by Alexa Land
“He tracked me down. His cabin’s right next door, by the way.” I tossed my shoes on the floor, dropped onto the mattress and touched the headboard. Shea’s room was a mirror image of this one, so his bed and mine lined up. I glanced at my companion and said, “How did you know?”
“You have sex hair. Also, your shirt’s totally rumpled and quite possibly covered in cum. Were you so eager to do him that you didn’t bother to get undressed first?”
“Something like that. How was your rendezvous with the Aussie?”
Chance grinned happily. “So good. Why don’t guys like that exist in real life?”
“This is real life.”
“No it isn’t. It’s a magical dream world where Chance Wayne is a photography major at a prestigious university by day, and by night catalogues books in the basement of a regal, hundred-year-old library.”
I raised an eyebrow at him. “Did you name yourself after Bruce Wayne?”
“I panicked. I even almost started giving him Batman’s backstory, but fortunately I was able to head off that train wreck.”
“Why’d you decide to go with a fake name?” I asked.
He gave me a look that said well duh, and answered, “So I could be somebody else.”
“You don’t feel bad lying to him?”
“Not in this case. He doesn’t really care about me. I’m just the Twink of the Week, something cute for him to play with until we return to port. I know for a fact that at the end of the week, he won’t even ask for my phone number.”
That all struck me as a bit depressing, even though Chance seemed fine with it. “So what’s this guy’s story?”
“He graduated from some university last June and set out to see the world. Must be nice. He landed this cruise ship gig and thought he’d give it a go for a couple months. He didn’t say this outright, but I got the impression he finds himself a cruise boyfriend on every voyage. I’m not judging, obviously.”
“Did you sleep with him?”
“Of course. What kind of cruise boyfriend would I be if I didn’t put out?” Chance grinned at me as I stretched out on my side. One of my palms was still pressed to the headboard. “You look tired,” he said as he started to get up. “I’m going to fold out the couch.”
“Don’t bother. This bed is plenty big.”
He glanced over his shoulder at me. “Really? You don’t mind sharing?”
“Of course not. We already shared when you were staying in my apartment and you proved to be neither a snorer nor a blanket hog.”
He dropped back onto the bed and flashed me a smile. “You’re sweet, Christian.”
“Shhhh,” I said, reaching up and pressing a finger to his lips. “You’re totally going to ruin my rep as a hardcore badass.”
He grinned at that and pretended to nip my finger. “Where exactly do you have this reputation?”
“In my own mind. Don’t shatter the fantasy!”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.” He stretched out on his side facing me and asked, “Are you planning to sleep in the cum shirt?”
“Apparently, since I’m too relaxed to move.”
He grinned at that. “You’re kind of a slob.”
“I know, but I hide it well.”
“Except when you sleep in cum shirts.”
“Except then.”
He tucked a hand under his head and asked, “Are you planning to have a torrid shipboard romance with Shea this week?”
“I have no idea what I’m planning. I did ask him to be my date to tomorrow’s wedding, though. You’ll be busy taking pictures, so it seemed like an idea.”
“Plus you’re dying to see him again.”
I smiled at Chance. “Plus that.”
He reached behind him and shut off the light. “I’m glad you’ve moved beyond the pining phase. That was silly.”
“I know.”
“Get some sleep, Christian. You’re going to need it.”
“Am I?”
“Oh yeah. We have a full schedule tomorrow before the wedding, beginning with the Upper Deck Ducky Derby right after breakfast.”
“What is that?”
Chance smiled at me in the darkness. “I have absolutely no idea, but we’re going to find out.”
Chapter Nine
Chance really was determined to experience everything the cruise had to offer. Everything. So after breakfast the next morning, we found out what exactly the Ducky Derby entailed. Normally, I would have gone running in terror, but he was so excited that I sighed and said, “Sure. Why the hell not?”
