Chapter 13
13
After another hour in which Raphe helped me figure my life out, I left his suite, hugging him for a solid minute before he went to the gym to “work off some steam.” Staggering numbly into the staff elevator, I pushed the button for deck twelve and swayed on my feet while the doors closed. It was late. Well, technically, it was early. I should be a good girl and go to my pod, get some sleep. But as the doors slid open, a strange and bitter clarity clawed its way to the surface.
Because I should be sleeping soundly in Raphe’s arms, completely spent after a spectacular night. The fact that I wasn’t, that I couldn’t, was an issue that needed to be sorted out. Immediately.
Stomping down the hall, propelled by a renewed sense of purpose, I reached his suite, clenched my jaw so tightly something squeaked, and knocked three times on his door. It wasn’t like I knew exactly what I was about to say to him; there was nothing poetic in the words bouncing around my head. But I had a general idea, a gist, a few salient points .
When he opened his door, however, wearing rumpled flannel pajamas with tiny bow ties all over them and a sleep mask pushed up onto his forehead, spiking his bangs, I violently shoved down what felt like the beginnings of a laugh.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, looking as surly as a being could look while wearing flannel bow tie jammies. “Let me guess. You haven’t wounded me enough already tonight, so now you’ve come to gloat?”
“Excuse me?” I gasped. “No, I did not come to gloat . As a matter of fact, I have nothing to gloat about, thanks to you.” Elbowing past him, I barged into his pod.
“Oh, well. Yes. Please. Come right on in, why don’t you.” He mashed his security panel, and his door slid closed. “I wasn’t doing anything important like, I don’t know, sleeping. And…wait. What did you say?” The sting slipped from his voice. “What do you mean you have nothing to gloat about?”
Wheeling on him, I flung out my arms in a frustrated arc. “What I mean is that despite my best efforts, nothing happened with Raphael tonight.”
Freddie, wisely, didn’t say a word.
“That’s right. We were alone, in his room, two consenting adults. And I couldn’t do it.”
Sitting down on the edge of his bed, he said, “That’s…interesting.”
“Interesting?” I repeated, glaring down at him. “You think it’s interesting that I couldn’t sleep with a man I’ve been sleeping with—with much enjoyment—for the last five years?”
His shoulders inched toward his ears. “I mean…”
My eyes narrowed.
“What, uh…” He scratched his head. “What happened? Why couldn’t you, um, do it? ”
He looked so absurd in his pajamas, with his bangs pushed up by his sleep mask. Nobody could have a conversation like this. “I can’t even take you seriously right now,” I said, pointing to the mask. “Can you please take that ridiculous thing off?”
Wincing, he said, “Sorry.” Then he slipped off the mask and folded it neatly on his lap. While he ran a hand through his hair, I tried not to study the way his bangs slid back into place, the way the muscles of his forearm flexed, the way his veins traveled over his wrist like lines on a map. Either I didn’t try hard enough, or—and more worryingly—when it came to Freddie, it didn’t matter how hard I tried. I couldn’t stop looking at him. I couldn’t stop finding reasons to be closer to him. I couldn’t stop wanting him. I couldn’t stop.
What I was about to tell him was dangerous. And probably stupid. But sometimes, despite one’s best efforts, the only thing left to do was the stupid thing. “What happened was,” I began, clearing the tremor from my voice, “every time I looked at Raphael, every time he touched me, every time he merely breathed beside me, all I could think about, all I could see, all I could feel …was you. And, well, he didn’t find that very appealing. Neither did I, for that matter.”
His eyes were comically wide. “Sunny, I?—”
I raised my hand. “I don’t know what any of this means, Freddie. I wish I did, believe me. But one thing I do know is that I will not be an enjoyable person to be around if I can no longer have sex.”
He laughed. The man actually laughed.
“You think this is funny?” I scowled. “This is humorous to you?”
For a moment, he had the decency to look ashamed. Until he burst into laughter again.
