ROMANCE: CLEAN ROMANCE: Summer Splash! (Sweet Inspirational Contemporary Romance) (New Adult Clean Fantasy Short Stories)

by Michelle Woodward

  We hope you’ll enjoy your time with us. Take advantage of your days off by visiting our exotic destinations—you’ll truly feel like you’re on a working vacation!

  Listed below this was the scheduled arrival time at the docks in exactly two weeks, along with instructions on how to obtain an identity badge. Identity badge. It wasn’t until she read that particular part of the letter that it finally hit Mackie that the thing she had been both dreaming about and dreading for the past month and a half had finally come into fruition.

  The urge to push past her strongly disciplined boundaries had suddenly assailed her right after the American Ballet Company had accepted her to join their highly esteemed and coveted ranks. For the past two-odd decades of her life, ballet had taken center stage, if she could excuse herself that particular pun. Being a ballerina might have been every little girl’s dream, but few could imagine the physical exertion, iron will, and extreme degree of correctness it took to achieve that goal.

  And Mackenzie was nothing if not disciplined.

  After receiving the news of her secured position at the company, however, there was one small problem. Dance season began in late August, and until then, Mackie had about five months of time to fill. After dawdling at one odd job or another for a couple of months, Mackie saw an online ad calling for new acts on King Royal Cruiselines. And without asking herself too much why she did it, she applied.

  Now, holding their response in her hands, it occurred to her that maybe the reason she hadn’t wanted to think about why she had applied was because she did not want to admit the reasons out loud. And the reason was, she thought, years of diets, bruised feet, and nights locked up in the dance studio practicing flashing through her mind, was that she wanted one final break before dedicating the rest of her dancing years to the grueling life of ballet.

  So what was the big deal?

  The ballet company had several “strong recommendations” when it came to their new employees filling the months before they joined their ranks. Get plenty of rest, practice ballet, and—behave “professionally.” Which meant that jobs doing dancing at small-stage shows and other places got you a bit of a reputation, which the company frowned upon. Working as a dancer on a cruise ship, locked away with cast and crew who saw nobody but each other for half-year sequences at a time might just be one of those places. Looking back on her all-too-correct life, Mackenzie wondered if it would truly be such a terrible thing if she entered the company with a little edge to her name. After all, recommendations were recommendations, not rules set in stone. As if ballet could afford itself one more rule, she thought sarcastically.

  Fingering the letter from King Royal, Mackie felt a small fission of excitement seep through her body. All of a sudden, it was all she could do to keep from jumping up and down on the wood of her family home’s front porch. There were so many things to plan! What to wear, which leotards to pack, what exactly the guys in the fantasies she would have until the cruise itself would look like. They’d all wear captain’s uniforms, of course. Or was that silly? Maybe people didn’t wear those anymore. And how would people react to her? Had there ever even been a ballerina on a cruise ship? It sounded almost farcical in her head, but the fact was was that if there hadn’t been, there was one now. Image and reputation be damned, she owed herself this bit of fun. It was the perfect opportunity, despite how ludicrous it might sound—this way she could practice ballet, rest, and even indulge her naughty a little bit.

  Mackenzie Aldryn, cruise ship performer. Yes, she thought, rising gracefully to her feet and pushing open the white screen door with her free hand -unsc that sounds just right.

  * * *

  “The backstage entrance is located on another floor altogether to give performers privacy and time to prepare, of course,” Rick, the cruise director, informed her as they stood in front of the King Majesty’s grand showroom stage exactly two weeks later. “How does that sound?”

  To Mackie, it all sounded extravagantly wonderful. From the moment she had arrived at the docks and seen the ship that would be her home for the next few months, she had had to pinch herself about every three minutes to convince herself this was actually happening. Under a bright and cloudless sky, the King Majesty rose to reach the almost visible rays of the sun, the kind that Mackie used to draw as a child. The ship was so large that it was difficult to imagine it sailing through the water without sinking to the very bottom, and the only indication of movement at all were the waves breaking against its hull as it stood anchored to seven posts at the dock.

