She pulled him to the corner hidden from the opened glass doors, and sat down on the bright fabric at a black marble cocktail table. Mark sat next to her on the upholstered bench seat that wrapped the seaward side of the room.
He had dropped her hand and sat back with his fingers drumming his thighs. She leaned on the obsidian tabletop, clasping her hands together, bracing herself to speak words she’d never expected she’d need to say. Her body still ached for the touch of the handsome giant next to her. He deserved more. So much more. But he also deserved the truth.
“Mark, I’m engaged.”
She could feel the hitch in his breathing, and then the smoothing-out process he did to keep himself calm. She could sense the vibration inside him. God, she didn’t want to hurt him, but she’d deserve anything that resulted.
“I am traveling on this cruise to Brazil, where I will meet my fiancé, his family, and we will be married. All the plans have been made.”
Mark started to stand, but she stopped him with a hand on his forearm. He did sit back down, but he crossed his massive arms over his chest, leaning back into the couch and looking away from her.
“I know none of this makes sense. Not sure I do, either. I thought that—well I just thought a little night of anonymous sex with no strings would be something—and I admit it was totally selfish,—I thought I could just have…” This was going to be much harder than she’d believed. Everything she wanted to say sounded wrong. “I just wanted one more night being single, being free to choose, being with someone without complications. And I’m sorry. I realize now that that was a huge mistake.”
His passive, hulking frame and dispassionate stare into the distance broke her heart.
“Please Mark, look at me.” He did, but his eyebrows were raised, his eyes clearly saying he thought she was full of crap. She mustered her courage and added, looking into his sky blue eyes, those eyes she’d gotten lost in, eyes she would remember forever, “I am truly sorry. I am not a good person at all. I did this without any regard for your feelings.”
Their eyes did connect, and for a second she could see the hurt there, the little dream in his heart that was dying, too, just as hers was. Instinct told her to reach over and kiss him, hug him, tell him how sorry she was, but she knew that was the wrong way to handle it. As much as she wanted to touch him and let him know how awful she felt, she needed to keep her distance.
Just tell him the truth and get out.
Mark hadn’t dropped his eyes. He was searching for something in her face she hoped didn’t show. He was looking for evidence that she cared for him. Wouldn’t it be wiser to show coldness? Let him fully understand there was no future for them?
But was that the truth? Really the truth? Did all this happen because of her niggling doubts about Matheus and the life she would have with him in Brazil? If she were certain of her decision to marry him, would the night with Mark have happened? She honestly didn’t know the answer.
“It was the most beautiful afternoon I’ve spent in my entire life. I will never forget it. Never, Mark,” she said.
His crooked smile…with a dimple just to the right of his full lips…was sexy as hell, and softened the mask of his face.
“It was a pretty incredible afternoon, but, hey, no worries, Sophia. I’m not looking to get hooked up with anyone. I’m getting ready to deploy. This is just a little R and R before we go. It kind of worked, in a sick sense of the word.” He looked at his palms.
She hadn’t expected that.
“You aren’t angry?”
“For an afternoon of the best sex of my life? Fuck, no.”
It was a nice thing to say, but she felt the blunt force of a verbal slap. “I think it was more than that, is what I’m trying to say,” she said, her voice low and husky.
Mark shot up, shoved his hands into his cargo shorts. “I’m glad. While you’re working your way through the cruise ship males, I’ll be having beers with my buds and probably swearing off Italian girls for a while.” He turned to walk out of the bar.
She had to do something. She ran up and stood in front of him, to stop him.
“Wait a minute. What I meant to say is that it wasn’t just a hookup for me. I mean, it started that way, but it became more, I guess is what I’m saying.”
“Well, that’s fine, honey. And if you get that itch again, I’ll scratch it. No worries. I’m not going to get pissed off and ruin another good time.” His brilliant white teeth and blue eyes melted her bones.
“So it wasn’t—”
“You don’t have the right to that privileged information, honey. You’re engaged to someone else. I don’t gotta tell you anything about me or how I feel about anything, remember? But if you want another anonymous hookup, I’m not going anywhere for the next few weeks. We’ve got, like, twenty days together. We’ve already proven we can let our bodies do the talking, since the words seem to get in the way.”
He left the bar. She felt her heart drop to her ankles.
It wasn’t easy to put it out of her mind, the look on his face as he turned, bowed slightly and walked out of her life. She’d already cried for him once when she walked away from him in the piazza. She’d left a part of her with him that day, and now, today, he took away another piece as he stalked down the marble foyer, pushed the up button and left in the elevator.
For several seconds she just stood in the elevator lobby, completely stunned. Then reality set in. They’d be asking about her up on Deck 12 with the other entertainers. Besides, they weren’t supposed to mingle with the passengers, she reminded herself. Being seen talking to him could cost her the job she’d waited two years to get.
As she took the chrome and glass elevator up to the party deck, she wondered what her mother would have said.
I was young, Sophia. The man I was supposed to marry was from a good family. Our mothers were friends.
