Chapter 7

Control your orgasm. It’s just a beard.

-Said no man ever

Audrey

The day to embark finally arrived, and I was both nervous and excited about the prospect of going on my first ever cruise.

“This your first time?”

I looked down at the older woman who was standing next to me.

“Yes,” I said, peeking around the partition that separated her balcony from mine and Tobias’. “Yours?”

She shook her head. “No. This is our seventeenth. We go on one once a year now.”

I smiled. “That’s exciting.”

The ship’s horn blew, causing me to jump.

I jumped again when I felt a warm body slide in next to mine.

“That’s the horn they blow when they finally take off. You’ll hear that every single time we leave a port,” the older woman explained, her eyes flicking up past my head to the man at my side.

“Ahh,” I said, tilting my head to stare at the man at my side. “Did you know that?”

He shook his head. “First time for me, too, remember?”

I grinned and looked back at the dock. Then started to bounce when I realized that the dock was getting further and further away from the side of the boat.

“It doesn’t even feel like we’re moving!” I gasped in amazement. “Do you think it’ll be like this the whole time?”

That question was aimed toward Tobias, but the older lady answered instead. “This is smooth, but then again, you’re in a very good cabin. The one you got, which is the one we always pick, is in the very center of the ship, both side-to-side and top to bottom. This is the cabin that will be the least susceptible to the waves or any wind we have.”

“Ahh,” I said again. “That’s awesome. Did you mean to get this cabin?”

Tobias shook his head. “No. I just told the woman that was booking the reservations that I wanted to be somewhere that wasn’t going to make me puke the whole time if the boat started rocking. She was very adamant that this would be the best cabin on the ship. Which you already know since you came with me.”

He looked at my pointedly.

“It really is,” the old lady agreed. “This has the biggest balcony, too.”

I looked around at our balcony, and then at the one directly below us.

“Imagine that,” I said. “You’re right. Why do you think this balcony is bigger than the others?”

She shook her head. “No clue, but this is what we get each and every time we set sail.”

I nodded.

“Come on,” Tobias said, grabbing my hand. “I want to go to the buffet.”

I rolled my eyes and watched as the dock where we’d boarded the ship disappeared from sight. “It was nice meeting you,” I told the lady. “My name is Audrey.”

Her smile was infectious. “You too, dear. My name is Della. You and your husband go enjoy eating. I’m sure we’ll see you again.”

I didn’t correct her ‘husband’ comment. Instead, I walked to the door that was closed behind the man who was slowly starting to take hold of my heart, and opened it.

Stepping through, I once again took stock of the room. “This is tiny,” I commented.

He grunted in response as he reached into his bag and withdrew a pair of shorts. “Let me change really quick, and we’ll head out. It’s fucking hot as balls in here right now.”

I hid my smile and presented him with my back, once again taking in the water which was all that I could see now.

I heard his belt clink as he undid his pants, and I felt a shiver tear up my spine.

This man, with his insistence that he was going to ‘get me out more’ was slowly tearing down every wall that I’d erected, and building them back up behind him as he did.

He was protecting me while, at the same time, offering me the freedom I was slowly coming to realize that I needed.

All these years, since the day I was assaulted and raped, I’d been hiding from myself and from life. I’d been doing everything I could to protect myself and, in the process, found myself not actually living my life.

I’d finished school and gotten a job, but I then buried myself so deeply into that job that I didn’t have time to do anything but work, eat and sleep.

These last few weeks with Tobias forcing me to do things without taking no for an answer was eye opening. It made me see exactly what I was missing, and the realization was overwhelming.

I had been in hiding, and I didn’t have plans to come out.

Or hadn’t, until Tobias forced me out of my comfort zone.

“Done,” he said. “You want to change, too?”

I thought about it, then shook my head. “No, I’m okay.”

He looked down at my jeans and three quarter sleeved t-shirt and then shrugged.

“Okay,” he said, picking up his wallet and the ID card that was now our lifeline on this boat. Anytime we wanted to buy something—a drink, a souvenir, an excursion or a spa service—this ID card would be used for payment. Of course, the card was linked to Tobias’ debit card, so it was unlikely that I would go buy things willy nilly.

Well, unless he pissed me off, that was.

He turned on his heel and walked to the door, opening it and gesturing for me to precede him.

“After you,” he drawled.

I bit my lip to keep from smiling and walked quickly to the door and through it, as I waited for him to close the door in the hallway.

