Second Chance Honeymoon

by Ally Blake

  “I remember,” she growled. “Underling. No sea legs. Some half-assed idea that you might be able to drag me in to pick up the slack.”

  “Precisely.”

  It seemed that golden boy, sports star, beloved fitness director wasn’t above a little blackmail. It said more about her that it only made her like him more.

  “I get a new room only if I help you out?”

  He held out two hands, palms up, mollifying. Conciliatory, my ass.

  But if it meant she’d get a full night’s sleep at some point in the next six nights she’d pretty much do whatever it took. “Fine,” she breathed out.

  “Excellent. Come with me,” he said holding out a hand.

  Remembering the calluses, and the havoc they’d played with her nerves, JJ stared at it a moment, before ducking around it, motioning with her head for him to hurry up.

  Another laugh, another set of skin prickles and tummy tumbles, and JJ followed wondering what kind of deal she’d really just made.

  Chapter 10

  Kane’s office was huge.

  Not just because it was also the home for all the nets, and balls, and pogo sticks and other assorted sporting equipment onboard, there was also a big antique desk, two portholes, a sumptuous sofa, and a coffee machine that had her salivating.

  Kane whipped off his sunglasses, placing them in his upturned cap on his desk. His hair sat stuck in a helmet shape, with little curls all around the bottom, ’til his long fingers ruffled it making sexy tracks through the dark waves.

  Then he sat, mouse shuffling as his cool blue eyes stared intently at the screen.

  He glanced up at JJ who shuffled from one foot to the other in the hall outside. “I can’t concentrate with you hovering out there. You look like you’re about to run for it the second you hear a loud noise. Get in here.”

  Get in she did.

  Scooting around him, ignoring the couch, she found a corner to stand in; not wanting to look—or get—too comfortable. The minute she ever felt like things were going okay was the minute she heard the whistle of a piano about to fall from the sky.

  “Juliana Jones,” he said, typing in her name. “Deck 11. Room 121. Nice.”

  “Any luck?”

  “We’re pretty full. We usually are. This cruise is by far our most popular.”

  “It’s not a one off?”

  “We do it a half dozen times a year. Lots of couples come once or twice a year.”

  Huh. No doubt on their third honeymoons, fourth. She’d not been married long enough to even have a first tropical honeymoon to look back on fondly. A shiver scooted down her spine as a sliver of memory came back to her; a conversation with her ex about the kind of honeymoon they might take when they were able to save enough to do it properly. There’d been mention of palm trees, cocktails, sunshine . . .

  “I just have to get through the red tape linked to any of the rooms under refurbishment to see if any are ready.”

  “Hmm?”

  Kane pointed at the screen, his mouth kicking up at one side. The tumble of warmth in her belly was enough to yank her well and truly back to the present.

  While Kane tapped away, JJ’s eyes danced around the room.

  Like Raul, he had a collection of personal pictures. One of him with a guy who might have been his brother, even though he was much leaner than Kane, the two of them grinning arms around one another. One that looked like it must have been taken mid game, Kane recognizable even thought he was covered in head-to-toe mud, his cool eyes bright, fist pumped in the air, leaping off the ground after what must have been a big win. One of him snowboarding mid-leap, another of him bungee jumping.

  Wild boy, she thought with a skitter of recognition in her belly. Then hurriedly damped down the notion. In her experience, those kinds of thoughts only led to more thoughts, then feelings, then disappointment, heartache. Slippery, she reminded herself. Even the men she’d trusted above all could be so damn slippery.

  Then her eyes alighted on a locked filing cabinet labeled Passenger Manifesto.

  “Kane?”

  “Yep,” he said, swinging around on his chair.

  “Can I see my file?” she asked.

  He glanced at the cabinet, shrugged, produced a key from under the collar of his polo and found her file. He held it out to her before snapping it back. “I’m near-certain this ought to be classed as another favor.”

  “Just give it to me, fitness boy.”

