Shipwrecked with the Billionaire Rock Star

by Victoria Wessex

  Was I jealous?!

  My nails were digging into my palms. How could he just do that so easily—switch from flirting with me to….

  After a couple of hours, I couldn’t take it any more. I had to know what he was doing in there. I couldn’t explain it. I just had to.

  I rolled off the bed and crept to the door. The corridor was empty and the only noise was the thump of the music from Adam’s stateroom. And the door looked to be ajar.

  I’d changed into a sundress when the last meal of the day had been served. The door leading up to the deck must have been open, because I could feel the night air cool on my arms and hear the low mutter of voices up there. It sounded as if the crew were discussing something—maybe another stage of Adam’s party.

  I crept along the corridor, barefoot and silent. I could just about hear the rustle of clothing and occasional sigh in lulls in the music. My mind was swirling with visions of what they might be doing in there, even as I tried to convince myself that I shouldn’t really care.

  I reached the door. Crouching, I put one eye to the opening….

  I hadn’t seen inside the stateroom before. It was huge, with a king-sized bed and cream leather armchairs. An old, ratty-looking guitar stood unassumingly on a guitar- stand in the corner. Adam, Magnus, Midnight and Eddie were sprawled in four of the armchairs. The cake was on a table near the center of the room and I was pleased to see that most of it was already gone. Next to it was a plate of icing sugar. Weird. The cake was already sweet. Why did they—

  A dancer leaned over the plate, one finger pressing a nostril closed. Oh….

  Eddie was feeding a topless dancer champagne from a glass, his eyes locked on her bare breasts. Magnus was sitting like a king on a throne, a woman perched on either arm. Midnight looked…almost sweet. His scary make-up was in complete contrast to the way he was gaping at the scene around him. I suddenly remembered he was only twenty-one, barely old enough to drink. God, how must that feel—to be a billionaire while most of your friends are still at college?

  And then my gaze found Adam.

  His head was against the back of his chair, his eyes glazed. He was in his customary black leather jacket, black t-shirt and jeans.

  A woman in a black gauzy bra and panties was leaning over him, her heavy breasts hanging down to stroke his chest. She had one knee on the seat between his legs and her arms gripped the seat back behind his head. She was rubbing her breasts back and forth against his chest while gazing down into his eyes—

  No, wait. She was trying to gaze down into his eyes. But, now that I looked closer, Adam wasn’t looking at her. He kept glancing at her, but then his gaze would slowly swing back to the wall.

  The wall?! What was so interesting about the wall, when he had a stripper on his lap?!

  The woman started to turn around, maybe to rub her ass against him, and I fled before she saw me. Back in my room, I sat there stewing. I was surprised by how tame it had been. Weren’t lap dances usually done naked? Or was that still to come? Was she building up to that...and to more?

  I lay back on my bed and tried to shut out the sound of the rock track. Why had Adam kept staring at the wall? There was nothing there…

  Unless…he hadn’t been staring at the wall. What if he’d been gazing in that direction, imagining what was beyond it?

  I gripped the edge of the bed as realization plunged down inside me and exploded in a wave of heat, right in my core.

  The only thing in that direction…was my cabin.

  Had he been imagining me?!

  I felt my face go hot. I should have been offended, but….

  I’d never had any fantasies along those lines before, but now it started to unfold in my head. I pictured myself switching my sundress for the silver sequined thing the stripper had worn. Putting on more make-up. Prancing into his state room (in my fantasy, I could walk in five inch heels) all perfume and confidence. He’d look at me—no, stare at me, and it would be the good sort of stare. The sort of stare he’d given me when I was holding onto the ladder, after my swim. The sort that sent a dark heat spreading through me.

  I’d reach back and unzip the dress. I’d shimmy my hips and let it slide to the floor. I’d have on the same sort of black, gauzy underwear the stripper had—the sort that hides and yet shows you at the same time, teasing him with little glimpses of pink nipple and soft, dark curls of hair. I’d walk—no, stalk over to the armchair and lift his chin with a finger, then lean down to kiss him.