“It feels better out here,” I muttered to him. “Do you think we could leave the door propped open to let some of that cool air in?”

He grunted. “No.”

Just that. One word to my question. No.

I rolled my eyes and started down the hallway, only for him to grab me moments later and gesture to the side with his hand.

That was when I saw the stairs. “Are you kidding?”

He shook his head. “Nope. There are three thousand people on this boat, darlin’,” he answered. “And all of them are going to be heading up to the fuckin’ buffet.”

“Hmm,” I said, eyeing the stairs. “Well, let’s go.”

I took the first four flights without problem, but by the time we got to the fifth, my thighs were screaming.

“You’re killing me,” I wheezed, seeing him already at the top landing holding the door for me. “I can hardly draw a breath!”

He rolled his eyes. “Maybe while you’re here with me, we’ll workout. Work on those puny thighs.”

I looked down at my thighs, then up at him. “They’re not puny. They’re fat.”

He snorted. “Those legs are anything but fat. They’re shapely, yes, but they’re not fat. Have you ever heard the saying ‘thick thighs save lives’?”

I shook my head. “No.”

He hummed as we made our way out of the stairwell and straight out into the pool area. “Wow,” was all I could think to say.

“Three thousand people on board this ship. Three hundred of them are officers and their spouses. The other twenty-seven hundred of them are people over seventy,” he commented.

I couldn’t disagree with him. Every single person we passed on the way to the buffet in the corner was an older man or woman. None of them were under the age of sixty.

“They did say this was a nicer boat. Maybe the other cruise lines are a little more geared toward the younger crowd. That boat we saw as we pulled out had a water slide on top of it,” I pointed out. “And maybe these people were just priority boarders. They just got on and settled faster than the rest of us. Maybe they just haven’t made their way up here yet.”

He grunted something indistinguishable in reply, and I held my tongue as we made our way, following the masses, who all had the same plan to get food, into the dining room where the buffet was housed.

My mouth twitched when I saw Tobias stiffen.

There had to be at least three hundred people in the large room, but he didn’t say a thing as he grabbed a plate and made his way through the buffet tables where dish after dish was set up and waiting.

I chose a few rolls, some sliced beef that was served by a guy with a chef’s hat about three feet tall, and a scoop of spaghetti in meat sauce.

“That’s all you’re getting?”

I jumped when I saw Tobias come up behind me, his plate was heaping full and rounded at the top.

“No,” I said, pointing to the large table of desserts. “I’m gonna eat this, and then I’m going to head over there and try a piece of every single thing on their dessert table.”

He snorted. “Where do you want to sit?”

I looked around, not seeing a single table open. There had to be at least a hundred tables, and every single one of them was occupied.

“I guess we could go outside,” I said. “There were a few tables out by the pool that I remember seeing as we came in.”

He grunted something in reply and started walking. If I was a guessing woman, I would assume that grunt was supposed to be an ‘okay.’

A grin spreading out over my lips, I hurried behind him as he dropped his plate down on an empty table that an older man was just vacating.

“Enjoy,” the old man said as he shuffled off, using his cane as support.

I placed my plate down on the table as I grabbed for the pole that was directly next to us when the ship rocked under my feet. “I see fall hazards everywhere,” I mumbled to him. “That man with the cane. That old woman with the walker.” I gestured to the woman that was shuffling toward the bar. “Then there’s that man in the pool in his Speedo.”

Tobias snorted. “That’s the nurse in you, I’d guess. Just wait until they get some alcohol into their systems. Then their fall risks will go up.”

After nodding in agreement, my eyes went around the large top deck of the ship. “Do you think that’s where they play the movies?” I asked, gesturing toward the large screen hanging above the pool.

“Yeah,” he confirmed. “They said the Super Bowl would be shown on deck fifteen. That’s this one. There’s another side, but I glanced that way when we were coming out of the stairwell, and they didn’t have a TV screen on that side.”

“Hmm,” I mumbled, taking my first bite of spaghetti. Then promptly gagged. “Ewww.”

“What?” he asked, grimacing himself when he took a bite of something brown smothered in gravy.

“Tastes like they only used tomato sauce and not any seasonings,” I mumbled, pushing the spaghetti to the side of the plate as I moved on to the other stuff on my plate.

Each thing I tried was worse than the next, and I ended up twiddling my thumbs as I tried to decide if I should go back in there and grab something else to try.

“They have a burger place over there,” Tobias gestured with his head. “You want to go?”

