Full Steam Ahead

by Valerie Chase

  “Thank you,” I say. “For … the pizza. And for pulling me back. I think I was … a little off-balance.”

  His gaze flicks up to search mine. “In more ways than one?”

  It should annoy me that Jace seems to understand. But it doesn’t. “Yeah,” I admit, and walk out of the cafe. The fastest way back to the elevators is outside—inside the promenade makes you wind your way around the casino and shops in a not-so-subtle attempt to get you to spend money—so I duck through an open door.

  The night is warm and breezy, and the stars shine like gems above, and again in the water. I am glad my moment of idiotic wooziness didn’t lead to a more fatal accident, but right now I just need to sleep. If I can get to sleep soon, my stomach might not remember it hates food.

  “Georgia,” I hear behind me. Jace. I mean to march onwards, but my feet slow, and I turn to find him coming toward me in the moonlight. Jace really has no right to look that good in a suit, considering how fantastic he also looks in nothing but a towel. “You forgot something,” he adds.

  I frown—other than the room key and driver’s license tucked into the top of my dress, I brought nothing with me tonight, not even a clutch. Without a phone, I didn’t need one. But before I can say that, Jace reaches me. He takes my face in his hands, and I’m so surprised by how close he suddenly is that I pause.

  Before I can ask Jace what he’s doing, he lowers his lips to mine.

  Chapter 11

  Georgia

  Surprise and heat course through me as Jace’s mouth claims mine. Before I realize it, my arms are around his shoulders and I’m kissing him back. His hands drop to my waist, sliding over the fabric of my dress, and God, this feels so good.

  It’s like the stars have swooped out of the sky to inhabit my body, because I’m filled with light and heat. It rushes from Jace into me and even the slight coolness of the breeze from the water is banished by his touch.

  I’m not sure how many minutes pass by with the sky wide open above us and with Jace’s hands caressing my back through the dress, but it’s too soon when he pulls away. His gaze holds mine.

  “What was that for?” I say breathlessly.

  “For the New Year,” he says, one side of his mouth quirking up. “See, it’s already better than the last one, isn’t it?”

  I smile. Even though none of my problems have been solved, Jace’s cocky grin is something I can’t help but respond to. Not to mention the kiss … yes, we made out yesterday, but I was drunk then. I’d figured maybe my tipsy memory had exaggerated how good his kisses were. It hadn’t.

  I want more, but shyness overtakes me. Last night’s rejection still burns at the back of my mind. I don’t want to be unceremoniously dumped on my bed again. Not alone, anyway.

  Somehow, Jace seems to read my thoughts because he cups my face in his hands and draws me back in for a long, slow kiss. I move against him. His breath hitches and I feel him respond, and that’s my cue to deepen the kiss, parting my mouth. His fingertips trace the line of my dress along my collarbone, and then his lips skim down my neck. The delicious sensations make me dizzy, lightheaded, but then Jace sets me a little bit away.

  “There’s something I want to show you,” he says.

  I almost tell him exactly what I want to show him—namely, my dress on the floor of our cabin—but I can hear my mother’s sharp voice telling me that’s not the kind of thing a lady says. So instead, I just nod and try to calm the fire racing through me.

  Taking my hand, Jace leads me toward the nearest door. Soon we’re entering the atrium of the ship. It’s several stories high, and on one side a gleaming bank of elevators stab through the heart of the boat. Along the other wall, there’s a great curving fish tank, three levels tall. Couches and lounge chairs are scattered along the tank so passengers can admire the fish swimming through the turquoise waters. The area is pretty empty now, with most people off celebrating the new year. Aside from a woman curled up reading on one of the chairs, Jace and I have the view to ourselves.

  Jace walks up to the glass and gestures to a few orange-and-white striped clownfish that have hidden themselves in a tangle of bright pink anemones.

  “This is my favorite part of the ship,” he says.

  “Really? I wouldn’t have pegged you as a fish guy,” I tease.