  The kiss would be slow and soft at first, taking our time and tasting each other. But it would grow heavier as I skimmed my fingers down his chest, tracing the shape of his pecs and broad shoulders. I’d climb onto the chair, arching my back so that my breasts pressed against his chest. He’d make a sound, a sort of low growl, as he felt my nipples harden through the bra.

  Maybe he’d reach for me. Maybe he’d try to cup my breasts or fondle my ass with those big, strong hands. But I’d push him firmly back in his chair. I’d be in control. I’d move in time with the music, twisting over so that my ass was stroking against his thighs, against the growing bulge at his crotch, using my body to get him harder and harder. Then, when he couldn’t bear it any more, I’d reach back and unfasten my bra, letting my naked breasts swing just out of reach of his lips and tongue, then slowly relenting and bringing them into range for him to lick at.

  I’d climb off the chair at last, breathing hard, my breasts rising and falling. I’d slip my panties down my legs and off, letting him see me naked except for my heels. Then back onto the chair, my body nude against his clothed one. My hands lifting his t-shirt, working to reveal that sculpted, tanned perfection. The hardness of him, separated from my moistening folds by only a few layers of cloth—

  He wouldn’t be able to take that for long. He’d push me up to standing, grab me by the hand and pull me to the bed—

  The door of Adam’s stateroom opened wide and I heard the women leave, giggling and gossiping. I yanked my hand guilty from my panties and sat up.

  Next, I heard the band filing out. More man hugs. Eddie, in particular, gave Adam a real ten-second back-slapper. “Take care, buddy,” he said his voice thick with emotion.

  Eddie left, too. Then the sound of an engine as the other boat pulled away from us. Moments later, our engine started. I remembered the storm clouds I’d seen earlier. The captain probably wanted to put some distance between us and them.

  Now that I’d been snapped out of my fantasy, cold reality started to set in. I felt embarrassed…God, what had I been thinking? So he’d glanced at my cabin while some woman was grinding in his lap. So what? He’d been drunk, no doubt…maybe drugs, as well, if the stories I’d heard were true. Who knew what was going on in his head? And even if he had, for a second, imagined it was me in his lap…I didn’t want that…right?

  I shook my head, ashamed that I’d even thought about it. This was Adam Sykes: 10,000 women and counting. Becoming number 10,001 was an excellent way to get my heart broken again, as soon as 10,002 came along.

  Through my door, I heard a new set of footsteps walk past, heading to Adam’s stateroom. Careful and measured. I knew that would be Simone. She even walked with icy control. I heard her knock on Adam’s door, and then a muffled conversation. Then Simone’s footsteps coming back towards me—

  They stopped right outside the door. Her knock made me jerk bolt upright on the bed again—and this time, I hadn’t even been doing anything. I padded to the door and tentatively opened it.

  Simone was smiling. It reminded me vaguely of a shark.

  “Hannah,” she said. “I wanted to apologize for earlier. You really did a great job on that cake. Adam had a great time. Here. I brought you this.” She held out a glass of champagne. I noticed that she had an empty glass in her other hand—presumably she’d just brought one to Adam, too. A nightcap.

  “Thanks,” I said awkwardly, and took it.

  “Now relax,” said Simone. “Enjoy that, and then head to bed.
You’ve earned it.” And with another fake smile, she was gone.

  I closed the door and stared at the champagne. Why the sudden charm offensive? I thought back to when I’d first boarded and her comments about my size. And then, on principle, I tipped the champagne down the sink.

  Chapter 6

  A vibration, right underneath me, as if someone had gotten hold of my bed and dragged it along the floor a few inches, for a joke. “Stop it,” I muttered in my sleep. “S’not funny.”

  ***

  A flash. It barely made me open my eyes, but what followed next, did. Darkness. Pitch black darkness, much darker than it should have been.

  My eyes opened wide, the panic starting as I stared into a featureless black void. I instinctively looked towards where the porthole should have been and saw nothing. Had the curtain closed?

