Chapter 2

It was nearly noon, and we were tendered off the island of Nevis, when I finally emerged from my cabin, ready to face the day, despite my rip-roaring-lack-of-proper-sleep-and-too-much-alcohol headache. The dining room, with its panoramic ocean-view windows, could only be accessed via the deck, so I had to brave the blaring sunlight to be rewarded with a seriously needed caffeine fix.

My sunglasses didn’t feel dark enough or big enough the moment I stepped out onto the deck. Heavy with humidity, the sea air immediately began wreaking havoc on my irreverent freshly-washed curly hair, which gleefully frizzed with each step I took toward my first cup of Joe. I could feel the panic of bad hair settling around me like a dark cloud, ready to rob me of all my self-confidence. Face it, when your hair looks like crap, you feel like crap. I was going to need to learn to get over it quickly - at least for a week - or make my way over to the gift kiosk pronto for a baseball cap.

Breakfast was long over and the dining room was mostly empty, save for a few occupants. I assumed most guests were off the ship exploring or dining at the toney Nisbet Plantation, one of the island’s famed historical landmarks. I perused the scant self-serve pre-lunch choices trying to decide which were the least offensive.

Seating myself in a dark corner where I hoped the dim light wouldn’t reveal that I looked as bad as I felt, I sat down with a steaming mug of coffee and a plate of crackers, cheese and fresh fruit, hoping to enjoy them in solitude, while I reviewed everything I’d previously highlighted in my Nevis guidebook. I had already purchased a ticket for a mid-afternoon bike tour around Charlestown, the capital, that included visiting Alexander Hamilton’s birthplace and the Admiral Nelson Museum. If I caught the next tender to shore, I’d have plenty of time to walk around town on my own first.

Slam. My coffee actually sloshed in its cup, waves slamming against the porcelain shore and cresting onto the tablecloth. Looking up, I was surprised to see Wes’ sister, and assumed her own coffee mug must have slipped out of her hand, causing it to land on my table with such a crash.

“Hi.” I smiled at her. “You’re Wes’ sister.”

“I know who I am.” She looked at me like I was an idiot.

Trying to maintain my smile at her odd response, “Well, I’m Tara.”

“You know, Wes has a girlfriend.”

It was at that moment that I realized, from the glare in her squinted eyes and the thin line of her mouth, that her coffee cup probably had not slipped.

Shrugging my shoulders, my palms flipped up in the air and I know the look on my face was very clearly stating, what the fuck?

She went on. “He has a girlfriend in California. She’s an actress. She’s tall and blonde. She looks like Sharon Stone with long, straight hair. And he’s crazy about her.” She spit out her speech in a staccato delivery as if she’d been practicing her lines in front of the bathroom mirror until he returned at dawn. “Like totally crazy in love with her. So just stay away from my brother, because he’d never leave his girlfriend for you. Ever.” And with that, she picked up her coffee mug and strolled across the dining room to a table clear on the other side.

Well, alrighty then. I took a careful sip of what remained in my coffee cup. What the hell was that? Actress girlfriend? Sharon Stone? He’d never leave her for you. Seriously? I had just spent one night talking to the man. Ugh and Sharon Stone. Yeah, that one hurt. I was maybe Meg Ryan on a good day, cute and a little goofy. But a sex goddess. Ummm. No.

The lack of sleep and the assault slammed me and suddenly, I had to fight back tears. But they were tears of anger. Intense anger at being assaulted for no reason. Grabbing my sunglasses off the table, I quickly covered my stinging eyes. My appetite was suddenly gone. Pushing the cheese away, I grabbed my guidebook and slipped the highlighter into the book’s metal coil spine. I did not want to be in a room with this bitch and her hostile energy.

Just as I was about to get up, he walked in. His unruly curls were still wet from the shower. A faded Ramones tee-shirt clung to his chest and I closed my eyes for a moment behind my sunglasses, just knowing from the night before the scent of his laundry detergent. His beautiful full lips slowly spread into that magnificent smile that I longed to taste, and for a moment his sister’s ugliness dissipated, and all felt right. This was the guy my energy soared with last night. And from the look on his face, seeing me again was a good thing. A very good thing.