A race course had been marked off on the top deck of the ship. Each of the racers, including Chance and me, had to put on huge orange swim fins and an oversized duck bill, then rush around the course while balancing three plastic eggs, one on each flipper and one on the bill (which had shallow oval indentations on them, like that would help). As if that wasn’t quite enough, we were also wrapped in what basically amounted to tiny straightjackets with stubby wings protruding from both sides, so we couldn’t use our hands.
Skye and Dare were in the crowd. As soon as the whistle blew and I started waddling down the track on my heels to keep the eggs from rolling off my flippers, Skye doubled over with laughter. When he pulled out his phone and started filming, I yelled over the cheering crowd, “Don’t make me hurt you, Skye!” He just laughed harder and went right on recording.
Chance won the race, and I came in second-to-last out of a dozen. He was so damn happy when they gave him his prize, a little yellow stuffed duck in a sailor hat. Seeing him so overjoyed made it all worthwhile. I waddled up beside him and an extremely perky crew member helped me with the eggs. Surprisingly, none had rolled away. She unfastened the straightjacket next and I plucked off the beak and flippers.
Skye was still chuckling when he reached us. “That was the best thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life! Chance, you must be some kind of miracle worker. Before he met you, Christian wouldn’t have done that in a million years.”
“What happens on a kiddie cruise stays on a kiddie cruise. Well, unless your best friend films it and uploads it to the internet,” I said. “That’s grounds for justifiable homicide, incidentally.”
“I haven’t uploaded it. Yet,” Skye told me gleefully as we stepped aside and made room for the next group of racers. They were going by age groups, adults first, teens next, then different age brackets for the kids.
Shea appeared at my side with a huge smile on his face and held up his phone to show off the picture he’d snapped of me mid-race. In it, my brow was knit in concentration behind the huge orange bill and my hair was flying everywhere. It was so absurd that I had to smile. “Would you kill me if I use this for your caller ID?” he asked.
“Oh man. Of course you saw that.”
“Yup. Chance slipped a note under my door with your schedule, so I knew right where to find you.”
I shot a look at Chance and he smiled and said, “You can thank me later.” He was cuddling the little duck, holding it to his chest with both hands.
I took Shea’s phone, but instead of deleting the photo, I typed in my number and set the picture to come up whenever I called. As I handed it back to him I said, “Whatever Chance is making us do next, you have to do it, too. That goes for all of you. Oh and Skye, you remember Shea Nolan. Shea, that’s Skye’s fiancé, Dare Evans. Also, did I ever actually introduce you to Chance?”
As they exchanged greetings, Nana came bustling up to us. She was wearing a bright orange track suit and was accompanied by her five little girlfriend clones, also dressed in track suits in every color of the rainbow. “Did I miss the duck races?”
“Just the adults’ race, Nana. Chance won,” I told her.
“Atta boy, Chance!” She gave him two thumbs up, then noticed that Shea was standing beside me and exclaimed, “Oh! You two managed to get together on your own! I guess I’d better cancel Operation Lifeboat.”
“Operation what now?” I asked.
Nana was
already rushing off with her friends in tow. “We gotta go, we got twerking lessons in the Starlight Lounge in five minutes! Carry on boys, carry on!”
I turned to my friends and asked, “What do you suppose Operation Lifeboat would have involved?”
“Tossing you and Shea in a dinghy and dropping it in the middle of the ocean with some champagne and a boom box playing Sinatra,” Skye said with a huge smile. “No getting rescued until you’d declared your undying love for each other.”
“That sounds romantic, actually,” Chance said.
“Oh sure, it starts out romantic, but then it ends up as a special feature during Shark Week.” I started walking and gestured at my companions to follow. “Hurry up. Whatever was next on the agenda can’t be as good as twerking with Nana.”
It was totally the right call. By the time we got there, she was already up on the stage with the instructor, trying to tell the young woman she was doing it wrong. Because the other people in the class were laughing and applauding, the crew finally decided it was easier to just let Nana do what she wanted. Skye and Dare jumped up on stage and started twerking with her while Chance and I teamed up with the flock of her tiny girlfriends.
