While he headed for one set of stairs Debra headed for the other, and he noticed that she was practically racing down the stairs. With his long legs, Rance took them two at a time and managed to beat her down to the main level. At the annoyed look on her face, and with her chest heaving heavily, he had to resist the urge to laugh. At the look of her face, he was sure she wouldn’t have found the situation amusing.
The line at the counter was shorter than he had expected.
“Welcome to Carnival Glory, how may I help you?”
“Ma’am I—”
“There’s been some kinda mix-up,” Debra interrupted, and abruptly stepped in front of him and leaned against the counter. She met his look, glare for glare, before he pressed his lips together and allowed her take charge. Just like a woman.
While she explained the problem, Rance allowed his eyes to roam the length of her voluptuous body. His eyes lingered at the generous swell of her breasts beneath the swimsuit. The only thing keeping him from seeing them was the tie at the center of her back. He had always been a breast man, but then again he loved him some thighs as well, and baby girl had plenty. While Debra explained the situation, his eyes traveled down past the high cut of the suit, exposing her long, shapely legs. Thick didn’t begin to describe the woman and her dangerous curves. Rance felt his Johnson stir in his boxers as he grew increasingly uncomfortable with every lingering stare. Trying to slow down the effect Debra had on him, he took several deep breaths and shifted the weight of his body over to his other leg.
“I’m sorry, but we don’t have any more balcony cabins,” he heard the clerk say, jarring him from his thoughts.
Rance cleared his throat. “Then I’ll take any other upgraded cabins you have. A suite, even.”
The clerk tapped away at the keyboard, but the frown on her face said the news wasn’t going to be good. “I’m sorry, but the only available room we have is an inside cabin down low, with no window.”
“He’ll take it.”
Rance turned and look at the feisty woman. “Excuse me. I don’t think so. I am too tall to be in a small windowless room.” He returned his attention to the clerk. “She’ll take it.”
“I’ll do what?” Debra leaned forward and glared up in into his dark brown eyes. “I know I didn’t hear you right, because there’s no way I’m giving up my cabin to accommodate you!”
He swung around until he was hovering over her. “Well, neither am I.”
Debra threw both hands high. “Fine! Then I’m going home.” With that she turned and started to storm off.
“I hope you can swim,” Rance called after her.
She stopped and looked over her shoulder. “Of course I can swim.”
Rance nodded. “Good, because that’s the only way you’re getting home. The ship just left the dock.” He pointed toward the picture window.
As she followed the direction of his hand, he wished he had a camera. The alarmed look on Debra’s face was priceless.
He chuckled, then watched as she stormed off, mumbling something that he couldn’t seem to make out. He felt a small tug of pleasure knowing it irritated her.
“Sir, we’ll be more than happy to move one of you to another cabin, and also offer both of you a three-hundred dollar credit toward your next trip?”
He had forgotten all about the clerk behind the desk. Rance turned and smiled, shaking his head. “No, that’ll be it.” He hurried after the voluptuous beauty and reached her just as she was about to board an elevator back to the seventh floor. At the sound of his running feet she turned and glared at him as she climbed inside.
“Dr. Dibble!” A little boy cried out as he exited the car.
“Hey, kid,” Rance replied with a smile and ruffled his curly hair.
He followed Debra onto the half-empty car and punched the button taking them up four floors. They were silent the entire ride.
The car had barely come to a complete stop before she was storming off again, him following.
“Hey, are you going to say something?”
“Yes. I’m going to get my cell phone and call my best friend and cuss her out for getting me into this mess!”
“You can say that again,” he muttered.
Rance followed her down the narrow corridor and found his eyes once again straying to her nice round ass. Maybe sharing a cabin wasn’t such a bad idea, he thought, then scowled at the ridiculous idea. The last thing he needed was to be stuck with a female for two days. He preferred one-night stands where he went to their homes, and afterward they would go their own separate ways before breakfast.
Debra swiped her keycard and he followed her into the cabin. “Look, what about we flip a coin or something?”
She gave him a lethal glare. “I don’t think so.”
He watched as she fumbled around in her purse, removed a cell phone, then stabbed the keys before bringing the phone to her ear. He had to admit she was cute when she was angry. But then she was cute when she wasn’t as well. In fact, the longer he stared, the more beautiful she became.
“Bianca, I know you’re there, screening your calls,” he heard her growl into the phone. “Call me.. I mean it.”
“Whoa, wait a minute. Did you just say Bianca?”
She ended the call and rolled her eyes in his direction. “Yes, my best friend. Or at least she was until today.”
He stepped. “Bianca who?”
Giving him an annoyed look, she replied. “Bianca Beaumont Brown.”
Chapter 4
Debra watched his eyes widen at the mention of her best friend’s name. “What’s wrong? You know her?”
“Yeah, I’m afraid I do.” With that he reached inside his back pocket and retrieved his iPhone.
“How do you know her?” she asked. Especially since she and Bianca had never had any secrets. If she’d mentioned this tall, gorgeous hunk Debra would have remembered. Although there was something about him she found familiar.
Rance pressed a few buttons and brought the phone to his ear.
