Whew. Mason Drury. Casey leaned against the counter, waiting for the purser to check her in.
Why shouldn’t she use him for sex? She needed a man just like him to live in the pages of her new book, so she could write about having it all without feeling like the fraud dumped by a media personality. Mason could so be the model hero. He already had the body for it. From the way he handled her in front of the crowd, she’d bet he knew his way around a woman without the crowd, too. His lines were a bit corny, but she could rewrite them for him. Let him romance her on the cruise.
No, she couldn’t use him for a book.
Of course, he was using her for a paycheck.
His tight butt appeared in her mind, quickly followed by legs, chest, arms and face. He would enjoy their time together as much as she would, Nate’s claims be damned. Jane was likely right. His claim to be gay would fuel headlines and since he hadn’t been quoted in any of the stories, he could deny them whenever he wanted, creating even more press for his career.
No point wasting Jane’s money. Mason had the kind of face and body a woman wanted to keep around, but he probably broke women’s hearts. She would do all the other women on board a favor by keeping him occupied.
“Ms. Cash?” The words came in a haze to Casey’s ears. A white plastic card with the ship’s emblem waved across her vision, pulling her back to the check-in counter. “Ms. Cash, your room is ready.”
Mason’s butt worked its way into her mind again.
“You’ll be in Penthouse Suite 1102. If you need anything else, please call the desk. We’re here to make this a dream vacation.” The concierge waggled his eyebrows, as if they shared a private joke. “Just take the elevators to the eleventh floor.”
An image of Mason in board shorts, waiting in a cabana and with an umbrella drink in hand, distracted her again.
“And the Serenity Deck is…”
“Just one floor above your deck. If you’d like me to show you around…”
Casey pocketed the key card. “No, thank you.” Mason Drury fit the mold of cruise ship tour guide. To a T. It was settled, then. Six o’clock was a long way away. Why waste the time?
* * * *
Mason slowed as he walked down the passageway. Pulling his BlackBerry from his bag, he texted his editor. This job was going to be quick and easy. He’d get the interview with Cassandra Cash tonight, and then enjoy the next week getting to know the real woman. A few seconds after he sent the message to Randall Haynes, the phone rang.
“News Daily ran a story that Cassandra Cash’s ex is gay.” Haynes’s voice boomed through the phone. “Forget the fluff-pitch for her new book deal. Get the dirt.”
Mason stopped, leaned against the wall and squeezed the bridge of his nose. God, his career was going down the toilet fast. He’d gone from dirty politicians to a dirty Hollywood break-up in the space of a month.
“Don’t softball this, Drury, you’re already on thin ice. Get it right.”
Shit. He didn’t need that thrown in his face. His story on the mayor’s ties to mob money had been right on. But his source had flipped, and now Mason was on the outside of the tight circle he used to run. Sidelined to report gossip, not the news that really mattered.
“You really think our readers care why Miss Romance and the actor-slash-radio guy broke up?” He wanted the paper to back the original story. At least it wasn’t hyped-up gossip. Sure it was boring, but he could recover from a fluff piece. Mason didn’t know if his tattered reputation could stand the tabloid-gossip-writer hit.
“If they don’t, we’ll make them. Her readers deserve to know everything about her, not just the pretty stuff.”
Right. Living in the public eye meant everyone needed to know what kind of toilet paper Cassandra Cash used—or why she broke things off with her latest boyfriend. He held in a sigh, knowing Haynes would read it the wrong way. He was willing to do the story; he just didn’t like it.
“Your message says you’ve already met with her. I want to go to press with the real story yesterday. And don’t expect this to be easy. She was a pro at avoiding the press even before this broke. Now that it has, she’ll be even harder to nail down.” Haynes clicked off, leaving Mason staring at the BlackBerry.
Great. He had the feeling the Cassandra Cash he’d met in line wouldn’t be thrilled to spend time with him after he asked about the break-up. This cruise sucked.
It was his fault. He hadn’t officially met with her, had only flirted with her in line. Crap on a cracker. His life had turned to crap on a cracker.
