Captain

by Lauren Rowe

  “Oh, yeah. That.” She sighs and signals to the bartender. “Another round, Tim!” She shoots me a snarky look. “If I’m gonna tell you this stupid story with the kind of breathtaking honesty you just showed me, then I’m gonna need to be quite a bit drunker than this.”

  Chapter 11

  Ryan

  Samantha and I slam our empty shot glasses down onto the bar at the same time.

  “Smooth,” she says.

  “You feeling good, Argentina? ’Cause I’m feeling damned good.”

  “Lemme see, Romeo.” She pinches her cheeks. “Cheeks numb. Inhibitions long gone. Body on fire. Judgment critically impaired.” She winks and flashes me an enthusiastic thumbs-up. “Yup. I’m feeling good.”

  I laugh. “Good. Now, please, for the love of God, tell me your ‘slightly embarrassing’ story already.”

  She sighs. “It’s not really fair to make me follow your exciting ‘King Dong of the Prom’ story with a boring story about nine months of unintentional sexual hermitude. Talk about a boner-killer.”

  “Come on, dude,” I say. “You’re filibustering.”

  “Okay, okay,” she says. She lets out a long exhale. “It’s just so stupid.”

  “I love stupid. Wait ’til you meet my younger brother.”

  She pauses, apparently gathering her thoughts. “Nine months ago, I broke up with my boyfriend—this guy named Stu—after finding out he’d cheated on me ten gazillion times during our two-year relationship.”

  “Ooph. What a dick.”

  “Total dick.”

  “Did you love him?”

  “I did. I was absolutely decimated when I discovered his extracurricular activities. I’d had no idea. I’d trusted him completely. So, of course, I felt completely blindsided and betrayed, but I think the worst part was feeling like I had a defective ‘picker,’ you know? Like, I couldn’t trust my own feelings anymore. I couldn’t understand how the hell I didn’t see his true colors in all that time?”

  My chest tightens sharply. Shit. When Samantha finds out about my quick turnaround with Olivia, is she gonna think I’m hiding my true colors from her? Shit. All of a sudden, I’m thinking maybe I should tell Samantha all about Olivia tonight, just to avoid possible misunderstandings later?

  Samantha continues, “I think I was just razzle-dazzled by Stu’s good looks and charm and the whole ‘quasi-celebrity thing’ and I just blindly trusted.”

  “Hold up. Stu was a quasi-celebrity?”

  “He’s an athlete. It doesn’t matter. So, anyway, that whole experience really shook me to my core and made me really skeptical about love and my own judgment, and then, on top of all that, a mere three months later, I...” She trails off.

  I wait.

  “And, um, three months later, my heart still hadn’t mended, so I decided to take a break from dating and work on myself for a while. So, now, voila, here I am.”

  I narrow my eyes. She’s totally bullshitting me, obviously. She was clearly about to say something different about the three-months-later thing, but I decide to leave it for now. “So what’s the ‘slightly embarrassing’ part of that story?” I ask. “Your lying-ass prick of an athlete-boyfriend cheated on you and so you took a break for a while—a long while, granted, but, still, there’s nothing embarrassing about that.”

  “It’s embarrassing that he cheated on me.”

  “Why? Him cheating on you reflects poorly on him, not you. Seriously. To think otherwise is completely fucked up.”

  She exhales with relief.

  “Is that seriously why you didn’t want to tell me?”

  “Yeah. I mean, he cheated on me for two years and I had no idea. Not a shining moment for me. Plus, I don’t want you thinking I’m, you know, asexual or something because I’ve gone so long without sex. Trust me, I’m most definitely not asexual, I assure you.”

  “Well, yeah, obviously. I’ve got no doubt your motor runs hot. It’s wafting off you.”

  She blushes.

  “I’m guessing you’re actually a little vixen when you get going.” I scoot closer. “So has it been really hard for you to, you know, go without for nine months?”

  “Excruciating. But, you know, I’m a Virgo. I’ve got high standards. Plus, like I said before, I’ve got a battery-operated-boyfriend who’s been very faithful to me—he loves me and no one else.”