  Another flash lit up the sea outside and my stomach shrank down to a tight little knot. The flash was lightning, and the sea it illuminated was a churning, crashing, white-topped landscape. There was no moonlight because the entire sky was covered in thick, dark cloud, rain pounding down in an almost continuous mist.

  The storm. We’d sailed straight into the storm.

  I came fully awake and realized how much we were listing. Each swell of the waves took us in a different direction. We should have been riding the waves, a rough but bearable up and down. This was different. We were leaning crazily from one side to the other and, as another flash lit up the sea, I saw and then felt us turn.

  We weren’t sailing at all. We’d drifted into the storm!

  I found the light switch and hit it. A warm yellow glow lit up the cabin...and then flickered alarmingly. I grabbed the first bra and dress I could find and pulled them on—hardly appropriate for a storm, but my wet weather clothes were still buried at the bottom of my case and I didn’t have time to find them. I crammed my feet into a pair of flats and hauled open the door. The ceiling lights were low, but at least there was light. I stepped into the corridor—

  It was an inch deep in water. As the boat listed, more water sloshed over my toes, and it wasn’t just rainwater leaking in from above. Most of it was coming up from the lower deck.

  We were sinking. That vibration I half remembered in the night must have been us hitting something and punching a hole in our hull. But how had we drifted into it in the first place? Why wasn’t anyone at the wheel? Were they all asleep?!

  I hauled my way up the stairs and then forward to the bridge. I could see the wheel spin as the yacht was tossed around by the waves. There was no one on the bridge. There was no one on the entire deck. Where was everyone?!

  “Simone!” I yelled. “Captain! Anyone!”

  Nothing. I raced to the wheel. I’d have to try to steer the yacht myself. I’d taken the wheel a few times, but only for a few minutes on a calm sea, when a friendly captain offered me a taste. Never anything like this.

  I grabbed the wheel and hauled on it, trying to point us towards the next wave so that we’d hit it prow-first and not broadside. But the wind and the sea were far too strong. The wheel wanted to rip my arms out of my sockets, and it was all I could do to stop it turning—I had no hope of pulling it over the other way.

  And then another flash of lightning lit up the scene in front of me and sheer, cold dread soaked outward from my chest, freezing me on the spot. Where there should have been a flat horizon with the slight peaks of cresting waves, there were huge, jagged shapes as big as houses.

  Rocks. We were heading straight for rocks, the big brothers of the one we must have hit, and the yacht was going to be torn apart.

  I staggered backward from the wheel, my legs stiff and numb. I almost went over, falling to my knees before I caught myself. I could suddenly feel the vastness of the ocean, the immense depth of it beneath me. We were going to be smashed and then swallowed down into the blackness, never to be seen again.

  I got unsteadily to my feet. I could feel myself starting to panic breathe, my eyes going too wide, my skin too pale. I looked left and right, staring out at the deck on both sides, wanting to see someone, anyone. And then, through the rain, I saw something that made me almost throw up.

  The sides of the boat didn’t match. One side had two lifeboats. One only had one. A boat was missing.

  They’d gone. They’d left me behind.

  You know all those irrational fears you have, the ones that only haunt you in your dreams—of everyone abandoning you, of being four years old again and lost in the department store? Suddenly, they were all real. I scrambled for the steps, fighting my way across the tilting deck and down. The yacht was sinking lower with every passing second, and the lower it got, the more water crashed onto the deck from the waves and ran down below, making us sink even faster. I knew I had to abandon ship, but I had to check everyone else had really gone. What if someone was injured? What if someone else had been overlooked?

  Overlooked?! How do you overlook someone when you’re abandoning ship?!

  Mostly, I think I just didn’t want to be alone.

  Downstairs, I opened every cabin door in turn. Every one of them was empty. The yacht was listing so much that I had to brace myself against the wall, and the water was up over my shins. By the time I reached Adam’s stateroom, I was weeping.

  I crashed through the door, falling as much as walking, and hit the light switch.

  The king-sized bed was empty. Even he’d gone. Everyone had forgotten me. And now, if I could even make it to a lifeboat and get it launched, I’d have to head out into the storm on my own.