“Hey, buddy, did you hear me? How do you know her?” Debra repeated.
Completely ignoring her, he moved toward the door and stared off over the balcony while he waited for someone to answer.
“Yo, this ain’t funny. You need to holla at me ASAP,” he barked into the phone, ending the call with a loud groan.
“Can you please tell me what’s going on?”
He turned to face her and looked as annoyed as she felt. “What’s going on is that someone is playing games with me.”
“Games? What kind of games? And I’m still waiting for you to tell me how you know my best friend,” she said defensively.
His eyes rolled in her direction, and what he said knocked the air from her lungs. “Bianca’s my cousin.”
Debra blinked and took a moment to process his words. Cousins? She thought she had met all of Bianca’s cousins. Well, most of them, anyway. At Bianca’s wedding she thought they had all been there. Her stomach rolled. Except for the NBA player.
“You’re Rance Beaumont.”
He gave her a disarming grin. “You’re a fan.”
Frowning, she replied, “Nope. I prefer football, especially RG III.”
Rance chuckled. “You sure know how to bruise a man’s ego.”
She gave a roll of the eyes. “I remember Bianca mentioning you.”
“I hope it was good things.”
She gave a rude snort. “Not when she’s talking about the Force MDs. That’s why that kid in the lobby called you Dr. Dribble.”
“The one and only.”
Oh, brother. Debra flopped down onto the bed. “I can see your ego is as big as your feet.”
Her comment caused him to chuckle again. “Well, at least you noticed.”
“Who could miss them? I almost tripped over them trying to get off the elevator,” she snapped.
“Yeah, right. I could say the same about that fat ass of yours, but to be honest, I like it.”
She star
ed, mouth wide open, and wasn’t sure if she should be flattered or insulted. How dare him! But then none of the Beaumont men she knew had ever been one to hold their tongue.
“Listen, it’s obvious our being in the same room was not an accident.”
He nodded. “I agree.”
“It’s too late to get off, so we have two choices. Either one of us moves down to the smaller room …”
“Ain’t happening,” he blurted out.
“Or we slide these beds apart and share the room.”
He gave her a look that indicated he didn’t like that option, either. He wished there was a Plan C. Well, too bad. She wasn’t exactly excited about sharing with him, either.
She leaned back on the bed, and after a prolonged silence he finally spoke.
“Okay, I guess since we’re stuck we really don’t have much of a choice,”
“No, we don’t.” She rose and reached for the clothes she had thrown around the bed. Her actions seemed childish now. “I guess I better get my things put away since we’re sharing the space.” She stole a glance in his direction.
His expression softened and he nodded in agreement. “Okay.”
The room suddenly seemed small and his presence practically towered over her. It’s those sexy dark eyes of his, she fumed inwardly.
The bells chimed from the PA system and Debra stopped to listen as the captain announced that all guests needed to report to their muster stations for evacuation procedures.
“I’ll finish when I get back,” Debra promised, heading to the closet to retrieve her life jacket.
“I just heard him say we don’t need them. Just make sure there’re enough in the room for each guest.”
Debra looked inside and verified there were two jackets hanging inside. “There are,” she informed him.
His eyes twinkled. “Good, then let’s go down to the fourth floor.”
He moved and opened the cabin door. Debra stepped out into the hall and paused, waiting for him to following
This is going to be interesting.
Chapter 5
After the evacuation exercise, Debra traveled up to the promenade deck. She was in no rush to return to the room and face her cabin mate.
The deejay was thumping and the entire area surrounding the center pool was crowded with guests getting their weekend started.
She managed to weave though a line of people waiting eagerly for grilled hamburgers. The aroma of seasoned meat tempted her to jump into the line as well. But during the last visit to her primary care physician, Dr. Smith had threatened to put her on a prescription for exceedingly high cholesterol if she didn’t get it under control. Debra frowned at the idea of popping a pill every morning and begged her physician to give her three months to get it under control. Dr. Smith reluctantly agreed, giving her a list of things to omit from her diet, which included red meat. Now she only indulged on special occasions. And this was not one of them.
Even though the sun was beating down on the top deck, a cool gentle breeze ruffled her shoulder-length hair. It was supposed to be the perfect weekend. Or at least it would have been if her best friend hadn’t tried to set her up. Bianca had a lot of explaining to do. How dare she book her a cabin she would have to share with an arrogant basketball player? Especially when she knew Debra despised the sport and its cocky players.
Every time she thought about basketball Debra found herself reliving those dark days when she was tormented about her weight. A quiet reminiscent frown curved Debra’s mouth as she remembered Dwight Jones, the star player who had been needling her since grade school. By the time they had entered Sheraton Beach High the fat jokes had escalated. Their junior year, Debra had had enough. As she’d walked past him in the cashier’s line she had hauled off and batted her tray at him so hard she’d knocked him right on his ass. She’d received a week’s suspension, but the good thing was that Dwight had never messed with her again. The news traveled around the school about her batting arm and she was recruited by the girls’ softball team. Her power swing had eventually paid for all four years of college at Central Oklahoma… where she had stayed clear of basketball players.
