Blissful Summer: Make You Mine AgainUnraveled

by Cheris Hodges

  On the third line, a charming feminine voice brought harmony, and Ona opened her eyes to see Jane singing from the shallow end of the pool. On the chorus Regan and a few other women from their class joined, and they sang goodbye.

  Nicholas offered his hand to Ona, and taking it she let him help her into the citrus-scented pool.

  Riker Ewan was right about grief. It didn’t always show up to the party dressed as tears. Sometimes it came in the form of a song.

  Chapter 4

  Riker left a two-word message on Ona’s voice mail that night: I’m sorry. He regretted that he’d angered her, not that he’d challenged her, but he kept it brief and blunt and hoped he hadn’t just annihilated the best, strangest relationship he’d ever had. So hell no, he hadn’t second-guessed going straight to her stateroom when she’d answered him with I want to show you something.

  Based on their first electric encounter, which still had him caught up in visceral, perverted dreams, whatever Ona Tracy wanted to show a man was probably worth seeing.

  Ona opened her door wearing a baseball T-shirt, glasses and a whole lot of hair. Corkscrews sprang out in every direction, falling past her shoulders.

  I like that. I need that.

  “You’re standing there, looking like that, either ’cause you love me or you hate me.”

  Laughing, she grasped the bottom of his shirt and urged him inside. “Hey there. I’m Ona Tracy. I have curly hair, wear glasses and am passionately in love with cotton shirts.”

  “New York Yankees, Ona? I thought you’d be a Phillies fan.”

  “Yankees. It’s in the blood. Me, my parents, their parents...” Her lashes lowered. “Are you a Red Sox fan?”

  “Now and forever.”

  “Then that puts us on opposites sides of the rivalry. I could take the shirt off.”

  Riker quit walking. “If I’m in your cabin and you’re offering to take off clothes, does that mean we’re cool?”

  “Yeah. In fact, I asked you here to demonstrate what I do to my hair. You asked and I’m gonna show you. C’mon over to the vanity.” She gestured to a spread of bottles and instruments, and he was reminded of the space station his ex-fiancée had kept set up in their bedroom. “Lost yet?”

  “It can’t be rocket science.”

  “True. It’s worse. It’s hair science.” Ona sat on the vanity. “I’ve already washed and dried it, so all that’s left is heat-protecting and styling.”

  “You look hot like this.”

  She gazed at him through the mirror. Smiled. “Thanks. It’s that no one’s ever— I mean... Forget it.” Shaking her hair, she reached for a spray bottle. “Small sections, heat protect, comb and iron it out. Simple but time-consuming, especially when you’ve got a lot of hair.”

  “Let me help you.”

  “If you burn me, I’ll never speak to you again.” She knit her brows. “Really, I’m scared you’ll be too heavy-handed.”

  “When my ex-fiancée broke her wrist, she had me curl her hair. Straightening can’t be all that different.”

  “You were engaged?”

  “Yeah. Marisol. She ended it three years ago.”

  Ona sectioned off some of her hair and clipped the rest out of the way. “Was it bad? The ending-it part?”

  “Tough to get used to her not being there. She’s a solid woman. A real broad, you know?” He took the comb and brought it to the ends of her hair. “She was my angel after I left the marines.”

  “Did she show you how to comb out the ends first?”

  “Seems like it’d hurt like hell to be ripping at it from the roots.”

  “I’m really getting to like you, Riker.” She handed him what looked like a pair of tongs. “Flat iron. The plates are hot—watch yourself. No more than three passes, or I’ll end up with heat damage. Please don’t make me regret this.”

  Chuckling, Riker straightened the section, and when she seemed satisfied with the results, they kept at it until it was all silky straight. Once she tied it with a strip of silk, she led him to the bedroom and curled up beside him.

  “Do you still love Marisol?”

  “Yeah,” he said. Things had been rough when she left, but he hadn’t quit loving her just because he’d fallen out of love with her. “Do you still love any of your exes?”