  Mouth kicking up at one corner he did so. Holding on to the file as she pinched it between her fingers, holding her gaze as well. She tugged, he let go, and frustration coiled inside her, low and deep.

  Damping it down, JJ perched on the armrest of the couch, opened the folder, scanned past her name, address, and phone numbers and found . . .

  Dinner—and the plate of mushy steamed vegetables—suddenly made sense. Erica had ticked every dietary issue available; gluten free, nut allergy, vegetarian, lactose intolerance.

  “I’m going to kill her,” she muttered.

  “Do I need to warn security?”

  “My friend, who booked the cruise. She has some huge comeuppance heading her way.”

  The thing about having no family nearby was that you made your own. Erica was her urban family. They’d met when she’d been leaving a flat JJ was moving into and had bonded over their flat-mate’s lack of bathing skills. They’d moved in together instead and had become the closest each had to a sister. Which meant JJ could imagine all kinds of ways to hurt her and still love her to death.

  She held out the folder. “Is this fixable?”

  Kane glanced at the list then at her. “I’m no doctor, but I’m surprised you’re still standing.”

  “It’s not true. None of it. My travel agent . . .” She sighed. “My friend Erica booked the trip for me. At home. Late one night. After way too many consoling Cold Showers—cocktails, not actual cold showers, which looking back would have been way smarter. Can you change this? I can’t survive another night eating nothing but steamed greens.”

  “Why the need for consoling cocktails?”

  Of course that’s the bit he’d pick up on. JJ bit the inside of her lip, mumbling, “It’s not that interesting a story.”

  “Says the woman with every dietary problem known to man. The file says so.”

  “Kane . . .”

  “Are you always this difficult or just for me?”

  “Always,” she admitted, now nibbling at her thumbnail.

  And for some strange reason that earned her a smile. “Tell me and I’ll fix the file.”

  “Are you always this devious or just for me?”

  He sat back in his chair and kicked out a foot, his most disarming smile—slow, easy, and hot, hot, hot—knocking her heart about inside her chest.

  “Gggrrrrr . . .” she growled, shaking her fists at the ceiling. And yet . . . Maybe it was those clear blue eyes, that they seemed so devoid of judgment. Or the fact that she knew that a few days from now she’d never see the guy again. Or that at some point, the night before she’d blurted out the fact that she’d had her nether parts waxed into a pattern. How much more embarrassing could it get?

  She slid off the armrest and into the sofa as she spun her sorry tale about her last boss.

  “So,” she finished. “After I upended the trash bin on his desk and called him a lech in front of the entire staff, I figured that was pretty much my swan song. I came home with two bottles of crème de menthe—one for Erica, one for me—and begged Erica to book me on the next boat out of town. Which she clearly took literally. And here I am, paying for my sins.”

  “Not your sins,” Kane said into the sudden quiet. “His.”

  Nice, and unexpected, as his words were she’d long since figured she either had crappy luck or she’d brought it on herself. Bad things she’d done in her past to nice boys coming back to bite her—or grope her, to be more precise—on the ass.

  JJ tucked a strand of sweat-crisped hair behind her ear.
“You sure you’re the fitness director, not the morale officer?”

  The smile eased wider, the fingers of his right hand tapping against his big bicep. “You try rousing a ship full of sloshed retirees to get moving. One can’t be done without the other.”

  She cocked her head in acknowledgement. And he did the same in return. Stalemate. Or was it that they recognized some thread of something in one another. Something unstable, combustible even, locked down tight.

  “Knock-knock!”

  The spell was broken when a preppy redhead with a shiny ponytail, a purple polo shirt a size too small and really short shorts poked her head into Kane’s office. Her mouth dropping into an obvious O as she spotted JJ looking all too comfortable therein. “Sorry, you’re busy. I’ll come back later.”

  “Now’s fine,” said Kane, his voice flatter than JJ had heard it. Interesting. “What’s up, Jane?”

  “Uhhh. Well.” The poor girls’ cheeks pinkened as she found herself floundering for a reason to have dropped in. “Ah, the guys and I were thinking of adding, uh, hula hoops to the show. Got any?”