  “It’s not the fish, exactly. Although they are so adorable,” he jokes. He looks up at a manta ray gliding like a gray angel above us, and for a minute we watch the sea life drift by, serenely gliding around and around in their insulated world.

  “It’s really peaceful here,” I say, pressing my hand against the cool glass of the tank. “Is that what you like about it?”

  “Yeah. I guess it reminds of how there are lives out here completely different than my own. What’s an iPhone to a fish, you know?” He gives me a sheepish glance. “It’s stupid, but that’s what I think about.”

  “No, I get it. Fish don’t worry about being broke,” I say wistfully. You can’t blackmail a fish. They wouldn’t even understand the concept. It wouldn’t be so bad to be the yellow and blue angelfish over there.

  “Exactly." Jace’s gaze follows the manta ray for a while before he turns to me. “You don’t have to tell me what’s been going on with you if you don’t want to, but do you have anyone to talk to about it? Yasmin or someone?”

  I study the angelfish. “Sure, we talk.”

  “Georgie.” Jace sees right through my lie. Part of me is relieved, the part of me that craves an end to all the fiction my life has become. But the other part, the part that knows I can't chance letting him see the real me, summons up an eye roll.

  “I’m fine. She can’t help me, anyway.” I hadn't meant to let that last part slip out, so I duck my head and stare at clump of seaweed in the tank. I never thought I’d be envious of some fish, but I am. I wish the only thing I had to worry about was which way to swim.

  “So you don’t talk to anyone.” His voice is much closer now, and I glance up to find him at my shoulder. His gaze pierces mine, and I feel almost like I’m naked before him. His voice, when he continues, is gentle. “I get that you’re afraid, but everyone has ugly parts of their life.”

  “But they don’t have to talk about them.” I should turn away, flee this line of conversation, but my feet won’t move.

  “Sometimes it helps,” Jace says. He sounds so sympathetic that for a crazy second I nearly say something I can't take back, but I manage to shake my head.

  “Let’s talk about your ugly parts. See how you like it,” I say, going on the attack.

  Jace’s shoulders tense. “What is it you want to know?” he finally says, leaning back against the fish tank. “You must’ve heard the rumors.”

  Yes, I have. People say his parents are in jail. People say he leaves campus every weekend to hook up with girls at neighboring schools. Some of my sorority sisters, the snootier ones, whisper that you can still smell the trailer park on him. I’ve heard all the rumors; and until this trip, I believed them without a thought.

  Jace’s jaw is set, as if he’s bracing himself for what might come out of my mouth. And maybe I should say something awful so he'll walk away and write me off as the prissy Lady Cantwell he seems to think I am. But I can't. The Jace from the rumors wouldn’t have noticed how upset I was tonight. He wouldn’t have taken care of me, and he certainly wouldn’t have left a raging party—with free champagne to boot—to look for me.

  “I’m beginning to think that everything people say about you is wrong,” I finally say.

  He blinks, and I know I’ve surprised him. But he’s surprised me too.

  We gaze at each other for a long moment, him in his gray suit leaning against the wall of water, me a foot or two away. I feel fragile, standing there with my gown whispering around my ankles in the almost imperceptible breeze from some indoor vent.

  “Tell me what’s bothering you,” Jace says finally. “I won’t tell anyone, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

&n
bsp; Tempted, I break my gaze away. I reach out and place a palm against the glass. It’s cool, and I imagine I feel the weight of a million gallons of water behind it.

  “Everyone thinks I have money, and class, and integrity,” I say. “But I don’t.” It’s the loss of integrity that hurts the most.

  “What do you mean?”

  I realize I'm getting dangerously close to spilling my guts, and go still. If Jace knew the truth, he wouldn't be talking to me. Time to shut this down. I whirl to face him, and cross my arms.

  “What is it that you want from me, Jace?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Everyone wants something.”

  He raises a brow. “What do you want?”