And then I heard her voice, “Wes, over here.” His head snapped in her direction, stopping him in his tracks, he gave me a quick wave and another smile that said, the queen beckons, before pivoting and heading toward her table. She moved her seat as he approached so that he had to take the chair where his back would be to me. What a bitch.

I sat for another moment, took a deep breath and reminded myself of the reason that I came alone – to worry about my own enjoyment and not have to worry about anyone else. This woman was a stranger to me and I was going to be damned if she was going to ruin my fantasy cruise through the Leeward and Windward Islands.

And as far as her brother, I would’ve loved to have every single night of the trip be a night like I had just shared with him, getting to know him and seeing where this thing could go. But if he was already involved with someone, and from his sister’s missive, it was serious, then I probably didn’t want to have a fling with this guy. Because to this one, I was going to get attached. I liked him. We clicked. And obviously, devil-sister had seen that. I wondered if he had said anything to her.

Oh well, it wasn’t meant to be. I tried being philosophical, but the disappointment was welling up. The vacation had started with such a stellar first night, but by the light of day, the feel-good was rapidly dissipating and I was beginning to feel like a fool. A romantic little fool who still believed in soulmates and happy endings.

Pffft.

And with that, I left without a backward glance, gathered my daypack from my stateroom and took off to discover Nevis.

He was a Marine and he was big, adorable and very southern. I just wanted to touch his arm muscles. Seeing him working out in the ship’s health club in the mornings was a sight to behold. It appeared that the single women on the ship had figured out his schedule and the gym became overly crowded during his workouts. Between those delectable arm muscles and a true six-pack stomach, the man was causing quite a stir. Pile on some southern charm, mix in those sweet gentleman manners, add the word Marine to that and this guy had quickly become very popular.

I’d found myself on multiple sightseeing tours with him all week long. Every time I turned around, the Marine was there, and it was a most pleasant sight, one that was helping to distract me from looking for Wes (who seemed to have disappeared) and wanting back the energy we shared the first night.

“You’ve gotta stop following me,” the Marine teased when I was standing behind him in line at the bar.

“The view from behind is really good,” I kidded back.

Why I was able to flirt with guys I wasn’t into was an absolute mystery to me. Yes, the Marine was handsome and hot, but he was from rural Alabama and I was a Brooklyn girl. I had absolutely nothing in common with him. Not a single freaking thing. And yet, I could kid around and flirt with him without getting all shy and weird like I did around guys I liked.

Craning around to look at his own ass, he agreed, “Yeah, that does look pretty good.”

Slapping him playfully on the biceps, “Narcissist!”

“Don’t be using those big words on me, Tara. You know us rednecks don’t go beyond two syllables.” He smiled a dimpled smile, his blue eyes sparkling in the late afternoon sun. “What can I get you to drink?”

“I’ll have whatever you’re having.”

A moment later he turned from the bar, handing me a plastic cup filled with what looked like a pale green Slurpee. “Margarita?” I asked and received a nod and another dimpled smile. Oh shit, tequila, I thought. I’m in trouble. Deep, deep trouble.

Taking my cup, I made my way over to a chaise, with Hunter, the Marine, following closely behind and parking on the chair next to mine. Across the deck, facing us were Wes and his evil sister, Stacy. She hadn’t left his side the entire trip, except to tell me yet another time that he had a girlfriend and wasn’t interested in me. And from him, I hadn’t gotten much past a brief hello without her literally inserting her body between us. Baby sis possessed some serious cock-blocking skills.

A table away at dinner the night before, she talked loudly about how her brother had been pining all week for his girlfriend, the gorgeous Hollywood actress, and couldn’t wait to get home to her and what a lovesick drag he was being.

After having spent a few nights hanging out on deck hoping he’d ditch his sister and show up for a reprise of the first night, I gave up. What seemed so special to me had apparently just been a pleasant conversation for him. I’d probably just made more of it in my head than it actually was – such a chick thing. With only a few days left of the trip, I felt kind of pathetic. I had one great night of conversation with some guy and there I was thinking it was something. Seriously pathetic. It truly was time to forget about the guy who was pining over his girlfriend and just enjoy the rest of the trip.

