Chapter 13
Salacious and Smutty – Kayla
“ I t’s not what you think,” I say to Callie as soon as she pulls me into her cabin.
In response, she crosses her arms and raises her eyebrows. “Is that right? I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware that kissing could be seen for anything other than what it is… KISSING!”
My head flies back, I close my eyes, and I grunt. “I know.” Then, I slump down on her bed. She quickly joins me.
“Listen, I’m not one who likes to pry… I honestly just came to look for you. If I’d known—”
“It’s fine. We shouldn’t have been doing that in the first place.”
She clicks her tongue. “If you don’t mind me asking, how did that happen?”
I feel kind of exhausted about the whole thing, but she deserves an explanation. For one thing, I don’t want my new friend—and one I’m going to be stuck with in somewhat close quarters for the foreseeable future—to think I’m just some floozy who is eager to lock lips with our boss.
“Things started heating up the first night when we were docked in Fort Lauderdale.”
She leans over, holds her chin, and seems to listen intently. “Okay?”
I sniffle and push some hair behind my ear. “I’m not sure where you were.”
“I wasn’t feeling well, so I just stayed in.”
“Ah. Alright. Well, I went out with Denver and some of the other employees. Then when he met some girl…”
Callie rolls her eyes. “Maria.”
“He’s told you about her?”
“Oh, my god! He won’t shut up about her.”
I smirk. “Anyway, after they snuck away, I decided I’d come back on board. However, on the way back from the bar, I ran into him.”
From there, I tell her the whole story from there—the chocolate souffle that we bonded over, the almost kiss, his sleep issues, my father’s elixir, and everything else.
When I’m finished, she just blinks a few times, the bottom of her bangs bouncing as her eyelashes collide with them. “Wow.”
“I know it has all been wrong. I know that.”
Biting her finger, she says, “Maybe. But it’s also incredibly impressive.”
My head tilts. “It is?”
She laughs. “Well, yeah. Remember what I told you about Harper?”
Now, that name makes me unreasonably jealous. He isn’t yours, Kayla. It’s important that I continue to remind myself of that fact. Or at least I don’t think he is.
“Yeah.”
“I, along with many others, I’m sure, thought he had sworn off love—especially with one of the crew members—since she broke his heart. But you come along and poof!”
“Poof?” She’s making it sound like I’m genie who can grant wishes or something.
“You opened his heart again. Trust me, several women have tried but failed miserably.”
I feel my cheeks get flush. “I can’t really speak for him or his heart.” Truth be told, I had no idea what was happening between the two of us.
“Still.”
I’m fiddling with my fingers now, and my eyes focus on them before meeting her gaze again. “Are you,” I cough to clear my throat, “Are you going to tell anyone about any of this?”
She sighs before grabbing one of my hands. “No.” She’s smiling sweetly, so I feel like she’s being sincere.
“Really?” I’m sure it would make for some delicious gossip among the crew.
“Nah. You can call me a hopeless romantic, I suppose. I don’t want drama and negative presumptions to get in the way of whatever is going on here.”
Even though I’ve only just met her, I can already tell she’s going to be a great friend.
“Thank you.”
Leaning closer to me, she bumps my shoulder playfully and says, “But that doesn’t mean that I don’t want to hear every detail.”
I chuckle, but then I have to be honest. “I don’t know that anything else will ever happen.”
She shrugs. “Maybe so or maybe not. But what would you want to happen?”
“I—I don’t know.”
“Hmph.”
“What?”
“I was just thinking about how I’m going to have to one up you now and mack on Captain Bryant.”
“Callie!”
We laugh together.
“I’m just kidding. However, I also want you to remember to be careful.”
This warning changes the energy in the room.
“What do you mean?”
Callie crosses her legs and rests her clutched hands around her knees. “Jack can just be somewhat of a finicky person.”
“Finicky? How?”
After sucking air through her teeth, she adds, “It’s hard to explain. For a wealthy and successful guy, he can sometimes be indecisive.”
Huh. I haven’t encountered that side of him yet.
“Don’t get me wrong, he can obviously also make hard and fast decisions. Like pursuing this Yannis Drakos guy.”
“Yannis Drakos?” I’m a huge fan of his work. “That’s who he is going to Greece to meet with?” I knew he was in publishing, so that all checks out. I just had no idea which writer he was going there for.
“Mhm.”
“Wow.” I’d kill to meet the elusive author. There are only a few images of him online, and one of them is the photo he puts on the back of his books.
“You’ve heard of him?”
“Of course. His ‘Til the War Starts series is amazing.”
“My mother read them, but I’ve never taken much interest.”
I sit up on my legs. “Oh, they’re amazing. I promise. I have the first few in my room. I’ll let you borrow them.”
I’m not sure if Jack is only interested in Yannis’s work because of the potential profit, or if he actually likes the content of his books too. If he does, that says a lot about him.
Callie wrinkles her nose. “What are they even about?”
“The storyline focuses on the love between Aikaterine ‘Kate’ and Isidoros ‘Issy’ between the end of the Morea revolt and the start of the Ottoman-Venetian Wars.”
