Adrian’s suggestion involved stargazing. I doubted that had been his first choice of activity, but the night was still young. It was even kind of romantic. There was little more beautiful than the night sky out on the open sea, all the stars shining like diamonds above us, and because we’d gone to one of the lower decks and spread a blanket over the hardwood deck, we were mostly alone, while the upper decks were packed. “What’s your favorite flower?” Adrian asked.

I rolled onto my stomach and thought about it. “I guess marigolds,” I said. “I like their bright colors. Yours?”

“I suppose irises,” he said. “They’re very unique. Appearance-wise, I mean.”

Yes, I supposed they were. “Favorite writer?” I asked.

“George Eliot. Yours?”

“You,” I replied, gazing up at him through my eyelashes.

Adrian’s hand swept beneath my shirt and up my back. I smiled and hummed in pleasure. His fingers were burning hot against my cool skin. “Good boy,” Adrian replied.

“I do my best,” I replied.

“Well, you’ll be delighted to hear that you exceed expectations.”

He moved closer and grasped my shoulder, coaxing me into rolling onto my back. “We aren’t going to have sex here on the deck, are we?” I asked.

“Scared?” Adrian inquired. “I think it’d be pretty hot.”

“Until someone catches us.”

Adrian pressed his forehead against mine. “Don’t you remember who I am? We wouldn’t get in trouble. We might make the news, though. You’d be the omega I let in my pants. Imagine that. You walk into the supermarket or pull up Facebook, and you’re just everywhere. And the whole world would know.” Adrian’s breath quickened. “No hiding who you’d been with or what you’d been doing.”

Admittedly, there was something hot about the idea and something incredibly attractive about Adrian’s confidence. He didn’t care if the whole world knew he’d had public sex on a cruise ship. “I could never do something like that,” I said distantly.

“A pity,” Adrian replied.

His hand trailed up my chest. I trembled beneath his touch, and his eyes were alight with pleasure. He’d noticed. But of course, he did. He could smell even the slightest hint of my arousal. I could never hide that from him, no matter how I tried.

“Because you have no idea the thrill that comes with knowing you might be caught at any moment,” Adrian whispered huskily.

“But why would you want to be caught with me?”

“Why would I want to risk being caught with a gorgeous man like you?” Adrian asked. “You’re stunning.”

“You flatterer,” I replied. “You praise me too highly.”

“On the contrary, I’m an artist, and being an artist, I have a very good eye for beauty,” Adrian said. “We look very striking together. More striking than any other couple on this ship. I promise you that.”

“Do you use that line with everyone?”

Adrian’s finger teased one of my nipples. I bit the inside of my cheek and rocked my hips just a bit. “I’m a writer. I’ve no shortage of lines.”

“Not to change the subject,” I said, “but what are you working on now?”

Adrian arched an eyebrow.

“Writing, I mean. What are you writing now?”

“A few things. One is an essay about this trip.”

“Like the one you mentioned? The one Wallace wrote?”

“It’s slightly more complimentary,” Adrian offered. “After all, I met you.”

“And you’re going to tell the whole world about me.”

“I have every intention of making you out to be the most beautiful man to ever walk this earth. A male Helen of Troy. I’ll spend paragraphs utterly devoted to how gorgeous you are.”

I couldn’t take my eyes off him. “Are you going to use my real name?” I asked.

“If you like,” Adrian answered. “If not, I can think of something more…creative for you, but I think Lancelot suits you just fine.”

I rolled my eyes. Adrian moved to my other nipple and twisted it between his calloused fingers. It sent a pleasant jolt through my cock. “I feel like you’re just buttering me up for sex,” I replied. “Is that your goal?”

Adrian grinned. “That depends on whether or not it’s working. Maybe we won’t have sex,” he growled. “Maybe I’ll just tease you all night long.”

I trailed my bare foot up his muscular calf. “And here I wanted a serious conversation,” I said.

“Tell me about your hometown, then,” Adrian said. “What’s it like?”

“Pensacola? It’s Miami’s less popular and less interesting cousin?”

“I’m going to steal that line from you,” Adrian said. “What else?”

I put a hand over his, and with a teasing smile, Adrian withdrew his fingers from beneath my shirt. “It’s an okay town,” I replied. “It’s like most cities, I suppose. A lot of traffic, a lot of people in a small place. The population has grown, but the city doesn’t have any room to expand. It’s on the beach, though, so it has that going for it, and it has a nice art museum.”

