Full Steam Ahead

by Valerie Chase

  “Haven’t seen that swimsuit before,” I comment.

  She flashes me a knowing smile. “Like it?”

  “It’s a little prim, don’t you think?” That makes her laugh, which is a sound I’ve heard a couple times today, but before that hadn’t heard in … a while. I hadn’t realized I paid attention to when Georgia Cantwell laughs or smiles, but over the past few months, she hadn’t done it very much. I’d always wondered why, and why Hunter didn’t seem to notice. Georgia’s laughter is a sound I’d like to hear often. Every day.

  I’m about to tease Georgia to see if I can make her laugh again when Jessica, one of her sorority sisters, hands her a margarita and asks her how she did on their communications final. They talk shop for a while; I try to interject a few times, but Jessica keeps yammering about how unfair some of the essay questions were. Georgia listens politely, sipping her margarita, but I can tell she’s not really into the conversation from the way she throws me a glance every minute or so.

  Well, if she wants a distraction, who am I to disappoint?

  Pasting an innocent expression on my face, I put my hand on her knee under the bubbling surface. The hot tub’s powerful jets make it impossible to see anything below the water, which is perfect. No one sees when Georgia’s leg jumps at my touch.

  “Yeah, I thought essay four was really hard,” Georgia says to Jessica. Her voice is so unruffled that I slide my fingers two inches up her thigh. Her skin feels like wet satin, and her muscles tense. I grin to myself, sip my margarita, and with my submerged hand go higher. Georgia doesn’t stop me, or appear to react in any way, though her face has a strained look, as if she’s holding her breath. I edge my way higher over her smooth skin until I’m nearly at the line of her bikini. God, I wish we were alone.

  “Do you think Professor Belgraves will grade us on a curve?” Jessica asks. “I really need at least a B on that final.”

  “Um, I don’t know.” Georgia’s breaths have grown a little heavier, although Jessica doesn’t seem to notice. “I’m just glad the class is over.”

  “I know, right?” Jessica slurps margarita slush through a straw. “Hey, you tried the rock-climbing course yet? It’s up on the Sports Deck.”

  “It looks fun,” I say, trying hard not to look at Georgia as my fingers graze her bikini bottom, right at the juncture of her thighs. She jumps, and I start sliding my hand back toward her knee. I finally glance over at her. “Don’t you think?”

  Georgia’s arm brushes mine. I think she’s going to push me away, but then I feel her touch on my leg. Her hand is nowhere near my knee. In fact, it’s already toying with the bottom edge of my swim trunks. And moving upward. Rapidly.

  “I think we’ve tackled enough rocks for one trip.” Georgia shoots me a wicked hint of a smile. As her fingers move up over my inner thigh, she looks back over at Jessica. “Hey, great job at the mini-golf tournament yesterday. I heard you were four under par!”

  I can’t move, can’t think of anything but Georgia’s slim fingers on my leg, moving closer to … she touches me, and even though it’s through a layer of fabric, I’m barely able to bite back a groan.

  Georgia, meanwhile, is chatting about mini-golf, acting for all the world as if her hand isn’t driving me slowly and sweetly mad. I lean my head back to stare at the stars and try not to react as her fingers curl around me. Holy God in Texas heaven. She’s still outside of my swim shorts, but I’m losing the willpower not to drag her back to our room this second.

  Even as I’m fighting the delicious torture, a smile lifts my lips, and I bring my head back up. The heat from the hot tub has started to curl Georgia’s long hair damply at the nape of her neck, but other than that she looks cool, calm. Polished. But not for long. I inch my fingers back up along her thigh.

  Better watch out, Lady Cantwell.

  Two can play this game.

  Chapter 16

  Georgia

  If my mother had any idea what I was doing, she’d disown me on the spot and never speak my name again.

  Thank goodness she’s thousands of miles away.

  I try not to blush—if anyone knew that I was stroking Jace’s most intimate parts while chatting about a mini-golf tournament, I would honestly die—but I don’t stop either. A secret thrill rushes through my body as I feel him tighten in my hand, and all I can think about is taking him back to our room and doing all of those dirty things I whispered into his ear last night.

