by J. A. Coffey
"We're practically twins."
She rolled her eyes and took a step backward. "Puh-leeze." There were too many differences to count. Number one on the list being her attraction to Mason and non-attraction to Tyler. If non-attraction was even a word.
Mason pointed at his head. "Brown hair, green eyes. Same height, same basic build."
Half the men in the world had his build. Didn't mean a thing. She took another step back. How many rooms was she away from her own? "He's pasty. You're tanned."
"So put him out on deck or stick him in one of the tanning beds in the workout room." Mason took a step forward.
"You have a great five o'clock shadow." She took another step back and saw her room number on the door. Thank God.
"Tell him not to shave."
"He has nosebleeds." Casey dug in her pocket for the room key. Her fingers caught her brush, the bra from last night, and a few tissues. Where was the damn key?
Mason advanced again. "Get him a tissue, and get yourself a better explanation. You don't want a love 'em and leave 'em guy. That's why you're running so hard from Tyler toward me." Ah-ha! There it was. Casey didn't answer. Instead, she stuck the card in her door lock and fled inside.
*****
Mason caught his foot between the door and the wall just before it slammed shut. He wasn't going down like this, and he wasn't going to let Casey get away with it either. She must feel something for him. Otherwise, she wouldn't be running so hard.
Did he feel anything for her? Impatiently, he pushed the question aside. This was about Casey's feelings, not his. Stepping inside the room, Mason cleared his throat. "You haven't answered my question yet."
Casey whirled, anger, surprise and wanting warring together on her face. The combination was enchanting. "I didn't realize there was a question hidden in your assumption that I was using you as a surrogate for Tyler." Was that what he had been doing? He didn't think so. He was only trying to point out that the similarities between them could almost make them interchangeable. The argument didn't seem so important all of a sudden. There was a wide bed not ten feet away.
Mason wanted to know if Casey was as irresistible in a bed as she was the more unusual places.
He reached behind him to lock the door and fasten the security chain. No interruptions. No more quickies. He was going to savor every single second until he made her scream.
"I don't really care about your answer right now," he said, advancing toward her with purpose in every stride. "We'll get to that later. Right now I have another question."
For a split second, fear shone in her eyes. As quickly as it came, it was gone. Replaced by an emotion he couldn't decipher. Instead of retreating from him, she stepped forward.
"What's that?" He traced a line down the side of her t-shirt, watched her nipples peak as his finger glided past her breast, and her stomach muscles clench when both hands came to rest at her waist. He kept his thumbs moving in a circular pattern on the soft skin on either side of her belly button.
Her eyes closed briefly and she drew a harsh breath through her nose, exhaling out her mouth. "You said...you had...a question." The words were shaky, her voice husky.
Question. What question? "How slow do you want me to go?"
No answer, only the slow nodding of her head. Mason smiled. Just the way he liked it. For the first time, he was going to enjoy Casey Cash from the tip of her toes to the crown of her head. "Then we'll take things slow this time."
Without asking, he lifted her in his arms and laid her down gently on the bed. Slowly, he unfastened one sandal and then the next, freeing her pretty pink toenails. He dropped the shoes and headed farther north.
Her hands found his shoulders, urging him up. He resisted.
He flicked open the clasp of her skirt, pulling it down over her hips and depositing it with her shoes on the floor. A purple silk thong was the only thing between his mouth and her soft mound. He breathed lightly and watched the purple darken with moisture.
She moaned.
His hands found the bottom of her shirt and pushed it up over her breasts. A matching lace and silk bra hid her breasts from him. He smiled. It would be gone soon enough. Rising from the bed, she pulled the shirt over her head and tossed it to one side. "When you said 'slow,' I didn't think you meant remedial," she said and reached for his shirt.
She wanted to speed things up, but he didn't want another fast and furious mating with her. He let her strip him of his shirt and jeans, but stopped her before she could reach inside his boxers. A few touches of her hand and all his willpower would go out the window.
