by Katee Robert
He seriously hoped this ship had stocked up on condoms, or they ran the risk of a widespread STI outbreak. The thought made him turn away from the scene. Fuck, he when did he get so old?
And there she was.
The brunette.
She stood around a tall table with three other white women and a guy, but she was the only one he could focus on. Her dark hair shone like some kind of beacon, the sight a hook in his chest. He actually took a step toward her before he caught himself. That shit was not why he was here. She might be pretty in the flawless kind of way that a perverse part of him wanted to smudge, but everything from her floral dress to her pretty pale pink lipstick was a giant neon warning sign for him to stay the fuck away.
That, and the fact she all but ran from him earlier.
Alex might be a dick sometimes, but he could take a hint. He forced himself to turn back to the bar. “I think I’m going to crash early.”
“Nope.” Lucas shook his head. “You’re going to have fun, even if I have to drag your ass around behind me.”
He snorted. “Pretty sure it doesn’t count as fun if you’re dragging me anywhere.”
“The end result is all that matters.”
Hard to argue with that, and he’d been friends Lucas long enough to know better than to try. The man hadn’t taken them to state in high school and leveraged a successful college football career into a full-time coaching gig because he was a pushover. When he decided he was going to do something, he did it. Which was probably why Pop had sent him with Alex on this vacation. If anyone could ensure Alex got out of his own head, it was Lucas.
Maybe they were both right. It was only eight days in the grand scheme of things. He couldn’t do a damn thing now. The ship had literally sailed. Either he could bitch and moan and be the asshole that ruined Lucas’s vacation, or he could try to relax a little and try to enjoy it.
Try being the operative word.
Alex managed a smile. “Does this mean you want to do shots?”
“Fuck no, man. We’re too old for that shit.”
His grin widened. Nothing like a little payback to brighten his day. “Shots it is!”
Chapter 2
“What I don’t understand is how we ended up on a singles party cruise.”
If the ship split in two and the sea swallowed Kendall, she wouldn’t feel anything but grateful in that moment. She clutched her drink with both hands and tried to smile. Of them all, she would have thought that Liv would be down with a singles cruise, but her friend looked as shocked as Kendall felt. Plans were everything, and this trip was already off the rails. It made her twitch. “I finally managed to get a hold of the travel agent before we left port. She, uh, misunderstood me.”
The understatement of the century. Somehow in listening to Kendall’s carefully detailed list of what she wanted to accomplish on this vacation with her old friends and possible locations she wanted them to hit, the travel agent heard something totally opposite of relaxation. She knew she should have double- and triple-checked all the information—or, lord, booked the freaking trip herself—but then things had gone sideways at work and she hadn’t had time.
She clutched her drink tighter. It was something pink and sickly sweet, but halfway through the glass it had numbed some of her panic. “I’m so sorry, guys. I swear I thought I was booking us a nice relaxing trip. Not this.” She jerked her head toward the rest of the room. Even this early, the dance floor was crowded, and the energy in the room made her fear there was another orgy-in-waiting happening.
Aubrey was the first one to smile and reach over to squeeze her shoulder. “We’ll make the best of it.” She looked as tired as Kendall felt, which only made Kendall feel worse. Aubrey’s life hadn’t gone how she planned. This should have been the very trip to take her mind off the fact that her dreams kept getting pushed beyond her reach by life circumstances.
Kendall looked at the rest of them. Grace and Liv and Benjamin. They’d all put their faith in her, and she’d failed them. “Maybe we can disembark on the first stop and jump onto the next real cruise ship that comes.”
Grace shook her head. “That’s not how it works.”
She knew that. Of course she knew that. She just couldn’t help grasping at straws. “Then maybe—”
“Maybe we make the best of it,” Benjamin interrupted. He shrugged broad shoulders and gave her a small smile before casting a look around the table. “Sure, this isn’t what we planned, but that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy ourselves.” He cleared his throat and a blush worked its way over his cheeks. “Maybe this is exactly what we all need.”
As much as Kendall wanted to argue that a party cruise was not what she wanted or needed, this wasn’t about her. She’d messed up. She didn’t get to be the one to whine about it. So she pasted a bright smile on her face. “Benjamin’s right. Let’s, uh, promise to make the best of it.”
She didn’t miss the look Liv and Aubrey exchanged, but she couldn’t decipher it. Were they just humoring her? Did they think she was overreacting? She didn’t know, and because she didn’t know, panic wound tighter and tighter around her. It didn’t help that Grace’s eyes were as wide as a deer in headlights, and she looked about two seconds from bolting from the room. Only Benjamin seemed to genuinely believe that this trip could be anything other than a disaster, and while she appreciated his support, she really, truly couldn’t draw a full breath. “I’m—I need some fresh air.”
“Kendall!”
She wasn’t sure which of them called after her, but it didn’t matter. She shoved up from the table and strode for the door, every bit of her self-control directed at making sure she didn’t actually sprint from the room. Leaving that space didn’t help, though. Not when she was still faced with evidence after evidence of her failure.
Kendall needed air and she needed it now.