“Okay…” I can tell by her flat tone of voice that she is losing interest, but now that I’ve started talking about it, I can’t stop.
“You see Issy was part of the failed peasant rebellion against Thomas and Demetrios Palaiologos. Whereas Kate was one of the maids of Thomas’s wife, Catherine. Anyway, it’s like a Romeo and Juliet or forbidden lovers’ kind of situation.”
“Uh-huh.” She’s taken out a file and started to do her nails.
So, I say something that I’m sure will catch her attention. “There are a lot of explicit sex scenes.”
At that, her eyebrow lifts. “Is that so?”
“Oh, yeah.”
My room is right by hers, so I quickly duck out—being careful not to run into Jack—and get the second book, which includes the salacious and smutty scene after Issy and Kate get married in secret.
When I return, I ask Callie if she wants to read it. But she’s moved on to applying nail polish, so I offer to read it aloud instead.
After finding the right chapter, I clear my throat, and begin, “Although we married in secret, I know it’s still legitimate in the eyes of God, and that means that we must consummate the vows we just made to each other. Sure, Issy and I haven’t been the best at keeping our hands to ourselves, but we haven’t actually joined our bodies together. Not yet at least.”
“Oooh.”
“Just wait. It only gets better.”
She wriggles.
I keep reading. “So, now is the time. I’ve been dreaming about this moment, but now that it’s here, I’m a bit scared. However, the reflection of the fire’s flames in his light eyes make me feel a little more relaxed. Never taking his eyes off me, he slips his frock off, and his rippled muscles make my heart skip a beat. Then, he walks closer to me, grabs my hand, and places it on his chest. ‘Tell me if it stops,’ Issy says breathlessly. I then stand to my feet, and he helps me out of my clothing, and he just stares at me. I go to cover myself with my arms, but he stops me. ‘Will you please say something?’ I beg. ‘You’re just so beautiful. I can hardly believe you’re mine.’ He sits down on a nearby hay bale and kisses each of my…’ you get the idea.”
I stop there because it only gets more intimate and descriptive from there, and I’m too embarrassed to read the rest. “You can read the rest for yourself. But I’m sure you get what I was talking about.”
After that, I stand back up and bid her goodnight.
“Wait.”
“Yeah?” I turn around to face her.
“Can you… can you leave the book?”
I smile and set it down on her nightstand. “It’s all yours.” I make note to bring her the first one in the morning.
Between the steamy kiss and the reminder of that hot scene in Yannis’s book, I’m incredibly turned on. So, after pretending my hands are Jack’s as I shower, I do the same as I pleasure myself in my room.
When I’m finished, however, Callie’s warning to be careful with Jack is at the forefront of my mind.
“He’s finicky.” Those words repeat over and over again. I can’t risk finicky. I wish I hadn’t gotten distracted by the utterance of Yannis’s name because I would’ve appreciated an example of this from Callie.
Of course, Molly’s similar advice also resurfaces. “Nobody wants to be the new employee who is ‘macking on the boss.”
Even when she gave it, I knew she was right. But here I was, stupid enough to let something happen in front of another coworker. Fortunately, Callie seems to have my back, but it could’ve been someone else.
Ugh. After wrapping a pillow around my head to silence the voices, I also pull up the covers and wish I didn’t come on this damn boat in the first place.
Fortunately, my body seems to find the rocking of the boat comforting, and I’m able to fall asleep within a few minutes.
But, of course, even in the slumber of sleep, my brain conjures up images of him.
The sun sets over the crystal-clear waters, casting a warm glow on the secluded beach where Jack and I sit side by side. The sand is soft beneath us, and the gentle sound of the water lapping against the shore creates an idyllic atmosphere.
“Jack, this place… it’s so beautiful.” I say, my eyes wide with admiration after I calm my hair from blowing around with the ocean breeze. “I’ve never been anywhere like this before.”
He looks at me, his piercing blue eyes filled with something I can’t quite put my finger on. He then smiles, tucks some errant strands behind my ear, and then tips my chin towards him. His lips are so close to mine that our breaths mingle together, sending shivers down my spine. “No, Kayla. You are beautiful.”
I hum in response, feeling the magnetic pull between us growing stronger by the second. Before I know it, Jack’s mouth is on mine. He takes control without hesitation, deepening the kiss as his hands find my lower back and pulls me closer to him.
Moaning against his lips, my body responds instinctively, pressing myself into him in waves as our desire for each other intensifies. As his hands venture down to undo the tie of my aqua blue bikini bottom, I can’t help but feel my core heat up in anticipation. When his fingers brush against my sensitive flesh, a new fire is ignited within me, and it sends pleasure coursing through my veins.
“Jack,” I gasp, after he guides me down and hovers over me, breaking away from his lips just long enough to catch my breath. “This is… I can’t believe this is happening.”
With a wide grin, he murmurs, “Believe it, Kayla.” His is voice low and sultry, as his fingertips and mouth continue to discover my body. After he nibbles at my neck, he gets right up against my ear. “You have no idea how badly I’ve wanted you. To know what it’s like to be inside of you…”