Alex woke up with Kendall in his arms. He turned his head enough to see the alarm on the nightstand and silently cursed. The ship had already docked in Orlando and the excursions started shortly. He snorted. Excursions. Most cruises went to exotic places—and this one would, too—but Orlando hardly seemed that.
Or maybe he was just bitter because he hadn’t planned on being on this cruise to begin with.
Kendall made a sound in her sleep and shifted closer. She rubbed her nose against his chest like she wanted to burrow, and he shouldn’t find it so fucking endearing, but he just wanted to gather her up and keep her safe. And, yeah, he wanted to bury his cock in her again and again until they were too exhausted to keep going. Despite her offer last night, she’d passed out the second she was horizontal in his bed, and he couldn’t bring himself to be annoyed about it. Not when he got to wake up like this.
What the fuck was he thinking?
He was supposed to leave today. That was to be the grand plan. Take off during the excursion and catch the first flight back to Dawson’s Creek. To reassure himself that the one constant in his life was still up and running and hadn’t been ruined in his absence.
He couldn’t quite dredge up the energy to get out of bed, though. Not with this woman here, not when last night she became this fledgling wild thing that he wanted to experience again. Kendall had obviously spent her entire life buttoned up. This cruise—with him—she finally let her hair down. She trusted him enough to do it. If he left, would he hurt her? Would it drive her back into her shell again?
It wasn’t his responsibility, but guilt still wrapped around his throat and squeezed. He didn’t want to be the reason she never let out her wild side again.
Kendall tensed, a sure sign that she was no longer asleep. She slowly lifted her head, her green eyes wide. “Hi,” she whispered.
“Hey,” he whispered back. This, as much as everything else, felt intimate. Like they were the only two people left in the world. He had no business liking it, but damn it, he did. “You sleep okay?”
“Uh… Yes?” She inched back from him, and he released her. “Did I… Did I drool on you?”
He couldn’t help grinning. “Only a little.”
“Oh god.” She flopped onto her back and threw an arm over her eyes. “Every time I think I can’t be more mortified in front of you, I go and prove myself wrong. At least I didn’t snore?”
Really, it was too easy. “Just tiny little snores. They were cute.”
She lifted her arm and shot him a look. “You’re messing with me.”
“Yeah.”
“Thank goodness.” She let her arm flop back down. “Do I want to know what time it is?”
Time. The one thing he both needed to and desperately didn’t want to focus on. Alex glanced at the clock again. If she left now, he could get packed and make it to the excursion departure with plenty of time. He considered the woman in his bed, considered what waited for him back home…
And made a decision.
“You mind if I make a call real quick?”
“Go for it. I’m going to…” She waved her other hand in the vague direction of the door.
It should be exactly what he wanted, but he shook his head. “Stay. Unless you have plans already.” He hesitated. “Or don’t want to.”
Kendall sat up, seeming unaware of the way the sheet slid half down her breasts, teasing him with the very edges of her pink nipples. “I can’t tell if you’re being polite or if you really want me to stay.”
Fuck, she was killing him.
Alex climbed out of bed and reached for the phone. “I wouldn’t ask you to stay if I didn’t want you here.”
“Okay.” She considered him. “I’m going to borrow your toothpaste, though.”
“By all means.” He waited for her to go into the bathroom and close the door to dial the bar. Despite the early hour, it only rang twice before Cherry answered. Alex barely let her get the greeting out. “I need an update. A real one.”
Cherry huffed out a breath. “Good morning, Alex. It’s so nice to hear from you again despite the fact you’re supposed to be on vacation.”
“Cherry.” He sank enough warning into his tone to have her growling at him.
“Yes, things are fine. Just like they were fine last night. Just like they’ll be fine for the remainder of your vacation. For god’s sake, Alex, it’s summer. People are too busy suffering from heat exhaustion to cause trouble, and even if they could work up the energy, I have a full staff that you trained who are capable of handling it.” She paused and her tone went a little soft. “You need this, okay? So stop being a pain in my ass and go actually enjoy yourself.”
She made it sound like it was the easiest thing in the world. “It’s not that simple.”
“It’s exactly that simple.” He could almost picture her stern frown and the way her perfectly penciled eyebrows had to be drawing together right about now. “Alex, go find yourself someone to have fun with for a few days. You never know what could happen in the time you aren’t chained to this business. Live a little.”
He didn’t tell her that he’d done more than enough living in his teens and early twenties. That his bullshit antics had put Pop in the hospital with a fucking heart attack. Cherry wouldn’t understand. No one ever did.
But she had a point on this note. “If anything changes, you will call me.”
“Alex—”
“You will call me.”
She sighed. “Yes, fine, if anything suddenly goes sideways, I’ll find a way to get a hold of you.”
He shouldn’t take her word for it. In fact, he should be packing right now. But Alex found himself saying, “Okay.”
“Goodbye, Alex.”
“Bye.” He hung up just as Kendall opened the bathroom door. She hesitated, as if the few feet between the door and the bed were too much when they’d both been wrapped up in each other all night. But she seemed to steel herself and padded naked to the bed. “Give me two,” he said.