I looked down at his own barely eaten plate, and then nodded. “Yeah, and it’s right by the bar. We can grab a drink and eat it right there.”

So that’s what we did. Ate burgers and drank free beer as we watched the top deck flurry with activity around us.

“Want to swim?” he asked, those beautiful eyes turning to me in question.

I licked my lips.

Did I want to be in front of the man that I was quickly realizing I had a crush on? Did I want him to see me in nothing but a thin one-piece Speedo swimsuit covering me? No. Did I want to swim? Yes.

“Sure,” I finally muttered out. “I still want dessert, though.”

His grin was nothing less than knowing. “Would expect nothing less from you.”

***

Something changed between us at the pool. There’d been sexual tension between us already, but what happened at the pool ratcheted up that tension.

Once we’d both changed into our bathing suits, we’d returned to the top deck, happy to see that the pool on the opposite side of the top deck wasn’t occupied by anyone but a younger couple in the hot tub that was in an area off to the side of the pool.

While I cautiously laid my towel down on the closest unoccupied pool lounger and shucked my bathing suit cover up, I chanced a glance in the direction of where Tobias was standing.

And my breath caught.

He was beautiful.

His tanned skin made his body seem to glow in the dense sunlight that was pouring down on us.

My fingers itched to run over those hard abdominals, and the moment he came striding toward me, his shirt and shoes in his hand, I reached up and touched him.

He froze, his body half bent over to place his things on the lounger next to mine.

“Woman…”

I grinned and dropped my hand, but not before checking out his V up close and personal.

And, oh boy, what a V it was.

His abs were defined, yes, but that V. That V was so fucking beautiful that it bore repeating.

Over and over again.

“You look like you’re about to lick me,” he chuckled as he reached for the suntan lotion. “Do you want some of this?”

I nodded, and he squirted a healthy dollop into my hand. “You do your front, and I’ll do mine. Then we can do each other’s backs.”

I didn’t argue. Couldn’t.

Not with the way that his hand was moving up and down his exposed skin, enticing me to do much the same.

“You need more?”

I shook my head and started to rub it in, first on the tops of my breasts, and then on the line of my shoulders.

My face was the last thing to get done, and I apparently had done a fairly shitty job at making sure it was all rubbed in because he helped me do just that moments later.

“Turn around,” he ordered once he was done.

When I forgot to be scared, the act of him touching me was so erotic that I nearly moaned.

His hands started at my shoulder blades, picking up where I left off, and smoothed down the length of my back.

I could feel every single callus that resided on his fingers and hand.

His hands did things to me that I wasn’t willing to admit to. Not while we were sitting next to a pool, surrounded by old people.

“Done,” came his raspy voice.

I shivered and got both feet back under me before holding my hand out for the bottle that was still in his hands.

He gave it to me, and I nearly dropped it, my hands still slippery from the suntan lotion.

I only caught it by pulling it tightly into my chest, clutching it in between my forearms and breasts.

At the same time, Tobias also reached for it.

And in the meantime, cupped my boob instead of actually catching the bottle.

“Shit,” he said, pulling away. “I’m sorry.”

The laugh that burst free of me was freeing.

“Turn around, big guy.”

He quickly followed orders, and I grinned wider at the tinge of pink on his cheeks as he did.

The first touch of my hands on his muscled back made my stomach tighten.

He had tattoos, yes, but those tattoos were stretched so tightly over his muscular back that it was almost unseemly. I didn’t see a single ounce of fat on this man, and that was discouraging.

How could someone so sexy, so beautiful, want someone like me? I was just a plain Jane, a nobody. I didn’t have any particularly noteworthy attributes to speak of. I was chunky, and couldn’t pull off a two-piece bathing suit if my life depended on it. My hair was ugly—a frizzy mess— if I didn’t do anything to it. My eyes were green, so bland that they were unremarkable. Then there were my thighs—thighs that touched regardless of how much effort I put into working out. I wore holes in the thighs of my jeans because they rubbed together so religiously.

But this man? He had muscles for years. His tattoos were beautiful. He had skin that most women would die for, and most of all, he was way out of my league.

“It’s gotta be good, honey ” Tobias broke me out of my thoughts.

I stopped what I was doing, and realized I’d been rubbing the lotion into his back for much longer than the time that it would normally take to complete the task.

“Yeah, you’re good.” I cleared my throat. “I’m sorry. These tattoos are amazing; I forgot what I was doing.”

His quiet laugh had me blinking up at him.

“What?” I asked as he stared down at me with humor lighting his eyes.