Sophia thought it odd this could happen in Italy during the wild 1960’s. Men immigrated out of the country for work, and were especially in short supply. Women and children were left alone, fending how they could, and usually trying to work full time as well as tend the family. Her mother was the youngest of five girls and she watched as every one of them made poor choices from the lack of a good gene pool. But just as in ancient times, her family needed the help and assistance of his wealthy family. He was older, but had lost his wife to cancer and had been crazy about her.
Much like Sophia, her upcoming marriage still worried her.
He walked into the little disco with two of his Air Force buddies from the base nearby. They wore their bomber jackets and their hats back on their heads and they owned the room. Not a single woman in the room could resist them.
When he asked me to dance, I declined, trying not to look at his handsome face. My girlfriend, Paulina, jumped in and he held her in his arms, occasionally looking over at me. Paulina did everything she could to distract him, but he was fixated on me, Sophia.
Somehow he found out where I worked. We tried to speak, but honestly I couldn’t think of Italian, let alone the little English I’d learned in school. He pretended to need flowers for someone every day. Every day he’d bring me a cappuccino and we’d talk while I made the bouquet for him.
He’d watch my hands. When I’d hand him the bouquet, our fingers would touch. He knew about the engagement, too. Sophia, somehow I just knew he would become the love of my life, just in the quiet way he waited for me to smile, waited for me to feel comfortable enough to go on one little walk with him on one rainy afternoon I dared to close the shop early.
Sophia looked over the flabby bodies burning in the warm sun on deck. Her dad might have looked like one of these, she thought, if he had survived the plane accident that took his life when she was just twelve.
She glanced over at the Americans in the corner with their beautiful wives. She quickly searched the group, but did not find Mark among them.
“You okay?” Roberto came over and asked, planting a kiss on both
cheeks. His hand lingered a bit too long and possessively on her bare waist. He was Matheus’s best friend, and would be in the wedding party. But she didn’t particularly trust him. The Brazilians were known for being womanizers, though Matheus had denied those rumors.
“I’m not a child, Roberto. You don’t have to hover.”
“Oh, but I enjoy it so, and I know how anxiously Matheus awaits,” he said as he leaned in too close and planted a kiss on her lips, despite her attempt to divert him. She was tempted to wipe her mouth with the back of her hand, but resisted.
“Go. Flirt with all your lovers,” she said as she pushed him aside.
They completed the dance demonstration, Sophia engaging the sunburned crowd. She danced with men as well as women, even a few children who were hanging out around the shallow pool on deck with their Brazilian and Italian Bahia Club staff who entertained the youngsters.
Her thoughts about the handsome American were distracting…how he had looked that morning in her bed as she poured water down on him, how his muscled arm behind his head and dancing eyes lit up her insides. How he’d wanted to cover her up earlier this afternoon.
She suddenly did feel shy. Naked. Undressed. Admiring eyes were all around her, and she smiled back, even pretending to flirt. But that wasn’t who she was, either.
She wasn’t American, although she had an American passport. Even though she had an Italian-American last name: Negri, the one lasting thing her father had given her besides her life.
She wasn’t Italian, either, even though her mother was, and had grown up near Savona, and had retreated to Italy upon the death of her husband. Sophia had missed her teenage friends in California, but soon became Sophia of Savona and put most of her American upbringing in the past, because it was easier to forget the pain of losing the first man she’d ever loved, her father.
Though she’d tried for years to forget, when her ears picked up an American accent, she felt drawn to it like a moth to the flame. Her attempts to find adventure in the cities and towns of the world by working for the cruise ship lines had nearly worked. She’d said a temporary good-bye to her mother yesterday, although she’d join Sophia in Brazil for the wedding next month.
Had her mother also felt anything like what Sophia impulsively longed to do with this American man?
She should have just pretended it was a mistake, not told Mark about Matheus, kept her distance, because of her job. The rest of the dancers could be sworn to secrecy, but sneaking around didn’t suit her at all.
If you get that itch again, I’ll be around. Not going anywhere for twenty days.
God help her, but it was way more than an itch. It was almost like a blood bond, like in those vampire books she loved to read.
Dinnertime was always crowded with other dancers, entertainment crew and some of the tour staff. She retired to the quarters she shared with Li, the Chinese contortionist.
Lying on the top bunk, Sophia stared at the romance novel cover poster from her favorite author that she’d pasted on the ceiling with special adhesive. It showed the torso of a hunky Navy SEAL, taken as the SEAL emerged, dripping, from the ocean.
She was struck by how similar Mark’s body was to this cover model. Big shoulders, veins cording over his biceps and the muscles of his forearms. Impossibly narrow waist she remembered hugging with her thighs. His massive body pressing into her and igniting everything that could burn.
No, he wouldn’t be easy to forget, but in time she would. Just had to wait out the hours at first, then the days. Eventually the lonely nights in her tiny bed, in the belly of the ship would do their work. Rocked to sleep in a windowless space, as her world got smaller in the darkness, the colorful memory of that sparkling interlude would fade, and she’d forget. Eventually she’d surely forget.
