After the tedious safety briefings and boarding procedures are handled, Aubrey and I are finally allowed in our suite on the ship. Sophie is staying with Roxanne next door so Aubrey can still help if it’s needed, but the truth is neither Sophie nor my mom ever really needed a caretaker. I hire them more for companionship, and in the hope that the right one would fill some void both my mother and Sophie feel because of my failed marriage.

Aubrey hops face first onto our bed and I catch a brief glimpse of her white panties as her dress flares up. My cock stiffens so quickly it’s almost miraculous, and I’m forced to assume a slightly uncomfortable position against the wall to avoid making the gigantic bulge in my pants any more obvious than it already is.

Aubrey rolls over, smiling contentedly. “I’ve always wanted to go on a cruise,” she sighs.

“Yeah? I’ve always thought they were kind of tacky, but this actually isn’t bad. And right now, I’ll take anything that gets me away from that fucking woman and her stupid hats. I’d also like to see that asshole, Jake, try to find us here. Three days with no problems. It’s going to be perfect.”

She sits up, biting her lip. “Am I here as your fake fiancée or as your girlfriend?”

“Girlfriend?” I ask, grinning. “I didn’t realize that was an option.”

“Well,” she says, cheeks reddening. “Normally when you take a girl on a date and things aren’t a disaster, it kinda progresses to girlfriend.”

“Is that right? I guess that makes you my girlfriend, then.”

She sucks in an excited breath and jumps off the bed to nearly tackle me with a hug. “Really?” she asks, breath hot against my neck. “Hey,” she says suddenly. “Did you smuggle a banana onto the boat or someth--”

“Let’s just say I did,” I say with a half-smile. “Because if I tell you the truth, there’s no way this conversation won’t go back to the thing I’m never supposed to talk about again, or how much I enjoyed that thing that supposedly never happened.”

She covers her face, resting her forehead against my chest. “Nooo! Stop! Please! It’s a banana, okay? I believe you!”

“Good girl,” I say, rewarding her with a quick peck on the lips. Except one taste of her lips makes it impossible to stop, and I take more than a quick kiss. Soon her tongue is in my mouth, swirling with mine. Her belly is pressed against my hard cock and her hands are roaming my back. I’m moving both of us slowly toward the bed, still kissing and letting my hands roam her body, feeling the need for her that has been mounting for weeks ready to completely spill over.

I push her down on the bed, standing over her as I reach for my buttons. She looks up at me with lidded eyes, hungry eyes.

“Wait,” she says, shaking her head. “I’m sorry. I--I know this is silly, but the reason I’m still a virgin is because… God, nevermind. It sounds so stupid if I say it out loud.”

“You can tell me,” I say, having to fight my willpower to stop from touching her more, from taking her.

“I wanted to save myself for my husband. As much as I’m enjoying this, I just… I don’t know if I can, because it’s not--I’m not making any sense, am I?” she asks.

My eyes linger on her full tits pillowing out of the side of her dress and the way her pulse pounds in the shallow of her neck. Her dress is rucked up so that I could see her panties again if it only moved a fraction of an inch higher.

She looks more fuckable than any woman I’ve ever laid eyes on. But unlike the women before her, I care more about what comes after this moment than I care about getting between her legs. Maybe if I pushed it, she’d give in. Hell, she probably would. I know we’re both turned on as hell. It would take an idiot not to see that.

But the more I’m with Aubrey, the more sure I am that I want more out of her than just a short term relationship. I don’t just want a casual fuck, no matter how much I might enjoy it. I want a wife. Pretending to be engaged to her has given me the slightest taste of what it would really be like, and it has only made me hungrier. I want her to be mine. All fucking mine. Body, mind, and soul.

So all I do is nod, sitting beside her and saying everything I can to reassure her that it’s really okay and that she doesn’t have to feel bad for wanting to wait. We talk for nearly thirty minutes before I’ve finally managed to bring things back to somewhere near normal, and my rock-hard cock has softened and stopped pulsing painfully with need.