“Nothing.”

Then he struck like a snake, lifting me into his arms and then bodily throwing us both into the pool at our backs.

I gasped a lung full of air before I went down into the water, sinking with the large man who was wrapped around me like a monkey.

The shock of the water hitting my skin from every single direction assaulted my senses, sending my heart rate skyrocketing.

I screamed under the water as the arms around me let me go, and instinctively kicked to the surface. The moment my head broke water, I started to look around for the man who was about to die, and found him all the way across the pool, staring at me with laughter lining his face.

“You’re going to die,” I informed him.

His grin was unrepentant. “Gotta catch me first, sweetheart.”

Now, here is where I tell you that I was an excellent swimmer.

In high school and college—before the incident that changed my life irrevocably—I’d been a competitive swimmer. I was on the swim team, competed in meets and was actually pretty good at it.

But my skills held nothing on those of the man in front of me.

He was like a freakin’ fish.

Every time I swam toward him, he dodged the opposite way. When I put on the speed, he put on the boosters.

By the time I broke the water a few minutes later, exhausted and thinking I might die, I was still no closer to catching him.

“You’re no fun,” I pouted.

He was across the width of the pool from me, staring at me.

Well, my chest.

I looked down to see my breasts acting like their own flotation devices at the water line, and realized rather quickly that the suit had slipped down in my exuberance to get to him.

It wasn’t flashing him my nipples…yet. But any more activity, and I would be.

I pulled it up, and his eyes finally came to mine.

“I swim a lot,” he declared. “Plus, I don’t want you to kill me. I like myself too much.”

I snorted and moved toward him.

“Come on,” I teased lightly, making my way to him. “Be a man.”

His brows rose in unison.

“A man would stay still and let the woman he lo-likes…” Had he meant to say something else? The man never stutters! “Do whatever she wants to him?” he finished.

I nodded firmly. “Yes.”

He laughed in my face and would have taken off again had the water not splashed at our backs, signaling the entrance of other people into our secret hideaway amongst the old folks.

I turned and found a couple of men—who had to be cops by the watchfulness of their eyes—in the pool up to their chests.

“Yo,” I heard Tobias say. “What took y’all so long?”

Each man had a beer in his hands, and they were palming them like they were their best friends.

“Apparently, you’re only allowed to bring one bottle of alcohol with you. Also, you’re not allowed to have your gun.” The first man holding the bottle of Heineken said. “The guys at the metal detector were all like ‘Mr. Asher Connely, you’re not allowed to have firearms on this vessel.’ So I had to call my sister back and have her come get my piece.”

The man, Asher, had a man bun and a beard, two things that I’d developed a fascination with when they’d first become popular a few months ago. Only, this man’s ‘man bun’ wasn’t much of a man bun but more of a convenient way to stow his hair out of his face while he did extra-curricular activities.

He was tall, built and tattooed. Though, he was white…very white. So white, in fact, that if he didn’t put on some suntan lotion very soon, he’d be burned to a crisp in a matter of minutes. He was literally the color of my sheets at home on my bed.

“It was embarrassing that this booze-a-holic even came with me,” the other man grumbled.

And dear, sweet baby Jesus, was he pretty.

He looked like Dr. McDreamy from Grey’s Anatomy…only more rugged.

A lot more rugged.

He had silver at his temples, beautiful ice blue eyes, and a salt and pepper close clipped beard that was so freakin’ sexy that if Tobias hadn’t been standing at my side, I would’ve said he was easily the hottest person I’d ever seen.

A large hand went around my waist, and I turned to the side to see Tobias treading water next to me.

“Come on,” he ordered.

I didn’t have much choice seeing as he’d pulled me with him to where the shallow end was.

Or where the shallow end was for him.

The entire pool was deep, and there wasn’t really a shallow end. At least not for me.

The starting point and the ‘shallow’ end was five and a half feet. The deep end was seven feet.

Both places I couldn’t touch.

But Tobias seemed to realize that rather quickly when he dragged me with him, and pulled me into his chest. He held me in place, my back to his front, with one strong forearm around my waist.

“Audrey, I’d like you to meet Asher, the really white man who’s about to burn his body to a crisp if he doesn’t put on sunscreen.”

Asher grinned. “I did, don’t get your titties in a twist.” He turned his eyes down to me, studying me. “Nice to meet you, Audrey.”

I nodded my head. “You, too.”

“And this man,” Tobias continued, “is Amos.”

