by Nicky Wells
Her smile widened as she took in the view. From her position in the bed, all she could see were oak-panelled walls, white curtains, and the pure azure of the sky stretching above the Mediterranean Sea. What a perfect way to wake up.
She stretched some more and reached out a hand to find Alex next to her. He was still asleep, breathing deeply and contentedly—or so it seemed to Casey—and she half turned to drink in the presence of her husband. His dark curly hair was tousled with sleep, and a few locks fell across his forehead and over his closed eyes. He hadn’t bothered to put on pyjamas, allowing Casey to admire his smooth, broad chest. The nobbles of his clavicles jutted out prominently, and Casey swooned. She loved that hint of vulnerability in a big, strong, powerful bloke. One of Alex’s arms was flung back onto the pillow as if to show off the intricate band of tattoo that graced his biceps, and Casey resisted the temptation to touch it. She longed for his arms around her body. Perhaps it was time to finish off what they had left undone last night?
Muffled sounds from above deck suggested that the crew were up and working. It made sense, Casey mused. The yacht was evidently in motion, and they were probably already on their way to Spain. Barcelona was their next destination, and Casey was looking forward to seeing the Font Màgica and Park Güell. But that would be later that day, or even the next day. They had no fixed schedule, no timetable, and they were taking the stops on their bespoke honeymoon cruise as their mood and the weather moved them. So there was plenty of time for some nuptial nookie.
She jiggled her body closer to Alex until her nose nearly touched his.
‘Alex?’
An unintelligible grunt rewarded her opening gambit, and she tried again.
‘Mr Morgan, are you awake?’
Alex peeled open one eye. ‘Not quite.’
‘Can you make yourself awake?’
‘Do I have to?’
Casey chuckled. Her newly-baked husband was clearly hung over. ‘We have some unfinished business, remember?’
Alex opened his other eye. A lazy smile spread across his face.
‘I remember. Good morning, Mrs Morgan.’ He reached up and pulled her head to his. His lips pursed in readiness for a kiss, but Casey gave an inadvertent recoil.
Alex raised his eyebrows. ‘What’s wrong?’
Casey felt herself blushing and stalling for time. All her amorous inclination had been killed stone-dead with a single whiff of Alex’s morning mouth, but there really was no polite way of saying this to him.
‘I need a pee.’
‘You need a pee?’
‘And I want to brush my teeth.’ Casey found herself gabbling in hopes that Alex would take the hint. ‘I probably reek. All that garlic of yesterday, you know?’
She looked into Alex’s eyes intently, trying to communicate with him. You reek, darling. It’s all that garlic of yesterday, you know?
Alex laughed. ‘You do have a touch of bad breath. Go on, I’ll wait for you here.’
What did he mean, she had bad breath? He had no idea. This wasn’t good. This wasn’t at all good.
Casey reluctantly rose from the bed. ‘What about you? Don’t you want to…?’ She made a tooth-brushing motion with her hand.
Alex grinned and ran his tongue over his teeth. ‘Nah. I’m all right.’
Damn it. Men. Why couldn’t they take a hint?
‘Okay. I’ll quickly…’ Casey pointed at the bathroom, then made a dash for it. Her mind was working furiously. How was a wife supposed to handle this delicate situation? There was no way she could kiss him unless he brushed his teeth. It wasn’t that she was overly obsessed with oral hygiene. They had had many a morning love-in before. It was simply that on this particular morning, Alex really, seriously, and honest-to-God honked. In a big way.
Casey swallowed hard while she squeezed extra toothpaste on her toothbrush. She paced up and down in the compact luxury bathroom, observing herself in the mirror as her mouth was frothing. Behind her, the shower beckoned invitingly. With a start, Casey realised that that was it! The solution, the answer, the remedy!
She finished brushing her teeth and started running the shower. Before she stepped in, she opened the bathroom door and called to Alex.
‘Oh lover boy! Come slather me in lather!’
