Bermuda Nights - The Boxed Set

by Sikes, Ophelia

  I was at the top, and yet we climbed higher, and higher, the room echoing our joy, the world witnessing our joining, the completeness of what he and I shared. There was no separation between him and me and the world around us. We were one glowing entity, of pleasure and wholeness and joyful abandon, and –

  His hips slammed hard, he exploded with a heart-wrenching cry, and I lost all sense of self. I was twined deep within him.

  His strong arms held me up, for I was beyond anything I had ever known. I was a fiery phoenix blazing in the sky, and I was the firmament itself, endless and rich with promise. I was the billowing white of sun-drenched clouds. I was the curling edges of a driving sea. And then the winds slowly, gently eased, and the waves slowed, drifted, and became at last the soft lapping of an ebbing tide against a smooth stretch of sand.

  He pressed his lips against my neck, his voice a whisper. “Your audience is struck speechless, my love.”

  I could feel it. The sense that every person had participated in our joining, had breathed in that same release and satisfaction.

  He looped his arm beneath my legs, then hefted me up against his chest. He took the few steps back to our velvet bench, then he sat on it, draping me across his legs. He drew me in close against his chest, and I snuggled against him, content beyond all measure.

  He pressed his lips to my forehead, and his voice was hoarse when he spoke. “I should have gotten you off this ship, Amanda. I should have gotten you to safety.”

  I shook my head against him, the bliss of the moment holding me tenderly in its palm. “My place is here, by your side. And, whatever comes, we will face it together.”

  He drew me in, and the world faded away.

  Chapter 7

  The world shimmered around me with the magical glow of pre-dawn as I made my way down the empty hallways to my room. I knew, for the first night in a while, that I would sleep soundly. My body felt completely satiated in a way it’d never known before. I could almost envision the pillow beneath my head, the blankets curling around my shoulders.

  I came around the final corner of the hallway.

  Jeff was there, standing before my door.

  I lurched back in a panic, my heart pounding furiously against my chest. What in the world was he doing here? He’d sworn to Evan that he would stay away from me. What was he intending to do to me?

  I forced myself to take in a long, deep breath. Maybe I’d made a mistake. Maybe it was someone else just passing through. I carefully, cautiously, eased my head around the corner again.

  It was Jeff.

  And he was talking with Kayla.

  My brain locked up in confusion, and for a long moment I could barely take it in, as if I had changed the channel on a TV and was suddenly seeing my favorite NCIS:LA characters battling against the Fast and Furious cast in crusader tunics in front of a massive medieval city wall. The character combination didn’t make sense at all. The landscape was out of joint. And yet there it was – him standing there, talking animatedly, her nodding and smiling.

  I wanted to ease closer to hear what they were saying – and I didn’t want to be seen. I was caught in a strange limbo where it seemed like moving even the slightest muscle would cause my world to crash down on my head.

  At last he nodded to her and patted her on the shoulder. He turned and walked away down the corridor, vanishing from sight.

  She pulled her key card from the purse at her side, slipped it into our door, and stepped within.

  My breathing started up again.

  I stared at the door as if it were a portal to another dimension. Surely I was mistaken about what I had just seen. Or, undoubtedly there was some sort of completely logical explanation for it which simply escaped me in my sleep-deprived state. If I could just talk with Kayla, I was positive I could sort it all out.

  I stepped to the door, slid in my card, and opened it.

  Kayla turned in surprise, then smiled. “There you are! Wow, you are taking advantage of our remaining days, aren’t you!” Her grin widened. “And, judging by that glow resonating off you, your night went well.”

  A tumult of emotions spun through me, making it hard for me to latch onto coherent thought. She stripped off her shimmering white outfit and tossed it on the floor, pulling on a t-shirt and climbing onto her bed. “Usually I’d want to hear all about it, hun, but it’s been a long night.”

  I took another step into the room. “Kayla, I saw Jeff.”

  A flare of pink lit her cheeks, and she paused a minute before turning to look at me. “What, up on deck?”

  I shook my head, coming to stand over her. “Talking to you. Right in front of this room.”

  Her face tightened, and she turned to sit on the edge of her bed. “Amanda, I can explain.”

  I sat on my own bed, facing her. “I’m listening.”

  She ran a hand through her disheveled hair. “Hun, Jeff is worried about you. He’s worried that Evan is a dangerous man.”

  I blinked at her. “Jeff is worried that Evan is dangerous?”

  She eagerly nodded her head. “Apparently Evan beat him up twice in the past few days! For no reason at all! Evan is a violent man, and you could be next!”

  I stared at her. “After everything Jeff has done in the past, how could you possibly believe a word he has to say?” I shook my head. “Jeff is the one who attacked us. Repeatedly. Evan tried to warn him off, and when Jeff swung the broken bottle, Evan was forced to defend himself.”

  Kayla seemed nonplussed. “Jeff is not violent. Had he ever hit you in the past?”