“Freddie! ”
“I’m so sorry,” he said, not looking sorry at all. “I realize this is a difficult time for you. But Sunny, you just told me you’ve been thinking about me. And considering how much time I spend thinking about you”—a smile tilted his lips—“you can’t blame me if I’m a little happy right now.”
Ignoring every rational thought still pretending it had any sway over me—and even though it felt like flying into the event horizon of a black hole—I took a step toward him. “I don’t know what to do here, Freddie.” I took another step. “But I’m thinking, maybe…” This next step brought me up to his knees, which he politely spread apart for me. After a small breath and one final step, I settled into the space between his legs. Maybe it was reckless, what I was about to suggest. But in that moment, in my sleep-deprived brain and orgasm-deprived body, it was the only thing that made sense. “If I can’t have sex with anyone else,” I said while his eyes found mine, his hands sliding up my thighs. “Maybe I can at least have sex with you.”
He stared up at me, and aside from my thundering heart, an eternity of silence stretched out between us. In that silence, his fingers squeezed my thighs gently, sending a surge of electric heat through my chest, spiraling in my core, sparking into each one of my toes. His warm hands moved up my body, over my hips, his fingertips grazing my sides, and I moaned at the need rushing through me. But then, suddenly, he wrapped his arms around my waist, yanked me close, turned his cheek to rest against my belly, and said, so softly, so sweetly, “No.”
What?
“No?” I repeated. “Did you just say no?”
“Yes.”
“Wait.” I stiffened in his arms. “Yes, you said no? Or no, you said yes? ”
“I said no.” He shook his head against my stomach. “No sex.”
The sound that burst out of me was one I’d never made before, like a cat with laryngitis coughing up a hairball. “Are you kidding me?” I pushed against his shoulders, trying to break away, but he held me tight. “Let me go!”
“Wait,” he pleaded. “Sunny, please. Let me explain.”
“Explain what? That I’m being denied by two men tonight? Of all the preposterous horseshit.”
His laughter rumbled against my belly.
I squirmed in his grip. “Stop laughing. This isn’t funny.”
“Stop fighting, and I’ll stop laughing.”
With an exasperated grunt, I tried for one last escape, met his resistance, and gave up. “Fine.” I let my arms hang limp at my sides. “Get on with your explanation, then.”
He turned his head, propping his chin on my stomach, and gazed up into my eyes. “Sunny,” he said, while butterflies swarmed in my belly. “I can’t have meaningless sex with you.”
“Why not? We’ve done it before. And I believe we both found the experience”—my core gave a little flicker at the sense memory of his lips on my skin—“adequate.”
“I can’t have meaningless sex with you, because when it comes to you, I want more. I want to be more than a hookup. More than just another night. You can’t sleep with other beings right now because of me. And I can’t sleep with you, if that’s all it is. I may have some self-destructive tendencies, and believe me, your offer is tempting me more than you’ll ever know. But”—his arms loosened around me—“if anything ever happens between us again, I want it to mean something.”
Despite my newfound freedom, I didn’t back away, too busy cracking open, right down the center. I wanted it to mean something too, being with him. In another world, maybe it could. But in this one, it was impossible. “Freddie, I can’t be what you want right now. I’m not?—”
“I know, Sunny.” He leaned back, settling his hands on the bed behind him. “I know there’s something other than our jobs keeping you from wanting to be in a relationship. I won’t ask you what that thing is, but I’ve been thinking about this. A lot, to be honest. And since you’re here, since you haven’t walked out on me yet, I might as well shoot my shot.” His chest heaved through a fortifying breath. “I have a proposal for you.”
“A proposal?”
He nodded once. “Yes.”
I considered that for a moment, accidentally spending most of that moment staring into his eyes, which pulled on me the way a planet pulled on its moons. Yanking myself free, I straightened to my full, unimpressive height and said, “All right. I will hear your proposal.”
Slowly, his gaze sank, landing somewhere below my breasts. “I know you aren’t looking for anything serious,” he said, his voice soft and measured. “But I don’t think I can stay away from you anymore. So what if there was a way we could be together, more than just sex, but less than a relationship. Not as Sunny and Freddie, but”—he paused for another breath—“as them .”