This was an old joke of theirs going back to the very first time they had coupled after a gig. It had been in a dingy backstage shower room with peeling paint and tiles that refused to stick to the walls. They had covered each other in a lather of shower gel until their bodies had been too slippery to hold, and yet somehow they had managed to go all the way—with cataclysmic effects. Casey’s loins danced eagerly at the memory. Yes, this was the way forward.
She stepped into the shower and stood under the steaming hot water, waiting for Alex to appear. At last, there he was!
He sauntered into the bathroom looking like a Roman god, all dark broody looks—and with a vital part of his anatomy very much standing to attention. Casey whistled, and Alex bowed.
‘Morning glory,’ he laughed. ‘Let me get rid of that, and then I’ll see to you, madam.’
Casey grinned. ‘I do like it when you talk rough.’
After turning to face the shower jets to discreetly give Alex some privacy, Casey gave a start as a draft of cold air caressed her skin when he entered the stall. Immediately, his arms snaked around her waist from behind, and he cupped her breasts in his hands. She could feel his arousal pressing into her buttocks, and she shuddered in excitement. We’re back in business.
Alex grabbed some shower gel off the shelf and started slathering her body, working the lotion into her skin with delicious circular motions, and Casey let out little moans of pleasure. Yet curiously, the more he rubbed, the less excited she became. In fact, the touch of his hands was becoming downright irritating, and Casey was confused.
She wriggled her soapy body out of his grasp to face him and snuggled her head against his neck. Maybe if he focused on her back for a while, things would stop being strange. Obligingly, he started stroking her rear, but the movement was perfunctory, almost robotic, as if Alex, too, had lost interest. Now that she thought of it, she realised that his hardness had subsided again.
Casey drew back and searched Alex’s face for a clue of what he was feeling. His eyes were half closed, but his face mirrored her own confusion and something else… a hint of blind panic. Their in-shower, soap-extravaganza routine had never failed before. As an isolated event, she might have discounted this as a fluke. But on the heels of last night’s missed consummation, she couldn’t help but feel disconcerted. Had they lost the knack?
A little voice piped up in her head. Don’t make a big deal out of it. Simply get on with it and get out. Pretend nothing’s happened. Or rather, pretend nothing’s not happened.
‘Great,’ Casey mentally talked to herself. ‘Now I’m hearing voices, too. Maybe I’m going mad.’
But she recognised the wisdom of what her inner voice had suggested. She fixed a smile on her face and kissed Alex smartly, if briefly, on the mouth.
‘Do you know what?’ she chirped brightly, quite possibly a touch too brightly. ‘I’m starving. Shall we have some breakfast?’
~Alex~
Awkward. Awkward-awkward-awkward.
Alex gulped. He was having breakfast with Casey at a beautifully laid table on the upper deck, and all he could see was sex. Vaguely he wondered whether the crew were having a laugh at his expense, but that would involve them knowing, and the implications of that were far too disturbing to contemplate. Most likely the suggestive arrangements were in honour of their honeymoon, their lune de miel. The thoughtful crew on the yacht were French, after all, and everyone knew that the French took this honeymooning business very seriously indeed.
Nonetheless, after everything that had failed to happen between him and Casey so far, he found the sight of the banana rising up proudly between two apples in the fruit bowl faintly disturbing. Ditto for the oranges, which were arranged in p
airs just so with their protruding little stalks. He didn’t even want to acknowledge what the melon slices wrapped in Parma ham suggested to him, nor did he understand what this food was doing on the breakfast menu, but there it was.
He sipped his hot strong black coffee and nearly choked when it scalded his tongue. Opposite him, Casey was tucking heartily into a croissant slathered with butter and honey—yes, slathered, there was that word again!—completely oblivious to his inner turmoil.