  Tears were running down my face, oddly hot against the chill of my body. The water was cold enough that I was shivering. I waded through the water to the door—

  A snore.

  My head whipped around. The bed was definitely empty. But then another snore, from beyond it. I fought my way around the bed and there, slumped on his back on the floor, was Adam. He must have rolled out of bed. How drunk do you have to be to roll out of bed and not wake up?! Not to mention that he was lying in cold water that was already halfway up his body. Another few inches and he’d have drowned. “Adam!” I yelled. “ADAM!”

  No response. I staggered over to him and knelt astride him, then shook him by the shoulders. “ADAM!”

  He gave a sort of groan and his mouth lolled open. God, what was he on? Sleeping tablets? Heroin?

  I slapped him hard across the face. Once. Twice. I scooped up a handful of water and sloshed it over his eyes and nose. “ADAM!”

  And then, at last, his eyes flickered open. He took a long time to focus on me.

  “The boat’s sinking!” I shouted.

  I knew I had no hope of hauling him to his feet. But thankfully, now that he was awake, he seemed to be able to shake off the stupor, a little. He got to his knees and then managed an unsteady walk, though he needed to lean on me a little. “What did you take?!” I yelled at him, disgusted. But underneath my anger, I couldn’t deny the blooming, joyous relief. I wasn’t alone.

  “Where are the others?” Adam asked. He was slurring so much I could barely understand him.

  “Gone!” I yelled. “We have to get to a lifeboat!” It sank in that we were going to be out there on our own, with no supplies. “Grab what you can!” I shouted.

  I stumbled back down the corridor and into the galley. I was trying to remember the old survival stories of sailors lost at sea. What did we need? Water. Food. A knife. Fire.

  In the galley, I grabbed a trash bag and threw in some bottles of mineral water. Then I pulled my knife roll off the wall and dumped that in, too. Then the gas lighter I used to light the stove.

  Halfway back to the stateroom, I met Adam coming the other way. He could barely walk, he was so out of it, but he had a bulging black holdall over one shoulder and—I shook my head in disbelief—he had a guitar on his back. The water was up to my knees, now, but the steps to the deck were in sight. We just had to—

  The lights went out.

  There’s a reason I sleep w
ith the curtains open, or with a nightlight. Immediately, I could feel the panic rushing up to fold me into its arms. My legs locked up—I stopped so suddenly that I nearly sent Adam sprawling. I could feel the water rising, soaking the heat out of me, but the terror was draining the warmth from me even faster. This time, there were no lightning flashes. There was just solid, impenetrable blackness. The ship was listing so much that I didn’t know which way was up or down. Everything was shifting around me, the walls disappearing and leaving me in a black nothingness from which I couldn’t escape. My throat closed up and my lungs wouldn’t work—

  A warm solidness suddenly snugged tight around my shoulders and hauled me around and inward, cradling me to his chest. My face pressed tight against his neck and I felt his other arm come around to cuddle me there. His mouth was at my ear and he was saying something, but I was too scared to hear it at first. He had to repeat it a few times before I made out its okay.

  It’s okay. It’s okay.

  I drew in a long, shuddering gulp of air, made moist and salty by the spray, and realized I’d been holding my breath. Adam squeezed me close one last time and then turned me to the front.

  With his arm still tight around me, we took a step together into the blackness. It felt eerily like stepping off the edge of a cliff, and the chill water and howling wind didn’t help. There was no ceiling and no floor anymore—the boat was listing so badly that the wall was the closest thing to a floor at times. Our feet were in the angle between the two, which meant that with every step we risked stepping into an open doorway and falling down into a cabin. We had to test every foothold, while trying to cling onto each other and the smooth, wet walls.

  We climbed the steps to the deck, the water pouring down them making them slick and deadly. As we reached the top, a flash of lightning lit up the sky again and the light was like a rush of oxygen into my system. I felt the panic die a little...and then saw the rocks ahead of us. They were much, much closer than before.