by Rye Hart
As I lay there and took stock of myself, I realized that my body hurt in ways I didn't know were possible. My muscles were as sore as if I'd just spent eight hours working out. I felt raw and stretched—all of it a reminder of what had happened the night before.
I was no longer a virgin. I'd gotten laid and it had been amazing. Sex with Gavin had been better than I thought it would be, especially for my first time. I had to admit, letting him take control, forcing me to be the submissive was sexy as hell. So was the dirty talk and everything else that went along with it.
It was so outside my comfort zone, yet, mind-blowingly incredible. I knew we'd only scratched the surface and that we hadn't really gotten into the whole BDSM aspect of things—that still worried me a little bit. But, I was perfectly fine with giving over control of my body to him. He did such amazing and delicious things with it.
I looked at him again, feeling the fire still burning between my thighs. I wanted more, but I knew my body needed to rest. I was tender and sore and should probably let myself heal up first. And besides, I didn't want to make things awkward. This was just about sex, nothing more. I gently slipped out of Gavin's embrace and placed my feet on the floor. I looked back again, to see that he was still fast asleep.
Locating my dress and the rest of my clothes, I got dressed as quietly as I could, not wanting to disturb him. With my dress back on, I carried my shoes and walked toward the elevator. I hoped it would be easy to get back down to where I belonged, that it didn't require a code or something to make it work. I breathed a small sigh of relief when I found that it was just a normal elevator. At least from this side of things. He'd punched in a code to get us to his suite, but thankfully, I didn't need one to get back to my own level.
I pressed the down button, and was surprised that the elevator didn't make a peep. It opened up, silently, allowing me to step inside. Before the doors closed, though, I glanced back and caught a glimpse of Gavin sitting up in bed, he was stretching and rubbing eyes that were filled with sleep. He looked around, then saw me in the elevator just as the doors slid closed, obscuring my view of him.
Before the doors closed, I saw that he’d started to say something, but I missed it. The elevator took me back down to the nightclub floor. When it opened up into the familiar scene, I found the place mostly abandoned. There were some staff members cleaning the place up, but otherwise, no one was around. A man looked up at me as I exited the elevator and gave me a knowing glance. The way he looked at me suddenly made me feel dirty and ashamed—something I hadn’t felt with Gavin the night before.
I hurried out of the club, hoping that Gavin wouldn’t follow me. I couldn’t let him find me. Last night, I hadn’t been myself. I’d let Lila push me into doing something well outside my comfort zone and something totally out of the ordinary. It had been fun—it had been a lot of fun—but I knew that was all just fantasy. And it was time for me to get back to reality.
In just a few short hours, we’d be back in San Diego and I’d have to get back to my regular life; back to school and to my mom. And to everything that went with each of those things. Gavin would get back to whatever life he led and would forget all about me.
Given that he worked on board the ship, it was possible that he wasn’t even local. San Diego may have just been a port of call for him. One stop on a longer journey back home. I knew that it we very likely weren’t ever going to see each other again, and I thought that maybe, that was for the best.
I hurried out of the club and rushed through the corridors of the ship until I got to my room. Opening the door, I stepped inside and shrieked in shock and horror.
“Oh my God!”
I turned around as quickly as I could, but it was too late. The image was already burned into my retinas forever. Lila was bent over the arm of the sofa and he stood behind her, taking her from behind. He had a firm grip on her hair, yanking it hard, and Lila’s ass was bright red with handprints, and he was pounding his way deep inside her. I knew I’d never be able to un-hear the sound of their flesh slapping together as he fucked her.
“Jesus, Josie,” Lila cried out. “I’m so sorry. I thought you’d be gone a bit longer.”
I heard them shuffling around, grabbing their clothes, but I remained standing with my back to them, continuing to stare at the door.
“Couldn’t you have done that in your room?” I muttered.
“Like I said, I thought—”
The guy interjected, “She could join us—”
“No!” Lila and I shouted in unison, “Just, fuck no.”
At least we agreed on that. We were close friends, but we weren’t that close. Sharing clothes and shoes was one thing. Sharing a man was a whole separate level of depravity I wasn’t even going to indulge in.
After a few minutes, Lila muttered, “We’re decent. You can turn around now.”
I was almost afraid to look. Part of me didn’t want to see the guy who had just been nailing my best friend on the couch, but I reluctantly turned around. The guy, unsurprisingly, wasn’t bad looking. He was attractive and fit, a stereotypical blond surfer type, which was exactly what Lila liked. He was good looking, but he was no Gavin.
“Thanks, Jason,” Lila said, standing on her tip-toes and kissing him. “It’s been fun.”
“Maybe we can get together after—”
Lila cringed. “No, I don’t think so,” she said and laughed. “But like I said, it’s been fun. Have a good day now, stud.”
She patted him on the ass as she nudged him toward the door. Once he was gone, I turned to my friend and shook my head, unable to suppress the horrified giggles that escaped my throat.
“You had to bring him back here?” I asked. “And screw him in here, of all places?”
“Well you were gone, and I figured I had the place to myself, so, you know, I thought I’d take advantage of it.”