Speaking of basketball…
Just thinking about Rance caused her stomach to do a double roll. It made no doggone sense for any man to be that fine, she thought with a scowl. His golden-brown skin glistened under the sun and those lips… She had to pause and swallow at that thought. His mouth had been made to suck on….
Debra swallowed again with difficulty and pushed the traitorous thought from her head. The last thing she needed was to be thinking about Rance. There was no doubt in her mind he was used to women falling at his feet.
While she stepped into the café and filled her plate with fresh fruit and pastries, she spotted the two women who had been talking to Rance just before they had boarded the ship. Slender, beautiful, and dressed in skimpy bikinis with butt wraps tied at their tiny waists.
Her eyes traveled down to her yellow swimsuit and white cover-up. A lot of thought had gone into what she was wearing, but in comparison it didn’t even come close to measuring up. She tried to shrug it off. After all, the whole purpose of the trip was to relax.
Debra carried her plate back out onto the deck just as the deejay took the mike and encouraged everybody to come down to the floor for a little line dancing. Several people flocked to the main landing, but Debra moved over to a group of unoccupied lounge chairs and claimed one. While she ate, she watched with intrigue. The only line dance she’d ever bothered to learn was the Electric Slide, but this routine was much more complex.
“Would you like something to drink?”
She looked up at the waiter dressed in a floral shirt and black shorts, holding an empty tray, and smiled. His name tag said he was from Barbados. “I would love a Diet Coke.”
He nodded, eager to serve. “Absolutely, pretty lady. I just need your keycard.”
She reached inside the bra of her swimsuit, removed her card and handed it to him, then watched as he walked away to the bar. While she waited for his return, her gaze traveled over to the crowd of partygoers and swept over to the pool in time to watch a man explode out of the water.
Rance Beaumont.
He was like Adonis exploding from the depths of the ocean, even though the water in the swimming pool couldn’t have been more than five feet deep. His golden body sliced the water and droplets continued to cling to his skin and sparkle under the sunlight. Her eyes were drawn to a tattoo of a panther that spread across his rippling left pec before her gaze traveled down to a six-pack that was clearly a work of art.
A quick sweep of the deck revealed that she wasn’t the only woman swooning at his bare chest and skimpy swim trunks.
There was no denying the truth. Rance was the epitome of a professional ball player: solid body without an ounce of fat. As she watched the women migrating toward him, Debra shook her head. The brotha had enough swag to drive the entire female population crazy. He grabbed a towel and collapsed onto a beach chair. And she couldn’t tear her eyes away. Damn, that man was perfect.
He smiled and waved and spoke to several guests desperate for his attention. Rance even shook an elderly man’s hand and offered the chair beside him. As she watched the spectacle Debra popped grapes into her mouth like she was eating popcorn at her favorite movie.
“Here you are, ma’am,” the waiter said, startling her.
Debra felt like she’d been caught staring through the curtains at the teenager next door, like when she was twelve.
The waiter handed her the drink and she signed the receipt. She took a sip and tried to calm her racing heart. When her eyes scanned the area again, she found herself disappointed that Rance had disappeared. Goodness. She was too old to be feeling like that over a man she could care less about.
She took a sip of her drink and watched the Soul Train line and laughed at the guests bold enough to participate even though they had little to no rhythm. Her eyes perused the area and even
tually found Rance, who was walking away from the grill line with two hamburgers on a plate. He had a beach towel draped over his shoulders that did little to hide his strong chest. He was stopped by a woman who had spent way too much time at the tanning salon. The way she was trying to stick out her itty bitty chest made it obvious she was trying to draw the athlete’s attention. Did she have no shame? Debra wondered with a scowl, then frowned at herself for even caring. And as if Rance knew she was watching, he looked up and their eyes collided.
Debra sucked in a breath and tried to tear her eyes away. It was impossible. It was as if Rance had some kinda magnetic power over her.
The next thing she knew he was heading her way.
Debra forced herself to take a swallow, then she blinked twice and steered her attention to the deejay stand. With her hands shaking, she lowered her drink and went back to eating grapes.
He climbed the stairs and she looked up to see the sexy grin on his face as he lowered onto the lounge chair beside her. “Hey, roomie,” he teased.
Debra cut her eyes in his direction and tried not to admire his bare chest or the powerful thighs that her fingers were itching to reach out and touch.
“Hey,” she mumbled.
“What are you doing all the way over here? Avoiding me?”
Debra clucked her tongue rudely. “Why in the world would I be doing that?’
He gave her a cocky grin and replied before taking another bite. “Because you know you’re stuck with me until Sunday.”
Her traitorous eyes traveled down to his tatted pec and her mind started playing tricks on her. An image of the two of them flashed before her, skin against skin, pressed together in a sensual dance. Feeling increasingly uncomfortable, she shifted on the chair and cleared her throat.
“I’ve been in worse situations.”
Rance gave a strangled laugh as he chewed. “Too bad you see this as a situation. Actually, I think the weekend could turn out to be quite fun.”
Do Me Baby (The Beaumont Series) Page 4