Amos. Huh, not what I was expecting at all.

“Nice to meet you,” I greeted him, trying to make my words work right.

His grin was slow to come, but still beautiful. “You, too, honey.”

Tobias’ arm tightened around me. “Fuck off, pretty boy.”

Amos’ eyes were sparkling.

“Brought you a beer.” He gestured toward the side of the pool that was furthest away from us.

Tobias let go of me to go get it, but I pushed off of him and swam to the side, grabbing the bottle of beer that still had the cap secured tightly.

Thankful that there was no way so spill, I swam back just to hear ‘hot as fuck’ come out of Asher’s mouth.

My brows furrowed. It wasn’t that hot.

In fact, it was actually kind of chilly, but maybe this man came from somewhere up north where it was actually cold during the winter instead of hot like it was in Alabama.

Tobias grunted and reached for me, pulling me back into his chest as he also reached for the beer.

“I went to the police academy with both of these yahoos,” Tobias said. “What was it, eleven years ago now?”

“Almost twelve,” Amos agreed, his eyes turning to me. “We were the three amigos in the academy. Then this douchebag had to go and find a job in Ala-freakin’-bama instead of Texas, splitting us up.”

My lips twitched.

“Got a job there. My family is there.”

“Your family is in Texas,” Asher countered. “Your one brother lives there.”

Tobias grunted. “My sister was there.”

That quieted them down quickly, and I felt the pain roll through Tobias at the memory before he shut the line of thought down.

“You could’ve at least opened it,” Tobias said, pointing the beer at Amos.

Amos shrugged. “Know how you are about people opening your drinks.”

My brows furrowed.

“Why…”

My voice trailed off as, instead of Tobias’ arm around my belly holding me up out of the water, he thrust his thick thigh between my legs and held me up that way.

I gasped as I was lifted even further out of the water, and my pussy came to a stop directly over that muscled thigh.

My clit rasped against my suit with the movement, and I had to control the urge to grind myself down on him.

Tobias got the beer opened and set the lid on the side of the pool before dropping his leg and catching me back around the waist.

“There was this one time when we were in the academy when some girl brought him a beer, but opened it and spit in it.” Amos gagged, while I struggled to get control of my body that was still tingling. “We caught her doing it, but apparently, she was mad that ol’ lover boy over here wouldn’t do a repeat performance.”

There was nothing like a cold dose of reality to douse the ardor that was lighting a fire in my body.

Of course, I really should be unsurprised to know that Tobias was a one-time kind of man. Or maybe had been in his previous life before me.

He was attractive, fairly young and was a healthy man who probably liked sex just like every other man on the planet.

“From then on, he refused to drink from bottles that had been opened unless he did it himself.”

My brows rose at that, but he shrugged like it was completely normal.

“Well then,” I said. “I’ll be sure not to take the lids off of your beers anymore.”

“Anymore?” Amos and Asher said at the same time.

I shrugged. “I’ve been doing it for him for a while. We’re good friends.”

Amos looked between me and Tobias before saying, “Right.”

Why did I get the feeling that he didn’t believe me?

***

Five hours later, Tobias and I found ourselves on the top deck once again, looking for a seat.

“We should’ve come earlier,” I mumbled as I looked around the deck.

It was packed.

So packed, in fact, that there wasn’t a single pool lounger available anywhere on the entire deck.

Tobias hummed and looked around, his eyes scanning the area like a trained professional.

Me, I didn’t see the same thing he saw.

I knew that without a fact.

Because each place I suggested sitting, he said no to. Either because he didn’t like the look of the person we’d be seated next to, or it wasn’t a good place to sit.

I didn’t ask him why, but I was damn curious to know what he was seeing that I wasn’t.

“I only see two seats,” he murmured. “They’re all the way at the top, and in the back. See them?”

I looked at where he was gesturing with his finger, and I nodded. “There aren’t any lights up there. How the hell did you see that?”

He shrugged and started up there. I walked much more slowly in the darkness that was only lit up by the large TV screen.

Bypassing the people sitting on the stairs, I hurried behind Tobias as fast as I could with the boat rocking underneath my feet.

When he came to the spot where there were two seats, he dropped down to his knee on the first one, and then froze.

“Gonna have to share one, honey,” Tobias said, standing right back up.

“Why?” I questioned.

He looked over at the couple on the other side of him, and shook his head.

“Best guess?” he asked. “I think this one fell asleep and spilled his beer. It’s soaked.”

My belly started to tighten.