  “Only one. Matty. He was my friend, but I had a lot of firsts with him, so he was more on the borderline between friend and lover.” Ona’s hand settled over his heart and he held it there. “As for the others, they turned me into a victim. One got me fired from my ad firm. He was leaking our campaign to a competitor and pretty much framed me. Another said he would marry me if I quit the theater. I’d been drifting out of the biz by that point, so I went along with it—and boom, he left me. My college boyfriend was a dancer I tutored. He made the grade, made out with me and when he found a lump on my breast he dumped me.”

  “What a jerk.”

  “I had a lumpectomy, and everything turned out okay, but that kind of set the tone for the kinds of guys I’d end up with, huh? Users.” Sighing, she turned onto her side, away from him. “Nicholas is already established. He’ll look out for me.”

  “He can’t look out for you if he can’t even look at you.” Slowly straddling her hips, he lost himself in those dark eyes. “I’m looking. I want to look.”

  Slipping the shirt over her head, she dropped back onto the bed and let him look. The deep brown scar was on her left breast. Interrupting the silence, she said, “We should agree on the details of this fake relationship.”

  “Right,” he said, palming both breasts, watching her eyes for the faintest hint of no. None came, and he lowered to kiss her sternum, lick her areolas, suck her tight nipples. “This fake relationship.”

  “It’s not real,” she uttered, her eyes sliding closed as his hand was magnetized to the warm apex of her thighs. “It can’t be real.”

  * * *

  “I’m just saying we arrive in Nassau in the morning and it seems a senseless waste to travel on an erotic-themed ship and not participate in anything erotic.”

  The comment triggered all kinds of warning sirens to blare through Ona’s instincts. Yesterday they’d dispersed after gathering poolside and honoring Matty with brandy and a capella singing. They hadn’t all met up again until this afternoon when Guest Services, which she’d come to decide was a department comprised of darlings, had formally requested that she and her party attend a wine tasting at the ship’s most exclusive restaurant. Now they were lulled, aimlessly walking through the ship and, in Jane Charley’s case, baiting trouble.

  Ona, bringing up the rear with Nicholas, who’d draped his arm around her shoulders, pulled her champagne lollipop from her mouth and chimed in, “Some of us have participated in erotic activities.”

  Such as engaging in extremely heaving petting with Riker Ewan last night...

  “On The Lure?” Skeptical, Jane wiggled her brows at Ona. “Boudoir photos? Role-playing? Peep shows? Please. You told me yourself you don’t do much. I watched a sex machine demonstration and wouldn’t mind seeing it again.” She suddenly stopped walking. “Ohhh. I let a secret slip, didn’t I?”

  Ona glanced up at Nicholas. “Jane’s drunk.” As the others began to jeer and the group started to quarter itself, she was reminded of the night she’d gotten her classmates into a grimy Philadelphia club and some of them had ended up doing blow in a restroom. It was the first night she’d been afraid of where desperation to be liked could lead. Leaving Nicholas, she got in front of everyone. “Okay, let’s go about it this way. One person chooses a VIP room and everybody goes in.” Noticing Regan Waltz seemed agitated, Ona clarified, “Regan chooses the VIP room.”

  Complaints roared and someone shouted, “Not her! She wouldn’t let us color in a porno coloring book.”

 
; “They have those here?” someone else hollered.

  Yes, The Lure offered erotic coloring books. Ona knew because she’d bought one as a souvenir to never show her parents. “Regan’s choosing our entertainment. C’mon up here, Regan. Find a black velvet rope that’s offering something tonight.”

  Ona returned to her spot in the back of the group and Regan sashayed ahead of everyone else, shaking her head at a pedestal promoting a BDSM training class and pretending to gag at the sex toys seminar. As the others’ irritation grew, Ona murmured to Nicholas, “Whatever she chooses, swear you won’t tap out without taking me with you.”

  “Swear.” Nicholas gave her shoulders a squeeze. “Don’t see your guy around, so I’m going to take care of you.”

  Inside, part of Ona cheered with pride while another part castigated her for it. It was incredible to feel elevated, superior, untouchable. But it wasn’t incredible to feel this way because a man she wanted ten years ago decided to toss her scraps of attention.

