Veritas

by Duncan, MJ

  “I said, is there a reason the next charter is only five days?”

  “Right,” Grey drawled, rubbing her hands on her thighs. “Um, probably the cost. A five-day cruise is not a lot cheaper than the eight, but there is a little bit of a break.”

  “Makes sense.” Lauren picked up her drink and took a tentative sip. The Painkiller was not nearly as creamy as a Piña Colada, but the orange juice really carried the flavors of the drink well. “Not bad.” She nodded thoughtfully to herself as she set her glass back down on the table. “So, will it be a shorter version of the cruise we’re on now, then?”

  “Pretty much. Unless the client requests certain stops, or is someone I’ve taken out before, I usually stick to the same general itinerary.”

  Lauren leaned back in her chair and tucked her hair behind her ears as she looked around the dining room. “So, I gotta ask, what, exactly, is a ‘Pusser’? Please tell me it’s not island slang for a certain part of the female anatomy.”

  Grey laughed and shook her head. “It’s not,” she said as she picked up her drink and leaned back in her chair, mimicking Lauren’s posture. “Although, that would be pretty awesome. But, no. Pusser is actually slang in the Royal Navy for purser, which would now be called the ship’s supply officer. The Pusser was in charge of handing out supplies to the men, including rations of rum, so the rum rations became known as ‘Pusser’s rum’.”

  “So the Royal Navy sells rum?” Lauren asked, arching a brow in surprise as she reached for her glass again.

  “No. They used to produce it to ration out to their sailors, but that stopped in… I want to say 1970.”

  Lauren sipped at her drink and grinned. “That couldn’t have been a very popular decision.”

  “Probably not,” Grey agreed with a nod. She looked up at their waiter, who was carrying a plate of conch fritters.

  “Can I get you ladies anything else?” Jameson asked as he set the appetizer plate in the center of the table.

  Grey arched a questioning brow at Lauren and, when she shook her head, said, “I think we’re good for now, thanks.”

  Lauren dipped the tip of her fork into the sauce that came with the fritters to taste it. “That’s actually pretty good.”

  “It’s better on the conch than a fork,” Grey teased, waving a hand at the plate. “I got these for us to share. Go for it. Help yourself.”

  “Thank you.” Lauren picked up one of the smaller fritters from the plate. She dipped it in the sauce and took a tentative bite. The beer batter was amazing, though she had expected as much considering they were in the British Virgin Islands, and the conch meat was perfectly sweet. “This is really good.”

  “I know, right?” Grey said, finally putting her drink down and reaching for a fritter. “Pusser’s does some awesome bar food.”

  Lauren spun her fritter around in her hand to dip the side she hadn’t eaten off of into the sauce. “So why didn’t we just sit downstairs?”

  “I just thought it would be nice to share a little bit nicer dinner than at a bar,” Grey said with a small shrug. “But, I mean, we can always go down there now, if you’d prefer. I’m sure they’d be able to bring our orders there instead.”

  Lauren smiled and shook her head as she tried to ignore the way her stomach fluttered at the idea of Grey wanting to spend a nicer evening with her than simply going out and hitting a bar for a quick meal. “This is great, really.” She looked over the railing at the crowd that was beginning to fill the plastic chairs that sat between Pusser’s bar and the marina now that a band had begun playing. “Maybe after dinner we can go down and listen to the music, have another drink or something?”

  The idea of spending more time alone with Lauren sent a pleasant thrill down Grey’s spine, and she winked at Lauren as she nodded. “I think that can be arranged, Ms. Murphy.”

  Lauren cleared her throat softly as she reached for her drink, hoping a generous swallow of the cocktail would cool the heat that she could feel rising up in her cheeks in response to Grey’s flirty wink. “Good.”

  Chapter 16

  “Best drinking story…” Lauren drawled, smiling as she took a sip from her third Painkiller. They had come down to the bar over an hour ago, and were seated at a small, slightly wobbly plastic table near the boardwalk that ran along the water’s edge. Music from the two-man band set up to the left of the bar filled the air, and occasionally one of the tourists filling the tables around them would find the courage to get up and sing along with them. “I don’t really have one.”

