I was glad I wasn’t hungover, as I wanted to enjoy and remember every moment. It was hard to believe that when he’d first come aboard I’d not been particularly impressed. And then I’d seen how lovely he was, and how much everyone liked him, and how good he was in a crisis, and had learned about how tragic his romantic life had been… I fancied the pants off him now, and I knew at least part of it was because he was a tragic figure; the tragic, romantic figure was incredibly alluring, and I was deeply affected by the fact that not only had he chosen to share that story with me, he’d also chosen me to help him move on.
Cooper lifted his head, leaving me feeling abruptly bereft, and rolled off the bed. I opened my eyes in time to see him tossing his boxers on top of the rest of his clothes, and couldn’t help but stare in surprise.
He was shaved. Not just neatened up, but completely hairless. All off. Totally bald. It might have just been me, but it was a little off-putting. I went in for a wax pretty regularly, and I knew some of my girlfriends who’d had everything taken off, but I’d always thought the completely hairless look was a little creepy. It looked too much like a little kid. Maybe that was what bothered me about Cooper; he suddenly looked much younger than he had before the boxers came off. And as I stared, a stray thought flitted through my head; if Cooper hadn’t even thought about sex for three years because he was so traumatised after the death of his fiancée, why on earth was he still shaved?
Then again, Caitlin was pretty well waxed; she complained it was too hot in the Caribbean otherwise. Maybe it was a Canadian thing.
Cooper returned to the bed, hovering over me on his hands and knees, and leaned down to nuzzle my neck. “Please let me inside you,” he groaned, lowering himself until he was just touching me; his skin was so hot he felt like a furnace.
I moaned in reply.
“Oh, by the way, I’m safe,” he said, next to my ear. “I was tested years ago, when I was with…her…” he sucked in a big gulp of air, and on the exhale added, “and I haven’t had sex since.” Then, without waiting for my response, he slid straight in.
I hadn’t even thought about safety, which was incredibly unusual for me; normally it was at the front of my mind. His swift movement had surprised me, though; he didn’t mess about. I supposed it was only to be expected; he’d been celibate for years. Really, it was amazing—and incredibly thoughtful—that he’d taken as much time on me as he had before turning towards taking care of himself.
He thrust hard, and I arced up to meet him.
“Oh, yeah, you like that?” he asked, biting his own bottom lip with his front teeth. “Uh huh, you like it when I stick it in hard like that?”
I cringed. I’d never gotten into dirty talk, and especially not the way Cooper did it; it was just awkward. I’d tried it out before, with Luciano, and it had been okay, but it would never be high on my list of sexual preferences. Cooper sounded like a terrible, 90s porn star, and very sure of himself for someone who hadn’t been with a woman in years.
As soon as I thought it, I felt guilty—here I was judging a lovely guy who’d picked me, of all people, to begin his journey back into intimacy. He was probably nervous and didn’t know what to say. I knew how he felt. I was lost for words myself, and anyway we all said embarrassing things—certainly my mouth had got me into trouble more than once.
Reminding myself that Cooper had already focused on making me feel amazing, I pulled myself together; now it was my job to make sure Cooper enjoyed himself. I wanted his first foray back into the world of sex to be one to remember.
With that in mind, I smiled up at him, wound my arms around his neck, and whispered, “I love it.”
Chapter Thirteen
Celibacy is overrated.
Really, I didn’t know what I’d been thinking when I’d declared myself to be an orgasm-free zone. Surely it wasn’t something a sane person would do on a cruise ship. The opportunities for sex were varied and numerous, and to continue denying myself would have been a travesty, really.
I hugged myself in Cooper’s bed after he went to have a shower. After a couple of false starts, I had found a man who was more than just a bed buddy and I hadn’t even noticed him at first. Maybe that was what made it more real. This time I hadn’t been swayed by good looks or a sexy accent. Cooper was just a genuinely nice, good guy, liked by everyone. He was charming, funny, smart, accomplished, and talented. The sex wasn’t bad, either. The fact he had waited three years to be with someone and then had chosen me proved he was pretty crazy about me, too. He hadn’t even pounced on me at the first opportunity. A gentleman through and through. Definitely a rarity in these parts.