"Not so fast. We're going slow, remember?"
She leaned back against the pillows, smiled and said, "What if I don't like it slow?"
Moving quickly, he entered the bathroom, grabbed the belt off her satin robe and returned to the room. He held it like a lasso. "I don't think you have much choice."
"You think I'm scared of a flimsy piece of material?" she asked, excitement lighting her eyes. "You don't scare me, Mason."
He chuckled, grabbed both her wrists and tied them to the headboard. "Maybe I should." He traced two fingers down her ribcage, watching her skin quiver beneath his touch. "Now, where were we?"
Her hips bucked slightly. So that was what she wanted. Not quite yet. With a flick of his thumb, he opened her bra and drew the lace edges across her sensitive nipples. She gasped with pleasure, her head rocking back against the pillows. For several moments, he allowed only the lace to touch her heated skin. When she was writhing uncontrollably beneath his hands, Mason replaced his hands with the bra, rolling her nipples between his thumb and forefinger.
"Oh, God." The words were barely a whisper from her throat. "Mason," she sighed. She strained against the belt, but he didn't release her.
He trailed kisses down her chest and over her stomach, his hands never leaving her breasts. When he reached the thin purple silk covering her, he bit at the covering. His tongue teased her wet lips with the fabric. She moved her hips, wanting a more thorough touch and not able to get it with her panties still in place.
He looked up, met her eyes and smiled.
"Please?" The words were a question as much as a plea, and he was happy to oblige.
Quickly, he pulled the panties from her and began again his trail of torture down her chest and stomach until his lips reached her.
Damn. She was so hot and wet, he thought he would die. Pulling her folds gently apart, He found her clitoris with his tongue and began to slowly pulse against it. She moaned deep in her throat, her hips moving of their own volition now.
She was close. So damn close. Mason wanted to feel her come around him, and he made his move. Aligning their bodies, he thrust deep inside her. Her eyes widened, pupils dilated. She pulled against her bindings again, but he only smiled. "Just feel it," he instructed. "Let everything else fade to black."
When she sank back into the pillows again, he began to move inside her. In. Out. Going deeper with every stroke. She whimpered when he placed his lips on hers, matching the stroke with his tongue in her mouth.
Her body tightened around him, the muscles in her torso freezing for a few seconds as her inner muscles began pulsating around him, and he drew his head back to watch her climax.
Eyes closed, the only sign of her orgasm was the relaxed muscles of her face. "Ahhhh," was the only sound that escaped her mouth. Her climax reached, Mason galloped ahead to his own.
Chapter Eleven
"I am begging you, January. Please let Tyler move in to one of the crew cabins. He's okay with it. Aren't you?" Casey hardened her voice on the last sentence. If he disagreed with her now, she would stuff him through the porthole and worry about the consequences later.
Tyler scrunched into the couch and crossed his legs at the ankle. He thumb-typed into his PDA as if it was the most important thing in his world. "Anything's better than rooming with you."
January looked from Casey to Tyler. "I suppose we can arrange a transfer.
I would like him to at least see the crew cabins first. That way if it doesn't meet his standards, we can come up with another option."
The only other option Casey saw was Tyler sleeping on the deck. She'd hold that card and play it later. The door closed behind them, and she flung herself onto the bed, covering her head with a pillow. What was she doing? Yelling at her supposed fiancé in the middle of the dining hall, having a fight with Mason in the passageway, sleeping with him again. And now begging January to move Tyler. None of it made sense. Well, except for moving Tyler. Where had her well-ordered, if boring, life gone?
Knock, knock.
The sound was easily heard through the pillow layer. Someone wasn't being quiet about wanting in. Probably Tyler. She should do the equivalent of throwing his clothes out on the lawn and toss his suitcase into the hall.
"Go away."
"Come on, Casey. If you want to throw your boy-toy out, at least give me my stuff first," Tyler said through the door. "If I'm going to be sleeping on deck the rest of the cruise, I'd like the best space available."