“Them?” I asked, not following. “Them who?”
“Them. Phoebe and Joshua.”
“Phoebe and Joshua?” I repeated, still not quite getting it.
His brow furrowed. “I know it sounds mad, but bear with me. Freddie and Sunny work together on this ship. They are professional, friendly, and in no way involved with each other. But maybe, after the workday ends, Freddie and Sunny could become Joshua and Phoebe, vacationing singles who’ve made an undeniable connection once and now want to feel each other out. See where things might lead.”
I probably needed to say something, but nothing coherent came to me. This proposal… Either he’d gone completely sideways, or he was the most brilliantly seductive male in the entire KU.
“I thought I could be patient,” he went on, despite my silence. “I thought I’d be able to stand by and wait until I charmed you so thoroughly you’d have no other choice but to give me a chance. But if tonight taught me anything, it’s that there is not enough patience in the entire galaxy for me to withstand the idea of you being with someone else. Unless, perhaps, that someone else is me. Or another version of me, anyway.”
There was a good chance I’d gone completely sideways too, because I started to imagine how it might go. A late-night movie at the Rialto, a walk along the promenade on deck twenty-eight, a dip in the pool on sixteen, a stolen kiss overlooking the atrium. It might be romantic. It might be fun, and I loved fun. A hidden romance, hidden lives, hidden pasts. It might not be real, but the real world was a place I’d been hiding from for years. It might be nice to have someone join me in the make-believe.
“Say something,” he whispered, his breath warm on my belly. “Anything.”
Sliding my fingers under his chin, I angled his face up to mine. “You must know how unhinged this sounds.”
“I don’t have a single hinge left,” he admitted with a reserved grin. “But I think this could work, Sunny. Please, say yes.”
Carefully, I ran my fingers through his hair. I didn’t know if fingers had the capacity to feel relief, but considering how long mine had ached to touch his soft, thick strands, they practically sighed.
“Sunny still thinks it’s”— terrifying, risky, destined to end in heartache —“absurd.” I huffed a laugh as my brain, apparently pushed over the edge of some bottomless cliff, plummeted into the void. “But Phoebe thinks it’s one of the best ideas she’s ever heard.”
Wordlessly, but with a deep, easy sigh, he pulled me in, holding me as close as he’d held me before. Only this time, the thought of trying to get away never crossed my mind.
Leaning over him, I buried my nose in his hair, breathing in his linen scent, and something else, vanilla and lavender. Once again, mouth-wateringly edible. And then, with our plan firmly in place and any lingering uncertainty scampering back into whatever dismal cave it had emerged from, I hiked up my dress, climbed into his lap, and started unbuttoning the top button of his ridiculous jammies.
“Sunny.” His fingers closed around my hips.
“It’s Phoebe now,” I said, slipping another button free. “Remember?”
Reaching for me, he stilled my hands. “Stop.”
“Stop?” I frowned. “Why?”
“I, um…” Color rushed into his cheeks. “ Joshua , I mean, would like a chance…to?—”
“Yes?” I encouraged, high on need, short on patience.
He took a deep, steadying breath. “He would like a chance to… woo Phoebe.”
While my eyelids grew heavy with desire, or maybe exhaustion—it was impossible to tell at this point—I brushed my thumb over his lower lip, and said, “That ship has sailed. No wooing required, promise. ”
Grasping my hand to kiss the tip of my thumb with an achingly sweet tenderness that melted my skin, he said, “Joshua disagrees.” Abruptly, he stood from the bed, taking me with him, and set me on my feet. “Therefore, respectfully, I will need to ask you to leave.”
The disappointment tumbling through me must have been noticeable, based on the way he raised his hands and said, “I don’t think you’ll have any regrets. Not to toot his own horn, but Joshua is pretty good at wooing.”
I scoffed. “Did you just say, ‘toot his horn’? Are you actually eighty? And how highly skilled?”
While his smile skewed into an impossibly charming smirk I felt suddenly compelled to kiss right off his face, he said, “You’ll just have to wait to find out.”