  “Bullshit,” Grey chuckled, shaking her head. “Everybody has a drinking story.”

  Lauren rolled her eyes. “I have one, but it’s not crazy or anything—just one of those ‘you had to be there’ type funny stories.” Seeing Grey nod expectantly, she sighed. “Fine. Back when I was in my final year of culinary school, my girlfriend at the time and I spent our spring break touring Britain. After doing the whole London thing for a week, we hopped a train north to Edinburgh.”

  “Because haggis is amazing?”

  “Ha ha, no. It’s not as bad as everyone makes it out to be, though.” Lauren grinned at the way Grey’s face twisted in disgust. “It’s kind of like black pudding. Anyways, we were on our way back to the taxi queue at the bottom of the hill after exploring the castle, when we saw a sign for The Witchery. Being the culinary geeks that we were, we had read about the bed and breakfast’s restaurant, so we decided to go check it out. We wandered through a corridor that led to a little courtyard, and ended up in a vestibule that was elevated above a stunning dining room. Painted ceiling, french doors overlooking a private terrace, it was amazing. If you’re ever in Edinburgh, you need to go there.”

  “Sounds like it.”

  “Anyways, we ordered a bottle of wine with our dinner, which later became two with dessert, and, well, you’ve seen how clumsy I can be…”

  Grey arched a brow in agreement as she lifted her glass to her lips. “Are there knives involved in this story?”

  “No.” Lauren chuckled and shook her head. “So, clumsy ass that I am, I knock the bottle of wine off the table with my elbow, and it shatters on the floor, spilling what had been a rather excellent Pinot Noir all over the place. Our waiter comes running over with a stack of towels in his hands and we’re both apologizing and everybody’s watching us, and he just looked at us, grinned, and said, ‘What a waste of perfectly good alcohol’ as he started cleaning up the mess.”

  “What a waste of perfectly good alcohol,” Grey repeated with a laugh.

  Lauren nodded. “Exactly. So we start giggling like mad because, well, we’re both pretty well toasted, and, that was it. I wasted perfectly good alcohol.”

  “Aww, that’s cute,” Grey drawled, smiling at Lauren over the rim of her glass.

  “Shut up,” Lauren muttered, rolling her eyes. “I told you it wasn’t a good one. So, your turn. Best drinking story.”

  Grey sighed dramatically. “Junior year of college, a bunch of us went out to dinner at Benihana’s before a concert.”

  “Which concert?” Lauren interrupted.

  “Does it really matter?”

  Amused that Grey obviously did not want to reveal that bit of information, Lauren grinned and nodded as she lifted her glass to her lips. “Absolutely.”

  “’N Sync,” Grey admitted, and laughed when Lauren spit her drink all over the table. “Don’t be wasting perfectly good alcohol!”

  “Oh my god,” Lauren chuckled, shaking her head as she reached for a napkin. “You really went to an ‘N Sync concert?”

  “It was for my friend Cody’s birthday and he had a massive crush on Lance Bass and yeah, we took him to see ‘N Sync. Anyways, do you want to hear the rest of the story, or do you just want to tease me about the concert?” Grey retorted, feigning annoyance.

  “Can’t I do both?”

  Grey laughed and shook her head. “No.”

  “Fine,” Lauren huffed. “Continue.”

  “Thank you
, your majesty,” Grey murmured sarcastically. “So, we went to Benihana’s for dinner before the concert. We all knocked back like 3 shots of tequila before the chef ever came out, and by the time he actually started cooking, we had polished off another shot and were working on bottles of Sapporo. We were, needless to say, not feeling any pain at that point.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  Grey just smiled and nodded. “Right, well, the chef starts doing the whole choppy-flippy-thing, and I decide that I could do it, too. I still don’t know why he gave me the knife and shit, but he did, and I started cooking.”

  “Oh god.”

  “It gets worse,” Grey assured her. “So, I’m butchering the shrimp and whatever the hell else is on the griddle thing, and Cody tells me to flip a shrimp into his mouth. Drunk me thinks that sounds like a great idea, so I load a shrimp onto the spatula and toss it to him. But instead of getting it in his mouth, I ended up hitting some poor old woman who was sitting two tables away from us in the forehead.” She laughed with Lauren at that and shrugged. “And, yeah, I shouted an apology that people on the street probably could have heard, the chef took his stuff back, and I sat back down in my chair.”