“Sure.”
His misgivings didn’t disappear as he brushed his teeth. Alex half hoped that Kendall would be gone when he finished and make the choice for him, but he couldn’t ignore the relief at seeing her sitting so primly on his bed. He grinned. “Morning.”
“Morning.” She gave him a smile of her own. “You had to call out for work?”
“Yeah, I own a bar in Dawson’s Creek.”
Her eyes went wide. “Dawson’s…Creek.”
“Yeah, I know. It’s ridiculous and the locals get a kick out of it, but we precede that TV show.”
Kendall grinned. “Cool.”
“I sort of unofficially inherited it when my grandfather retired and moved to Mexico a few years back.” Though, truth be told, he’d run the business for longer than that. As Pop used to be so fond of reminding him, he wasn’t a young man anymore. He’d taught Alex everything he knew about running the place, and the business degree had filled in the gaps.
Kendall tucked the sheet around her and gave him her full attention. “Tell me about it.”
This wasn’t part of the plan. Sex, yes, but making small talk? Alex still found himself climbing into bed next to her and reclining against the pillows. “When I was a kid, it was pure dive bar. The kind of place where people drink themselves stupid and brawl when the night goes on too long.” He grinned. “But most of my good memories from childhood are wrapped up in that building. The cigarette smoke that seemed to permeate everything. The sticky bar. The rolling laughter of good-natured ribbing between men who had been friends longer than I’d been alive. And, through it all, Pop held the center, as steady as gravity.”
“Sounds like an interesting place.”
He laughed at her dubious expression. “When I took over managing it, I started shifting things around. We still get the regulars during the day, but it’s more of a hipster kind of place in the evening with fancy drinks and tiny food.” The regulars had a special menu that wasn’t available to anyone else, because he’d be damned before he drove them out while he worked at elevating the place. They might bitch about the laws against smoking inside now, but they still showed up like clockwork.
“Fancy drinks and tiny food.” Kendall tilted her head to the side. “I can’t see it. You’re not really the fancy drinks and tiny food kind of guy.”
“You think so?” He tugged gently on a strand of her hair. “How would you know?”
She opened her mouth, but seemed to reconsider what she’d been about to say. “That’s fair. I’m afraid I’ve made some assumptions about you from the beginning that weren’t very flattering—or true.”
Her words stung a little, but they had no reason to. She wasn’t the first person who’d looked at him and thought that he was trouble. Good for one thing or another, but not the kind of guy a woman kept around for longer than a few nights. Not the kind they saw themselves walking down the aisle to or raising a family with. He forced a laugh. “You aren’t the first.”
“Doesn’t make it right.” She worried her bottom lip. “You’ve been nothing but amazing to me, and honestly I don’t deserve it.”
That wasn’t the truth. “Sweetheart, why wouldn’t you deserve it?”
“Because I was so rude to you. Seriously rude. And then…” She shook her head. “I suppose it doesn’t matter now. But for what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”
Alex laced his fingers through hers and brought their linked hands up to kiss her knuckles. “What do you do?”
“I’m the assistant sales manager for a trio of hotels in New York.” She made a face. “It’s the same job I’ve had pretty much since I got out of college. I should have seen more upward movement at this point, but I keep getting passed over for promotions.”
They’d gotten unexpectedly heavy for so early in the morning. He should turn the conversation to lighter things, but he didn’t like the way her expression fell when she talked about work. “Do you like the job?”
“Yes. I mean, most days aren’t totally terrible. I like dealing with the long-term contracts and the satisfaction of knowing that my work is helping the bottom line.” She shrugged. “I just feel… stagnant. Like somewhere along the line, I got into a rut without realizing it and now I don’t know what I’m supposed to do about it.”
He couldn’t fix her life. It wasn’t his job to even try. That wasn’t the role he was meant to play in her life. But they had the next six days, and he could leave her better than he’d found her. “I have just the distraction.”
Her lips curved. “That’s one hell of a line.”
“Is it a line if it’s the truth?” He tugged on her hand, and she allowed him to urge her up to straddle him.
Kendall laughed, the lingering tension dissipating as she settled against him, “No, I don’t suppose it is.”
Kendall never would have considered herself sex-crazed, but after spending the day in Alex’s bed, she feared the term fit. Every time she started to feel awkward about staying so long, or wonder if she should leave, he’d slide a hand between her thighs or move down her body, trailing kisses in his wake, and she’d put off going back to her room for a little while longer.
Now, she wasn’t sure she was physically capable of walking away.
Alex kissed the back of her neck as he pumped slowly into her. “You hungry, sweetheart?” He cupped her breast with one hand and pressed his other to her clit. Not circling. She was far too sensitive for that kind of stimulation at this point. But the light pressure as he fucked her slowly has her rising in a steady wave of pleasure.
She leaned back against him, letting him control this fully. “I can’t believe you’re asking me that right now.”
“Mmm.” He pressed another kiss to her neck. “Once more and we can go find food.”
Kendall gave a desperate laugh. “You’re bargaining orgasms for food right now.”