  “But this whole time you haven’t been tempted to have sex with some guy not up to your standards? Just for the fuck of it?”

  She shakes her head. “I’m just not wired that way.”

  “Wow. There hasn’t been a single human guy you’ve been attracted to in nine months?”

  “That’s not what I said.”

  “Oh. Interesting. So there was someone you were attracted to? And he didn’t make a move? Is he gay?”

  “No, he’s not gay—he’s my boss.”

  Whoa, whoa, whoa. I lean back, floored.

  She continues, “Don’t get the wrong idea—he’s totally unavailable. He’s never so much as flirted with me. And now he’s getting married, so that’s a done deal. But, yeah, if I’m being completely honest, as I promised to be, when Stu and I broke up, I kinda thought, ‘Hey, now that my boss and I are both single at the same time for the first time in six years, I wonder if he’ll maybe make a move on me?’” She chuckles. “It was just a little crush, that’s all. And, like I said, now he’s getting married so, that’s that. But, hey, at least now you know I’m not made of ice, right?”

  My heart is pounding ferociously in my ears. “But are you still hoping to start something with this guy? Like, if his marriage doesn’t work out or if he makes a move on you behind his wife’s back, are you gonna ditch whatever relationship you might have going to leap at the chance?”

  “What? No. Oh my God. I shouldn’t have brought him up. Thank you, tequila.” She shakes her head. “How the hell did we get on that topic in the first place? Ryan, listen to me, my little crush on my boss wasn’t even about him, per se—it was more that he’s the gold standard of the kind of guy I’d like to find for myself, that’s all.”

  Her words are doing nothing to assuage me. I feel flooded with jealousy. Has she been off the market for nine fucking months because she’s been jonezing for this boss of hers the whole time—some pilot or maybe the CEO of the entire fucking airline? Shit. I can’t stop myself from going full-on caveman here. It’s ridiculous, I know—but, as far as I’m concerned, this woman is already mine. Mine. And I’m not gonna sit here and let some douchebag-pilot steal my future girl—

  “Ryan?” Samantha says, cutting off my rambling thoughts.

  I look at her, my jaw tight.

  She’s looking at me like I’m certifiable. “Are you okay? You look upset.”

  I try my damnedest to loosen my jaw and smile at her, but I can’t do it. If I’m acting like a bunny-boiling loon right now, so be it. I’ve never felt this kind of connection with anyone in my life and I’m sure as fuck not gonna let some asshole-pilot cock-block me before I’ve taken her out to fucking dinner. “Sorry,” I grit out. “I know I have no right to feel this way, but I’m honestly feeling ridiculously jealous of your boss—I’m worried you’re maybe really hung up on him and I’m walking into a no-win situation here.”

  “Oh, sweet Jesus,” she mutters. “God, I never should have said a thing about him. Haven’t you ever had a little crush on someone you knew was unavailable? A professor? Your best friend’s girlfriend?”

  “Sure,” I reply, instantly thinking of Sarah.

  “Well, having a crush on an unavailable person doesn’t mean you think the person’s the great love of your life, does it? It just means that person is attractive to you, and you think to yourself, ‘Oh, that’s the kind of person I’d like to find.’” Samantha beams a sexy smile at me that stops my heart and hardens my dick. “If it assures you at all, I can honestly say, for the first time in nine months—maybe even the first time ever—I think maybe I’ve found a guy who might very we
ll be setting a new gold standard for the kind of guy I’m looking for.”

  And, just like that, she somehow managed to calm me the fuck down. Fuck the boss, whoever he is. I’m being a loon. “I feel the exact same way,” I say. “I’ve never felt this kind of connection before. I don’t even know how to react to feeling this way.”

  “I get it,” she whispers. She leans into me and kisses my cheek, sending goose bumps radiating all over my body. I grasp her hand and lean into her face to kiss her, but, at the last minute, remember I can’t do that. Not tonight. My first kiss with this woman who might very well become the great love of my life can’t occur when I’ve still got the faint taste of Olivia on my lips.