Had I ever wanted another being as badly as I wanted him right now? I had, I realized. Him, months ago in that elevator, tasting those chocolate-covered cherries on his tongue. He thought I needed to wait. I thought I’d waited long enough. Time to play hardball.
Pushing up to my tiptoes, I brought my mouth close enough to his that we shared the same breath. “How long?”
His resolved wavered, teetering like a glass about to fall and shatter. “Not long,” he ground out, staring at my lips, his hands sliding up my arms.
If I was a betting woman, I’d put everything I owned or ever would own on winning this kiss. Let me point to his darkening eyes, his fingers closing around my arms, his tongue slipping out to wet his lips. I had it. It was mine. Take a bow.
But a second before our lips met, he stepped back, spun me around, and ushered me briskly toward the door. “But tonight,” he said, all business, no play, “Joshua needs his beauty rest. He has sonnets to compose. Or dirty limericks at the very least.”
I wanted to object, tried to, but he had me out in the hallway in a blink, waving with a tight “good night,” before he retreated back into his pod and slid his door shut.
My head swimming, heart pounding, mouth smiling so wide it hurt a little, I stood outside his door, waiting. I couldn’t seem to leave. I didn’t want to leave. I was not going to leave . Not without something. I only had to knock once, and his door slid open.
“Yes?”
Of course my brain would choose this precise moment to succumb to the turmoil of the day and blank out. “Um, well,” I said, stalling. “Oh, how do you think they did that trick? The one with the goat?”
He stepped toward me, just close enough to slide the strap of my dress back up my shoulder and not an inch closer. But when he did, I angled my head away from his fingers, elongating the slope of my neck. Phoebe knows a thing or two about wooing too, Joshua .
With an audible swallow, he lowered his hand and said, “No clue. Let’s ask them later. Good night, or good day, I suppose,” he stammered before backpedaling into his pod and closing his door again.
Damn. Bet lost. No kiss.
Carrying a mountain of sexual frustration but a helium-light heart, I turned and started walking toward my pod. I wasn’t two steps away, however, when his door whooshed open again, and he emerged, muttering “fuck it” before grabbing my wrist, pulling me back inside, taking me into his arms, and kissing me.
His mouth was hot and greedy, and I moaned into it, grasping at him with frantic fingers, pulling him closer, craving as much of him as he would give me. The kiss was hungry, ravenous as his arms wrapped around me, as he lifted me off the floor, one of my shoes slipping off my foot to tip onto its side on his carpet. He slipped his tongue into my mouth, and somehow, through the demanding, blistering heat of the kiss, it was soft, gentle as it caressed mine.
I shuddered in his arms, burned, nearly combusted. Then, mercifully, like the sky right after the sun sank below the horizon, the fiery red surge of the kiss cooled to soft streams of violet, blue, pink. His hand rose to cradle my head, his fingers firmly supporting its weight, and everything slowed as he deepened the kiss, pulling me down with him, setting my feet back on the ground.
I was sure that, by now, I’d experienced every known variety of kiss, but I was wrong. This kiss was a novel species, an unidentified element, an uncharted star I would place my finger over in the night sky and proclaim, this one here, this is mine.
When we parted, our chests heaving, our foreheads touching, he said, “Sorry. I couldn’t help myself.”
Nestling into the space between his neck and shoulder, I rested my cheek on the soft, adorably bow-tied fabric of his pajamas. While he held me, he breathed in a slow, hypnotic rhythm that pulled my eyelids lower and lower with every exhale.
“You should go to bed before you fall asleep here in my arms,” he said, his lips brushing the shell of my ear. “Do you want me to carry you there?”
Still not entirely trusting myself or him or our arrangement , I shook my head, slipped my foot back into my shoe, and let him walk me to his door.
When I somehow made it to my pod without falling asleep on the way, I stripped off my dress, bra, and panties, then crawled onto my bed and collapsed. Before unconsciousness claimed me, however, I slid my hand under my pillow, finding the coil of Joshua’s necktie. Pulling the tie out of its hiding place, I unraveled it and looped it around my neck, falling asleep wearing his tie, a smile, and nothing else.