  Shielding her face against the sunlight with a broad-brimmed hat, Mackie had met Rick on the main deck. He had an hour to familiarize her with her schedule and the ship itself, and warned her it could be a bit overwhelming for a newcomer. “But don’t worry,” he told her, kindly grabbing one of her suitcases and hoisting it onto a little trolley. “We take care of our own. I’ve no doubt you’ll have a great time—everyone does!”

  She would have chuckled at his incredibly cheery disposition if she hadn’t been so bowled over by the interior design of the cruise ship itself. It was as if someone had taken the very best of fancy hotels around the world, mixed it together and thrown it out onto the ocean. Gilded gold elevator doors, great crystal chandeliers intermingling with finely potted plants in foyers, dozens of tiny lounges, each complete with its own miniscule stage, where, as Rick informed her, a different musician would play each night.

  They were all on a rotating schedule. Few people were ever on a cruise ship for more than two weeks, Rick told her, and so each performer only needed a few alternating acts in their repertoire for the time they were on the ship. She would be performing four nights a week, twice on the main stage, interspersed with a few shorter numbers on some of the smaller stages. It sounded like a dream, although Mackenzie knew it would be grueling—there was an early dinner crowd, and a late one, which totaled to two shows a night for every night she was performing. Luckily, she had her days completely free, and she intended to take full advantage of that. Nothing was going to hold her back from enjoying herself.

  Not even her cabin, it seemed. She had been expecting something small and cramped, prepared for the worst, but her cozy room featured a darling round window, two gray silk curtains partitioning off her room into a living and sleeping area. Best of all was the array of floor-to-ceiling mirrors around the vanity. For her purposes, it was perfect. She was lost in admiring it when she suddenly became acutely aware of Rick standing politely at her side, waiting for her to come to so he could leave.

  She blushed, grabbed her bags and thanked him, pushing all her things into the room. Still, he didn’t leave; instead, he walked into the room with her, opened her window, turned around and smiled at her. “You know, we’ve never had a ballerina act here before,” he said, walking back to the door. “I think that this will be an educational experience for us all.” And with that, he left the room and shut the door.

  Mackie caught sight of herself in one of the mirrors. She turned her body this way and that, catching the long, lean lines of her form, honed by years of intense dance practice, and then pouted at herself in the mirror. Her body was all wrong for ballet, her first teacher told her. She inherited her broad thighs directly from her mother’s side of the family, a line of strong, beautiful South African women. She did not have the right form, the teacher had said, but Mackie had proved him wrong.

  She turned from the mirror to take in the rest of the room. Time to change and explore, she thought, and lost herself in a flurry of unpacking.

  Thirty minutes later, she was grasping the silver lean bar and observing the gargantuan crystal chandelier in the main entrance again. The air sparkled with an almost visible representation of serenity. The cool glass separating her from the open air of the entrance pressed against her dark skin, infusing her with a sense of calm and rightness. From her left, she could hear the vague clank of cutlery as the kitchen staff prepared for the early dinner crowd. Below her, people murmured a
s they sank their soft bodies into equally soft couches and absorbed the music tinkling around them.

  There was something familiar about that tune. Mackie leaned forward, just a bit over the railing, feeling the front of her dress tug a little. Yes, there it was, the well-known strains of one of her favorite Sinatra songs.

  These vagabond shoes

  Are longing to stray…

  She couldn’t tell exactly where the music was coming from, but it filled her with a sense of peace. She was feeling strangely alienated in this world of floral prints and cargo shorts, on both men and women alike, uniform blobs of humanity that were about as diverse as the threads in the fabric of Mackenzie’s sea-green silk dress. So far, she was the only black woman on the entire cruise, as far as she could tell, and she was fairly certain she was getting some stares, the nature of which she could not decipher.

  The feeling of being watched intensified as Mackie headed down the grand staircase, trailing the handrail with her fingertips. She stepped into one of the many tiny alcoves of the cruise to discover a nearly deserted bar, dark and lovely, oak-paneled with a real, honest-to-goodness white shirt wearing bartender toweling off glasses.

