs farther down. Not that she could focus on all that when she was trying to puzzle out Mrs. Baker's cryptic message. Time would soon run out.
Oh, God. What if she'd meant there was only three minutes left and she'd wasted those too? It wasn't fair!
The ship lurched hard, and she hit the railing, rolling her ankle thanks to the heels. She cried out as stinging pain shot up her leg. Christophe clutched her against him and brushed the hair back from her face, his expression so full of hopelessness that her heart broke.
Think, Serena. What do fairytales do to break a curse or prevent a tragic ending?
True love's kiss usually did the trick, but she and Christophe had kissed already. He kissed her that first night before she realized he'd mistaken her for a whore—which still smarted, but she understood the reasons and couldn't hold him completely at fault for his eighteenth-century take on fashion of the present day. Then they kissed last night after the movie had ended, which had gone into full making out...
Her eyes widened. Technically, they had kissed twice—or had two kissing sessions. They would have kissed again today had they been alone after the shark incident. But they hadn't. Would a third kiss keep him here? Would it work the way the kiss of true love did in the fairytales?
"Christophe!" Her heart beat rapidly and her stomach plummeted. "Kiss me."
He frowned. Shaking his head, he mouthed something that looked like, "Not ready to say goodbye." Yet he'd been about to jump without doing so? She'd get on to him about that later, if they had a later.
"Silly man." She would berate him for that poor decision later. Now, she had to break this...spell or whatever it was trying to take him from her. Serena grabbed his lapels and dragged him to her as she rose on tip-toes, even in the heels. Her ankle smarted, but she ignored it and kissed him hard. Once their lips connected, he was a live wire, pushing his tongue to meet hers and clutching her closer. Did he believe this was the last kiss they would share? Maybe it would be.
As more individual sounds around her started to register, Serena peeked over his shoulder at the vortex. It was growing smaller, paler. The roar softening. Thank God, it's working. Then her eyes popped open.
True love's kiss was working!
She threw her arms around his neck and moaned his name against his mouth. He leaned back and stared at her, a dreamy expression over his features, and then he twisted toward the water and gawked.
Calm, dark, silent waves remained. No sign of a danger or the supernatural. She sighed with relief. Others passing around them, but she couldn't let go of Christophe in order to turn around and see what they were doing. They'll be all right. So will we.
"You figured it out." He pressed his cheek against her forehead, holding so tightly she thought she might snap in half. Seeming to realize this as well, his grip eased.
"Oh, I had some help." Serena glanced up, but Mrs. Baker had moved on and she couldn't find her in the crowd. She'd think of a way to repay the woman. "I think this means I get to keep you." Elation filled her, and she couldn't stop the grin from spreading across her face.
He laughed and twirled around with her lifted in his arms so her feet never touched the ground. Then as he lowered her, so close to his body, the evidence of his desire made itself known against her hip. Her appetite had shifted to something more carnal. The adrenaline of the moment amplifying it, burying her reservations. He wanted her, and she'd almost lost him. She needed a connection that was skin-to-skin, and she needed it now.
"Let's go back to the room. We can order room service." As she spoke, the speaker system came back on assuring everyone to remain calm. Perhaps they would wait a while to place any food orders. The crew had their hands full trying set everything to right and pacifying distressed passengers.
He nodded, his Adam's apple shifting as he swallowed, grasping her meaning. "Are you su—"
"Don't try to change my mind. I..." Her face heated and she glanced at his feet. "I need you." If she didn't have him soon she might make a scene, and she preferred what she wanted to do with him to stay between them alone.
For what seemed like the thousandth time, he lifted her face to catch and hold her gaze. "Tell me, not my feet. Anything you need from me, I will always be there." He kissed her lips, gently. "Thanks to you."
She held his stare, those blue eyes of his stormy and sincere. She would work on the eye contact. "I need you," she repeated. Christophe didn't speak any further, but lifted her as he had the day before on the beach. Serena's body was on fire. How could one person desire another so strongly without bursting into flames?