  “Well, no, but –”

  She nodded as if her case had been made. “Jeff always cared for you. Sure, it bordered on obsession, but it showed how much you meant to him! When he came back and heard you were coming on this cruise, he just knew it would be perfect to get you two back together again.”

  I blinked at her, an idea slowly forming in my head. “You … you told Jeff about our cruise?”

  Kayla’s cheeks tinted deeper, but she nodded. “Amanda, he was crazy about you. He realized what a mistake he’d made in breaking up with you, and he wanted you back. I thought it’d be so romantic. The rolling ship, the glistening moonlight, the shimmering waves …”

  My throat was tight. “And what about Evan?”

  She grinned. “I thought a bit of jealous heat was exactly what Jeff needed to get his motor running. And it sounded like it worked!” She frowned. “But this Evan sounds worse than I’d thought. God, Amanda, he’s a brute. Several of Jeff’s buddies needed stitches! Jeff and I have discussed it at length, and we need to get you away from Evan.”

  My brow creased. “You’re having long discussions with Jeff?”

  She shrugged. “Well, sure. We’re close. He worked not too far from me, after all. He’d swing by the bar and end up drinking all night with me. After downing shots together our tongues loosened. We got to know each other pretty well.”

  My mind was losing its ability to comprehend. “You guys were spending the nights drinking together?”

  She sighed. “Sweetie, I’m a bartender. Guys come and drink with me. It’s my job.” She shrugged. “See, this is why I didn’t tell you about any of this. I know you’re fairly sheltered. I didn’t want to upset you.”

  A growing sense of trepidation gnawed at me. “Upset me about what? What went on between you and Jeff?”

  She made a waving motion with her hands. “Nothing, nothing.” The corner of her mouth tweaked up. “Not that he didn’t try, of course. Had to get those roaming hands off me more than a few times. But that’s just men, you know. A few drinks in them and every woman becomes a target.”

  I blinked at her in horror. I could barely keep track of our conversation. It was as if I was watching a movie of a stranger’s life, one which was unraveling faster than a tornado. “Jeff tried to seduce you? While he was dating me?”

  She laughed. “I’m not sure I’d use the word ‘seduce’. More like ‘grope’. C’mon, Amanda! He was
drunk. He’s a guy. It’s what they do.” Her eyes lit up. “Heck, it’s what all of us do.”

  My voice came hot out of me. “It’s not what I do!”

  She grinned. “Well, you’re a bit different, hun. Old-fashioned, I’d say. Victorian.”

  My throat went dry. “You mean you –”

  She shook her head. “No, no. If I start letting one guy openly fondle me in the bar, the floodgates would be unleashed. It’d be open season every night, and every reject with a cock would be lining up for his turn.

  “So you never –”

  She leant back. “Nah, he never approached me outside of work. Guess he figured I had to talk with him if he came into my bar. And I suppose I did.”

  The scenarios swirled around in my mind, refusing to sit still. “But he was fondling you, and you never told me about it.”

  She shrugged. “I knew you’d be like this, sweetie. All up in arms about a little drunken tomfoolery. He didn’t cause any harm. You had a good thing with him. I knew your too-strict lines would destroy the relationship over something that was just a drunken playfulness. I was protecting you from yourself.”

  I stared at her. “My lines are part of me. They are important to me. I should be able to decide for myself where to draw them! Especially when it comes to the man who is my partner!”

  She shook her head. “But honey, it was just a mistake. Too much alcohol. No harm done.”

  My throat went dry. “You stopped him, sure. But how can you know there weren’t other times with other women! If he was willing to do that with you, who knows who else he was doing the same thing with! And the other women might not have been so willing to draw the line. Didn’t I deserve to know he was capable of that?”

  Her brow furrowed, as if she hadn’t thought of that. “Well, then, you’d have found out and left him.”

  I shook my head. “How could you say that? Clearly I didn’t know about his nights with you. He could have been doing this with a dozen other women, betraying me, and you knew this drive was within him! You didn’t warn me!”

  Her mouth tweaked into a smile. “Honey, warn you that he was male? You’ve been reading too many of those Jane Austen novels. You’re dreaming about the type of guy that just doesn’t exist. You need to accept the real world.”

  She let out a large yawn. “In the morning, we need to chat about Evan. But right now, I need some sleep.”

  She slumped down onto her pillow and pulled the blankets up around her shoulders.

  Minutes ticked by as I stared at the snoring mound, emotions whirling and shaking me to my very core. At last I drew to my feet, knowing I had to get away somewhere – anywhere.

  Chapter 8

  I barely knew where my feet were taking me, and then there was the soft spray of salt water on my cheek as I walked along the deck’s railing. The night was quiet, soft stars shimmering against a patchwork of dusty clouds. The ocean beneath was a rolling ribbon of lace and quilted ebony.

  There was a form up ahead.

  He had his back to me, but I knew it was Evan, even in these shadows, even in the softly rolling swirls of a Vladimir Kush painting. He was staring out into the frosted wake, one hand running gently along the railing where I’d stood all those nights ago.