“Clearly,” I said and rolled my eyes.
A mischievous grin spread across her face and her eyes started to twinkle.
“So, speaking of taking advantage of things, how was last night?” she asked. “Since you stayed the night with him, I’m assuming you’re no longer a virgin.”
“Lila!” I shouted, feeling my face flare with heat.
I was mortified, but I was also giggling from both embarrassment and excitement. I covered my face with my hands, completely embarrassed, and that was all the answer Lila needed.
“You did it! You finally did it! Halle-goddamn-lujah,” she screamed and started dancing around the room, taking my hands in hers, and forcing me to dance with her. “And you’re going to tell me all about it, right?”
“Maybe,” I said, smiling so much it hurt. “But right now, I’d really just like to get something to eat. I’m famished.”
“Of course you are,” Lila winked. “All that amazing sex works up quite the appetite.”
“You would know, wouldn’t you?” I teased.
“Hell yeah, I would,” she winked. “Let’s pack first, though, then we can grab some breakfast before we dock.”
Chapter Eight
Gavin
I got dressed and wandered downstairs to the club, hoping maybe I could catch her before she left. But, when I got to the club floor and the elevator doors opened, all I found was the staff cleaning the place up from the mess the guests had left the night before.
“Did you see the redhead just come out of the elevator?” I asked the bartender, Stan.
“Hot little thing in a black dress? Yeah,” Stan said, scratching at the stubble on his face. “She ran out of here like a bat out of hell. Guess your touch with the ladies is slipping, huh?”
I rolled my eyes at him. “You didn't see where she went, did you?”
He shrugged. “Sorry, boss,” Stan said. “I didn't know she was with you.”
I nodded. “Not your fault. Thanks.”
Normally, when a girl snuck out like that, I'd just let her go. If she didn't want to spend time with me, fuck it. No skin off my
nose. Josie was different, though. For so long, I'd been looking for the right sub. For someone who took my commands and enjoyed giving up control—every ounce of it. And Josie proved to be the kind of girl who enjoyed doing just that.
Last night was tame compared to what else I had in mind for the innocent little girl-next-door. I wanted to really let her experience my world and my fantasies, help her create her own. But she was gone. And I had no idea how to find her.
I left the empty nightclub and headed back upstairs to my suite. There was more to the suite than what Josie had seen the night before. The elevator that led to the bedroom went down to the nightclub, sure, but there was a main entrance as well. This was, after all, my home at sea. It had everything I needed, right there. Including an office where I did most of my work for my business.
I had an office on land as well as a condo in San Diego, my main port of call. But, I seldom used the condo. I think I must have been a pirate in a past life because I much preferred life at sea. Sitting down at the desk in my office, I pulled my laptop to me and opened it. After getting it to boot up, I accessed the passenger manifests. While I didn't know any last names, I checked for anybody named Josie and was disappointed that there were no tickets booked by anybody going by that name. Not a single one. I sat back in my seat, wracking my brain as I ran a hand through my hair.
Her friend. What was her friend's name? If I ran a search for her friend's name, I could very well narrow down my search. But, what was her name? I let out a long, frustrated breath. I'd been so caught up in Josie, that I hadn't really been paying attention to her friend.
And then, as my frustration grew hotter, it came to me. Lila. Her friend's name was Lila. I punched in a few commands and scrolled through the names that popped up. A slow grin spread across my face when I found what I was looking for.
“There you are, my pet,” I mumbled, pulling up their suite information. “Lila Ann Peters and Josephine Lynn Pierce. Josephine, huh? Even more girl-next-door than I thought.”
I jotted down their room number, but I also took note—the billing address was for Lila. There was no information for Josie on file. I had to take what I could get, though, and work with it. I wrote down Lila's address and other details, just in case I wasn't able to track her down before we docked and all the passengers disembarked from the ship.
I had to have her again.
I would make her mine.
The very thought of that blew my mind. It was so far outside the norm for me that I wasn't quite sure what to make of it. It went against everything I stood for. But, I shut down my computer and headed out the front doors of my suite and into the sunshine of the morning. The doors led me to a private, closed off deck with a pool and jacuzzi. All things I would have loved to have experienced with Josie. If only we'd had more time together.
Imagining all the ways I could dominate her made my cock stiffen up again. My balls ached, and I felt my cock throbbing, begging to be deep in that tight little pussy again. I was going to find her and when I did, I couldn't wait to turn my sweet little angel into a naughty little girl. Or rather, I would help her unleash the dirty little girl that was already inside her. I'd caught a glimpse of her last night and knew that we'd only just scratched the surface.
I wanted to dig down deeper. I was going to dig down deeper. It was a question of when, not if, in my mind.
I left my private deck and walked out to the main deck, which was down a flight of stairs that were closed off, and toward the girl's suite. I kept a close eye on the clothing-optional pool, hoping I might catch them sunbathing again. Just like I had that first day. Not that I had a lot of hope of that, given how close we were to port.
I wasn't surprised when I didn't see them, so, I walked inside and toward their suite.