  Jace’s own hand starts moving again, and I have to swallow a sigh of pleasure as his palm skims along my thigh, up toward my bikini where he’d teased me earlier. It’s a good thing Jessica is completely absorbed in detailing how she rocked the last tournament hole, a tough putt over a stream and around the curve of a sand trap. With Jace’s touch making me crazy, it’s getting hard to care about mini-golf scores.

  I inhale as Jace’s knuckles softly brush the skin beneath my belly button. He traces the line of red fabric hidden beneath the bubbling surface of the water. My own hands pause, floating to rest on his bare thigh, as all my attention closes in on the electrifying caress of Jace’s fingers sliding across my skin. They skim down the front of my swimsuit bottom, and then they’re pressing on the part that most aches for his touch. After a moment of hesitation, I relax my legs to make room for his hand.

  “Then, BOOM,” Jessica chatters on. “Right into the whale’s mouth. Two strokes, on a par-five hole.”

  “That’s awesome,” I manage to say faintly.

  Jace’s fingers start to move and I let out an explosive exhalation, then take a sip of my margarita as a quick cover. While the icy slush makes its way down my throat, I’m on fire underneath the water. I can’t look at Jace, but I don’t make any move to stop him either.

  His fingers delve down, questing. Beads of sweat form on my neck. Jessica is now arguing with Parker over whether we should all go to the club later, or the musical being performed in the theater. Lost in delicious sensation, I barely hear them.

  Jace does things with his hand that make me gasp aloud and, finally coming to my senses, I grab his wrist under the water. At that, Jace glances over at me. I stare back, wide-eyed and not sure what I want. He can’t keep doing this in front of everyone, but to make him stop might kill me.

  “Hey, we’re getting more drinks,” Parker says to me. She and Jessica stand up out of the water. “Want anything?”

  “I’m f-fine.” I give her what I hope passes for an innocent smile. “Thanks though.”

  Now it’s only Jace and me on our side of the hot tub, since most of our friends are chatting or dancing by the palm-thatched bar. Yasmin’s bartender Austin has left for his shift, and she and Quinn are listening to Chloe talk about how her parents are throwing her and Pete an engagement party when we get home. A few feet away, Andy is chatting up a girl I don’t recognize, but they’re too caught up in their conversation to pay us any notice.

  “I thought they’d never leave,” Jace murmurs.

  I let go of his hand, then suck in a long breath as he slips a finger beneath the bottommost edge of my bikini. His touch is sure, gentle, inexorable. I think I might throb apart and melt in front of everyone, and have to bite my lip to keep from making any noise. I lean back against the hard curved edge of the hot tub and close my eyes, hoping it just looks like I’m chilling out.

  Jace’s fingers get more bold, and … oh God, he’s practically inside of me. My entire focus is fixed on his touch, and the sensations that threaten to drown me as he slides one finger—

  “Georgia!” It’s Yasmin’s voice that intrudes on my overheated bliss. I jerk my eyes open and try to form an innocent expression. Yasmin stands up, water sheeting down her tanned skin. “I’m going to take a dip in the pool. Want to join me?” she says.

  I don’t, not for a million dollars. “Uh … maybe later?”

  “How about now?” She’s smiling, but it’s her stubborn smile, and it’s clear she’s not budging from the hot tub without me. Oh God, does she know w
hat we’re doing? Hastily I sit up, and Jace withdraws his hand.

  As I clamber from the steaming, bubbling water Jace pretends he was doing nothing but sipping his margarita, but my gaze slips and meets his for a split-second. Is my face the color of my bikini? It certainly feels like it. I’m more than a little embarrassed about what we were up to in full, if unsuspecting, view of our friends.

  As water drips down my bathing suit, I follow Yasmin to the steps of the Sunshine Pool, and we wade in. The water is cool, but refreshingly so, and when it’s deep enough I dive under to get my head wet. We’ve got most of the pool to ourselves.

  “This is so great,” I say brightly, looking up. “Swimming under the stars.”

  Yasmin doesn’t follow my gaze. She sidles up to me and pitches her voice low. “What are you doing, G?”