It took her far longer than it should have to reach the deck. It was like her brain wasn’t firing on all cylinders and she’d lost the instinctive navigational skills that served her so well in NYC. Or maybe they weren’t skills at all, but just a habit born of her retracing the same steps over and over again.
Stuck.
She was so incredibly stuck.
Finally, a small eternity later, she found the right path to the top deck. Kendall stepped out into the darkness and immediately regretted the most recent questionable choice. It was cold. She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered. For someone who usually had a plan for everything, she’d forgotten the most important part of her wardrobe—her coat.
It didn’t matter as she drew her first full breath since realizing this trip wouldn’t be what she’d so desperately wanted. What she’d needed.
A break. A reset. A chance to get her head on straight and maybe even gain a little perspective on where things had gone so wrong. Oh, her life wasn’t wrong. She held down a good job. She had a very tiny but decent apartment. She had friends. She had her sisters, Marley and Gretchen, even if they were across the country.
But there were so many ways she didn’t measure up.
She worked twice as hard as anyone else on staff and had more responsibilities than her job description listed, and yet somehow kept getting passed over for the promotion to sales manager she so desperately wanted. She did all the work, ensured nothing fell through the cracks no matter how many ill-advised hires the general manager made. And yet, everyone considered her so firmly entrenched in her assistant position that she couldn’t see how she’d ever dig herself out. She felt just as trapped at work as she felt right now on this cruise she hadn’t wanted.
Impossible not to compare herself to her sisters and be found lacking on both sides. Gretchen was the perfect sister, the perfect wife, the perfect everything. She was back in their little Oregon town, living her dream life because she never once diverged from the path she’d set her eyes on when she was only a teenager.
And Marley? Marley might be as unattached as a dandelion blowing in the wind, but she m
ade no apologies for it. She drifted from place to place, never letting others’ expectations box her in. She was free and bold and courageous.
Kendall? Kendall wasn’t perfect, she wasn’t bold, she certainly wasn’t courageous. She was simply Kendall. Not quite good enough.
“You’re going to freeze if you stay out here too long.”
She jumped and spun around. Kendall blurted out a response before stopping to think. “No one asked you.”
A low laugh drifted out of the darkness, followed by a man who looked vaguely familiar. It wasn’t until he stopped a few feet away that she realized why he was familiar. The man she’d seen earlier on the deck, the one who seemed to reach across the distance and stroke her skin with his gaze.
The same way he was doing now, dragging his attention over her in a way that was just shy of being rude. He didn’t linger at her breasts the way some guys would, seeming to want to take in the whole picture in equal measures.
“Stop staring at me.”
He finally refocused on her face and frowned. “You should go back inside.”
Consider that her skin sparked with little pricks of pain from the cold, that’s exactly what she should do. What she’d planned on doing, even. But that was before this man appeared to order her around. Before she’d seen the cumulations of her “almost but not quite” life brought to a head on this stupid cruise that she’d promised her friends would be just what they needed to relax and reconnect. “I’m fine.”
“Nah, I don’t think you are.” He considered her. “You’re going to be stubborn, aren’t you?”
“If by stubborn, you mean I’m going to continue with my previously intended plan, then yes, I’m going to be stubborn.” She couldn’t believe she’d just said that. Kendall was many things, but she wasn’t the shit-starter. That was Marley. She was the peacemaker. The one who smoothed out all situations to make it more comfortable for other people. The one who took care of other people. She didn’t bite a stranger’s head off, no matter how much they aggravated her.
He laughed a little. “Thought so.” He shrugged out of his leather jacket and dropped it over her shoulders before she could do more than stare.
Kendall instinctively clutched the jacket to keep it from falling off her shoulders. It wasn’t the warmest piece of clothing, but it cut down the wind chill dramatically. And it smelled… She inhaled deeply. Divine. Something spicy and subtle.
“Did you just sniff my jacket?”
“No,” she answered quickly. Too quickly.
Now he was flat out grinning at her like she’d done something delightful. “You did.” He offered a hand. “I’m Alex.”
Now was the time to leave this conversation. She wasn’t on this cruise for the same reason that most everyone else seemed to be, and had absolutely no interest in any of that nonsense. And, since Kendall was the one who’d messed up, she had to put extra effort into ensuring her friends had a good time. This trip was supposed to be about them, about reconnecting after too much time and distance and life pushing them in different directions. The only friend from college that Kendall had regular contact with was Grace, and even then they were both so busy that they could barely manage dinner every couple of months. Maybe if she shored up those bonds, she wouldn’t feel so… lost.
Alex turned and leaned against the railing, apparently content to let her stew instead of offering her name. Kendall hesitated, but finally moved to join him. “I’m Kendall.”
“Kendall,” he said her name like it was candy on this tongue. “What are you so afraid of?”
She jerked back. “Excuse me?”
“I’ve seen you exactly two times, and both times you were bolting like someone tried to set you on fire. It leaves an impression.”
Because she’d all but run from him earlier, even though they’d only shared a look. She pulled his jacket more firmly around her shoulders and thanked the relative darkness of the deck that he couldn’t see the embarrassment heating her cheeks. “This cruise was a mistake.”
“I suspect a lot of people will be saying that by the end of it.”