With only a few days left, and having thoroughly surveyed the male opportunities, I definitely knew I wasn’t going to find love on this trip, which left me with only one option, some good old, mindless, hot vacation sex, which was clearly the next best thing. And there was a big, handsome Marine who appeared to be more than willing to make that aspect of my vacation a reality.

Three margaritas later, I was numb. Literally.

“I can’t feel my fingertips,” I shared with Hunter, shock registering on my face. We both descended into drunken laughter.

Grabbing my hand, he began to poke the end of my fingers with his nails. “Can you feel that?”

“A little, but it kind of feels like you are touching them through fabric.”

His dimpled smile took on a wolfish cast, “I’d rather be touching you without fabric.”

I clenched my thighs, feeling his words rather than hearing them.

“I’ve got to go pee,” was my drunken proclamation in response. And then I laughed, “That wasn’t very ladylike, was it?”

He shook his head, feigning seriousness and then whispered, “But right now I don’t want to see you being ladylike at all.”

With wide eyes and a giggle, I slowly stood, trying so very hard to act a whole lot less drunk than I was and announced again, “I really have to pee.”

Sailing under a swift early evening breeze, the sway of the deck was making it impossible to walk straight and I continued to giggle aloud as I made my way down a stairwell. Taking a turn, I found myself in a corridor lined with cabins, but no public restrooms.

“Shit,” I muttered and stopped, leaning against a wall while I tried to get my bearings.

I felt his hot breath on the back of my neck and strong arms encircle me from behind. “Lost, Little Bo Peep?” he whispered into my ear, his voice husky.

“I made a wrong turn.” We both laughed.

“Hey, don’t close that,” he called to a cabin steward just exiting a stateroom and heading back to his towel cart.

Grabbing my hand, Hunter pulled me down the hall and into the open cabin. Pointing his hand toward the bathroom, I accepted the invitation with a nod and went flying in there.

Emerging a few minutes later, a smug-smiling Hunter was leaning against the doorframe.

“Thank you.” I smiled, still trying not to act as trashed as I was feeling.

Putting his arms around me, he backed me into the bathroom and up against the wall in the open shower. His lips were on mine with a rough kiss, before I could even ask what he was doing. My first thought was how salty he tasted, as I opened my mouth for his tongue, which wasn’t as aggressive as the rest of his large, muscular body that now had me pinned to the wall. His kiss was deep and surprisingly tender.

Leaving his muscular biceps, my hands slowly traced up his shoulders, enjoying the solid curvature of his muscles. It had been a total turn-on to see this guy pump some iron in the mornings. As my hands rose, his fell to the sides of my bathing suit cover-up, tugging at it and lifting it off over my head, tossing it out of the shower and onto the bathroom floor. With one hand, he reached behind his neck, yanking off his tee-shirt and baring his incredible chest. We were both now down to our bathing suits and I correctly guessed we wouldn’t be in them for very long when he reached behind my neck and pulled the string, freeing my bikini top, my breasts now pressed up against the warmth of his chest.

Hunter groaned, and pinned me to the wall harder with his hips, his erection pressing into me as he ducked his head and sucked a nipple into his mouth while twisting the other nipple between his thumb and forefinger. His sounds, like gruff growls, were turning me on and I found myself panting. Leaning my head back against the wall, my sounds began to mingle with his as I lost myself to the pleasurable pain of his lips and teeth on my nipple and the pressure of one of his thighs between my legs. When he pulled his head away, I thought I was going to implode from the sudden lack of sensation and I groaned even louder.

“What do you want?” he asked with a slow smile, all sweet southern drawl.

“I want you to fuck me,” My breath was coming so fast I could barely breathe the words, but I got them out, as if on a mission.

“Happy to oblige.”

His bathing suit was off in a single swipe. The man definitely had moves and clearly a lot of practice perfecting them. Lifting me, he wrapped my legs around his waist and with a very smug grin lowered me, without any preamble, onto his thick, waiting cock.