  “A drink?” he tossed her way, casually, but to Mackie, it was the least casual thing in the world. As a dancer, she had a strict diet and regimen to follow, and alcohol was not included in any of that. Still, she wanted the full experience of doing just exactly whatever the hell she wanted, and so she slid one of her long legs onto the seat and ordered her first ever dirty martini. The glass presented to her was as delicate as Mackie herself, the only thing lending credence to its contents was the two olives getting drunk in it.

  Sandwiching her clutch between her elbow and body and holding her drink, Mackie wandered around the floor, passing by hordes of Texans, all seemingly nervous at the prospect of not having to be at work. Who knew vacation made you nervous? Mackie giggled at the thought, warm with the alcohol from her drink. She passed by a series of huge open windows and glanced out to where the sun had already set over the water. Just then, a huge BOOM sounded, and Mackie knew that the ship had left its port.

  She watched the waves lap languorously over each other, and watching the smooth satin of the water lick itself filled her with a funny feeling—or was that the alcohol?—as if she was the one who was submerged in it instead of the bow of the ship, and she was the one being tongued by a million riotous waves.

  Greetings, passengers! A voice came over the sound system. This is your captain speaking. We have set sail and are traveling at twenty-five knots per hour. Weather conditions look favorable, and the temperature is eighty-five degrees. Please enjoy the various activities we have on board and don’t miss our fantastic show tonight! Happy sailing and bon voyage!

  Mackie breathed in the cool, conditioned air around her, and sipped some more of her drink. She had wandered into a narrow hallway that seemed rapidly to be filling with people—what was going on? A turn around the end of the hall revealed that she had found the main entrance to the showroom, and the early dinner crowd had finished stuffing down the last of their steaks and baked potatoes. It was five minutes to showtime, and Mackie wanted to make sure that she got a good seat. Smiling slyly to herself, she snuck around the crowd and dipped inside, flashing her ID at the showroom manager. She ignored the loud protests behind her and navigated the sloping floor carefully, making sure she didn’t spill her drink. She found an unobtrusive seat off to the side of the front row, and slowly sucked her drink down to the olives, waiting for the show to begin.

  She was not disappointed. The glitz and glamour of the opening act rivaled Broadway, indeed, and she knew she would feel proud in the coming months of being part of such a talented team. After the musical acts were done, Ricky took his designated post as host of the evening at the mic.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, King Royal is very pleased to have the next gentleman as part of our act. You’ve seen him on Letterman, you’ve seen him around the globe—he is the number one champion juggler in the world, Adaaaaaam Santiiiiino!”

  Mackie felt herself catapulted into the strange world of a three ring circus as Ricky brought out a tall man dressed from head to toe in black. The performer tossed one ball into the air, then two, then four, continuing into a range of objects that left Mackie slightly dizzy. But more than that, she found herself focusing on how absolutely damn attractive Adam Santino was.

  Standing at what Mackie estimated to be an even six foot five, he was beautifully built. Strong, broad shoulders tapered into a slim, neat little waist, pectorals sculpted underneath his tight-fitting V-neck black T-shirt, strong upper arms rounding out its sleeves. The long, lean line of his leg did not dare disrupt the press of his pants, and when he turned around mid-trick to catch nine glass balls in succession, Mackie got a front-row view of his cute little butt. The best kind. She realized she had spied Adam earlier, amongst the throng of people at the front of the showroom, but had written him off as a slightly better-dressed version of the typical Texan cruise lounger. Now that she saw him on stage, she drank him in leisurely, the full, sandy-blonde hair, the thick black outline of his appealingly nerdy glasses, and the generous cut of his mouth, which he would sometimes bite down on in concentration.

  She was drunk on it, the feeling of watching somebody skilled do what they loved. Almost unconsciously, she was scooping the olives off of their tiny red plastic skewer with her tongue, rolling it in her mouth before biting into it, releasing juice into her mouth just as Adam caught flying objects again and again, bending his body into impossible positions.

  And then, he was asking for a volunteer from the audience. Mackie did not stir, although there were parts of her that knew she wanted to be near him, very much. She watched him scan the audience, for jest placing a hand perpendicular to his forehead as if he was a sea captain surveying the horizon for potential storms. And when his eyes landed on her, Mackie knew that something indeed was a-brewin’.