Shea looked slightly terrified at first, but finally he bent his legs and tried to do the dance move. I had to chuckle. Apparently he’d never actually tried to do that before and was missing some of the finer points.
When Nana saw this, she hurried off the stage and came to his aid. “No, Shea, like this.” She grabbed his ass with both hands and tried to move it for him. When that didn’t work she said, “Crouch down!” He bent his knees. “Lower, and spread your feet wider!”
He did as she said and Nana grabbed his hips, then thrust her pelvis against his butt and started twerking wildly. I doubled over, laughing so hard I was crying. Shea just smiled at me and shook his head, and let her keep right on humping him until he finally got it right.
*****
The ship had been circumnavigating the island of Molokai all day. While we sailed, Chance had us take part in one crazy activity after another. I laughed so much that my sides hurt by the end of the afternoon. When we finally went back to our cabin to get ready for Trevor and Vincent’s wedding, I kissed Chance on the forehead and said, “Thank you.”
“For what?” He set his little duck on a nightstand and draped it in some Mardi Gras beads that he’d won, then angled the sconce to hit the duck like a spotlight.
“For being you. I had a great time today.”
“I can’t believe you went along with all of that,” he said with a smile. “I kept waiting for you to draw the line somewhere, but you never did.”
“Nope. I told you I was going to follow your lead, even if it meant doing karaoke dressed like a mackerel.” That had actually happened today. It made an odd kind of sense at the time.
The ship finally docked in the early afternoon. Nana had three tour buses lined up in a row for the wedding party when we disembarked. A white, vintage Rolls Royce was waiting for Trevor and Vincent and it led the procession.
We headed toward the heart of the island, climbing steadily into the lush, green mountains. Shea sat beside me, holding my hand. Skye and Dare were in the seat in front of me, kissing each other about every six seconds. Chance took up the whole seat across the aisle, checking and rechecking his camera equipment, which he’d spread out beside him. He was more nervous than the grooms.
After about forty-five minutes, the buses pulled up to a charming white plantation house with red shutters. To the right were sprawling pineapple fields, the spiky crops almost alien-looking, except for the familiar little fruits at their center. To the left was a wide lawn, set up with an airy, white canopy over a lot of round tables. Beyond the lawn rose a rocky cliff face where two tall waterfalls came together, then tumbled into a sparkling lagoon. Trevor and Vincent looked awestruck.
The ceremony began soon after we arrived. We were all given leis of fragrant white flowers as we stepped off the buses, and then we gathered beside the lagoon as a group of women in Hawaiian print dresses sang a cappella and danced the hula. The lagoon was bracketed by tropical flowers that appeared to be growing wild and the waterfalls served as the backdrop to a little stage that had been set up. I got the symbolism of this setting all of a sudden and grinned. The two waterfalls came together to form a bigger, mightier waterfall. Two shall become one. Nana was good.
Trevor walked hand-in-hand down the aisle with his dad, TJ, who had tears of happiness streaming down his face. Vincent linked arms with Nana and she walked him down the aisle next, beaming from ear to ear. TJ and Nana started to take their seats, but the grooms asked them to stay on the stage with them for the ceremony. Nana looked misty-eyed as she hugged her grandson and the man he was about to marry.
Three groomsmen stood to the right, Vincent’s brothers Dante, Mikey and Gianni. The best man was their adopted son Joshie, who stood beside the wedding official. The eleven-year-old tried to remain stoic as his dads came down the aisle, but lost the battle and started to cry as he stammered, “I love you both so much. Thank you for being my dads.” Trevor and Vincent both hugged and kissed him and told him they loved him, before he finally wiped his eyes and said embarrassedly, “Okay, okay, enough of the mushy stuff! Get married already.” The crowd chuckled appreciatively.
After Nana and TJ took their places beside Joshie, the couple held each other in a loving embrace and stayed that way throughout the entire ceremony. The wedding official was a round little man with a friendly face, dressed in a loud, floral print shirt. The ceremony was short and sweet and was capped off with a blessing in Hawaiian. When the official said, “I now pronounce you husbands,” Trevor and Vincent didn’t just kiss. They made out passionately while the entire audience cheered and applauded. Apparently they’d forgotten all about being shy in the moment.