Because they…
She blushed harder. “I’m not dodging a mistake in human form or anything like that. I just booked this trip thinking it was a normal cruise, and I show up and…”
“Not a normal cruise.” He chuckled, the sound vibrating through her chest as if he’d reached out and touched her. “Must have been a shock.”
“You could say that.” She glanced at him and her stomach dropped. “Oh god, I’m sorry. I took your coat and now you’re freezing. What were you thinking?”
He turned to face her fully, and she couldn’t escape the sudden awareness of how close they stood. He wasn’t a huge guy, but he still dwarfed her. And that face. The moonlight seemed to caress his features lovingly, lingering on his jaw and high cheekbones. He was so attractive, it actually hurt to look at him. Kendall always thought that level of perfection best left to movie stars and people who had no business interacting with normal humans.
Alex didn’t move, but he suddenly felt closer. Close enough to touch. “I wanted to talk to you a little longer.”
Her whole body gave a lurch, as if every cell of her being fought to get closer to him. Kendall planted her feet out of sheer stubbornness. “I think you missed the part where I never planned on being on this cruise.”
“Intentions don’t mean shit. Actions do. You’re here. What are you going to do about it?” As if it was that simple. Decide and act. Or maybe just skip the deciding part and act.
His words wove a siren song around her and Kendall moved without having any intention of doing it. She grasped his thin T-shirt and went up on her toes. He was still too tall to reach her destination, not without help. She made a frustrated sound.
He caught her around the waist, lifting her to him instead of descending to her. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to wrap her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck. They were so, so close, and she couldn’t think too hard about what they were doing or all the ways she’d kick herself over being so impulsive tomorrow.
Instead, she kissed him.
Alex let her explore his mouth for three whole heartbeats before he took over. He turned and walked them to the wall across from the railing, pressing her there as he shifted their kiss for a better angle. His tongue slid along hers, light and teasing as if he only wanted a taste. As if he didn’t have this overwhelming desperation clawing through his chest, demanding he get closer, closer, oh my god, touch me. The sheer force of need had Kendall breaking the kiss. “I can’t.”
“Okay.” He started to move from the wall, started to let her down.
She tightened her grip on him. “But I really, really want to.”
Alex pulled back enough to see her face. She had no idea what he saw there. His expression lay almost completely in shadow. He finally reclaimed the small space between them, settling between her thighs as if he could hold her like this all night. “You don’t let your hair down much, do you?”
“My hair is down right now.”
He laughed, which only made her so incredibly aware of the fact that he was hard and pressing exactly where she needed him. A little more friction, a little more kissing… God, she could orgasm just like this. Kendall pressed her lips together, not sure whether that was tempting or horrifying. Maybe a little of both.
“I have a question.”
She lifted her head. “Okay.”
“When’s the last time you came with another person?”
It took her desire-saturated mind several long moments to decipher his words. She opened her mouth, closed it, and opened again. The truth and a lie hovered on the tip of her tongue, battling each other for the right to be voiced. Kendall finally licked her lips. “Why?”
“You’re telling me that you can’t do this, but you want to.” His voice had gained a rasping edge, the faintest hint of an accent she was too twisted up to pinpoint. “And you’re rubbing a
gainst me like you’re half a second from orgasming.”
To her horror, she realized he was right. While she’d been battling with herself, her body hadn’t quite got the memo. She forced her hips still, forced herself to stop humping him like some kind of animal. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“You’ve got nothing to apologize for.”
Then why did it feel like she should? She cleared her throat. “I don’t do this.”
“I kind of figured that out all on my own.” He wasn’t quite laughing at her, but amusement colored his words. “Do you want me to let you down, Kendall?”
Yes. No.
For her entire life, her rational brain had ruled with an iron fist. First, because Kendall’s grandmother had enough to deal with trying to wrangle Marley through school without getting arrested or pregnant. Because Kendall didn’t want to disappoint Gretchen with her high standards and easy happiness. Then in college because she was the reliable one, the one who always took care of the people around her. And then… It just became habit.
Kendall didn’t lose herself because she could never escape the little voice in her head saying she had to be the responsible one, the person to hold it all together, because her parents were gone and someone had to fill that void. It didn’t matter that she avoided going home to Ruby Creek since her grandmother’s funeral, since she couldn’t stand the thought of walking those streets that housed so many ghosts, both living and dead.
“Kendall?”
“Don’t stop.” She wasn’t sure where the surge of wildness came from, the sheer desperation to experience something that colored outside her lines. Just with him. Just once. Just right now. She wrapped her legs more firmly around his waist. “Please, Alex. Don’t stop.”
He hesitated for the space of a heartbeat as if he knew she planned to use him to escape something internal. “Fuck,” he breathed.
And then his mouth was on hers again. This time, he didn’t go slow and soft. He kissed her like he wanted to memorize her, like he’d never get another chance. She wasn’t sure he was wrong. This moment was for tonight alone, one of the rare times when her body overrode her mind. In the light of the morning, she would regret this. She didn’t care. Nothing could derail this runaway train. Not tonight. Kendall clutched his shirt, pulling him closer yet. She needed. God, how she needed.