  “Sure. How many and when do you need them?”

  “Ummm, six, I guess. Just . . . I’ll pick them up later. Or you can bring them to me anytime! Okay.”

  With that she smiled, curtsied—oh God, the poor kid—glanced at JJ with turmoil in her big glistening eyes, even as she shot JJ a smile. And then left.

  Kane went back to the computer, tapping away like that hadn’t just happened. While JJ felt better than she had all day.

  “She’s a dancer, right?” she asked.

  “Mmm-hmm,” said he, leaning a little towards the computer as if he was working on something of supreme importance.

  “She has a little crush on you.”

  “She’s just young.”

  “Oh, Kane. Kane and Jane! You’d be perfect for one another. She’s cute, and you . . .”

  At that he lost interest in the computer and turned her way. “I . . . what?”

  Are scrumptious, and sexy, and the urge to scrape a fingernail down your rough cheek, or better yet my tongue, is nearly too big to contain.

  “You are the keeper of the hula hoops. See, perfect.” Unfortunately, even she heard the catty edge that had crept into her voice. Dammit. She’d had the upper hand for so short a time! She glanced at her fingernails. “So what is the deal with onboard romances?”

  “It’s a cruise. A second honeymoon cruise, in fact, so I’d say its encouraged.”

  He was really going to make her ask, wasn’t he? “I meant staff. Are the dancers all bed-hopping? The barmaids in battles over the waiters?”

  A deep quiet laugh. Then, “Most of the crew work together on the same ship for months at a time, so what do you think?”

  Not liking the answer one bit, she wished she hadn’t brought it up at all.

  “We’re grown-ups,” Kane added, leaning his elbows onto his knees, his voice dropping. “We’re trusted to act like them. If it was against the rules, I’m not sure they’d be able to staff a ship this size at all.”

  “Okay. I get it.” Enough already. She was starting to feel a mite depressed. Even the staff were having a wild time and even her elderly neighbors were going at it hammer and tongs, while she was stuck, alone.

  “Would it bother you if I took young Jane up on her offer?”

  “What? No!” She sprung from the chair like a Jack-in-the-box. “If you get the urge to schtoop every eighteen-year-old onboard, then that’s entirely up to you.”

  His laughter showed exactly how much he believed that. “Jane’s twenty-three. And yeah, okay, she’s got a crush. One I’ve not encouraged.”

  He shifted forward in the seat, giving her nowhere to pace. The scent of him all warm and so very male curling around her ’til it made her dizzy.

  “Even if I wasn’t for all intents and purposes her boss, she’s not my type. Too nice. Too perky. Not enough . . . bite.”

  Fabulous. She had the hots for a guy who was possibly, probably, if she had any clue about these things, intimating he liked her because she was snappish.

  Feeling closer in age to her fellow guests than the lithe redhead who’d bounced out of the room, JJ rubbed her fingers into her eye sockets and said, “Any rooms? Or am I out of luck?”

  Kane shook his head, and pulled himself to standing, and suddenly the big space felt not quite so big after all. “Not listed, but I’ll ask around. You could sleep in here tonight if it’s really that bad. The couch folds out into a sofa bed.”

  Well, that woke her up. “I’m not sleeping in your office.”

  He looked down at her through those clear blue eyes, so clear they could be mistaken for guileless if she wasn’t fully aware the man was smart, sharp, and okay, so he was attracted to her too. It was palpable in the small space. In the flare of his nostrils, the clenching and unclenching of his fingers. The heat emanating from his very skin.

  “I’m not suggesting we share the sofa bed, Juliana,” he said, even as his voice now bore a husky edge. “I have a palatial one-bedder another level down. It’s cozy. And quiet.” He let that thought settle between them like a fog clouding out every other part of the world but the small space in which they coexisted.

  And her body, damn contrary thing, soaked it up. Her breasts felt heavy and full beneath her tight tank top, her palms and the back of her neck prickled and a bead of fresh sweat trickled down her spine.