“Do you go to the art museum often?”

“No,” I replied. “I only really live there during the late fall and winter. The rest of the time I spend here on the ship. My friend in town checks on my house for me every now and then, in return for compensation, of course. What about you?”

“I grew up in Harrison, Alabama.”

“You set all your books there.”

Adrian nodded. “It’s…I suppose quaint would be the best way to describe it. It’s a little town with a strawberry festival every year.”

“Oh?”

“It’s more fun than it sounds. After Elizabeth and I married, we went to live in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. It’s up in the mountains. Very beautiful in the fall and the winter. That’s something you probably don’t see much in Florida, the leaves turning and the snow-capped mountains.”

“No mountains at all in Florida,” I said.

“True. You remind me of winter, you know,” Adrian said. “Your eyes, your hair and face. Every part of you is so pale, except when you’re flustered or aroused. Then you blossom with color.”

Right on cue, I felt warmth rush to my face.

“Just like that,” Adrian said.

“You don’t play fair,” I said.

“Neither do you. How was I supposed to deny someone who looks like you?”

“You were going to,” I replied. “I surely can’t be that great.”

Adrian shook his head. “No, I just…you remind me so much of Elizabeth, but at the same time, you’re so different. It’s an indescribable feeling.”

“I’ll take the compliment,” I said, “if anything about me reminds you of her. You clearly loved her very much.”

Adrian stood abruptly and offered me his hand. “It’s time for bed.”

I let him help me to my feet, but once I was standing, he didn’t release my hand. “Already? You go to bed too early,” I said. “My sleep schedule would be so messed up.”

“I didn’t say we were going to sleep,” Adrian replied. “I was thinking we’d go back to your cabin and have some fun. Watch a movie. Take a shower, maybe.”

“That’s it?”

“It occurred to me,” Adrian said, “that you had a problem with us just being casual sex partners. You wanted more, so it’s my obligation then to prove you’re worth more to me than that.”

“Oh.”

“I like to think of it as a challenge,” Adrian said. “So we’re going to go to your apartment.”

He kept his hand in mine as he was leading me to my own cabin.

“What should we watch?” I asked.

“I don’t particularly care.”

“What about James Bond?”

Adrian furrowed his brow. “I could go for a Bond film, but I can’t promise there won’t be any bondage jokes.”

“That sounds like it would be the name of some sort of James Bond knock-off porno.”

“I bet it exists,” Adrian replied.

“I’m sure, and I don’t want to come into contact with it.”

Once we’d arrived at my cabin, Adrian wasted no time in commandeering the sofa and the remote. I dug out a bag of popcorn and shoved it in the microwave. As he shifted through movies, I looked at his profile. Adrian was so traditionally attractive. He had a strong jaw, high cheekbones, and a slender, almost aristocratic nose. Although his writing was what had made him wealthy, Adrian really did look like a man who’d been born into an upper-crust family.

The microwave beeped. I emptied the popcorn into a bowl and curled up on the sofa beside Adrian. He looked at my popcorn and scowled. “There’s enough butter on that to kill a man. You’re going to die before you’re thirty eating like that.”

I picked out a piece and tossed it right at Adrian’s cheek. It fell and landed on his chest before disappearing somewhere on the sofa or the floor. “Pelting me with popcorn isn’t going to change my mind,” Adrian said sternly.

“I’m not trying to change your mind.”

I tossed another piece, and Adrian tilted his head just in time to catch it in his mouth. I nearly dropped the bowl. “What the actual hell?” I asked.

Adrian chewed the piece of popcorn, somehow managing to make eating popcorn into one of the smuggest gestures I’d ever seen. “I am a man of many talents,” Adrian replied. “Some far more useful than others. I’ll be confiscating your popcorn now.”

“No way!”

Adrian grinned. “Yes way. I’m going to eat it and spare you the high sodium intake.”

“Over my dead body!”

“That can be arranged,” he deadpanned.

I gawked at him. Then slowly, I picked up a piece of popcorn and tossed it at him. He caught it in his mouth again. “You are a grown man,” Adrian said. “Would it kill you to act your age?”

“You realize my career revolves around me dressing up like a pirate, right?”

“That is a surprisingly valid point,” Adrian said, wrapping his arm around me. “Very well. You may keep your overly buttered popcorn.”

I smiled and settled close against his side as he started the movie. It didn’t escape my notice that Adrian kept sneaking popcorn from the bowl, but I said nothing. After all, this was very nice. Why ruin the moment?