Cruisin’ for a Seal: Chapter Seven
Fredo watched Mia and Jasmine at the slot machines as he, Kyle, and Nick shared a beer in the bar next door. Her graceful arm was mesmerizing. He couldn’t stop watching her, really watching her, since she’d laid that gentle peck on his cheek back in Savona. It had been almost like she gave him permission to engage. And he’d been completely charmed by that little touch of her lips. He’d been carefully washing around that spot on his face for the three days since.
What that little kiss told him was that she did have some kind of feeling for him. Perhaps a sisterly thing, but, heck, it was a far cry from the scorn and acid turndowns he’d gotten constantly in the four years since he’d first met Armando and his family.
He didn’t mind that she was a wild child. He understood that. She was beautiful, and she could get away with things because she was so gorgeous. She made it impossible for men around her to even think, let alone speak. At least that’s the effect she had on him.
What he did mind was that she had made terrible choices in men. She chose men who could not protect her. Who would not love her? She picked them almost at random.
He was fascinated how her shapely legs crossed, how her third toe with the ruby toe ring glinted under the twinkle lights of the casino. The red flip-flops casually dangled, tempting her sparkling toenails. No, being wild was not a problem for him at all. Not one little bit.
If she’d just give him a chance to show her how he could make her feel, he knew he could make her happy. If she’d just give him a chance. If it didn’t work, no problem. But the fact that she wouldn’t give him an opportunity to demonstrate his devotion was killing him. It had been bugging him for years.
Now, with that little kiss, she’d opened the door a crack. He was going to take the chance. If she still turned him down, he’d stop trying. He needed to move on with his life. He couldn’t wait any longer, even for the most perfect woman he’d ever met.
Just at that moment she caught him looking her way. Her heavily darkened eyes smoldered in his direction, like there was a yellow flame dancing behind her deep brown eyes. She gave a sly half smile and turned her eyes back to the slot machine, pulling the lever. Then she glanced at him again. He kept his eyes fixed on her lovely face, her heart-shaped red lips, and didn’t move a muscle. He let her see the longing on his face, see how he’d felt about her ever since they’d been introduced. Probably wasn’t an occasion she even remembered, but Fredo played it in his mind every night before he went to sleep.
A Brazilian dance instructor came over and said something to Jasmine. The two of them walked off together, leaving Mia alone at the machine. Fredo took this to mean a fortuitous sign she needed protection.
“Okay, guys. I’m gonna go change my life.”
Kyle and Nick instantly stopped talking, and Kyle followed Fredo’s homing look and nodded. “Got your back if you need it, Frodo.”
Nick added, “Go be the man. Every woman needs a good man in her life.”
Armed with courage he strangely felt for the first time in years, Fredo stood, took one final sip to finish his beer, and adjusted his shirt, standing up straight and as tall as he could.
The room’s lights and background slot machine noise faded. All he heard was the sound of Mia’s machine, the little bracelet of Murano glass crystals on her delicate wrist tinkling like broken glass. He knew she could see him approach from the corner of her eye, and…was he wrong, or did her breath catch a bit? Just a little. God, he hoped so.
“I don’t like to see you left alone,” he said as casually as he could, but it somehow didn’t come out that way.
“I’m not alone. I saw you watching over me,” she said without looking at him, but smiling to the machine. “You always watch over me.”
He had been prepared for the usual sharp comment about him being the lapdog he certainly was, which would launch him into the place where he’d be cursing himself for wanting someone who hated him so much.
But this time it was different. She said something else, and the Heavens opened up for him.
“I’m getting to kind of like it, Fredo.” At first she didn’t look at him, but then, after she respectfully gave h
im enough time to adjust to her wonderful comment, she swiveled on the red leather stool and faced him. Turned to him full-on, with her dark hair a tangle all over her shoulders, framing the flawless skin of her face, the dark eyes looking warm and inviting, not biting and huffy.
She licked her lips and scanned what he knew were his train wreck of eyebrows, oversized nose and lips twice the size of hers. But this was all he had, and though he felt naked in front of this incredible goddess, he was going to stand his ground and be the man he was, and not someone else. This was what he’d told himself time and time again. Not to get lost in her, but instead be the person he was and let her come to him.
In slow motion, her hand drifted from the black ball of the slot machine lever to his cheek. She didn’t pull at his head and he didn’t move toward her. She brushed her fingers over his pockmarked face, as if to heal it. Her eyes scanned what must have been a silly expression on his face. God, this had never happened before and he hoped he didn’t look like a goofy schoolboy.
He worked to respond to her admiring exploration from the place of the man he was inside. There could be no hiding the need he had for her on more than one level.
“You have always been there for me, Fredo.”
“Always,” he answered. It was the truth.
“I have been awful to you, and still you have always been there.”
He wanted to say something like, It’s where I want to be, or I was hoping someday you’d see me for who I really am, or something corny like that. But he settled for, “Yes, Mia. I am here for you.”
Her other hand joined her right hand on his face, cupping his chin as she rubbed one thumb over his sensitive lips. He was used to giving with these lips, not receiving. The sensation she chose to give him, this tiny pleasure, set fire to his belly. He had to focus hard to keep from allowing his gratitude make him break into tears, but that’s the way he felt.
“Sweet Fredo,” she whispered.
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