As he carried her away, she overheard a man telling his friend, "I told you, dude. I bet it was a space ship. An invisible space ship. That's why we didn't see it when it left its underground base." There was a brief pause, a chuckle, and then, "The Bermuda Triangle, man. Freaking aliens."
***
Every step Christophe took toward the room seemed to last forever while rushing past at the same time. Serena had anchored him here with her kiss and had invited him to spend the evening with her in her cabin. Alone. He'd been dreaming of this since he first saw her, so why did he feel almost bashful now that it had arrived?
Because now, more than ever, you know what she is to you. You love her. Don't want to disappoint her. How advanced is lovemaking three hundred years in the future—his new present? Surely that had remained the same?
He set her down so she could open the door, excusing herself to wash "mascara" out of her eyes. A look around the room revealed most of the items that had been set on top of the tables had toppled or fallen on the ground from the motions of the ship. When Serena returned, limping slightly, her face was clear and she'd removed her shoes—a pity—and she smiled at him timidly, fidgeting with the hemline of her dress. By doing so, she revealed a subtle hint of her thighs to him, and he had to shift his weight to ease the discomfort of his breeches.
"You don't need to prove anything to me." He crossed the room and stood before her. He could wait to be with her. It would be painful, but he could. "You've saved me from returning, but if you—" Serena covered his mouth with her fingers.
"I made this decision hours ago. If we hadn't been swarmed by people on the beach, I might have taken you up here after lunch." She stared at him and froze, like she wasn't sure how to move on from expressing her desires and taking what she wanted.
He loved how even though she'd been confident enough to tell him she needed him, had kissed him so passionately, she was too timid to act on it. He would ease her shyness, take the lead until she felt comfortable enough to do so herself. Christophe closed the distance with another kiss, and after a brief hesitation, she ran her hands under his jacket, pushing it off his shoulders.
He shrugged the heavy coat off and placed his hands on her hips, bunching the material of her dress in his palms before tugging it over her head and tossing it to the floor. She stood before him in two tiny pieces of black lace. Though the material covered her most private areas, it was completely transparent. Everything could be seen, and it made the lace all the more erotic. Christophe h
ad once thought a sheer chemise seductive in his time; he'd never dreamed of underclothes like these.
Breathing failed him and he sat heavily on the foot of the bed. As if his reaction triggered her confidence level a hundred-fold, she pushed him backward against the mattress and straddled his waist. He sucked in a sharp breath as the movement caused her to rub against his erection, trapped within his breeches. Serena unfastened his sword belt and dropped it to the floor with a heavy clank before loosening his shirt and working the ties of his breeches over his arousal.
"What's the hurry, love," he bit out. "Foreplay is half the fun." Truthfully, he could hardly stand the confines of his clothes in that moment.
She shook her head. "I'm not a patient person. My God, did you triple-knot this?" She glared at him like he was withholding his manhood from her on purpose. "Are you laughing at me?"
He cleared his throat and resumed a blank expression. "Never would I dream to." And then he snickered when she tugged hard on the cords, only tightening his pants over his arousal.
"You're laughing at me!" She started to slide off him, which wouldn't do at all. He rolled her over and settled between her legs, thrusting just enough to remind her how he felt about her. She gasped.
"Never doubt my attraction to you. I laughed because I found your impatience amusing and attractive. We have all the time in the world." He smoothed his palms over her breasts, and the nipples beaded beneath the lace. "Aye, all the time in the world." He leaned forward and slid his tongue over one, dampening the lace. He would soon have her completely bared, but not yet. Serena trembled and ran her fingers through his hair, loosening it from its tie and combing it free until it was wild like her own soon would be upon the pillow. He was much obliged.
After he'd given equal attention to both breasts he stood and removed his shirt. Propping herself up on her elbows, she watched with rapt attention as he shed his layers one by one. Removing his boots and stockings followed the shirt, and finally the pants. When he freed the knot on the breeches in quick tugs she glowered.
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