  The air around them crackled. The only way she could think to break it would be to lift a hand, press it to his chest, made a fist of the purple cotton and . . .

  The urge to check, once and for all, what the company line was when it came to staff and guests tickled the end of her tongue, but she couldn’t do it. Couldn’t put herself out there like that. Could she? “I’m going to head off,” she said. “If you are able to find me a new room, great, I’d really appreciate it. If not, I’ll live. First apartment after I moved out of home had holes in the walls and rats for roommates. I can survive a few moans and groans.”

  She scooted past him, and now that he was standing, she had to suck in her tummy to get past him without touching. Breathing, on the other hand, the scent of him curling under her tongue, was unavoidable.

  A glance into his eyes, the heat, the intent, the questions gathering like a perfect storm, had her near-skipping from the room like she had fire at her heels.

  She was a few meters down the hall when she heard him call, “So, how long has it been since you got any?”

  She glanced back to find him with his hands pressed together at the top of the doorframe looking like something out of Healthy Man Magazine—muscles in his arms glorious, shirt lifting to reveal a sliver of brown skin of his flat belly.

  She flipped him a hand gesture as she continued to put some distance between them.

  “Is that months? Or years?” he asked.

  Despite herself, her laughter echoed long after she’d turned the corner.

  Chapter 11

  There Kane stayed, leaning in his office doorway long after Juliana had bounded away, her long ponytail swinging, her tight runner’s calves bunching, and her ass . . . In her workout tights it was high, round, just about damn perfect.

  Rubbing his hands together he slid back into his office and landed in his chair. Rocking back and forth, restless, he checked his watch to find he had ten minutes ’til he needed to be on Deck 13 for the Pilates class.

  Yoga he left to other people, too much thinking time for his taste. Pilates, though, had helped his recovery when he’d hurt his leg. Not enough to ever get back to football but enough to get on. Great as they’d been, doing everything they could to help him get back up and walking, his club wouldn’t have taken him back for love nor money. He’d gone so far off the deep end after his brother had died—throwing himself at every death-defying feat he could find—insurance wouldn’t cover him.

  They’d offered him more rehab—whatever kind he’d needed—but what he’d needed was to f
igure it out on his own. Which he’d done badly until a friend had given him the chance on a ship like this one, away from the spotlight of fame and infamy.

  And with three hundred and sixty degrees of open water between him and the real world he’d finally been able to make his peace.

  Not with Aidan’s death. There was nothing on earth that could make him ever think that a fair deal. Not when his own life had been so blessed, his efforts easy, his successes painless, his body so vital.

  But the fact that he’d survived his own best efforts to hurtle that body at any wall that would let him? He’d resolved himself to that. Knowing that when his brother had made him promise to live a life big enough for the both of them, he first had to live.

  And a perfectly fine life it had been since—sun, surf, days kept busy, and nights of dreamless slumber. Until a bundle of nervous energy had stepped in his path, and a new kind of wild began to beat its strident pulse deep down inside.

  He looked down at the file sitting on his desk. The twin of the one open on his computer. Black and white details—many of them wrong apparently—about Juliana Jones. The file didn’t mention her chaotic waves. Her hungry eyes. The vibrations she stirred in the air around her just by existing.

  Or that unlike him, she was unbroken—he rubbed at the knot of damaged skin and muscle until he imagined he could feel the pins beneath the scarred tissue. Unlike him she was searching for whatever might give her peace.

  He could all but hear his brother laugh at the thought that big bad Kane Phillips—the crusher no less—was getting all het up over a woman. A woman he’d barely touched. A woman he’d not even kissed. A woman who looked at him like he was a caged bear but she’d quite happily be keeper of the key.

  Aidan would have loved that about her. Would have liked her flinty brand of fun, period. He could almost see them sitting on a pair of deck chairs, their feet up, knocking back a couple of beers, sharing jibes, laughing ’til their sides hurt.

  But that wasn’t why he found himself drawn to her. Was it?