  * * *

  Mackie could see him respond. Adam Santino stood on stage as if struck by lightning, and his eyes swept almost uncontrollably up her body, taking in the delicate ankles, the splayed pleats of her silk dress, linger momentarily on the pert little breasts rounding out the triangles of her top, and locked on her face.

  “The lady in green, please,” Adam intoned.

  Mackie cheerfully continued sucking olives off her plastic.

  “Green silk. Blue? Is that blue, or some new-fangled color the wicked women of the world have invented to terrorize the color-blind?” The audience tittered. “Would the gorgeous black woman in the front row to my right please join me on the stage?” he asked again. Mackie wondered at his insistence, and also at the woman’s seeming reluctance to come up. Some people really are shy, she thought to herself, craning her neck to try and see what she assumed was the only other black woman on the whole ship.

  The man sitting behind her tapped her on the shoulder. “I think he’s talking to you,” he whispered loudly, and Mackie realized he was right. The person, the gorgeous woman, Adam Santino was asking for on stage was none other than Mackie herself. She gulped, and then quietly set down her martini glass on the table a little off to her right. Feeling the folds of her dress swirl around her as she stood, Mackie carefully alighted the stage, the familiar harsh cut of the stage lights blinding her.

  “Now, isn’t she lovely, folks?” Adam asked, and the audience clapped like a well-trained slew of seals. Mackie cocked an eyebrow at him, and was surprised to find that Adam’s smile held the faintest hint of irony. His eyes, she also noted, were gray and framed by a thick set of dark blond lashes.

  “Now, what is your name?”

  “Mackie.”

  “And what do you do, Mackie?” he asked, scooping up two of the round plastic balls he had used in an earlier trick.

  “I’m a ballerina.”

  Adam’s mouth formed a round O that seemed genuine despite the fact that he faced the crowd and exclaimed, “A ballerina,
ladies and gentlemen! Well, Mackie, you got me—I was NOT expecting that.” Mackie gave a little shrug, feeling a smile curl the edges of her lips. She was willing to play along.

  “Do you know how to juggle, pretty Mackie?” Adam asked her, proffering the two plastic balls.

  “A little,” Mackie told him, feeling her shoulders arch back in a response she recognized. Adam might be sexy as hell, but he also looked like a man who relished a little competition. Just her type of guy.

  Adam began to demonstrate how to juggle the two balls, slowly, catching them with exaggerated motions and bowing a little when the crowd broke out into scattered applause. “Now you try.”

  Mackie took the two balls and repeated his motions to the letter, down to the overblown way he had completed the catch, just to make it obvious that she was teasing him. She could see the amusement sparkling in his eyes as he said, “All right, all right, you seem to have a good handle on that. Now, I want you to juggle three—think you can do that?”

  “Let’s try five.”

  Adam’s eyebrows jumped a little. “Whoa-ho, someone thinks they’re a badass—s’cuse my language, folks. Fine, Mackie, take five. Now, what I want you to do is juggle them twice and then lob them to me. Savvy?”

  Mackie knew the trick well. Adam would take each ball from her as she threw them over her shoulder and juggle them himself, anchoring the fifth one with his foot. The fact that he was asking her to juggle them twice herself—well, that was his challenge to her, nothing else. A private little tease just between the two of them.

  And so she tossed one ball into the air, two, and three. They rotated and she flipped them, not stumbling even a little when Adam, with a surprised look on his face, tossed her the next two balls. Three he might have been expecting, but there was no way Adam Santino, the best juggler in the world, had been prepared for her to juggle five balls. She tossed him one over her shoulder, then the next, feeling the audience draw in a bated breath at the seamless exchange. Adam was juggling, doing spins and tricks with the four, and motioned to Mackie to toss him the fifth. She did, and watched the audience gasp at his prowess. The trick ended, Mackie knew, with Adam tossing each one of the five balls to someone waiting in the wings, and it wasn’t long before he started doing just that. One quick motion, however, and Mackie was in between him and that person, catching all four and then, for the final flourish, balancing the fifth one on the back of her foot as she stood on one leg.