She rolled her eyes. Right. The best space available. Why couldn't he just go with the crew quarters idea? He'd meet some woman in a heartbeat and be sharing her room before the afternoon was over. "Come back later or I'll throw your things out the porthole." Assuming the porthole worked and she could open it. Casey wasn't in need of sea air and rain this morning.
"You don't want me to continue this conversation through a door." Tyler knocked on the door again. "We're attracting a crowd," he said, anger evident in his voice even through a closed door.
Her shoulder muscles tightened.
A crowd. Great. She was doing a great job of keeping a low profile on the ship. By now the reporter probably knew all her secrets and would be getting ready to text his story to the mainland. Her life would be tabloid fodder for days. Much longer than if she had just stayed holed up in her apartment.
Damn Jane's idea anyway.
She rose from the bed as another knock sounded.
"Come on, Casey. At least give me some tissue."
She rolled her eyes heavenward. Great, she was giving the man another nosebleed. Picking up his bag and a box of tissue, she opened the door. "I thought you were going to see the ship doctor this morning?"
Tyler grabbed a tissue and threw his head back, staring at the ceiling. "He's swabbed. Cad see be 'til this abternood."
She thought she saw a thin trickle of red at the base of his nose, but couldn't tell for sure.
"Here's your bag," she said, placing the handles in his left hand.
"And here's the box of tissue."
He blotted twice and then looked at the small red dots on the paper. Casey crossed her arms over her chest. No sympathy. Not this time. She was starting to think he knew how to start and stop the blood flow in his nose.
"You're supposed to put your head down, remember? The doc told us that much last night."
He shrugged. "Can't very well put my head between my knees when I don't have a chair." Grabbing another tissue, he stuck it to his nose.
Sighing, she gestured inside. "Fine. Come in. But only until the nosebleed stops. You are not staying here the rest of the cruise."
He sat on the sofa, bent over and put his head between his knees. She dampened a towel with cool water, folded it and placed it on the back of his neck.
"Thanks."
"You're welcome. I thought these were getting better. You lasted almost twelve hours this time."
"Yeah, well everything was fine until you dropped the bomb up in the dining hall. Having nowhere to sleep for the next six nights is a little disturbing." Had it really only been a day since she boarded the ship? Met Mason. Tyler. God, what a mess she had made in twenty-four hours. A pang of regret hit her. She was blaming Tyler for all of this when it wasn't his fault. She sagged against the sofa.
"I guess, maybe we could--"
"But then January took me to the crew quarters. They're not so bad. Not exactly the first-class accommodations I was promised, but then how much time do you spend in your room on a cruise, right?"
"Right." Thank God January overturned the no-moving-rooms rule. Casey wasn't sure she could keep to the hard line of not allowing Tyler to sleep in the room when he was bleeding all over himself. Why couldn't she have overturned the rule yesterday? Then the situation wouldn't be a situation at all. You brought this on yourself.
Tyler kept talking, the words muffled by his knees. "What I really came down here for was to get my stuff, not beg to be let back in to the room. You said earlier this whole thing was a misunderstanding, but when I saw you with that other guy, I got a little jealous."
"Why?" She didn't want to know why he was jealous and was surprised when the question popped out of her mouth.
Tyler shrugged and sat up straight. "Because I have a reputation to uphold. I'm very good at my job, and with you I couldn't get past first base." He pulled the tissue away. It was clean. "I take these things very seriously." Confused, she said, "You take sex with strange women 'very seriously'?"
"No. I take my job seriously. It's not easy going out with different women every night. You have to learn how to read people. It's like a science. It'll provide great information for my thesis."
"Thesis?" Casey said the word with dread. A scientific escort? Whoa, wait a minute. Just what was he talking about?
"Yeah. Human behavior. I'm working on my PhD."