  “Sounds like a very wise decision.”

  “Thank you.” Grey tipped her head in a small bow. “Anyway, once the food started piling up on our plates, we were too busy eating to come up with any other genius ideas and so we managed to finish the meal without getting into trouble. But, once we finished dinner, one of the waitresses comes out with a little ceramic Buddha guy with a candle on his head and a bowl of ice cream, another waitress is behind her with a Polaroid camera, and they and the rest of the waitstaff in the restaurant start singing ‘Happy Birthday’ to Cody. He makes a wish, blows out the candle, and then next thing I know, he has the Buddha guy, our friend Mike has the camera, and the rest of us are all following them around the restaurant in a drunken conga line, singing to random people and taking their pictures.”

  “And how long did that go on?”

  “Maybe five minutes,” Grey said, taking a sip of her drink. “At first, I think everyone was amused by our antics, but once we climbed onto chairs at an empty table and started singing It’s Gonna Be Me—Cody’s favorite song at the time—at the top of our incredibly inebriated lungs, the manager came out, took the stuff away, and asked us to never return to the restaurant again.”

  Lauren laughed and shook her head. “My god. The nerve of that guy.”

  Grey finished off what was left of her Painkiller, and grinned as she set the empty glass onto the table. “I know, right?” She glanced at her watch as Lauren polished off the rest of her drink. It was only a little after eight o’clock. The idea of ordering another round was tempting, she was genuinely enjoying herself and was not ready for the evening to end, but she knew that they should not return to the boat with anything more than a light buzz. Will and Kim were cool, but she was running a business and that did not include her being totally hammered when there were guests aboard her boat. “You wanna go get some ice cream?”

  “Ice cream?” Lauren repeated, nodding as she got to her feet. “You just don’t want the night to end yet, huh?”

  “No,” Grey answered seriously, her eyes soft as a shy smile tugged at her lips. Her heart stuttered at the blatant honesty she could hear in her answer, and she cleared her throat quietly as she held Lauren’s gaze. “I just…really want some mint ‘n chip ice cream and all we have on the boat is vanilla.”

  Lauren stared at Grey, trying to get a read on what she was thinking. She had only been teasing Grey about not wanting the night to end, but she could tell from the open look in Grey’s eyes that she was serious. That, somehow over the course of the day, the weird unsettled balance between them had found its equilibrium. And, if she were being honest with herself, she did not know how she felt about it. A part of her was pleased that Grey was so much more open and friendly and even a little flirtatious with her, but she also could not forget the look that had haunted Grey’s eyes earlier that morning when she had caught her staring at the picture of her and Emily. She genuinely enjoyed Grey’s company, and seeing her laugh and smile filled Lauren with a surprising warmth of affection, but she could not help but wonder if all of this was simply because she reminded Grey of Emily. “I guess I could go for some ice cream.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Absolutely.” Lauren could not suppress the pleasant shudder that rolled up her spine at the feeling of Grey’s hand brushing lightly over her lower back when she walked past her, and her stomach flipped at the way Grey’s breath hitched in response. Yes, whatever it was that was going on between them, they were definitely treading on dangerous ground. “How far is it to the ice cream shop?”

  Grey pointed at a cluster of shops in front of them as she stepped onto the boardwalk beside Lauren. “It’s just up there.”

  They walked down the boardwalk to the ice cream shop in silence, their arms brushing together every so often, Lauren’s heart skipping a beat at every light touch, and she gave Grey a small, shaky smile when she held the door to the shop open for her. “Thank you.”

  “My pleasure.” Grey’s mouth went dry when Lauren’s eyes found hers, and she swallowed thickly as Lauren pushed past her into the shop. Goddamn, she thought, running her hands through her hair as she followed Lauren to the counter.