“Feels good, doesn’t it?” He closed his eyes and I knew he wasn’t actually asking me a question.

“Oh God, yes.” Foreplay is so overrated, was all I could think.

And then he surprised me, instead of starting to pound into me relentlessly, which is what I expected, and what I needed, he reached to the wall behind me and turned on the shower. As water started streaming over our heads, first a cold blast before turning warm, he leaned his face into mine and began to once again kiss me, but this time I was impaled on his cock.

“Are you ever going to fuck me?” I asked, biting his bottom lip.

“What do you think?”

I laughed, “It might be a pretty hard situation to get yourself out of.”

And he drove up into me, slamming me into the wall with his first thrust, “Why would I ever want to?”

“I can’t think of a single reason.” And our lips met again under the spray of warm water as he filled me again and again, deeply pounding into me.

Hanging onto his broad shoulders, I surrendered my focus to the pleasure that was building with every thrust. This was a man who knew how to use his cock, for his pleasure and for mine, and at that moment, the only thing I cared about was coming and coming hard.

“Harder,” I implored and he was all too happy to accommodate me.

“Oh yeah,” was all he could say as I held on tight, my shoulders slamming the wall with each thrust.

As he was about to come, his fingers sunk into my ass cheeks, pulling them apart as he forcefully rammed me down onto him. I gasped from the depth of his penetration and sunk my teeth into his shoulder to muffle my scream.

Holy fuck.

With the wall literally holding us up, we stood still for a few minutes, just letting the warm flow rain over our tensed muscles. Damn, that just made my vacation, I thought.

Grabbing the clean towels the room steward had just left behind, we dried off. I raked my fingers through my soaking wet hair, attempting to gain some control over what resembled a dripping rat’s nest in my attempt to exit the cabin without such a blatant you’ve been fucked look. I then slipped on my bathing suit cover-up and wrapped my wet bathing suit in a towel.

“I owe you a towel,” I told Hunter as we readied to leave the room.

“You don’t owe me a towel,” he laughed.

“No?” I looked confused. Unlike the big cruise lines, the cabins on the windjammer did not come stocked with many towels, so they were always at a premium.

“Not my towel.” He shrugged, his smile and dimples taking on a roguish appeal.

“Isn’t this your cabin?”

Shaking his head slowly, I could see he was amused as my eyes widened and the situation began to dawn on me.

“We just had sex in someone else’s shower?”

And we both burst out laughing.

“Oh my God, no way.” I literally had tears streaming down my cheeks; I was laughing so hard. I fucked a handsome Marine in a stranger’s cabin. The story was getting better and better. My girlfriends back home were going to love this! This just may have been the sluttiest thing I’d ever done in my entire life. And it was hot! So freaking hot and so not me!

Hand-in-hand, we left the cabin still laughing. The steward was still in the hall servicing rooms, and Hunter dipped his head into the open cabin, “Hey chief, can we get a few more towels three cabins down in 219.” At least we’d be replacing the cabin occupant’s used towels with fresh ones.

Turning back into the hall, Wes was about five steps away, coming toward us. My instinctual reaction, coming straight from my heart, without the interference of my brain, was to smile. I could see the edges of his mouth twitch in response, but go no further when he saw my hand lost within Hunter’s. His eyes took on a distance I knew I would not have the opportunity to traverse.

“Hi.” It was out of my mouth before I could even assess the damage.

He nodded in acknowledgment, fitting of his cool, hipster-like persona, but did not speak.

And my heart just cracked. In that very instant, the joy of the shower was gone, because I knew I would have given anything and everything to have changed a meaningless hot fuck with the Marine for the chance to make love, just once, with Wes and see if our amazing connection soared physically, the way our chemistry clicked in other aspects.

When he was beyond us, I turned, praying he would walk past cabin 219 on his way back to his room. Keep walking, Wes. Keep walking. I said a silent prayer for him not to walk into the cabin with the wet towels strewn about the bathroom floor.

No such luck.

I had just fucked the Marine in Wes’ shower.