Chapter Thirty-One Lucky
Chapter Thirty-One
Lucky
“Georgia?” he asked, and I nodded to confirm his suspicion that she had been the one to tell me.
I expected him to deny it. To say that I must have misunderstood or that Georgia had.
“I’m sorry. I did say we were together.” He looked sheepish, rubbing the back of his neck.
“Why would you do that?”
“To get Georgia and Emilie to leave me alone. Unlike some people, I know when I’m being flirted with.”
Who was he talking about? Me? Implying that I didn’t know when I was being flirted with? That was not the point right now. “Look, I understand how they are but—”
“You’re not the only one who needs to follow the rules,” he interrupted me. “I’ve spent too much time not doing that. I need to be a better man. And I knew you wouldn’t make a move on me.”
That throbbing humiliation returned. “So I’m safe. You don’t have to worry about me.”
Poor pathetic little Lucky. Of course I wouldn’t be bold enough to go after what I wanted. Like I wasn’t even tempting enough for him to consider me a problem, like he did the other girls.
Then he took that pain away with what he said next. “No, you’re the one I have to worry about the most.”
I heard my own blood rushing in my ears. Before I could ask him to clarify, he went on, “After I saw that list they made, I doubled down on the lie. And it’s a harmless lie, isn’t it? It doesn’t hurt anyone.”
I told white lies all the time. In this industry it was a requirement. I might as well have told the guests, “Yes, there’s nothing I love more than cleaning your stinky toilet immediately after you’ve used it! I live to serve!” I wouldn’t be a good stewardess if I were a hundred percent honest with our guests. We had to tell them what they wanted to hear.
But this wasn’t a tiny white lie. This was a shimmering, multicolored disco ball of lies.
All those times when I had thought he might be flirting with me, had actually fooled myself into thinking he might be interested in me, they were all meaningless. This was why he had done it. He’d had to keep up the facade, the pretense that he and I were together.
It was why I had thought he wanted to kiss me. He’d never actually wanted it. It had all been in service of his lie.
That broke my heart a little. “It’s not harmless. What if word gets back to Captain Carl? We’ll both be fired.”
“We’re not actually dating.” He said the words slowly, like I didn’t already know that.
“If he believes we are and the crew verifies the lie you told them, we could be in trouble.”
“It seems to me like the crew constantly breaks most of the captain’s rules and so they have a vested interest in keeping quiet. Mutually assured destruction.”
“Maybe. But you’re gambling with my future.”
He took a step toward me, his arms out, as if he intended to hold me. But he dropped his hands. “You’re right. I’m sorry. That was selfish of me.”
His immediate confession and sincere apology helped to melt the edges of my anger away. “It means a lot that you’re being honest with me and didn’t deny it.”
There had been many, many people in my past who had not. Who had continued to lie even when confronted with actual evidence.
Lines of worry etched into his forehead. “Lucky, I haven’t been completely honest about—”
Our cabin door flew open and all of the exterior crew stuck their heads in our room. They’d obviously hoped to catch us doing something illicit and let out groans of disappointment that we were only talking.
“It’s all clear,” Francois told us. “No sign of the captain. We’re going back to the hot tub if you want to come with us.”
Hunter turned toward me and raised an eyebrow. I shook my head slightly.
“No thanks. We’re going to call it a night,” he told them.
Those were the wrong words to use, as it caused the boys to break into loud and suggestive catcalls and comments. Hunter had to shut the door on them.
“They always say there’s no such thing as a secret on a boat. Except this one, apparently,” I said. And it was such a good secret that I had been entirely unaware of it.
“I can go and tell them the truth,” he offered. “I’ll shut it all down.”
On one hand, it would be like declaring open season on him. Emilie would be relentless. Possibly Georgia as well if things didn’t turn out with Pieter.
But on the other, I didn’t want it to get back to the captain. I wasn’t sure what to do. “We can figure that out later.”
He nodded. “Can you forgive me?”
What he’d said was true. The crew would risk their own bad behavior being exposed if they went to the captain. And he had managed to make both Georgia and Emilie back off, using me as his shield. I didn’t mind that part. I could get over the lie that had given me the benefit of not having to watch him kissing either one of my stews.
I was upset that he didn’t like me and I had fooled myself into thinking he did. But that wasn’t Hunter’s fault. “I can forgive you.”
“That’s because you’re such a kind person.”
I knew he’d meant it as a compliment, but it felt a little like a rejection. I was the nice girl, his buddy. Not the woman he wanted to be with. Kindness didn’t get a guy’s motor revving.