  Lauren held her breath as she felt Grey stop behind her. Every nerve ending in her body seemed to be attuned to Grey’s presence, and she both loved and hated that Grey affected her so acutely. Loved it because it had been so long since anyone had made her feel anything like this, and hated it because there was no way for her to know what any of it meant. She dimly heard Grey order a single scoop of mint ‘n chip on a sugar cone, and she cleared her throat softly when the shopkeeper’s eyes landed on her. “Rocky road.”

  It seemed like the most appropriate choice, given her current emotional state.

  Lauren paid for their ice cream since Grey had paid their dinner tab while she had been in the bathroom, and then they made their way out the door to a bench that sat right at the water’s edge. The pretense of enjoying their dessert made up for the lack of conversation between them, and Lauren pretended that she did not notice the way Grey kept looking at her.

  Grey could not look away from Lauren as the wind blowing in off the water stirred lightly through Lauren’s hair, sending the wild tresses fluttering around her face. Her fingers itched to reach out and tuck the strands behind Lauren’s ears, and it was all she could do to contain the urge. The electricity between them palpable, but electricity alone was not enough for her to take such liberties. Her breath caught when Lauren turned to look at her, and a slow, lopsided smile quirked her lips when she noticed a smear of chocolate ice cream on the side of Lauren’s mouth. “Hold still,” she murmured as she lifted a hand to wipe it off, “you have some ice cream on your face.”

  Before Lauren could take care of it herself, Grey’s fingers were gliding over her jaw, and a soft thumb was swiping slowly over the corner of her mouth. Her pulse raced as Grey’s thumb lingered against her lips, and she frowned. “I…”

  “Got it.” Grey did not pull her hand away, but instead left it wrapped lightly around Lauren’s jaw. Her eyes darted over Lauren’s face, from her lips to her eyes that sparkled with both surprise and desire, and she let out a shaky sigh as she began to lean in closer.

  “This is a really bad idea,” Lauren whispered, her eyes fluttering shut as Grey’s breath landed lightly on her lips. Bad idea or not, she could not find the willpower to pull away. Her stomach fluttered with anticipation as Grey’s mouth hovered just out of reach, warm and soft and full of promise, and her heart leapt into her throat when she felt the air in front of her stir.

  “Maybe.” Grey ran the tip of her nose over Lauren’s cheek. “But all the best ones are,” she murmured as she closed the gap between them and finally captured Lauren’s lips with her own.

  Chapter 17

  Kissin
g Grey was like nothing Lauren had experienced before. Grey’s lips were so soft, almost hesitant in the way they molded to her own, like Grey was waiting for her to pull away. She knew that she should stop this, but her heart had swooped up into her throat the moment Grey’s lips landed on hers, and she found herself powerless to resist.

  Grey tasted like mint and cream, and the fingers against her jaw were steel silk. Lauren could feel the air shift around them as Grey leaned into her, and desire—hot, white, and all-consuming—flared in her veins as the last of her resolve to do the smart thing disappeared. She reached for Grey, her fingers twisting blindly in the loose fabric of Grey’s shirt as she pulled her closer.

  She could not contain the low moan that rumbled in the back of her throat when Grey’s tongue swept slowly over her lower lip, tentatively seeking more. Her nipples became instantly, impossibly hard as she opened her mouth, and the shaky whimper that fell against her lips as Grey’s fingers threaded through her hair sent a delicious tremor of anticipation rolling down her spine.

  Grey groaned as Lauren’s mouth slanted over hers, opening wider and inviting her in deeper. Her pulse pounded in her ears as Lauren’s tongue swirled around her own in a sensual dance of exploration and need, and her stomach swooped and dove at the feeling of Lauren’s body arching into her. Warmth she had thought she would never feel again swept through her with every languid swipe of Lauren’s tongue around her own and with every flex of the redhead’s fingers in her shirt. She fisted her hands in Lauren’s hair, holding her in place as she took control of the kiss, every ardent clash of lips less restrained than the last. It was madness. Sheer, unexplainable insanity, and she craved more.

  A shrill wolf-whistle and catcalls drove them apart, and the world they had all but forgotten slammed violently back into place. They came apart slowly, cheeks flushed with a combination of arousal and embarrassment, and Grey cleared her throat softly as she carefully untangled her fingers from Lauren’s hair and made a half-hearted effort to smooth it back into place.