I wondered what the other photographers would say. Caitlin would be ecstatic.
Caitlin. A wave of remorse washed over me for enjoying myself while she was still in hospital. And then I pushed it away. Caitlin was going to be okay, and if there was one thing I knew, it was that she’d want me to be having as much fun as possible. It didn’t mean forgetting about her, though; I thought I’d go and see how she was doing later in the morning. If she was doing okay, maybe we could have a rant about the Brazilian Bitch and her part in landing Caitlin in hospital.
Ugh. The Brazilian Bitch. Just thinking about her made me angry, disrupting my happy buzz about Cooper, and making me angrier still. I blamed her for Caitlin drinking too much; it probably wasn’t fair, since Caitlin had had plenty to drink beyond the shots Maria had bought, but it was easier to be cross with Maria than with Caitlin. And she’d even had the nerve to say she was worried about Caitlin! Though if I were fair, I thought Maria had probably been hoping to get Caitlin sacked; I doubted she’d actually intended to send her to hospital. Probably.
The bathroom door opened a crack and I looked up, distracted from my grumpy thoughts. Cooper pushed the door open further and came out into the room, securing a towel around his waist.
“Hey, Ellie,” he said, “I’ve been thinking…” He hesitated. “It’s been…” His words trailed off into a heavy silence.
“What?” I stared at him, a sudden knot of anxiety beginning to form in my stomach. His tone of voice made me worried. The optimist in me said that maybe he was just going to say “It’s been a pleasure…”, but the pessimist told me I was headed for another disappointment.
He looked at the floor. “It’s been so long since I lost my fiancée,” he said slowly. “I’d almost forgotten what it was like to be intimate with someone.”
My heart skipped a little beat. Maybe this wasn’t going to be so bad.
“It’s just… Well, it just feels strange, that’s all.” He bit his lip and sighed. “I need to think about things for a while,” he said, finally looking up and meeting my eyes. “I’m just a bit confused.”
Confused? What did he mean, confused? I stared at him as he shuffled over to the wardrobe and started to dress, wondering if he was just going to ignore me now.
“I’ve got to do some stuff in the lab,” he said over his shoulder. “Can you show yourself out?”
Sure, I could show myself out. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time I’d let myself out of a man’s cabin on this ship. Hell, I’d shown myself out of this very cabin before, long before Cooper came aboard. I was a bloody expert at showing myself out of men’s cabins.
I slid out of bed, into my now rumpled clothes, and out the door. Cooper never turned around.
I slipped into my cabin and slammed the door behind me; my eyes were starting to burn with tears, and the last thing I wanted was for someone to see me. I think I’d felt like crying more often since starting this supposedly fabulous job than I had done in years. I slumped down onto the bed and closed my eyes. This was fucking ridiculous. How the hell had this happened again? He’d jumped me the moment he’d woken up, called me by a pet name, explored every inch of my body…and now he needed to think? Arg. I really wanted to drown myself in alcohol, but with the events of the previous night still vivid in my mind, I thought that might not be the best idea. Anyway, he
re I was thinking of me when I ought to see how Caitlin was doing.
I searched around on the desk for Gabriel’s number and then called to ask if he’d heard from Caitlin.
“She’s here, and fast asleep,” Gabriel said. “She’ll be fine, but the doc said she’d need to rest today.”
“Please give her my love,” I said, glad that my roomie was okay. I was actually rather surprised Gabriel had shown genuine care for her. I smiled; in spite of the mess I’d just landed myself in with Cooper, at least there was some good news.
I stared at the phone for a while, thinking. Booze wasn’t an option. That left me with tea, and as an Englishwoman born and bred, if there was one thing I knew, it was that a cup of tea could solve almost anything. And I also knew of one other person on this ship who almost certainly knew the same—Jock.