Jane was dead meat. "You're getting a PhD?" Casey felt like an idiot, parroting Tyler's words, but the conversation seemed to be taking place around her instead of with her.
Tyler settled back against the sofa, either enjoying her discomfort or warming to his PhD work, Casey couldn't tell which.
"Sure, this is just a job and my experience will make it easier to open my own practice, publish books instead of articles."
"Practice? Publish?"
"Mmm. Most sex therapists are sole proprietors. I'm going to change that, and maybe open my practice for clinical study of sexual problems. I plan to have at least two partners to start with, and we'll each have different specialties. Couples therapy, one-on-one consultations, classes, group meetings." Clenching her fists into the sofa arm, Casey shut her eyes and took two deep breaths. In with the good air. Out with the bad. She repeated the mantra during her breathing exercise.
"But you sleep with women for money. You can't ethically use their lives as part of your dissertation. It just isn't right."
"I use situations, not real people. And I don't sleep with women for money."
"You are an escort. You sleep with women and you get paid. It's black and white."
Tyler rolled his eyes. "Semantics. Prostitutes are paid for sex. I'm paid for companionship. I only sleep with about ten percent of my clients, and then only if they are fully in control of their emotional needs. Some women don't want the hassle of a relationship. If they do and we are both into one another, there may be sex. Otherwise, I'm simply a companion."
"The box you put it in doesn't matter. If you're paid for sex, it's prostitution."
"Now that's the pot calling the kettle black."
"What are you talking about?"
"If I'm a prostitute. You're my current john."
"I am not! I didn't--"
"Whether the money came from your pocket or not, I'm being paid to be with you. I'm your boy-toy." Tyler clasped his hands behind his head and sat back against the cushions.
"Nothing happened. Besides, I kicked you out." Casey stood, walked to the bathroom and began filling the empty trash bin with Tyler's personal products. "And then you let me right back in."
Casey took a deep breath. "Because you had a nosebleed. I couldn't leave you in the hall, bleeding all over the place. But you're fine now, so get out." Finished packing the rest of his things, she shoved the bin under his nose.
Tyler took it, picked up his bag and slung it over his shoulder. "If that's what you want, fine. But before I go, why did you need me along on this tr
ip if you had Mason? Are you two trying to keep things quiet because of your jobs?"
"We're not having a relationship, but even if we were, what would Mason's job have to do with it?" Casey walked with Tyler to the door, opened it and motioned him through. He didn't move.
"You know, keeping the personal away from the professional. I know a lot about keeping things on a professional basis when they get personal. I could help you out."
What the hell was Tyler talking about?
"I don't know what you're talking about and I really don't care. January said she found you a room with some of the stewards, so go find it. We're done here."
"You should at least set some ground rules up before he has your cruise plastered all over the Sunday papers." Tyler turned to go and Casey grabbed his arm to keep him in place.
Doubt sent Casey's stomach into somersault mode. Papers? How would a plumber make it into the Sunday papers? Tyler didn't slow down at all.
"Yeah, you know, journalism is a pretty cutthroat business, but I guess it's no surprise he wound up here. After that disaster with the story on the mayor's office, he was bound to be brought down a peg or two. Still, entertainment writing would pay his bills nicely until he rebuilds his rep."
"He's a plumber."
"Nope, he's a reporter," Tyler said, shaking his head. "Took me a minute to place him, because his picture isn't beside the byline."
"How do you know this is the same Mason?"
"I thought we established this. Just because I currently work as an escort, that doesn't mean I don't read. I do. A lot. His picture hit most of the morning shows and every daily except the one he works for when the story broke. Something about misquoting a source and falsifying the story. Anyway, he's a real killer in print. That's why I figured you two had some ground rules about personal and professional stuff." Casey sagged against the door.
"No. We don't. Didn't."
Tyler smiled down at her, triumph in his eyes. "Well, I guess it's just as well there isn't anything to tell about us, huh?" He turned and walked down the passageway.
