Chapter 88
Previously.
Iwake with a startle, hand pressed to my chest to calm the racing of my heart, the thundering of the blood in my veins like a thousand wild horses. Breath saws in and out of my lungs, tight with panic. My throat’s dry—raspy, as I look about the room.
The fringes of the dream float away like blood in the water. The suite of the cruise ship surrounds me, fluffy comforter heavy and warm against my body.
“Rose?” Chelsea calls from the bathroom on the far side of the room. “Can you get that?”
She’s alive?
Tears well in my eyes as warmth emanates from my chest, slithering to the tips of my extremities. Gods, I want to run in there and hug her, coil my arms around her just to know she’s really here and breathing.
“Rose!” she calls out again.
“What?”
“Get the fucking door! Someone’s knocking!”
Yep, definitely my sister. Her familiar personality brings a smile to my face.
As I sit up in bed, a towel falls from the top of my head. My familiar scarlet red hair falls around me, wet from the shower. Memories fall into place. Smoking on the balcony, showering, getting ready for the mixer…Sam…Brad.
Fear snakes into my veins, quick and precise, woven with pain…loss.
Ripley.
I breathe deep as the loud knocking starts up again.
None of it was real.
“Who is it?” I shout, rubbing my chest, trying to chase away the hollow ache I feel at his absence.
“Housekeeping.”
“We don’t need anything.” I reply, struggling harder than I should have to in order to pull my head into the here and now.
“I have towels sent by Mr. Melborne.”
Ugh! Of course he would send new stuff to the room, probably at the step-monsters request. “Just a minute, please!”
The insistent worker’s knuckles rap against the wooden door once more, and I’m about ready to rip my fucking hair out as a slow throb begins behind my eyes.
“You can just leave them by the door, I’ll grab them!” I call out, emerging from the blankets, and swinging my legs to the side of the bed. The sudden movement makes my head spin. I feel sick, nauseous, sad, all at once, and it's overwhelming.
“We aren’t allowed to do that, it’s unhygienic.”
For fuck’s sake.
Huffing my hair out of my face, I get to my feet. Trying to rein in my annoyance as I fix the tie on the fuzzy hotel bathrobe.
A large glass of white wine sits on the side table, almost completely drained. Clearly the reason for my impromptu nap, fucked up nightmare, and blooming headache. Still, I can’t shake the feeling of more that clings to my skin, despite the effort I extinguish trying to shake it off.
As I cross the room, I peek my sister through the crack in the door. She’s leaned over the sink, brushing the mascara through her long lashes with a precision I envy.
Of course there’s a part of me that’s overjoyed she’s here, alive and breathing. The other side of me is missing its counterpart that my subconscious dreamed up.
Pausing before the stateroom door, I hesitate to open it. What if it wasn’t a dream, but a warning? Some sort of divine intervention presenting the future to me on a silver platter. Notifying me of the danger Chelsea and I will face if we engage any further with the hot cruise workers.
They are undoubtedly real.
Does that mean Rip is too?
Or is my lizard brain trying to conjure up a reason for me to not abandon my life on the mainland and join another cruise liner for work?
Shaking my head, I swipe all thoughts of that fuck-ass alternate reality away.
Unlatching the chain lock at the top of the door, I slowly twist the knob. It swings open, and without a doubt, I know the person before me doesn’t work for the cruise company.
He’s got a fat lip. The bruise around his eye and cheek already discolouring his perfect skin.
Ripley holds no towels in his hands, just my still-beating heart. A smile graces those soft lips, pulling at the wound, splitting it open. His hair hangs around his face in the hottest way, the same thought I remember having in a life that didn’t exist.
We’re locked in a stare-off that feels like an eternity as every moment from that dream overwhelms me. I feel him moving inside me like a ghost, hear his moans of pleasure, his harrowing wail of loss, echoing down to my shaking bones. An erotic mournful melody I couldn’t escape if I tried.
Rip’s voice comes, deep and gravelly, “There you are, I’ve been looking for you.”
I’m overwhelmed, unbelievably so. But he’s real.
My finger’s itch to touch him, feel his thundering heartbeat beneath my palm.
