Below Deck

“I know who she is,” I reply, gritting my teeth, wondering why in the hell I have a best friend who doesn’t know the first thing about following rules.

This morning he was fucking a stew, and tonight he’s well on his way to fucking a guest. And not just any guest, the best friend of Mackenzie. One look at this woman, with her face flushed and her hair all disheveled, and I’m right back to thinking about her. Wondering if her mouth would be red and swollen after I tasted her, wondering if the skin of her chest would flush with desire when I touched her, wondering how my name would sound if she moaned it…

“Sorry, I know I’m not supposed to be down here, but I couldn’t help myself. I had to come looking for this guy,” Brooke informs me, her body still wrapped around Ben, neither one of them making any move to leave the galley.

“Glad you found me, baby,” Ben tells her with a wink, making me roll my eyes. “Hey, didn’t you say your friend couldn’t sleep and that’s why you came looking for me?”

Ben looks back over his shoulder at me and gives me a lecherous smile that makes me want to pick up one of the pans from the floor by his feet and smack him over the fucking head with it.

“Why yes, yes I did,” Brooke replies casually. “Mackenzie decided to go for a walk around the deck, and I got bored in that room all by myself. Last time I checked, she was on the right side.”

That’s called starboard, baby,” Ben tells her, turning away from me to run his hands up her thighs until he’s clutching her ass.

“It’s so hot when you talk boat,” Brooke replies. “Tell me more.”

“Port, starboard, stern, bridge…”

Brooke tightens her arms around Ben’s shoulders, giving him encouraging moans when he dips his head and mutters more nautical terms against the skin of her throat.

Thoroughly disgusted with what is happening right in front of me, and hoping to God Brooke isn’t a vindictive woman who will lose her shit when she finds out the kind of man-whore Ben is, I turn away from them to get the hell out of here.

“Hey, Declan!” Brooke calls to me suddenly. “Can you do me a HUGE favor and go make sure Mackenzie gets back to our room okay? This is a pretty big ship and I don’t want her getting lost or anything.”

With my back still to them, I sigh and give a little wave over my shoulder, my feet moving me back through the stew pantry at a clipped pace when I start hearing giggles and moans coming from the galley.

Instead of heading right to my bunk like I know I should, my legs take me in the opposite direction and back up the stairs to the guest quarters. I tell myself the entire way I am absolutely not going in search of Mackenzie. She got a tour of the ship just like everyone else, and if she gets lost, it’s her own damn fault. I’m going upstairs to do one last check and make sure Eddie and I didn’t miss anything, that’s it.

I take my time looking around the stern, jiggling all the cabinet doors to make sure they’re all secure and nothing will fall out of them overnight. By the time I finish and make my way to the starboard side of the ship, I’m positive I’ve wasted enough time and Mackenzie will have found her way back to her room. When I get halfway down the length of the ship, checking the deck for anything that shouldn’t be there, I sense her before I even see her. My feet stop moving and my head slowly comes up to find her standing against the railing, looking out at the water.

She’s still wearing the same light blue strapless dress she had on at dinner. With the full moon shining brightly overhead, I see the light ocean breeze moving strands of her long, dark hair around her face and gently rustling the short skirt around her thighs, lifting it up until I can see so much of one smooth upper thigh that my mouth waters to run my hands over it.

My heart thumps wildly in my chest as I stand here staring at her looking so beautiful in the moonlight that it takes my breath away. I should turn around, walk back inside, go to my bunk and forget I ever saw her.

I know that’s what I should do, but it’s not what I want to do and it pisses me off. I can still hear her saying my name earlier. When something makes her turn her head in my direction, the surprised look on her face turns into a slow smile, and all of the blood in my body shoots right to my dick. My feet that felt like cement blocks stuck to the deck floor just seconds ago start moving me towards her. When she sees me coming, she turns her body to face me fully, one hand clutching a handful of her hair to stop it from blowing in her face, and the other holding tightly to the railing. I move faster, stalking towards her until I see her eyes widen in shock.

I can’t return her smile, I can’t say a word, all I can do is charge her like an animal, my hands clenched into fists at my sides and my dick so painfully hard in my shorts all I can think about is getting some fucking relief.

She opens her mouth when I’m a foot away.

“What are you—”

I close the distance in record time, grab her face with my hands, bend my knees, dip my head and claim those full, gorgeous pink lips. Her mouth immediately opens for me, gasping, and I take the opportunity to dart my tongue inside. As soon as it touches hers, a shock of need shoots right through my body. I try to control myself, but when the shock leaves her and she immediately swirls her tongue around mine, kissing me back and moaning into my mouth, I’m done for.

My hands drop from her face and I wrap my arms around her waist, yanking her roughly against my body as we both battle to deepen the kiss. Our tongues push and pull against each other, our heads tilt from side to side to get the best angle, and before I know it, I’m turning her around and pushing her roughly into the wall of the ship.