  That surprises me. "What do I want?" I almost say that I want him to go away and leave me alone, but then I'm hit with a want so strong that it takes over. I've had nothing I want for months now, and I'm so tired of it. With that kiss earlier, maybe for one night I can have an escape. There are a lot of bigger things I want, but I'm not getting those. But tonight, here…

  “You know what I want?” I step over and stand in front of Jace, almost touching, our breaths mingling. For once, I let honesty guide my tongue. “I want to go back to our room, and I want you to take off my dress.” There. If he rejects me again, I’ll take the hint.

  Jace goes still, his eyes caught with mine. He takes a shallow breath and says, “Then what?”

  I hesitate. Hunter wasn’t into dirty talk. The couple times I tried it with him, he would keep kissing me until I stopped. But every inch of Jace has gone tense, waiting for what I have to say.

  Hiding a grin, I lean up to whisper into his ear. “I want you to take my panties off with your teeth. I want my legs over your shoulders, and you inside of me. Again, and again. And again.” Jace’s breathing grows ragged but I keep talking. Finally I pull back slightly so I can meet his gaze, which burns hot enough to boil the air around us. “How does that sound?”

  He doesn’t even answer, only grabs my hand to drag me toward the elevators. We get one to ourselves; and after Jace punches the button for our floor and the doors close behind us, he presses me against the faux-wood paneling. His mouth sinks down onto mine, and his hands grip my waist, then slide up over my dress. One thumb brushes my nipple, and my breath catches.

  I pull Jace’s dress shirt out of his belt, and then I’m touching his back, his glorious muscled back. As Jace’s tongue delves possessively into my mouth, I press my hips to his, feeling him hard against me. I wrap a leg around his waist, thankful for the high slit in the skirt of my dress, and I can’t help but think that I never did anything like this with Hunter. But that was a different Georgia. All prim and proper, like a future Fairbanks wife should be.

  Maybe that really wasn’t me at all, I think as Jace’s hands thrust into my hair, dislodging the bobby pins holding it in place.

  The elevator chimes, and we both look up to find that we’ve reached our floor. Without letting me out of his embrace, Jace swings us around and down the hallway. Taking my face between his hands, he walks me slowly backward, kissing me as we head to our room. My hair tumbles completely out of its up-do, falling around my shoulders. I begin unbuttoning Jace’s shirt, my hands eager to roam the smooth skin beneath it.

  Then Jace pauses.

  “Heads up,” he mutters, and straightens away from me. I turn to see a figure slumped by our door. She wears a long emerald dress, and her red hair cascades over her shoulders. Alarm floods my body.

  “Oh my God. Parker, are you okay?” I hurry over to her, Jace on my heels. Parker raises her head to give me a lopsided smile, and my worry eases. Aside from appearing enormously tipsy, she doesn’t seem hurt.

  “Hey guys,” she says.

  “Did you get locked out or something?” Jace asks.

  “Sort of—I’ve been sexiled. Yas is with that bartender Austin. Whoop-dee-do.” She looks up at us blearily. “Can I crash with you two tonight?”

  Chapter 12

  Jace

  I’m going to die from blue balls.

  That’s what I’m thinking as I stride away from my cabin. Parker has the worst timing in the world, but without admitting that I was supposed to be tearing Georgia’s panties off with my teeth right about then, there wasn’t much we could do.

  Sweet Lord, I nearly lost it when Georgia’s pretty lips said those naughty things into my ear by the fish tank. It took everything inside me not to press her against the tank, hike her dress up around her hips and shock the hell out of the other passengers.

  That image taunts me as I walk to the elevator. Parker had nowhere else to go, so I offered her my bed like a gentleman and left Georgia to tuck her in between the sheets. There was no way I could sleep on the floor with Georgia laying within reach, and no way in hell that we could share her bed. Not chastely, at least. I didn’t want our first time to have an audience, even a sleeping one. Despite the rumors about me, I’m not the kind of a guy that gets off on that sort of thing.

  With nothing else to do, I go back to the New Year’s party to beg for a place to crash with one of my frat brothers. Andy, Hunter’s roommate, gives me his room key since they have a couch in their suite.

  So that’s how I wind up sleeping on Georgia’s rich ex-boyfriend’s sofa. Awesome.