  “What do you mean?” My heart stops. Jace and I were too obvious, and she’s going to yell at me for fooling around with him in a public hot tub. I cringe.

  “You spent the whole day hiking around with Jace. You don’t have to sit next to him all night too.”

  Thank God she didn’t realize what was going on under the water. “Sorry, did you want me to sit between you and Austin?” I ask, but Yasmin only shoots me a pointed look. “Maybe I wanted to sit next to him,” I mumble.

  She shakes her head. “See, I knew it.”

  “Knew what?”

  “He’s getting to you. Jace is a player, remember? Totally not worth your time.”

  I glance over to the hot tub, but I can only see the back of Jace’s head, along with his muscled shoulders. “I think I might’ve misjudged him before.”

  “That’s just him working his game on you. Don’t fall for it.”

  But maybe I do want to fall for it. Not fall for Jace’s game, because we haven’t been playing games, but him. Yas doesn’t see the side he’s shown me—his surprising eye for art and how he overcame his unhappy past to emerge stronger. Maybe I’m already falling for him.

  I shouldn’t do that, not when my life is in such shambles at home, but instead of panic, the idea causes a strange, bright calm in my chest. This trip is my oasis, my calm in the eye of the storm, and no matter what waits for me afterward, I’m going to live it fully.

  My thoughts must be written on my face, because Yasmin gets a worried look in her eye.

  “Look, I wasn’t going to say anything, because I thought he never had a chance with you and I wanted you to be able to kick back after all the stress you’ve been under—“

  “All the stress?” I interrupt in surprise. Has Yasmin actually seen through my facade too?

  “From finals and the breakup. That’s why you’ve been so wound up lately, right?” Out of habit I nod, and she goes on. ”I wanted you to relax and have a little bit of fun instead of being on your guard all the time, but …”

  The look on her face says I won’t like this.

  “What?”

  “Apparently, some of the Alpha guys bet Jace that he could get you into bed by the end of the cruise. I overheard Andy talking about it.”

  Just like that, my night flips over. Cold douses the warmth I had been feeling all day, drenches me to my toes, and the bright calm goes dark.

  “Seriously?” I say, more of a whimper than a question. Yasmin wouldn’t lie about something like this. She’s saving me from being humiliated in the morning.

  She nods grimly. “I didn’t give it much thought until I saw him working his man-slut charm on you.”

  “Don’t call him a man-slut,” I say automatically. My knee-jerk defense of Jace makes Yasmin sigh, as if she realizes how much I’d started to care for him.

  “Oh, Georgia.”

  I look away. “It’s … not a nice word, and he doesn’t deserve it.” At least, I hadn’t thought he did.

  “With his reputation? I think he does.”

  “His reputation isn’t the truth,” I say.

  Yasmin puts a slim hand on my shoulder, a spot of warmth in my sea of cold. “You’re not falling for him, are you?”

  “No, of course not. We just had a good talk on the hike today.” I’d thought we were on the verge of something wonderful. How could the Jace who listened to my family drama earlier make me into a stupid bet? The stars above us seem to dim as I realize that my oasis has dried up, was just a mirage anyway. “Thanks for telling me.”

  “Of course. I don’t want you to get hurt.” Yasmin’s fingers tighten on my shoulder. “You deserve the world, G, not some guy just trying to get laid.”

  She hugs me tight, and I’m grateful all over again that I have Yas to watch my back for me. When we return to the hot tub, I sit next to her. Jace tries to catch my gaze with a sexy smile that stirs something deep in my belly despite how angry I am, but I ignore him. Instead I sympathize with Chloe as she tells us how she lost her favorite wrap skirt on the beach today.

  Eventually we grab daiquiris and move onto the lounge chairs under the stars. I can feel Jace’s presence as he climbs out of the hot tub and walks around the deck, but I forbid myself from even throwing a dirty look at him. The thought of what I let him do to me earlier … and I was so close to sleeping with him, too. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice Jace glancing in my direction, first confused, then annoyed.

  Good.

  Most of the Alpha guys and Kappa girls move inside to find the club again and dance the rest of the evening away. Yas heads to the piano bar to find Austin, leaving me alone to stretch out across my lounge chair by the pool and stare up at the dark sky. I won’t let myself think about Jace. I won’t.