It’s a temporary blip, he assured himself. It’s got to be. Because, as it happened, he could feel himself growing excited right there and then, so there was obviously nothing wrong with his equipment. Briefly, he toyed with the idea of seducing Casey on the deck, in full view of the crew should they care to watch, but he dismissed the notion. Two failed unions in less than twenty-four hours were already enough for anyone to bear. He would ensure that next time was perfect, but he needed some space to work out how he would engineer that perfection. Meanwhile, he resolved to put on his cheeriest face lest Casey should pick up on his worry. After all, they had a honeymoon cruise to enjoy.
As though reading his mind, Casey flashed him one of those dazzling smiles of hers, and his heart lifted. She loved him, and everything would be all right.
‘I love you,’ Casey said right on cue. ‘Do you know how gorgeous you are?’
‘I love you too. Another croissant?’
‘Ooh, aren’t you naughty?’ Casey’s hand was poised but wavered. ‘I shouldn’t really. But heck, only for today.’ She accepted the pastry and smothered it in honey.
‘Mmmmh mmmmh mmmm, delicious,’ she mumbled through the crumbs.
Alex chose a mini brioche and poured more coffee.
‘What’s the plan for today?’
Casey chewed and swallowed before she could answer. ‘Total relaxation,’ she offered. ‘I think we’re due in Barcelona tonight, or maybe tomorrow morning. I’m not quite sure. Meanwhile, there’s the pool, or we could take a dip in the actual sea. Maybe use the jet skis or the little launch for a jaunt of our own…’ She picked up a leaflet from the table and studied it for a moment.
‘There’s also an on-board cinema, or we could have a disco just for the two of us…’
‘Wow.’ Alex grinned. ‘We haven’t stinted on this cruise, have we?’
‘Ha!’ Casey chuckled. ‘We’re utterly bankrupt. We’ll be paying this off for the next five years, but who cares? We’ll never get this opportunity again. Three weeks on a yacht in the Med. Just the two of us. Stopping at random ports, going diving, hill walking, sightseeing, eating lots of beautiful food—it’s like heaven on earth!’
‘There’s a song about that,’ Alex joked.
‘I know. But you could always write one about it too, if you feel inspired.’
‘Maybe I will.’ Alex leaned back in his deck chair and stared into the sky. ‘All this blue. It’s so vast.’
‘You’re not going all deep and philosophical on me, are you?’ Casey teased.
‘On the contrary. I’m trying to remember whether we included a skydiving option in our cruise package.’
‘Skydiving?’ Casey threw her napkin at him. ‘Now, I’ll do a lot of things for love, but I won’t do that. If you want to go skydiving, I’ll watch from the safety of the boat.’
‘Only kidding.’ Alex held up his hands to appease his wife. ‘But it sure looks inviting, this blue sky.’
‘Do you remember that love heart in the sky yesterday?’
Alex nodded. ‘That was quite something. I hope somebody caught it on video.’
Casey sat up straight. ‘Now there’s an idea. Why didn’t I think of this before?’
‘Think of what?’ Alex was confounded by his wife’s conversational hopscotch.
‘When we were looking at that love heart, something bizarre happened. Remember, we talked about it? Like a mini-earthquake or something, only nobody else seemed bothered.’
‘Yes, I remember. And?’
‘If we could find that moment on video, maybe we’ll hear that rumble again, and then I can stop fretting about whether I imagined it or not.’
‘I see!’ Alex finally caught up with her idea. ‘One of the crew was doing our official video, wasn’t he? Maybe we can ask to take a look.’
‘Do let’s!’ Casey got to her feet excitedly. ‘It’ll be fun.’
Twenty minutes later, Alex and Casey were ensconced in the yacht’s cinema room watching the video of their own wedding.
‘This is creepy,’ Alex commented after a few minutes. ‘It’s like watching someone else’s big event. Yet it’s me and you.’
Casey smiled. ‘You should be used to seeing yourself in videos by now.’
‘I’ll never get used to that. Oh, hush, there’s your dad’s speech.’