“Yeah.” Totally unrepentant, and she adored that about him. He didn’t pick up his pace, though. He just kept that low, languid movement as if he was enjoying drawing this out as much as she was.
She never wanted it to end.
Her body hadn’t gotten the memo, though. Her orgasm rolled through her in a soft wave that had her writhing against him. Alex flipped her onto her stomach and drove into her, desire turning them into desperate creatures. More, more, always more.
If this fling didn’t have a built-in expiration date, it might scare the hell out of her.
It took long minutes before their breathing settled back into something resembling normal. Kendall rolled to face him, and Alex immediately pulled her close. “So, about that food.”
She laughed against his chest. “I really don’t know if my legs will hold me after today.”
“That’s fine. I’ll hold both of us.”
How could he say things like that with a straight face? As if he wasn’t shaking her world right down to the very bedrock of her existence. She cuddled closer and pressed a kiss to the center of his chest. “In that case, food would be most welcome.”
They parted just long enough to shower and change. Through it all, Kendall kept wondering if she’d imagined the whole night in some kind of fever dream. Surely this wasn’t real. Surely she hadn’t thrown caution to the wind in the most dramatic way possible and fallen into bed with the sexiest man she’d ever met.
Surely she hadn’t had semi-public sex and a very public orgasm.
But when she opened her door, there Alex was. He grinned at the sight of her, as if she’d just delivered the best present and he couldn’t wait to open it. “I like the dress.”
She looked down at the dress in question. Floral, again. She hadn’t realized how much floral she owned until this trip. Too much, probably. Kendall smoothed down the fabric and returned his smile. “Thanks.”
His blue eyes went intense for a moment. “I’m not going to ask what you’re wearing under it.”
“Okay,” she said slowly.
“Because if I find out you’re pulling a repeat of last night, we’re not going to make it far enough from your room to get that food I promised you.” He caught her hips and pulled her a step into the hallway, waiting for the door to shut completely before he tucked her under his arm and pointed them in the direction of the dining room. They walked together as if they’d done this a thousand times before.
As if they fit.
No, she couldn’t think about that. Even if they somehow thought to extend this past the end of the trip, she lived in a completely different state. He obviously had deep roots in his town. She had a job that needed her, even if it frustrated her on a daily basis. Moving across the country for a man she just met…
What was she even thinking? Alex hadn’t promised her anything but right now. Stressing about a what-if scenario that would never happen was what she did when she wasn’t on vacation. What her sisters had teased her for ever since she was a kid. She wasn’t that woman right now. She refused to be.
They stopped just inside the room and she froze. All her friends except Aubrey sat around a table. Was she supposed to walk over there with Alex? It would invite questions she didn’t know how to answer, and put both of them on the spot. She glanced up to ask him… she wasn’t sure what, but she stopped when she noticed him looking at something intensely. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” He gave himself a shake and smiled down at her. “I was just thinking I’m not in the mood for my friend to give me shit.”
Relief crashed over her, almost swallowing the pinprick of guilt. “Me, too.”
“Want to just grab a table over here?”
The coward’s way out, maybe, but she still wasn’t ready to face her friends on multiple different levels. “Please.” She clung to his hand as he led her to a table with a few free seats in the opposite direction of their friends. The guilt wouldn’t quite leave, though. Kendall cleared her throat. “I’m not ashamed of you. That’s not why I didn’t want to go over there.”
Alex held out her chair and waited for her to sit before he sank into the chair next to her. “I know.”
She started to change the subject, but stopped “I don’t even think they’d pepper us with a bunch of questions or anything. Maybe back in college, but I’d like to think we’re beyond that now.” She hesitated, but he just watched her with those serious blue eyes and she found herself talking freely. “Though maybe that’s because we’re not as close as we used to be.”
“Am I keeping you from them?”
She shook her head. “No. Honestly, you’re probably saving them from me. All everyone wanted to do on this vacation is relax, and if left to my own devices, I’ll have us planned down to the last minute.” She waved a vague hand. “It makes me feel more in control to have a plan.”
“Aw, sweetheart.” He took her hand and gave it a squeeze. “You seem to be doing just fine without a plan.”
“Yeah, I guess I am.” She managed a smile. “Honestly, I probably should have dragged my sisters on this cruise, too. Well, not Gretchen. She’s living in happily married bliss, and I doubt my brother-in-law would appreciate my taking her on a singles’ cruise.”
“What are you sisters like?”
“Totally different from me.” She laughed, thinking of them. Grams always called them three peas in a pod, and she might seem them that way, but no one else did. “Gretchen is about as perfect as a person can be. She’s strong and stubborn and always knows exactly where she’s headed. Marley is the exact opposite. Anything resembling long-term commitment makes her break out in hives. I don’t think she’s stayed in one place longer than a year since she graduated high school.”
Alex grinned. “They sound cool, but I definitely prefer you.”
His easy words warmed her right down to her soul, even as a little voice in the back of her mind whispered not to make this into something it wasn’t. They were indulging in a vacation fling. End of story.
Right?