I remember the stillness of his body before I put an end to that other reality.
However, who I was in that place bubbles up from a darkened corner of my soul, bringing with it the unrelenting need to fuck with him.
Because I will literally never get another opportunity like this.
I twist my features. “Do I know you?”
The air around us stalls as he becomes a rigid statue. A myriad of emotions flit through his honeyed chocolate eyes, shining beautifully in the warm lighting.
Ripley’s foot breaches the threshold without a word, the Carnotaurus tattoo I know is inked into his calf advancing on me step for step as I back away.
The heavy door closes on its own behind him as he floods the room by simply occupying it.
My facade threatens to crack as his face falls for a flicker.
“You don’t remember me?” he chokes, and it shreds the fibres of my lie away one by one.
“No, should I?” The back of my legs hit the mattress, pausing my movements and trapping me between Ripley and the bed.
“Yes,” he snarls. It’s vicious and arousal slicks me up. I know that sound, and how it vibrates against the most intimate part of me.
“Umm, okay…” I scramble, trying to keep composure as more flashbacks flood my mind. “Are you su—”
“You’re lying.”
“What?” I squeak, faking offence. “Am no—”
“Just stop,” he rumbles, “it’s pathetic.”
“Excuse me?” I snap.
“If a man you didn’t know entered your room, threatening you and your sister, you’d handle it. Or at least scream. Wouldn’t you?”
“Maybe I’m processing,” I fumble, because he’s not wrong.
“Oh, I don’t doubt that you’re processing, but it’s not how to get me out of the room without issue.
” His hand raises slowly, fiddling with the tie on my bathrobe, before fisting it and yanking me close.
My hands shoot up, gripping onto his muscled arms. He’s something solid to cling to as I fall through multiple levels of memories.
Ripley leans down, brushing his nose softly against mine as he breathes me in.
My nipples fucking ache, and I hold my breath, hanging on his every word.
Rip’s lips graze across my cheek, and my nails dig into his biceps, toes threatening to curl at the sexual tension he’s weaving.
His hot mouth feathers over the shell of my ear as he whispers, “It’s how to get me on my knees for you when your sister’s within earshot. ”
Breath stutters from between my lips as his eyes travel back to mine. “Rip,” I whisper, though it sounds more like a desperate moan.
He gifts me another soul-wrecking smile, and I move to taste it, taste the crimson welling at the cut.
He shoves me back onto the bed, eyes never leaving mine as he peels off the t-shirt adorning his muscular frame.
“I knew you remembered me,” he growls, following me down onto the fluffy comforter.
I barely register his words, too worried that he’s injured because of the blood painted across his chest. “Are you h—”
Ripley’s lips slam down on mine, cutting off my concern and stealing my breath.
“Run away with me,” he says between urgent kisses. It’s like he can’t get enough, like he’d crawl inside me and live there if it was possible. Little does he know I feel him there, deep within the marrow of my bones.
I’ll never be without him.
“Please.” His words are desperate, hopeful. But how can I leave? “Come with me.”
“I c-can’t,” I eek out between our moving lips.
“Don’t say that, flower. Give us a chance.”
“How?” I ask, pulling away from him slightly.
A devious look flicks across his face. “There’s nothing stopping you.”
“What do you mean? How can I just leave? What about Maximus?” I whisper-hiss.
“I’ll kill him the second you’re safe.”
“What about the plan?” We talk like we aren’t strangers at all. I guess, technically, we aren’t. Not really. I’ve lived a whole other life with him somehow.
“Fuck the plan, you’re all that matters.”
Any objections I was fumbling for dissolve as I melt for him.
But I can’t let him think I gave up that easy. “What about Chelsea? Sam and Brad are still out there…my parents too.”
Ripley shakes his head, shaggy hair swaying in front of his eyes, tickling my cheeks. “No, they’re not.”
I observe him, deeply. Knowing him better than he knows himself, I assume he took matters into his own hands. “Did you do another bad thing?”
A deep laugh chuffs from his chest. “I did many bad things, and regret none of them.”
His lips meet mine, soft and pleading.
“I’ll ensure your sister’s safety, send her home with a full guard team if I have to. Just…run with me.”