It’s a good thing, too, because a few seconds later, there’s a knock at our door. When I open it, I find Sophie, who’s wearing her bathing suit. “C’mon! They have waterslides! Grandma said we could go.”

I look a little farther around the corner and see my mom waiting in her chair with an excited grin on her face. She may be a mean old coot, but she has always loved theme parks and water parks or basically anything along those lines. Even if she’s too old now to participate herself, I think she likes to watch Sophie enjoying the experience and try to live a little through her eyes.

“Waterslides?” asks Aubrey.

I personally could go either way as far as waterslides are concerned, but if it means getting to see Aubrey in a bathing suit, I’m all for it. “Let’s do it. Give us a couple minutes to get changed,” I say.

Ten minutes later, we’re all on the top deck. Roxanne is down below while Sophie, Aubrey, and I wait in line. We’re standing on a curved staircase that leads up to the tallest of the three slides on the boat. Aubrey and Sophie are talking together in low, secretive tones, and I’m glad to see some of the iciness Sophie first showed toward Aubrey when I announced our engagement has thawed.

I’m also glad to see the most amazing fucking view of Aubrey’s ass imaginable. She has an ass made for fucking and being admired. The little black bikini she wears hugs her body perfectly, even giving me a glimpse of the shape of her pussy between her legs when she moves to take a step higher. Am I being a creep for getting an eyeful while she’s distracted? Maybe. But I figure I deserve a medal for not taking her back in the room when I know a few words could’ve changed her mind. If they give the purple heart for soldiers, I guess they could give me the blue ball medal for the testament of willpower I endured.

Besides, I’ve caught Aubrey guiltily glancing at my body plenty of times, even in the short trip up from our room to the waterslides she must have snuck at least a dozen glances at my chest and abs. So really, it’s all fair game. And if she wants to think of herself as my girlfriend now, then I have even more of a right.

I grin to myself, thinking how out of character it is for me to be locked in an internal struggle to justify looking at a woman’s ass. The old me wouldn’t have given two shits. Ever since the divorce, women have just been a diversion to me.

Now though… Aubrey is changing me, and fast. Frighteningly fast. But I can’t help thinking all the ways I’m changing are for the better, that the man I’m becoming is a better man for my daughter, and even for my mother. She’s making a husband out of me, and instead of scaring the shit out of me like that might have even a few weeks ago, it excites me.

The slide is surprisingly tall for something mounted on the top of a boat. Sophie looks down once we reach the top and gulps dramatically. The lifeguard is a bored looking teenager, who waves for her to step up to the slide.

“We’ll be down right after you, Soph,” I say.

She looks over her shoulder, forehead crinkling with worry. “Daddy, I’m scared.”

I take a step toward her, reaching to comfort her and help her walk back down, but then she sticks her tongue out suddenly.

“Sucker!” she laughs, slinging herself down the slide and disappearing in a mist of churning water.

Aubrey and I laugh. Aubrey looks to me and grins. “I’m actually scared, Liam. These things terrify me.”

“I’ll just have to go down with you then,” I say. “C’mon.”

The lifeguard sighs. “One at a time please.”

Aubrey moves to step back, but I push her forward. “Go!” I shout. “What are they going to do, turn the boat around?”

We laugh as we rush past the lifeguard and Aubrey sits between my legs at the top of the slide. I push us down just before the lifeguard reaches us and we are plunged into a dark tunnel of swirling water. The slide propels us forward faster than I expected, sending us around a series of sharp turns and down surprising drops. We round one last corner before going into an arcing drop that shoots us into a pool of chest-deep water, where we tumble together and I’m given a harsh lesson on why only one rider is supposed to go down at a time.

When we crashed into the water, Aubrey must have spun around from the impact and brought her knees up, because something very hard and painful collided with my balls. It’s all I can do not to sink to the bottom of the pool and give up on life right there. Somehow I manage to swim to the shallow end of the pool where I can double over and then fall to my ass.

“Oh my God, are you okay?” asks Aubrey.

Sophie crowds in behind her, followed by Roxanne, who wheels up to the edge of the water.

“I’ll be good,” I groan.