“Hey, stranger.” The words sent his body into alert mode.
Casey stood in the middle of the hall, a bellboy close on her heels with several bags on a cart. She motioned the kid ahead of her and turned to Mason.
“I thought we decided on six o’clock?”
She smiled and trailed her hand down his arm. “You don’t look like the waiting around type. I’m surprised.”
Damn, but she was good. Mason took a breath. He had to tell her who he was, that he needed an interview. Who knew? Maybe her reputation as a reporter-eater was overblown.
“Six o’clock’s a long way away. What do you say we get that drink now?” Mason asked.
She stepped closer, and he stared at the play of muscles on her tanned legs. Perched on three-inch heels, her calf muscles were taut. He imagined that if he reached around her, her butt would be tight under his fingers, too.
Clamping down on his libido, he dragged his brain off her body and back to the present. Maybe she’d give him the information, and they could continue this...whatever it was.
And maybe Haynes hadn’t demoted him to gossip for the politician snafu.
The elevator at his back dinged, reinforcing his doubt that Casey would save him from being drawn and quartered, much less continue this attraction if he trashed her reputation more than Nate Henderson already had.
Highly doubtful.
They both stepped into the elevator. “Going down?” He tried not to think how apt those words could turn out to be.
She shook her head and pressed a button on the panel. “Actually, going up.”
Screw it. He had a life to get back to. A job to save. That didn’t mean he couldn’t enjoy a little time with her before she found out who he really was.
Pressing the hold button, he pushed her against the wall. He bracketed her head with his hands, watching her expression carefully. If she pulled back even a little, he would force himself to the other side of the car. If she didn’t...
Blue eyes invited him closer. He tilted his head and moved in. Her bag plopped to the floor as she reached her arms around his neck, and when he waited a beat too long, she pulled his head to hers.
Her lips felt like silk. Nipping at the edges, he placed mini-kisses along her mouth, teasing it open. Her tongue met his, drawing it into her sweet mouth. She tasted like apples and champagne.
He wanted to go slower. To enjoy the taste of her mouth for hours, but if this was the only kiss he’d have with her, he had to make it good. He wanted to feel her body under his hands.
Wanted to hear her moan. Scream.
Burying his hands in her hair, he pulled her closer until her breasts pressed against his chest. The orbs tightened until her nipples pressed through her t-shirt and into his ribs.
God, but she felt good.
Wrapping one hand in her long tresses, he allowed the other to roam her body. With his thumb, he massaged the pulse beating madly at the base of her throat, and he quickly replaced his thumb with his mouth.
* * * *
Casey moaned. The man was a master. He seemed to be touching all the right places at exactly the right moment.
Battery-powered stimulation had nothing on Mason Drury. The next seven nights were going to be heavenly.
When his hand journeyed from neck to breast, she arched her back to allow him better access. But it wasn’t enough.
She couldn’t just let him touch her. She needed to touch him. H
is hand slipped in to the scooped neck of her t-shirt, to play with the lace of her bra, and she had enough of only being fondled.
Trailing her hands from the back of his neck and around to his chest, she reveled in the feel of his tightening muscles. With her fingertips, she played the hard edges of his six-pack. When his breath quickened, mirroring her short gasps, she pushed her hands into his waistband.
Breep.
She pulled t-shirt from jeans, running her hands beneath the cool cotton to feel the hot flesh beneath. His muscles tightened even more with the skin-to-skin contact.
Breeep. Breeep. Breeep.
“What the hell?” Mason pulled back, and the breeze of air from his movement cooled her fevered skin. Dazed, she looked around. What was that noise?
A flashing light on the elevator console caught her eye. The loud breep and the flashing light seemed to be in sync.
“Shit.” He looked from the console to her and back again. “They must think it’s broken.” He flashed a wry smile. “I guess we’ll have to continue this somewhere else.” He flicked his index finger against the hold button, effectively shutting off the breeping light and sending the elevator into motion.