  Yo, he’s a gambler. He doesn’t want you. He just wants to beat the other guy.

  Ona faltered, gazing at Nicholas to find him eyeing Regan. “Nick—”

  “Found one, everyone,” Regan sang cheerily. “Massage instruction, and—” she consulted her oversize pink diamond watch “—it starts on the hour, so we should hurry. This one might be useful. I have tension in my neck.”

  Checking their phones at the door with security and picking up bracelets for reentry, they all shuffled in.

  The atmosphere seemed to hug Ona. Scented oils. Sensual R & B music. Amber-colored light caressing a raised platform that featured a wide bed draped with burgundy and cream silk. Oil to aid the glide of skin on skin. Peacock feathers to tease. Stones to rest on pressure points.

  As the PAAC group scattered to sit wherever seats remained, Ona let Nicholas draw her through the crowd.

  Am I with him? Or am I following him?

  Agitated that it mattered, frustrated that she’d chosen now to doubt what she wanted from him and for herself, she forced herself to finish what she’d started with him—and to do it with pride.

  Caressing her champagne lollipop with her tongue, Ona leaned close to Nicholas. “There’s wine. And dessert.”

  “Moderation, Ona?”

  “Meaning?”

  “The eating. The next time you’re invited to a tasting, don’t sample something simply because it’s there.” Nicholas’s hand traveled down her arm, stopped at her wrist. “Wine, cake, lollipops. I’m saying this for your welfare.”

  For your welfare...

  Where had she heard that before?

  “If my appetite turns you off, say so,” Ona said. Criticism didn’t bruise her feelings—casting directors had called her anything from an Amazon to a fat-ass—but it was the coldness of his aura that had her straightening in her seat.

  “It doesn’t turn me off,” he said quietly. “You’re a hot woman, Ona. Calories do ugly things to hot women.”

  Ten years ago—hell, even two days ago—Ona would’ve been delighted to her Fifth Avenue–manicured toes to hear Nicholas Callaghan call her hot. But the word was so deeply buried under his hideous words and sexist attitude that she’d felt insulted instead of complimented.

  “Nicholas, maybe you’re the one who’s had too much booze, to think you can say what you just said and not get a lollipop stuck to your Dolce & Gabbana suit.”

  “Add funny,” he said, his tone reminiscent of the way he’d distractedly fielded her conversation in the casino. “You’re hot and funny.”

  Brushed off, dismissed, Ona stared blindly at her lollipop. Get rid of the candy, get the man.

  She made sure he watched her as she held up the lollipop and stuck it into her mouth.

  Nicholas responded to her defiance with a slight narrowing of his beautiful eyes and a casual one-shouldered shrug.

  A frantic “Excuse me!” had heads twisting and voices pausing. Regan was crossing and uncrossing her arms nervously. “I—I think I messed up. There’s a bed in here, not a massage table. Everyone from PAAC, we should go.”

  “Regan, I turned off my phone, got a bracelet and took a seat,” someone said. “You can leave, but I’m staying here.”

  Others echoed the sentiment, and admirably taking a stand, Regan Waltz got up, directed a cold stare in Ona’s direction, reclaimed her phone and walked out. The doors closed, echoing.

  Moments later from a side entrance emerged a slim woman wearing a white shirt and leather pants with her dark hair in a ponytail. Introducing herself as Sephora, she drifted from a brief chat about essential oils to a short list of rules and gently reminded that security was present to assist anyone who exhibited difficulty adhering to those rules.

  “Our bed is memory foam over a gel mattress, designed to enhance participants’ comfort,” she said, peeling back a corner of the bedding. “The sheets are freshly washed and have been scented with rosemary and peppermint essential oils.”

  Sephora scanned the room and the amber lights touched the gems on her double left eyebrow piercings. “Would a male and a female volunteer join me, please? For yoni massage demonstration purposes, I’ll guide the male in focusing on the female and giving the proper respect to her core.”