  But, oh, shit, I can’t resist stealing a tiny little taste of her skin. Just a little nibble—something completely harmless. I turn my head and lay a soft kiss on Samantha’s cheek, inhaling her scent, my dick throbbing with desire.

  “Ryan,” she whispers. She lays a return-kiss on my cheek, her hand grazing through my hair.

  “I want you,” I whisper into Samantha’s ear. “I want to kiss you. I want a taste.”

  She lets out a shaky breath and whispers into my ear: “Quiero besarte y lamerte, por todo el cuerpo.”

  “Whatever you just said, it was hot as hell,” I whisper, my body shuddering with arousal.

  Her warm, wet tongue flickers briefly against my ear, making my entire body convulse like she’s zapped me with a Taser gun.

  She lays a soft kiss on my cheek, and then another, a move that turns my hard-on to steel. “Quiero follarte, una y otra vez,” she whispers into my ear, her voice low and sexy.

  I nuzzle my nose into her hair and breathe in her scent, my fingertips caressing the smooth nape of her neck. Oh my God, I want this woman.

  “Quiero sentir tu lengua entre las piernas.”

  My brain might not know what she’s saying to me, but my body sure does. I kiss her cheek, nuzzle my nose into her hair again, kiss the soft flesh next to her ear—and she quivers with arousal. “Whenever you’re ready for me,” I coo into her ear, “I’m gonna make you feel so fucking good, baby. The pleasure I’m gonna give you is gonna change your life.”

  A little groan escapes her throat.

  I lay a soft kiss right next to her ear again—and then a soft peck onto her cheek, and another on her neck, this one with tongue, and she responds by moaning and clutching my forearm. Okay, I can’t resist: I bite her neck and she gasps.

  “Kiss me, Ryan,” Samantha whispers into my ear. She skims her lips across my stubble. “Bésame.”

  “Tomorrow night,” I whisper back, my heart racing. “On our date. Something to look forward to, baby.”

  She sighs, obviously disappointed.

  Fuck. I gotta come clean. If this woman’s gonna be who I think she is, I’ve got to make sure there’s no room for future misunderstandings. I disengage from her. “There’s something I need to tell you,” I say, shifting on my stool, trying to rearrange my hard-on. “It’s not a big deal, okay? I just want to be sure you know you can trust me going forward, Samantha.”

  Out of nowhere, her face drains of color. Her hand absently shoots up to the cute little scarf around her neck. “Crap. Ryan, there’s something I need to tell you, too—something I should have told you—”

  A shrieking voice behind my shoulder screams my name, cutting Samantha off mid-sentence.

  “I knew it!” the voice shouts. “You motherfucking cheater!”

  I close my eyes.

  Fuck my life.

  Olivia.

  Chapter 12

  Ryan

  “Ahab and anguish lay stretched together in one hammock.”

  I’m at Josh’s jaw-dropping house (or, as Kat dubbed it when I arrived, “the cozy little mud hut” she now calls home), playing pool with Jonas, Josh, and Sarah (the current game being Josh versus Jonas) while my poor, beleaguered sister sits crumpled on a chaise in the corner, a blanket wrapped around her slumped shoulders, her face the color of Kermit the Frog.

  “Anybody need a refill?” Josh asks from behind a fully stocked bar. “What about you, Captain Morgan, can I interest you in a little Captain Morgan?” He holds up a bottle. “I’ll make you a spiced mojito that will change your life.”

  “Thanks, Lambo,” I reply, handing him my empty glass. “Forget drinking ’til I can’t feel my face or toes—tonight, I’m drinking ’til I can’t feel my soul-searing pain.”

  “That’s precisely what Uber’s for,” Josh says.

  “So, finish your story, Ryan,” Sarah says from a stool at the bar. “The whole thing’s like a car crash I can’t look away from.”

  “There’s not much more to tell. Olivia blasted into the bar and started spewing all kinds of crazy bullshit, Samantha bolted, and that was that: the heaven I thought I’d found with the flight attendant of my wet dreams turned into the soul-searing hell of my worst nightmare.”

  “Tragic,” Josh says, and everyone joins him in expressing sympathy.