Standing before their suite door, I knocked loudly and waited. I strained my ears to listen, hoping to catch some sound, but I heard not a peep came from inside. I knocked again, louder this time. I waited a few moments and still, there was nothing. With only about an hour until we hit San Diego, I knew I was running out of time to find her. I bent down and slipped an envelope underneath the door. It was a note with my business card inside.
I let out a frustrated breath, knowing they could be anywhere on this massive ship. And I knew that with each passing minute, my chances of finding her grew slimmer and slimmer.
“Dammit,” I muttered to myself. “Goddammit.”
Chapter Nine
Josie
Two months later
“Lila, we need to talk,” I said into my phone as I exited the hospital and climbed into my car. “I'm coming over right now, so you better be there.”
My heart raced as I disconnected the call. My mom's chemo treatments were done, and the cancer was in remission—for now, anyway. The chances of it coming back, though, were fairly high. We were looking at another surgery in the next coming months, which meant she'd need someone to stay home with her during the day.
That led me to make the decision to drop out of school for the time being to be her full-time caregiver. Not that I really had a lot of choice in the matter. Finding an outside one was too expensive, making it non-starter. And there was nobody but me who could do it.
That, however, was the least of my worries. As I drove over to Lila's house, I prayed that I was just under a lot of stress, given everything going on. Stress could most definitely help explain the lack of my period since the cruise. I was a month late—a whole freaking month!
A few days was one thing, but four weeks was just way too much, and I'd just been too busy to take care of it. Now, though, I had no choice. I had a couple pregnancy tests in a bag on the passenger's seat of my car as I raced over to her house. I was scared to death and I needed my best friend's support to sit with me as I took them.
My phone rang just as I was pulling up outside her house.
“What's wrong, Josie?” Lila asked, her tone genuinely concerned.
“I can't talk about it over the phone,” I said, my voice shaking. “Please, I just need you.”
“Come on over, sweetie,” she said.
I heard her talking to someone in the background as she muffled the phone.
“I'm, uh—I'm already outside your place,” I said.
“Wow. That was fast,” she said. “Alright, come on in.”
I felt tears well up in my eyes and my heart racing. Adrenaline flowed through my body and I was trembling. This couldn't be happening. Not to me. It just couldn't. I'd always been so good, never sleeping around. Hell, I'd had sex once. Once! Sure, it was unprotected, but what were the odds that the one time I have sex, I get knocked up?
Call me naive, but I assumed I'd be safe. I'd looked at ovulation cycles afterward and things looked fine. I wasn't worried about it. Not at first. But, as the days went by and I still hadn't gotten my period, I grew more and more concerned. I knew I should have gone in for the morning after pill once we got back from the cruise, just to be 100 percent sure, but life got in the way as it always seemed to do. And now, because of life getting in the way, I had to deal with—this.
I climbed out of the car and walked up to her front door just as Lila’s boyfriend walked out. I waved, he waved back, but I still couldn’t look him in the eye after seeing his bare ass on the cruise. I’d thought it was a one-time performance and that Lila wasn’t going to see him again. Obviously, I’d been wrong. I’d apparently been wrong about a lot of things regarding that damn cruise.
“Hey, Josie,” he said.
“Hey, Jason,” I muttered back.
We passed each other by, and Lila greeted me at the door, her face a mask of worry.
“Come in,” she said.
Her hair was ruffled, and her clothes were ragged, which meant that she and Jason were probably in the middle of having sex. And I’d interrupted. Again. Go figure. Back on the ship, she’d sworn the two of them wouldn’t see each other again, but apparently, he’d found her on Facebook and the rest was, as they say, hi
story.
Me, I hadn’t heard a peep from Gavin. Not that I had ever really expected to. He didn’t seem like the type who’d search me out on Facebook. I reminded myself for the millionth time that it had just been a fling. A one-night thing. A one time, never to be repeated performance. I went into it knowing that. I couldn’t blame him for it, because he’d never pretended to be anything but a one-nighter for me.
I tried to move on. Tried to date other guys without the whole virgin stigma hanging over me anymore. But I inevitably wound up disappointed. None of the guys I went out with got me the way Gavin had. And none of them turned me on like he had. I still kept running away every time things got intimate and wound up pleasuring myself to memories of that one, hot night on the cruise ship.
And like the men I dated, I wound up disappointed every time I had to get myself off. Yeah, I orgasmed, but it was nowhere near as good or intense as it had been with Gavin. I felt like I was trying to grab puffs of smoke, chasing something I'd never catch.
But that was neither here nor there at the moment. There were a hell of a lot bigger things on my plate to worry about in that moment than my return to having absolutely no sex life. Lila and I sat down on her sofa, and instantly, the tears started to fall.
“Still haven't got your period, huh?” she asked.
I shook my head. “I just knew it would come once the surgery was over and thing calmed down with my mom,” I said, sniffing loudly. “I honestly figured it was just stress, but—”
“You have tests,” she asked, motioning toward my Rite-Aid bag. “It very well could be the stress, hon.”
I nodded and held up the bag. “In here.” I say.
“Good,” she sighed. “Let's get you some answers. No use freaking out if you're not actually pregnant.”
“What else could it be?” I asked. “I'm a month late, Lila.”