“Did I hurt you?” asks Aubrey. “Let me see.”

“I can show you tonight. But this isn’t exactly the place,” I say.

Aubrey’s eyes widen and she nods quickly. “I’m so sorry,” she whispers.

“What happened, Daddy? Did you hurt your cojones?”

I frown. “Where did you learn that?”

“Spanish is the second most common language in the US, Daddy.”

I sigh, not feeling like I have the energy to get into a battle of words with my daughter right now, so I just wave my hand in submission. “I’m going to head back to the room and ice my cojones,” I say.

I’m headed back to my room when a familiar face catches my eye. I do a double take, turning in the lobby that leads to the elevator. The man sees me notice him and tries to rush out to the deck of the boat. I’m on him before he can leave though, pressing him into the wall with my forearm. It’s Aubrey’s fucking ex-boyfriend. Jake.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I ask, ignoring the surprised gasps of people hurrying away from the altercation or gathering around to watch.

“What?” asks Jake, face already turning red. “I’m not allowed to enjoy a fucking vacation?”

“Not this vacation,” I growl, pressing harder until his face begins to turn purple. I let the panic settle into his eyes and give him a few seconds to wonder if I’m actually going to just throttle him to death right here in front of all these people, then I let go.

Jake crumples to the ground, grasping his throat and coughing.

“Hey, man,” says a guy from the growing crowd who steps toward me. “You can’t just--”

But all I see is red right now. This fucker followed us on the boat somehow and he thinks he’s going to get his hands on Aubrey. The man from the crowd puts his hand on my shoulder and I spin reflexively, cracking him across the jaw with a left hook. His head snaps back and he tilts backward like a felled tree, crashing to the ground with a thump.

I wince. Probably shouldn’t have done that, but fuck it. Right now I can’t really make myself care. I turn back to Jake, who is struggling to his feet now.

“How did you know we’d be on this cruise?” I ask.

Jake sneers. “You threw away the receipts and put out the trash. The paper was sitting right on top like a nicely wrapped little present. So I figured, what the hell, the Keys are nice this time of year.”

“You figured what the hell,” I repeat softly, advancing on him. He has the good sense to take a half step back. “Why not? Right?” I ask.

He swallows hard, and I can see he’s thinking about taking a shot at me.

“I’m why not,” I say. “I’m your worst fucking nightmare. And that girl you are stalking is my fiancée. The sooner you get that through your stupid fucking head the sooner we can move past this. Because if you so much as lay a finger on her, I will rip you to pieces with my bare fucking hands, so help me God. Am I making myself clear?”

Jake nods, but the way his jaw is set and the way his eyes bore defiantly into me tells me he’s still not cowed. Not completely.

“Jake?” asks a familiar voice. I turn to see Aubrey, Sophie, and Roxanne pushing a path through the crowd.

“Aubrey…” he says quietly. “You look gorgeo--”

Jake is on the ground before my brain catches up with what happened. My left fist still throbs from cracking the asshole who tried to step in from the crowd across the jaw. My balls also ache, and now my right fist burns too, and I see the already reddening patch of skin on Jake’s cheek. I punched him. A straight, blinding jab to the face that took the strength from his legs.

“Liam!” shouts Aubrey, who comes to my side and tries to hold me back. “He’s not worth it. Come on.”

I feel some of the fury slip from me and scan the crowd for the first time. I’m about to turn to leave when my eyes settle on fucking Linda McCroy from Child Protective Services. She sees me noticing her and winks, holding up her clipboard and giving it an approving nod, like she just got all she needed.

“You too?” I ask, advancing on her. “Did I send a fucking invitation out announcing we were coming on this cruise? How much is she fucking paying you?”

Linda gives me an obnoxiously arrogant little smirk. “Enough to keep my ear to the ground. I needed to work on my tan, anyway,” she says in a self-satisfied tone, like she has just won and she knows it.

Jake gets to his feet and shakes off the punch, skulking away, but not before shooting us a meaningful look over his shoulder. The crowd disperses, and I’m left with sore balls, sore fists, and a sickening certainty in my gut that I just ruined everything.