Continue, definitely. But first she needed an inch of breathing room. This was going too fast. She ran a hand through her hair, wondering just what she would look like when she stepped off the elevator. She needed a moment. Just one.
Maybe two.
Picking up her bag from the floor, she straightened her skirt, wondering how it had become twisted around her waist. His hands had stayed above that area. Hadn’t they? The thought had her sneaking a look at his package. It bulged against the zipper of his jeans. So she wasn’t the only one turned on. Not that she needed to see his arousal to know how she affected him. She could feel it in his touch.
The elevator slowed, a tinny pinging noise announcing their arrival at her floor.
He pulled her into his arms, hugged her close, and then released her only long enough to take her hand in his.
“Should we continue this in my room or yours?”
Space. Just a little space. Her cell phone rang and she quickly wrestled it out of her bag. She made an apologetic face and shrugged one shoulder.
“Six o’clock. Upper deck.” The words sounded husky to her ears.
Mason raised one eyebrow, and then released her hand. “That’s a long time to wait.” When she stepped from the elevator, he stepped to the back of the car.
The elevator doors closed. Why had space seemed so important just a few moments ago?
“No. No, nononono. I’m not spending the next week in a stateroom with...him,” Casey said to the room at large. The last reminders of the elevator kiss and Mason evaporated like dew on the honeysuckle at her parents’ Charleston home.
Him was the nicest word Casey could think of to describe the man laid out across her bed, a trail of tissue leading from his inert body to the nightstand and a hunk of the stuff affixed to his nose. The bleeding had started about ten minutes before when Casey entered the room and told the bellhop she definitely would not be cohabiting with Tyler Cash, if that was his real name.
His name evoked a cowboy type: lean muscles, tanned skin and maybe even a mustache. Of course, the Tyler Cash lying across her bed was nothing like that. As far as Casey could tell, Tyler didn’t even have muscles underneath his pasty-white skin and as smooth as his cheeks looked, she wasn’t certain he was capable of growing facial hair. He had nice hair. Nicely brown, no hints of gray, and it didn’t look to be receding. He kept it a little long, but then Casey wasn’t all that crazy about those military styled cuts. Come to think of it, he kind of looked like a weaker, less colorful version of Mason.
This was getting out of control. First, Jane hired Mason to be her Mr. Right Now man. Now, a nerd was bleeding all over her bed, and they were apparently supposed to spend the next week together. Her life was slipping from her grasp as quickly as the cruise ship would cut across the Caribbean.
She didn’t want to hurt his feelings, but there was no way she wanted a roommate. No. No. No. Casey considered herself a nice girl. She tried not to hurt people’s feelings and she knew from the amount of blood coming from Tyler’s nose that she’d hurt his feelings. Stress-induced nosebleeds were the worst. She would apologize later, but she wasn’t giving in on this. She wasn’t spending the next week with a nose-bleeding nerd when she could have seven beautiful nights with Mason.
Now, if they wanted to move the nerd into another room, Mason Drury could bunk with her. As long as he wasn’t prone to nosebleeds.
The bellboy raised his hands. “But, Mrs. Cash, the ship is full and—”
“And that’s the problem. I’m not ‘Mrs. Cash.’ I am Ms. Cash.” Casey held up her left hand, twisting it from side to side. “No ring here. No tan lines where a ring could have been. I’m not married to this person and I’m not sharing a room with him.”
He pointed to a notebook. “But it says right here—”
“Naa der faud.” The blood, tissue and his hand holding it all together slurred Tyler’s words, but Casey was pretty sure what he wanted to say.
“You’re damn right it’s not my fault. I bought one ticket. One room. I didn’t ask for a roommate and I don’t want one.” Especially with a man like Mason on board.
The stateroom door opened and January, the Cruise Director, came back into the room. Casey rolled her eyes when no one else from the ship followed her in. Shouldn’t the captain be called in? Or someone with some kind of authority?