I felt myself getting choked up and reached for Shea’s hand. He gave mine a reassuring squeeze and smiled at me when I looked at him. He was a bit teary-eyed.
When the couple left the stage they were inundated with hugs and congratulations. I kissed Trevor on the cheek and hugged them both when it was my turn and told them how happy I was for them. The pure joy on both grooms’ faces was incredibly heartwarming.
Chance had been snapping pictures throughout the ceremony. Once everyone had congratulated the couple, Nana herded all the family members over to the edge of the lagoon to pose for photos. It looked like Chance had calmed down a bit, his brow knit with concentration as he did his job like a seasoned pro.
I picked up Shea’s hand and winked at him, then snuck off with him in the opposite direction from where the family photos were happening. A little dirt path cut through the thick tropical foliage. After a couple minutes, we came to a little clearing and I took him in my arms, gingerly so I didn’t ruin the leis around our necks. “Have I told you today how gorgeous you are?”
“Twice.” He grinned shyly.
“Good. You should always be reminded.” I kissed him softly, then said, “Thanks for being my date.”
“Thanks for inviting me.”
I stepped back just a little, running my hands down his arms and my eyes down his body. He was wearing a short-sleeved white button-down shirt, which brought out his tan, and khakis. The grooms had been wearing almost the same thing, since Nana had instructed everyone to dress casually, even them. I, on the other hand, was dressed in a black shirt and pants. I pointed out my failure to blend and Shea said, “I think it’s cute. Very art student of you.”
I grinned at that. “Skye and Christopher are art students too, but they managed not to look broody.” We’d finally run into our friend Christopher and his husband Kieran when we were boarding the busses for the wedding. Clearly they were another couple whose idea of a romantic cruise meant many uninterrupted hours in bed. I couldn’t argue with that logic.
“You say broody, I say sexy.”
I smiled at that, then took off his lei and mine and draped them on a near
by tree. “These would have gotten crushed,” I told him.
“Why?”
“Because I’m about to do this.” I pulled Shea to me and kissed him hungrily as he grabbed me in a tight embrace. I felt him go hard at the same time I did so I crouched down in front of him and unzipped his khakis, then freed his cock from his pants and boxers. As I deep-throated him, he stifled a cry and grabbed onto a branch to steady himself.
“Oh God,” he whispered, biting his bottom lip and fighting back a moan. We were blocked from view, but we could hear the wedding party when they were loud, so obviously they could hear us, too.
He whimpered, thrusting his hips just a bit but then stopping himself. I grabbed his ass and rocked him forward to show him it was okay, so he began fucking my mouth with short, contained movements as I sucked him. He came just a few minutes later, fighting back a yell, his jizz slightly sweet on my tongue. I swallowed it eagerly and kept sucking until he was spent. Then I eased off him, tucked him away, and zipped him up. I kissed the front of his khakis before I stood up and grinned at him.
Shea was still clinging to the tree branch, looking flushed and even more beautiful than usual. He burst out laughing and said, “I can’t believe you just did that.”
“Did you like it?”
“Do you really have to ask?”
“Just checking.”
“I can’t believe we did that out here. What a rush! I kept waiting for us to get caught.”
I smiled at him and drew him into my arms. “I have a new goal for the remainder of our cruise.”
“Public sex?” When I nodded, he chuckled and said, “We can’t do that on a cruise ship. We’ll get caught and they’ll kick us off!”
“Totally worth it. We can put on disguises and sneak back aboard for your cousin’s wedding.”
“You’re a bad influence, Christian.” He said that with a big smile.
“Or a very, very good one, depending on your perspective. We’ll limit ourselves to the adults-only parts of the ship, I do have some decorum. It’s going to be fun.”
Shea kissed me and said, “Are you going to let me reciprocate? I want to make you cum, too.”