  It seemed like a lifetime.

  He glanced around as I approached, first in attentive curiosity, next surprised pleasure, and then, as I grew nearer, in concern. He opened his arms and drew me in, his mouth coming down to my ear as I folded within his embrace.

  “Amanda, what is it?”

  Where could I even begin? The wealth of storylines tangled and twisted in my head, and I drew in a long, deep breath. I had to begin at the beginning.

  “When I got back to my room, Jeff was there.”

  Evan’s body turned to steel, and his voice was the sibilant hiss of a sword being drawn from its sheath. “Did he touch you?”

  “No, no,” I reassured him. “I stayed out of sight. He wasn’t there to see me. He was in conversation with Kayla.”

  His tension only ebbed slightly. “With Kayla? About what?”

  I shook my head. It all still seemed too fantastic to take in. “Apparently it’s Kayla’s fault he’s here on this cruise. Jeff wanted to lure me back into his grasp. She thought it would be a good idea to set the scene under moonlight and stardust. So she arranged a Love Boat style shipboard reunion for us.”

  I could hear the disbelief in his voice. “Surely she knew how he had treated you before.”

  I gave a soft shrug. “Apparently her standards for men are exceedingly low.” I drew my arms around his back, soaking in the sturdiness of his muscles. He was my lifeline, my connection to a sanity which was becoming more tenuous with each passing day. My throat closed up as I continued. “I also discovered that Jeff had been routinely fondling Kayla while visiting her at her bar.”

  Evan stilled. “He what?”

  I nodded against him. “Apparently Kayla figured all men do this, so it wasn’t worth mentioning to me.”

  Evan’s voice was a growl. “Not all men.”

  I gave a wry smile, pulling him closer. “I know.”

  His arms drew tight. When he spoke, his voice shimmered with tension. “I can’t end my tour with you in Boston, Amanda. I need to finish out my contract. Will you be all right, with Jeff around?”

  I nodded against him. “I’ll be fine. My office isn’t that far from where I live.”

  “I have some friends I can get in touch with. They can –”

  “No, really, I’ll be fine,” I assured him.

  He gently pressed me back, looking down into my eyes. “If Jeff tries anything – anything at all – I want you to contact the authorities. Don’t take it lightly. He could escalate.”

  I brushed a hand along his cheek. “I will. I promise.”

  His eyes shadowed. “I should be there for you. I shouldn’t be abandoning you into the city with him roaming free like a rabid wolf.”

  I ran my hand through his hair. “You’ll be home to me soon.”

  His gaze drew down me. “Not soon enough.”

  My thoughts went to Jeff and Kayla, to the way she shielded me for my own good. A shadow drifted over me.

  Evan’s brow creased. “What is it?”

  I looked up at him. “When we start fresh, on your return to Boston, promise me you’ll always tell me the truth. Even if you think I don’t want to hear it, don’t hide things from me for my own protection. I deserve to be able to make those choices for myself.”

  A wave of emotion swept through his face, and he drew me in against him, his chest a sturdy foundation on which I could build a lifetime of joy.

  His voice was thick when he spoke. “You absolutely deserve that.”

  At long last he pressed me back, bringing a wry smile to his lips. “And, right now, you deserve some sleep. I think you last got a full night’s sleep … what? Two nights ago? Go on back to your room. Rest. We can sort this all out tomorrow.”

  He wrapped his arm around me. “And, just to make sure you get there safely, I’ll escort you there myself.”

  Evan was right. By the time he got me back to my door I was exhausted. When he pressed a kiss to my forehead, it was all I could do to open the door, tumble into the bed, and drag the covers over me before darkness drew me into its stygian depths.

  Chapter 9

  I sat back in my wrought iron chair, absorbing in amusement the babble of conversation streaming on all sides beneath the radiant afternoon sun.

  Man, if only we weren’t on this stupid ship and were back in Boston!

  Don’t you wish the cruise ended yesterday?

  Wonder how much a helicopter flight would cost?

  What if you feigned a heart attack?

  I don’t know, what are the symptoms?

  I shook my head. Only Red Sox fans could be this thoroughly die-hard. The World Series was beginning today, and our beloved Sox were playing a home game in Fenway. It seemed half of the ship
lived within an hour of the stadium and would have been guzzling beers on Lansdowne Street, almost within sight of the green monster. The other half were missing out on extravagant parties and Sam-Adams-soaked celebrations.

  The ship had done its best to accommodate the home-team crowd, and in a few hours every TV on board would be tuned to the game. The crew was even converting the many lounges into game-watching locations with projection TVs.

  But that just wasn’t enough for most of the fans. These loyalists had endured generations of disappointment until that miraculous bloody-sock triumph in 2004. The feeling of supernatural intervention still endured. Every fan present wanted to be in their local bars, with their been-through-it-all buddies, to experience the game in authentic beantown style.