I pushed my wet hair off my shoulder. “We should go take a shower.” My cheeks turned hot as I realized what I’d just said. “I mean, I will take a shower alone and then you’ll take a shower, also alone. Separately. At different times. I didn’t mean ...”
He was grinning at me, obviously amused. He closed some of the space between us.
“We didn’t get to finish upstairs,” he said. “It’s my turn. Lucky, truth or dare?”
What was he doing? His eyes were serious. He really wanted to keep playing? What information was he hoping to get out of me? Did he want me to confess to my crush? Maybe what he’d told the crew about us wouldn’t seem like such a big deal if I openly admitted that I did have feelings for him. But the truth felt dangerous right now. “Dare.”
And before the words even came out of his mouth, I knew what he was going to say and I both feared it and desperately wanted it. “I dare you to kiss me.”
“We’re alone,” I said. “We don’t have to play games.”
“I feel like we’ve been playing a game with each other since I got here.” He moved closer to me again.
“But you don’t want to kiss me.”
That got him to stop moving. “Why would you think that?”
“In the hot tub? Emilie dared you to kiss me and you practically made a gagging sound.”
He smiled. “That’s not what happened. I told her to pick something else because the first time we kiss will not be in front of an audience.”
Desire for him pooled in my stomach, mixed with confusion. “You want to kiss me?”
I had thought it was to sell his story. But then I thought about the times almost kisses had happened.
And it was always when we had been completely alone. In our bunk, in the galley.
Never in front of anyone else.
“Why do you want to kiss me?” I added, grasping for something, anything, to keep him at arm’s length because I was quickly losing this battle. The closer he moved the more my resolve wavered.
“Why?” he repeated, sounding far too amused. “Because there’s this hunger, this burning, every time I’m around you. Do you know how much it has tortured me to lie in your bed, so close, but not able to touch you?”
“Yes.” I breathed the word out. I knew exactly what he meant. The desire I felt began to pump hotly through my veins. “So you want to touch me?”
I wanted to groan. Why was I saying these things?
He grinned and somehow got even closer. “Very much.”
“And what else?” I managed to get out, my throat closing in on itself.
“Everything else.”
I couldn’t make a sound, couldn’t even breathe.
And there was nowhere else for me to escape to as my back was now flat against the closet door. His skin had long since dried, and while we both should have been cold, given the air-conditioning and our damp hair, I felt nothing but heat.
Especially from him.
“I’ve tried really hard to just be your friend,” he murmured. “And I’m failing.”
“You don’t want to be my friend?”
“I want more.”
My mouth dropped open slightly and my heart pounded so hard it was going to bruise my ribs. “No one else is here. You don’t have to pretend.”
“I’m not pretending, Lucky. I’ve never pretended with you.”
That was a missile being launched directly at my heart and I could feel the impact of it exploding, blowing up the defenses I’d been hastily trying to construct.
“May I?” he asked, and for a second I didn’t know what he was asking permission for. Then I realized that he had his hand outstretched next to my arm. Not kissing. This was okay. It wasn’t kissing. As long as we didn’t kiss, I could keep my job. And my sanity. Which I was sure I would lose if I were ever foolish enough to be in another relationship again.
I nodded my head and he reached out and ran his fingers along my arm, from my shoulder down to my hand. My bare skin prickled in response and I audibly gasped.
This couldn’t happen. I couldn’t let it. I had to stop it before things went too far. Before we crossed that line.
“You’re my lucky star, you know.” As if he were answering the question I’d been too afraid to ask earlier.
And with that one sentence, he almost obliterated what little resistance I still had.
“Hunter, wait.” This time I put my hand on his chest and it was as firm and warm and strong as I remembered. I had my palm just over his heart and I could feel that it was beating faster than normal, his chest moving quicker as he breathed harder. “I don’t want to complicate things.”
He put his hand over mine, holding it in place, and it was the sweetest and most romantic gesture. “I’m not a complicated man.”
Who would have ever guessed that I would be the one to make the speech? “You’re such a great guy—”
“I am. I have references,” he interjected and I smiled. “And before you finish that sentence, what do you want?”
“What I want is irrelevant.”
He shook his head. “What you want is the only thing that matters right now.”
Sharp, tingling heat coursed through me and I couldn’t think.
“I want . . .”
This time I was the one who couldn’t finish my sentence. Because the end of it was everything . I wanted everything.
“Lucky,” he said, and I wondered if he was feeling at all impatient. Because I certainly was. “I know you want to kiss me because you already have.”