Chapter Seventeen #2
Regret sliced through me as soon as those words left my mouth, because everyone grew silent, and all eyes swiveled to me.
Fuck.
Gisella narrowed her gaze. “Well, seeing as how I’m the only one on this boat who has seen Finn naked recently, I think I’d know better than you, wouldn’t I?”
I wanted to shrivel up and cease to exist.
“He does have a tattoo,” she finished, then a strained smile found her lips as she turned back to him. “And it’s cute. Come on, babe. Don’t be a muermo. Join us. No one is going to make fun of your drunken mistake under an ink gun.”
“I might,” Palmer teased with a wink.
Gisella splashed him.
Finn’s jaw was set, and I could tell any playfulness he’d been trying to hold onto had vacated the premises.
“Nothing to do with that. I already told ye, I’m tired,” he clipped. “You lot have fun.”
He tried to walk away, but Gisella caught his shirt, giggling as she pulled at it hard enough to expose his midriff. He wasn’t stacked the way Eli or Cameron was, but he was lean, his abs defined and dusted with a light trail of hair.
I tried not to look, but it was impossible.
I still remembered the way it felt to wrap myself around that body.
I remembered how warm he was, how he’d tremble when I ran my fingertips from his chest all the way down to the band of his briefs.
If I closed my eyes, I knew I could recall exactly what it felt like to lay my head on his chest.
My heart ached.
I should have prayed for mercy from those memories, but instead, I found myself wishing they’d never fade.
“Gi, that’s enough,” Finn said, but she was still giggling, and everyone else was so drunk they laughed and egged her on. She tugged and lifted until we all caught sight of the tattoo she’d spoken of, and my heart stopped.
It was small, just a spattering of black ink on his left rib cage just below his chest.
Below his heart.
“What is it?!” Eli asked, standing to get a better look before Finn ripped away and tugged his shirt back down.
“A firefly,” I whispered.
Finn’s eyes snapped to mine.
It must have only been a split second, but time snagged like a fishing line on a tree for me, yanking my entire existence to a halt. My pulse thundered in my ears, and though I knew I should look away and play it off for the crew and the cameras watching, I couldn’t.
I just stared at him, and he stared right back.
“All these tattoos,” he murmurs, tracing the small lines of ink on my arm with his fingers first before he begins to kiss each one.
I bite my lip and squirm under his touch, hooking a leg over his hip and pulling him closer.
“Tell me what they mean.”
“Which one?”
“All of ’em.”
“That might take a while.”
“We have forever.”
I laugh, stealing a kiss when he reaches the tattoo at my collarbone before he’s rolling on top of me and admiring the ones on my abdomen.
He points to the little lion on my hip bone.
“Leo,” I answer. “My sign.”
Finn smirks, trailing that finger until it touches the little cowboy hat inked on my inner thigh.
“For a book series I love.”
His finger glides slowly over my cotton panties, making me whimper. He smirks as if he’s innocent before his touch stalls at the little star beneath my bikini line.
“A reminder that we’re star dust.”
He continues his perusing, asking about every tattoo until I’m driven so mad from his touch that I’m pulling him on top of me and begging for relief.
After, with my head on his chest, I ask him, “Do you have any tattoos?”
“Not one.”
“Think you ever will?”
“Nah, probably not. Can’t think of a thing I’d ink onto my skin forever. It’d have to be something important to me — something I never want to lose.”
I tried to swallow but couldn’t as the memory replayed on a loop.
He had a tattoo.
A firefly.
Emotion strangled me like a fist wrapped tight around my throat.
Was it for me?
“Nah, that’s tame, bru,” Eli said, shrugging it off. “Check this out!”
He stood and ripped his pants down before any of us had a chance to look away, showing us his pale ass and a shitty, faded tattoo of a rubber duck that looked more demented than cute.
“Christ Almighty, Eli! No one wants to see yer arse, ya weapon!” Cameron yelled, shielding his eyes. Everyone else was laughing.
I was still staring at Finn.
Finally, he cleared his throat, breaking our gaze and offering a flat-lipped smile to the group. “Goodnight.”
“Awww, we were just having a laugh, Cheffy,” Palmer called after him. “We love you!”
Finn threw his hand up in a wave, but didn’t turn around. He disappeared inside the glass doors, and I watched until he was no longer in view.
“He’ll be fine,” Gisella promised. “Now, who’s up for a game of Truth or Dare?”
I blinked like I was coming out of a trance, and when my eyes met Bernard’s, he was watching me with a quirked brow.
He’d been in the galley when Finn used my nickname during this last charter.
And he was watching me now like he knew every secret I was trying to hide.
Gisella’s game of Truth or Dare started off tame.