  “Yoni massage?” Ona whispered. Noting the sea of puzzled faces, and plenty that appeared unfazed, she found Nicholas inconspicuously text messaging on his smartphone. “Security took your phone,” she murmured. “How’d you get it back?”

  “Security took my work phone. This’s my personal phone.”

  How uncharacteristically devious of him.

  “Can the personal texts wait until after the workshop? We’re about to be schooled in tantric sex.”

  “What sex?”

  “Tantric. Before security confiscates your phone, open Google and search yoni massage.”

  Complying, Nicholas processed the search and knit his brows. “As cool as that sounds, I’m gonna need you to give me a play-by-play later, Ona. I need to go.”

  “Go? But what happened to being in this together? Nick?” Finally Ona stopped talking, because he didn’t stop once to hear her out as he pocketed his phone and made a fast departure.

  Gazing at his empty chair, then straight ahead at the bed dominating the room, she felt clarity pierce her decade-old crush and seduction schemes. This was the first time Nicholas Callaghan had ever looked at Ona, and he hadn’t liked what he’d seen: a “hot” woman ruining herself with calories.

  Do you want to be unseen tonight? An invisible woman sitting next to an empty chair?

  Ona’s clothes were suddenly suffocating her, and she didn’t know what she’d do if she couldn’t escape this seat. Freeing herself, she shot her hand in the air and sought the only freedom she’d find in this room.

  A silk-covered bed.

  Ona was already perched at the end of it, fixating on the contrast of the sheets’ deep colors against her Burberry skirt, when she heard a man say, “I’ll volunteer.”

  Riker!

  Deaf to everyone but the stranger who’d become more of a friend to her than the people she’d stepped onto The Lure with, she was ecstatic as tears flocked to her eyes.

  “I’m her man,” he said, “and I volunteer.”

  “Are you comfortable sharing this with him?” Sephora asked Ona as they watched him emerge from a rear row in jeans, a T-shirt and a determined stare that Ona felt clear to her bone marrow.

  “I am.”

  Sephora took Ona’s hand and laid it in Riker’s. “Gently undress her, but don’t rush. Never rush her. This is less of a sex act, and more of a moment of bonding.”

  Kneeling, Riker began to strip her. He started with her shoes, then leaned close as he began to unbutton her shirt. “I saw him leave you here,” he whispered.

&nbs
p; “He doesn’t see me,” she mumbled around the champagne lollipop. “None of them do.” Embarrassing, but true.

  “They will.”

  Ona looked past him. Peppered throughout the mass of strangers were her former classmates. They’d spent four years together, yet none of them had ever seen—really seen—her.

  You’ll see me now.

  Riker soothed her jitters with his sexy smirk as he revealed her bra...

  You’re going to see the lumpectomy scar I talked about with nobody but the guy touching me now.

  He stroked her arms as Sephora brought a tray of oil to the bed and, positioning herself behind Ona and taking the champagne lollipop to taste for herself, unhooked the bra...

  Riker let Ona’s shirt and bra join her shoes, guided her to lift her hips so he could tug off the skirt and undies...

  You’re going to see this man give me more respect than anyone’s ever given me.

  Ona didn’t close her eyes. She watched the others watch her, until carnality demanded her complete attention.

  “Trust,” Sephora murmured, kissing her shoulder. She’d freed her hair and it swept over Ona’s skin and tangled with her own. “Trust him to show you what you deserve. Breathe deeply and feel him.”

  Riker’s hands, glistening in oil, glided over her body, and Ona was faintly aware of Sephora abandoning her on the bed.

  “Apply deeper pressure on the pea-size knots of tension throughout her form,” the woman instructed softly, going to his side. She kissed his neck. “Deeper. Deeper... Good.”

  Ona’s muscles began to relax and her mind centered on him. There was no music. There was no audience. There was no Sephora. There was only Riker, discovering her and owning her and making her wonder what it might feel like to let him love her.

  Settling between her legs, he massaged her and she opened her eyes to meet his.

  Ona inhaled as Riker’s touch became more intimate. Lightly he pinched her flesh. And then, with his blue eyes darker than she’d ever seen them, he slid two fingers firmly inside.