I freshened up and changed into shorts and a t-shirt, then navigated my way through the ship to Jock’s cabin. As I banged on the door, it occurred to me that maybe I should have called first. He might not be there. Or he might have met a girl and stayed the night in her cabin. Stranger things had happened on the ship; I was certainly proof of that. Worse still, Jock might be in there with a girl. That would be horrifically embarrassing. And upsetting, though I wasn’t sure why.
Feeling I’d waited long enough, and concerned I might be overstepping the mark, I withdrew my hand and started to creep away from the door.
At that moment, the door flew open to reveal Jock, in a crumpled t-shirt and stripey boxer shorts, hair askew, bleary eyes only half-open. “Ellie?” he said, his voice thick with sleep. “What’s up, lass? You okay?” He squinted at me, looked quite worried.
Just the concerned tone of his voice was enough to make me crumble. He caught me as I stumbled forward, and then wrapped his arms around me. “You want to talk about it?” he asked. His hand moved gently up and down my back in a soothing motion; I felt like a little girl again, curled up on my mother’s lap while she made whatever was wrong go away. Not that Jock reminded me of my mum, of course. That would be weird. Jock pulled back far enough to look at my face and then let go of me. “Come on in, lass.”
“I’m so sorry to wake you up so early, Jock,” I said as I walked into the tiny space. My eyes darted about quickly; no visitors, female or otherwise, unless they were hiding in the loo.
A bartender on a cruise ship who actually slept alone. Would wonders never cease.
Jock gestured to his guest chair and I plonked myself down with a loud huff. He flicked on the kettle and sat down on the edge of his bed, watching me patiently.
I took a deep breath. “I… You see… Cooper…” I couldn’t get the words out.
“Ah,” he said. The corner of his mouth twitched downwards. “I think I can guess the story. Cooper sweet-talk you into sleeping with him, lass?”
I nodded and looked down. Was it that obvious?
The kettle clicked off and Jock stood. “How do you take your tea?” he inquired, setting two mugs on the desk and dropping teabags in.
Oh, excellent. I knew Jock would know to ply me with tea. “Just a splash of milk, please,” I said. I watched him prepare the tea; the familiar rhythms immediately made me feel more relaxed. He handed me a cup and sat back down on the bunk. I wrapped my hands around the comforting warmth and breathed in the steam gratefully.
“Ellie,” he said, leaning forward, “this is my third contract, and I’ve seen that face a million times. I know everybody says life on ships moves four times faster than real life, but sometimes I think it’s even more.” He looked down at his tea and sighed. “People meet. They fall into bed. Sometimes they fall in love. Mostly they fall right back out of both.” He met my eyes and smiled crookedly. “That’s another reason I mostly just keep to myself these days.” An almost imperceptible sigh escaped his lips. Almost. I could hear the wistful sadness, and wondered what heartbreaks he’d endured. I didn’t ask. If he wanted to tell me, he would.
We sat in silence for a few minutes. I sipped at my tea and closed my eyes, pretending that everything was okay. Jock was such a comfortable person to be around. He didn’t probe or ask too many questions or give too much advice, and though I always got the feeling that he knew exactly what was going on in my life and how much I was screwing up, I never felt like he was judging me. Which was nice. He was just there in case I needed to talk. And talk I did.
“I’ve been so stupid,” I said miserably. “I have the bloody worst taste in men—they’re all cheating bastards who suck me into believing they’re perfect and lovely and everything I’ve ever wanted, and then bam! The truth comes out and I end up alone and crying and wondering why I never seem to learn.” I paused for breath and peeked at Jock, wondering if he’d realised what he’d got himself into and was preparing to run. Somewhat to my surprise, he seemed genuinely interested in what I was saying, and showed no sign of preparing to bolt—then again, I’d been wrong about men before, so what did I know?