Eli had to take a tequila shot off Bernard’s abs (which Bernard ate up like the cheeky bastard he was).
Leah admitted she’d faked an orgasm with a guy on a past boat (to which Cameron loudly declared that it would never happen with him, earning laughter and a playful shove from her).
Palmer was dared to run a lap naked around the deck (which had Daria, the poor camera operator still with us, flushing a furious shade of red when he ran past her with his dick swinging).
On the outside, I thought I was holding it together quite nicely. I laughed along with everyone else, hooted and hollered when appropriate, and sipped on my cocktail.
But inside, my mind was still trapped in that split-second of time when Finn’s eyes locked on mine, when I saw that tiny mark inked just beneath his heart.
I needed to go to bed.
That thought was loud and clear, shoving its way through the rest of the noise until I had no choice but to address it. The last thing I needed was to drink any more, or to let my brain wander any further into dangerous territory.
Besides, it was late, we were all wasted, and this game of Truth or Dare had the potential to get ugly if we didn’t call it soon.
I started to push up from the water, ready to call it a night, when Bernard’s voice cut through the chatter. “Cameron, truth or dare?”
“Em! Don’t go!” Leah tugged on my wrist until I flopped back into the water.
Well, shit.
Cameron grinned, shaking wet hair out of his face as he stretched an arm along the rim of the hot tub. “Dare, obviously.”
Bernard’s eyes gleamed. “Kiss Gisella.”
The second the words left his lips, my stomach plummeted.
I wasn’t the only one who stiffened. Palmer’s smile evaporated, his brows furrowing as he shot a glare at Bernard.
Leah froze next to me, her drunken smile melting off her face like ice cream in the hot sun. She showed her cards for only a moment before a forced smile found her lips when Cameron looked to her, as if asking for permission. She took a sip from her martini glass like she was entirely unaffected.
I knew better than to believe her, but apparently Cameron didn’t, because he turned to Gisella and arched a brow as if to ask want to do this?
Palmer tried to save it. “I don’t think Gisella will be a willing partner in that dare, bro. She’s got a boyfriend, remember?”
Gisella pursed her lips with an innocent lift of one shoulder. “Well, Finn went to bed, didn’t he?”
The entire hot tub shifted.
Fuck.
This was not good.
Cameron hesitated for all of a second, his gaze bouncing to Leah again. But when she just stared at the bubbles she was pushing together with her hands, he shrugged.
And then he crossed the hot tub, Gisella met him in the middle with a sultry smirk, and they kissed.
The cheers started before he even reached her. Bernard splashed water and Eli whooped loud enough to wake half the marina. Palmer shook his head like he already knew it was a mistake, taking a drink of his cocktail, but he watched the train wreck right along with the rest of us.
All I could focus on was Leah — the way she suddenly wasn’t smiling, the way she’d abandoned her drink on the rim of the tub and curled her arms around herself.
The second they kissed, I swore I watched my third stew break into a thousand pieces.
It wasn’t just a peck, either. Gisella hooked her arms around Cameron’s shoulders, pulling him flush against her.
Cameron’s hands found her waist, his fingers splaying over the wet fabric of her swimsuit as she deepened the kiss, tilting her head and parting her lips, which just made Bernard scream louder.
That was all Leah could take.
She climbed out of the tub with no one noticing.
The water streamed off her body in rivulets as she stepped onto the deck, wordlessly reaching for a towel and wrapping it tight around herself like armor.
The cheers didn’t stop. No one asked why her lip trembled or saw the way her shoulders tensed as she turned on her heel and walked inside.
I closed my eyes on a long breath, the pain on her face making my own chest squeeze.
Quietly, I climbed out of the hot tub, ignoring Bernard’s questioning glance and the way Cameron and Gisella were still tangled up in each other.
I was already stepping toward the doors when Gisella’s voice stopped me in my tracks.
“Oh, relax, Chief. You’re off the clock and your stew will be fine. It’s just a little fun — nothing to be so uptight about.”
I turned, narrowing my gaze. She wasn’t kissing Cameron anymore, but she still clung to him. “You really think Finn would be okay with what you just did?”
I expected her to waver. I expected guilt, or regret, or even a flicker of uncertainty.
But instead, she just smiled.
“I know he would,” she said, her voice honey-sweet and menacing all at once. “Because he’s my boyfriend.”
Her brow ticced up in a challenge, like she only wished I’d try to fight her. But I had neither the energy nor the desire.
Maybe she did know Finn better than I did now. Maybe he was fine with it.
Even if he wasn’t, it was none of my business.
And I reminded myself of that fact the entire way down to the crew quarters to check on Leah.