Page 130 of Falling Overboard

“Need help?”

I had to gulp down the sensations that overwhelmed me as I turned my back to him. He stepped closer to me and I tried hard not to think about what he was doing. He grasped the zipper and tugged it slightly down.

Then he leaned forward and kissed the skin at the base of my neck and I had to put my hands onto the wall to keep me upright. I was trembling, torn between wanting him to continue and scared of what would happen if he did.

He pulled the zipper down oh so slowly, and with every patch of skin that was exposed, he pressed a warm kiss to that spot. It got harder and harder to stand as my knees pretty much stopped working entirely.

Something he seemed to realize as he put his free hand flat against my stomach, holding me in place as he continued his onslaught of unzipping and then kissing.

“This isn’t avoiding the fire,” I whispered.

“I know,” he said in a low tone that made everything inside me burn even brighter. “You are so unbelievably sexy.”

His words made my bones liquefy. He released his hand and I had to lean against the door as he crouched to continue his trail of fiery kisses. When he got to the small of my back, something smacked hard into the wall outside our cabin. I heard someone call out in pain.

Without thinking, I unlocked the door and came out into the hallway. Emilie had apparently tripped on her way down the stairs and crashed into the wall.

“Are you okay?” I asked her.

She took in our appearance—him shirtless, my dress gaping in the back, practically sliding off my shoulders, and narrowed her gaze. Ididn’t know what she thought about Hunter and our fake-dating-but-now-real-dating thing we had going on, but if she had doubted it at all, we had just eliminated that doubt entirely. She went into her own cabin and slammed the door shut.

I turned to Hunter and asked, “Do you think she’ll tell her uncle?”

His face was grim. “Let’s hope not.”

Chapter Forty-Two

Lucky

The fear that Emilie would tell the captain stayed at the back of my mind, insistent, and had the effect of cooling my ardor. Which meant I was much more careful with Hunter and didn’t let things go too far.

Even though we both really, really wanted them to.

Adding to my anxiety was the fact that our new charter was the absolute worst. The primary guest was a man named Myron in his late fifties / early sixties. He had brought his girlfriend with him, a woman named Amber, who we guessed was nineteen or twenty years old.

He was involved in some kind of cryptocurrency/techno type of company and had brought along his top four twentysomething employees to reward them for their hard work. Their ringleader Brock, Brad, Chaz, and Lance—each one of them jerkier than the last.

François had contemptuously referred to them as “nouveau riche” right after they arrived, and for the first time ever, I heartily agreed with him. In our line of work, there was a definite divide between people who had grown up with money and those who had more recently acquired it.

Old money treated the crew with courtesy and respect. Like we were humans. New money treated us like we were peons at their constant beck and call, degraded us, and generally didn’t care how they acted. Like Brock decided their complicated drinks should never go below half-full. I spent almost the whole day getting them fresh drinks, wasting an unbelievable amount of time and alcohol.

It was theirs to waste—they would have to pay for all of it—but I hated pouring money down the sink.

They behaved like it was our privilege to serve them. As if we should be the ones paying them for the honor of being in their presence.

Even Hunter, who was not a complainer, had told me how much the guests were personally annoying him.

“They want the slide out and they use it for ten minutes and then they’re done. Thomas actually timed how long they use it because we’re all so sick of it. Do you know how long it takes to set up and take down that stupid thing? Hours. I know that it’s my job, but use it for more than ten minutes!”

The guests also enjoyed bringing “paid friends” on board. I figured it wasn’t my responsibility to worry about what international laws were or were not being broken when that happened, but I was pretty tired of cleaning up the disgusting mess after they were done.

The only thing worse than the men and their unrelenting demands was Amber. She was terrible but I supposed I would be, too, if I were dating a man old enough to be my grandfather. She had a Pomeranian named Bisou, who was also the absolute worst. That little yappy menace peed and pooped all over the ship. I kept telling myself that at least it wasn’t cat urine. Nobody had ever trained the dog and she was the most ill-behaved animal I’d ever seen.

“That’s not a dog,” Hunter said as Bisou snapped at his ankles. “It’s a demon in dog’s fur.”

I was inclined to agree.

The second night at dinner, Amber came out in a red, furry couture dress that had me wondering how many Elmos had been killed to makeit. I got the guests all seated and went back down to the galley to wait for Andre to finish up the first course.

---