All eyes swiveled, expecting January to solve the problem. Casey doubted the woman would be able to. Not just because she was named after a month. Her uniform was wrinkled and she had a run in her hose. The sophisticated upswept hairdo lost a little of its oomph because a few strands had come loose and were now glued with sweat to her neck and behind her ears. Casey wasn’t the only one suffering from the southern Florida heat wave.
A tiny voice suggested leaving the cruise, and a louder one screamed a single word in her head. Mason. She wasn’t getting off this ship; she was getting Tyler Cash out of her room.
Please, let her have found another room for Cash the Nerd.
The bellboy slipped out the door without waiting for his tip. January stood, looking from one person to the next but not opening her mouth to speak. A sheaf of papers rattled in her hand. Surely there was an open room listed somewhere on those pages.
Tired of waiting, Casey said, “Well? Can you fix this?”
“I, um.” January licked her lips and stared at the light blue carpet. “I think what happened is that you booked a penthouse suite and...” She pointed to the male form still breathing tissue. “He booked one, too and the reservations computer must have merged the two reservations into one. I mean, you do both have the same last name and from what I can tell you booked at basically the same time.”
So if Johnny Cash came back from the dead to take a cruise, she’d be rooming with him? If Casey had to choose between ghost and nerd, it was ghost all the way. Johnny could give her an orgasm just by singing her to sleep.
“But you know now that we don’t belong together. So where are you moving him?” Casey felt like she was floating in another world. What was going on? No cruise line in the world would make a mistake like this.
Tyler was beginning to look interested in the conversation. Probably two women had never fought over where he would sleep. He sat up, keeping his head tilted back and the tissue pressed against his nostrils. “I dud wut t’be probleb. I’ll sleeb adywhed.”
January moved to the side of the bed and patted Tyler on the knee. “Oh, you’re not the problem, Mr. Cash.” She sent Casey a dirty look. January clearly thought she was the problem because she didn’t want to have a stranger for a roommate.
Pulling the tissue from his nose with a latex-gloved hand, January smiled. “That’s looking much better, but you’ll want to keep the tissue in place just a little longer.” She handed him a fresh sheet, pressing
it against his naked nose. She turned her attention to Casey and snapped the glove from her hands.
“The problem is this cruise is completely booked. It’s late August, you know. I’m afraid I don’t have a solution other than you rooming together. I will take ten percent off the final bill and all of your excursions will be paid for by the cruise line.”
“Can’t you find someone on board who is willing to have a roommate?” Anyone would work, as long as they didn’t mind running out of tissue within ten minutes. Surely there was one single, desperate woman aboard ship. Casey ignored the fact that until she met Mason she could have been the single, desperate soul.
January shook her head sadly and clasped her hands in her lap. “I’m afraid we can’t ask our passengers to accept a stranger into their rooms.”
“But you can expect me to share my room because of a computer malfunction? Get this through your head: I’m one of your passengers who does not want a stranger in her room,” Casey said. Before she could get rolling, January interrupted.
“But he’s booked into this room.”
“So am I. I have my itinerary right here.” She pulled a sheet of paper from her carry-on and handed them to January, pointing. “One guest. One. How long have you been booked in?”
Tyler looked from Casey to January, clearly not sure what to think about two women fighting over where he would sleep. He probably never had this problem in his real life, wherever and whatever that was.
“Do weeds.”
Do weeds. Do weeds. Two weeks? Two weeks? No way. She wasn’t losing her single room to a nose-bleeding nerd who had only been booked onto the cruise for two weeks. Sorry, wasn’t going to happen. She’d been booked for two weeks and one day.
She gritted her teeth and pulled a card she had never used in her life. “Do you know who I am? I’m Cassandra Cash, and I need space. I have a book deadline to meet and I can’t do that with some stranger living in my room. You’ll have to move him into crew quarters or something.”
“No. We can’t do that. He paid for a suite. The crew quarters are too cramped, and that wouldn’t be fair.” January stood and clapped her hands together. “Unless Mr. Cash is willing to move to crew quarters, we simply have no other choice.”
Mr. Right Now Page 2