  I fish my sunglasses from my bag, and even though it’s dark out I slip them on so that no one can see my expression. I lean back on the lounger. Now that I have time to fume by myself, I get more and more angry about the bet.

  As if my thoughts have summoned him, Jace drops down onto the lounger next to me. His hands are on his knees, and he gives me an unreadable look.

  “Are you avoiding me?” he says, getting right to the point.

  Part of me wants to keep the peace and say no, of course not, but after all of our honesty earlier today I find that I can’t.

  “Yep,” I say, and slurp the last of my daiquiri through the straw.

  Jace studies me for a moment. I feel next to naked lying here, even though I put on my cover-up dress a while ago.

  “I guess I shouldn’t have said all of that stuff about my family earlier. It was a lot,” he says.

  I shrug, not sure where he’s going with this.

  “And I’m guessing by your sudden cold shoulder,” he continues, “that Yasmin reminded you how wrong a guy like me is for a girl like you.”

  His gaze is hard, but I meet it defiantly.

  “Yeah. Basically.” How could I have started falling for a guy who’d make a bet about bedding his roommate? I wonder how much he wagered. And now he’s playing the part of the wounded puppy, as if all of this is my fault. He’s a great actor, I’ll give him that.

  “Right,” Jace mutters. He eyes me a moment more as if about to say something else, then gives a little shake of his head and strides off to the remaining group of our friends who’ve stayed on deck to play poker. A couple girls in particular are more than happy to see him join in, and I huff out a hurt breath. Damn him, for making me confide in him, then turning out to be a jackass after all. But I only have myself to blame for opening myself up to him.

  I gather my things, planning to stop by the piano bar to ask Yasmin if I can crash with her tonight. But right as I reach the door to the ship I run into Elise, the blonde staffer girl who saved me from Hunter and Kelsey last night.

  “Oh, hey!” Elise says. She’s wearing a V-neck t-shirt with black shorts, so I assume she’s off duty for the night. “How did your shore excursion go today?”

  She’s smiling so brightly that I force myself to put on my cheeriest voice. “It was great. And thank you—Jace said that you got us a discount on it.”

  “No problem. I get yelled at if th
e excursions aren’t filled to capacity anyway. I hope it was okay that I told Jace where you were on New Year’s Eve—he seemed super worried about you.”

  “Yeah,” I say softly. I wonder how much of his attention over the last couple days was because of the bet.

  “Are you guys a couple?” Elise asks, then pauses. “Sorry, I’m prying too much, aren’t I?”

  “It’s fine. And, um, no. Jace and I aren’t together.”

  “Really? He seemed into you.”

  “I think he treats a lot of girls that way,” I say, trying not to sound too hurt.

  Surprise lights Elise’s vivid blue eyes. “I don’t know. I mean, I’ve only talked to him a couple times but I’ve seen the way he looks at you. You can’t fake that kind of look.” She tosses her blond hair and shrugs. “Anyway, I better get going. I’m meeting a friend.”

  She says goodnight and slips down the hallway, but I stand there for a moment, thinking. I don’t know what to believe. Maybe Elise is right. Yasmin would never lie to me, but some instinct tells me that I might be seeing things wrong with Jace. I step back outside into the sparkling pool lights again, my gaze finding Jace in the crowd with disconcerting ease, as if a part of me never stopped noticing where he was all night.

  He’s leaning on the railing across the deck, chatting up two girls. At first glance, it looks like he’s flirting happily, but when I look closer … He’s hiding it well, but the line of his shoulders is tense, and his fingers hold his Corona a little too tightly. It dawns on me that he almost looks … hurt.

  Did I hurt him? How?

  I start thinking about all the things Jace told me today, about his parents, about his sister; and rationality creeps in. With his smile and natural charm, he doesn’t need a sob story to get a girl in bed. He didn’t have to tell me all that, but he did. He confided in me.

  My throat tightens as I realize that whatever Yasmin heard can’t be the truth. I know in my bones that Jace wasn’t faking it with me earlier today. And by doubting him, I might have wrecked things with him before they even started.