“I wouldn’t say you’ve been stupid,” he said gently. “Maybe a bit naïve. But it’s easy to get swept up in ship life.”
“It’s all Dan’s fault,” I wailed.
“Dan?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said. “My no-good, rotten, cheating ex-fiancé. The one who told me I was fat and boring and responsible for all of the passion going out of our relationship.”
An unreadable expression had settled over Jock’s face. “I don’t think I knew you’d been engaged.”
“I didn’t want it to be a thing,” I explained. “I didn’t want to be the girl who’d just been brutally pitched out of a relationship that I thought was heading towards a lifetime of love and happiness and two and a half kids.” I looked down into my cup and discovered I was out of tea. “So instead I became the girl everyone thinks is a slag.”
Jock flinched slightly and stood up. He plucked my mug from my fingers and flicked the kettle on again. “Sounds to me like you escaped what would have ended up being a bleak and loveless future. I think you were lucky, there.”
“I guess,” I said. “Except then I just seem to keep sleeping with blokes that I think are going to be amazing, just like I thought Dan was going to be amazing, and then they turn out to be as full of shit as Dan was.”
“I think you’re punishing yourself for something that wasn’t your fault,” Jock said, handing me a new cup of tea and sitting back down. “I think you’re ending up with blokes who don’t respect you because you’re afraid of getting into something serious like you did with Dan and then having it all go tits up. And it hurts, but it’s easier than trying something with someone who really does respect and love you and always being afraid that they’ll do exactly what Dan did in the end, too.”
Good grief. Who needed a therapist when you had a bartender?
I gulped down half of my tea and burst out, “But the thing is, I thought this thing with Cooper was really going to be the real thing! He was so lovely, and he has such a tragic past, and everyone likes him—” I hesitated, remembering that Jock had never seemed to like Cooper. Come to think of it, actually, Jock hadn’t been all that keen on Seth, either. I couldn’t remember what he’d thought of Luciano.
“Ah, yes,” Jock said. “Such a tragic past. Tragic pasts are like catnip to women.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
He hesitated, and then said, “Nothing. Go on—I didn’t mean to interrupt you.”
“The thing is,” I continued, “it’s not just that his fiancée died, you know. He’s been celibate for three years, because he couldn’t bear to just move on and forget about her.” I was talking too fast, but I was so hopeful that Jock would understand and would agree with me that I couldn’t keep the words from tumbling out of my mouth. “Her name was Amanda, and he loved her so much that he’s blocked out all sexual and romantic possibilities since she died. So you see, the fact that he turned to me was so important—he wanted me to help him move on, to begin living again.”
“That’s a mi
ghty interesting story, lass,” Jock said. He swilled the last of his tea around in his mug, his brow furrowed. “’Tis just a pity I’ve heard variations on it for years.”
“What do you mean?”
“Men like Cooper—they know that a sob story is almost guaranteed to catch a woman’s attention. Playing hard to get because of that sob story, well, that just makes the woman feel like she’s something special when he finally succumbs, instead of feeling like she’s been taken advantage of. And she’s been taken advantage of.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said, but there wasn’t much force behind the words.
He looked at me, his eyes sad. “Ellie, men like Cooper tell the same story over and over and over again because they know that they’ll be able to get women to sleep with them. It’s an ugly trick used by far too many men. I’m sorry, lass, but you’ve been taken in.”
It all sounded so logical the way Jock put it, but the way I saw it, there was one common denominator in all of these failed relationships, and that was me. There had to be something wrong with me. After weeks and weeks aboard the ship, I knew it wasn’t my body; I’d shed all of that extra weight that Dan had so disliked and had acquired a pretty tan. All of the time in the sun had lightened my hair, and I knew I looked good. So it had to be something else. Maybe I jumped into bed with people too quickly. No, I knew I jumped into bed with people too quickly; I never had a chance to really get their measure. And I knew that that was how most people on board lived, but maybe I just wasn’t equipped for the moral-free lifestyle.
Sex, Lies, and Cruising Page 17