Alex fell silent as they listened to the Father-of-the-Bride’s speech all over again. From the corner of his eye, he noticed that Casey was biting her nails, and he nudged her to stop. Right at that moment, she bounced up and down in her seat and pointed at the screen. ‘Look, it’s Sasha’s turn, and the love heart must be coming up.’
Indeed it was. Alex took the remote control and turned the sound right up. The camera panned from Sasha to himself and Casey and then up to the sky to capture the love heart. There were the oohs and aahs of the guests as well as his and Casey’s own voices in the background. The camera abandoned the sky and focused back on the happy couple. Alex watched Casey leaning back in her chair, eyes fixed on the sky. He watched himself clinking glasses with Casey and then sipping at his champagne, Casey still looking to the sky but taking a drink from her own glass. He watched her tilting back and saw his hand reaching out to steady her chair. He could hear his voice saying ‘steady on.’ But in all of that, he didn’t hear an earthquake rumble.
‘Go back,’ Casey instructed. ‘We must have missed it.’
So Alex tracked back, then back again, and back again one more time. After the fifteenth time of revisiting that scene, Alex decided enough was enough and switched off the projector.
‘It was a grand moment,’ he declared. ‘But do you know? In all that time we were toasting each other, you never once looked at me.’
Casey gave a start. ‘Didn’t I?’ She wrapped her arms around Alex’s neck and looked him deeply in the eyes. ‘I’m sorry, Alex. But I’m looking at you now!’
‘Too late,’ Alex joked. ‘The damage is done. I’m sulking. We’ll have to have a pretend toast later.’
‘With pleasure.’ Casey winked at him. ‘And now, let’s have a swim.’
‘In the pool or in the sea?’
‘Tough call. How about both, one after the other?’
‘Sounds like a plan.’
Casey squealed with excitement. ‘And who knows, maybe we’ll even see some dolphins or something.’
Chapter Three:
Oysters in the Sea
~Casey~
I can’t believe it’s our last night already!
With a delicate flick of her wrist, Casey put the last pearl-topped hairpin into place to secure her elaborate up-do. She sat back and allowed herself a moment of self-admiration in the mirror. After nearly three weeks in the Mediterranean sun, her skin had assumed a gentle, glowing tan. This was most unusual as her fair complexion was normally given to burning and flaking, but she thought it suited her. And, if she said so herself, her green eyes sparkled greener than ever, and there were natural highlights in her hair that gave it texture and finesse.
She picked up her necklace and secured it around her neck. A quick lashing of mascara completed her look, and she was finally satisfied. She hoped she would blow Alex away. They would be leaving the yacht in the morning, but tonight, they were booked into an exclusive seafood restaurant in St Tropez, right where their journey had started on their wedding day. The little launch would take them out there shortly. This was going to be the rousing finale to an extraordinary cruise—hopefully rousing in every way. Casey frowned at her reflection.
They hadn’t made love. Casey frowned more deeply but made an effort to fix a smile on her face instead. Showing her concern simply wouldn’t do. By some kind of unspoken agreement, she and Alex were living in a state of denial. The fact that sex wasn’t happening was not a concern. They were simply too busy during the day and too exhausted at night from all the fresh air, activity, food, and wine. It was no wonder they couldn’t get romantic in any kind of physical sense, and nothing to worry about.
Yeah, right.
Casey rearranged the bottles and pots of makeup on her dressing table to distract herself. Alex would be coming out of the shower any second now. He would throw on his suit, and off they would go. Out one last time. And one last time the hope of ‘having sex later’ would be colouring their every move. She sighed.
For the first week of the cruise, they had tried everything they could think of pretty much morning, noon, and night. They had got terribly excited. They had talked dirty to each other until they were practically frothing at the mouth, then dashed off to their cabin, ripped off their clothes (if they were wearing any to begin with), and got down to it. And the very second they had made physical contact, everything evaporated. Everything. Every single time.
It was like they had been cursed. Casey had even done an Internet search on ‘honeymoon sex curse’ in a quiet moment, but she had drawn a blank and laughed at herself. What a ridiculous notion.