  The suite is empty but for me. I really hope Hunter and Kelsey, who seem to be nearly an item now, won’t decide to hook up here tonight, because if they do I’ll have to flee.

  Taking off my jacket, belt, and tie, I drop them on the coffee table and throw myself on the couch. But there’s no way I’m sleeping, not with my hands still singing with the memories of Georgia’s curves. Her skin was so warm, so soft, and I’d discovered that her dress was the kind that didn’t allow a girl to wear a bra underneath …

  I’m rock hard again, and there’s no way I’m sleeping now. I get up, strip down to my boxers and undershirt, and head out to the moonlit balcony to look at the ocean.

  Georgia. Two days ago when we got to the ship, I thought she was going to be an annoyingly stuck-up roommate that I’d have to deal with. But now … I inhale, as if I can still smell her hair, that sweet, sweet scent. Something floral, spring-like.

  I lean my elbows onto the balcony railing and take in the glassy waters below me. Georgia still hasn’t told me what’s upsetting her, what’s been stressing her out the last few months. I hadn’t meant to let her distract me, but it was too hard to focus on her secrets with her luscious mouth speaking dirty to me. Never in a million years would I have thought that Little Miss Perfect would have that in her. I wonder if she really would have let me take her dress off and do the rest of the things she mentioned.

  Shit, I’m not getting any less hard. I’m never going to sleep tonight, am I?

  But slowly, as I stand here in the cool breeze, I start to cool down. Get my bearings. Start thinking with my head again instead of my dick. And with that cool comes a bit of clarity.

  Georgia has surprised me in a lot of ways on this trip. I'm realizing that the surface her, the Georgia everyone else sees, is only the tiniest part of who she is. For some reason, she purposely makes it hard for anyone to look any deeper. She's scared they won't like what they see.

  Then again, isn't that what I've done too? My past is no picnic, filled with garbage I'd rather no one knew about—my dad and all of his shit. After we finally got free of him, there were years of fear and uncertainty that each day would be too much for my mom. But I've hidden that from everyone I know. Most of the time I feel like even my Alpha brothers, the guys I’m closest to, only know a sliver of me.

  I realize, suddenly, that it’s my own fault. I spent high school working hard to win a scholarship, but always viewed college as a stopping point for the rest of my life. Sure, I’ve had some fun along the way, but I’ve been itching for what lies beyond. Traveling the world. Seeing and experiencing things that you’d never find in my tiny Texas hometown.

  I guess I’ve been so focused on shedd
ing everything that’s shackling me down that I hardly let anyone in. It was easier that way. So who am I to judge Georgia for doing the same?

  I wonder if she's as lonely as I am. Then I realize that's a stupid question, because I already know the answer to that. She is.

  Then again … maybe I should keep my distance after all. In a few short months college will be over, and I’ll be backpacking through Europe before med school in the fall. It’s not a good time to get tied down to anyone.

  Georgia doesn’t want me to batter down her walls, so maybe I should just leave them up. That’s the logical thing to do. The easy thing. After all, this trip is supposed to be a vacation, and there are plenty of girls offering a one-night fling.

  But that doesn’t sit right with me. I want Georgia. I don’t know what it is about her. All through college, I haven’t let anyone get too close but now that graduation is only a few months away, I find that I want to. I want Georgia to see me, so that I can see her.

  And while it won't be easy getting to Georgia, I can tell that she's that kind of girl—the kind that's worth it.

  I don’t want Georgia to hide from me, but I know she’ll do it anyway. Withdraw. Fight me tooth and nail to keep me on the surface, where she kept Hunter. What we shared tonight was one of the few real connections I’ve made in my life, but tomorrow she'll try to pretend it never happened.

  I grin into the night. She can try to keep pretending, but I won't let her.

  I’m up for the challenge.

  Chapter 13

  Georgia

  The next morning, I awaken with a start as the lights switch on and sear my eyes.

  “Wake up, sleepyhead, time to get your lazy ass out of bed."

  It's Jace. I groan and burrow my head under the covers. Then last night comes crashing back into my thoughts, and I go motionless.