  “Meh,” I say, doing my best impression of a dude not on the verge of a nervous breakdown. “That’s life. Sometimes it sucks ass. I just gotta wipe off my knees and move on, right? Nothing I can do about it now.”

  I’m totally full of shit, by the way: I don’t feel the slightest bit ready to “wipe off my knees and move on” at the moment—but there’s no way in hell I’m gonna admit that to this crowd. I’ve known Josh a matter of weeks and I’m just now meeting Jonas, and neither of them seems like the kind of dude who’d be able to relate to a guy feeling this wrecked over a woman this fast. And so, rather than whine and wail in front of my soon-to-be brothers-in-law, I clamp my lips together, grab the spiced-mojito-that’s-gonna-change-my-life from Josh, and drag my weary ass to an armchair next to my green-faced little sister.

  “Hey, Kum Cake,” I say. I pat her head like she’s a little doggie (something I’ve been doing since Mom brought her home from the hospital when I was three-and-a-half), and settle into my chair.

  “Hey, Rum Cake,” she replies. “Thanks for not telling everyone it was me who told Olivia where to find you.”

  I take a long sip of my drink and remain mute.

  “You hate my guts right now, don’t you?” Kat says.

  “No.”

  “Yes, you do. If you didn’t hate my guts, you’d be teasing me about it. Teasing is how we Morgans show our love; silence is how we show our barely contained impulse to commit murder.”

  I take another long, slow sip of my drink, resisting the urge to lay into Kat for ruining my fucking life. “Your face is the color of Kermit the Frog,” I say evenly. “And I’m not the kind of man who kicks a frog when she’s down—especially not a pregnant one.”

  Kat pulls her blanket up around her shoulders and exhales. “I’m so sorry, Ry. I replied to Olivia’s text without thinking. I wasn’t trying to torpedo your life, I swear.”

  I sigh. “I know, but it’s basic Morgan Bro Code, dude: if a woman has to ask where your brother is, odds are high it’s because your brother intentionally failed to mention his whereabouts to her. Duh-motherfucking-duh, Kum Shot.”

  “I know. I just... Gah.” She touches her tiny baby bump. “It’s hard to think clearly when the human you’re crock-potting is poisoning you from the inside out.”

  “Hence, the reason I didn’t bring it up while telling everyone what happened tonight.”

  Kat exhales in exasperation. “How the hell was I supposed to know Olivia had turned into a bunny-boiling loon? It’s your own damn fault for keeping Peen in the loop and not me. Who does that?”

  “When did you talk to him?”

  “About thirty minutes after I’d already replied to Olivia’s text, unfortunately. Sure would have been nice if I’d talked to that knucklehead before Olivia’s fateful text.” She sighs. “I’m really sorry, Ryan.”

  “It’s okay, Jizzy Pop.”

  Kat snorts. “I must say Peen’s got some rather highfalutin plans for your fifty bucks. You’d
think the guy won the Powerball lottery the way he was gloating about his ‘windfall.’”

  “Fucking Peen.”

  “See, normally, the phrase ‘fucking Peen’ works in any fucked-up situation. But this one time, you can’t blame Magic Mike for your misery, son. Keane and Colby warned you about the loon and you ignored them both? Inexcusable.”

  “I fucked up.”

  “I mean, come on. I understand going against Peen’s advice, but Colby’s? Felony stupid, dude.”

  “I just said I fucked up. And you can drop the holier-than-thou attitude, by the way. I seem to recall you ignoring Colby’s sage advice when you brought that senator’s-son-douche home from college that time.”

  “How does that help your argument? When I ignored Colby’s sage advice, I wasn’t a twenty-eight-year-old grown-ass man who’d already witnessed how ignoring Colby’s sage advice had worked out for his stupid-ass little sister. As you might recall, I promptly got obliterated by that douche after ignoring Colby’s advice. Certainly, a more intelligent man would have learned from his sister’s horrendously stupid mistake.”

  I take her hand and squeeze it. “Shit. Sorry, Jizz. I shouldn’t have brought that guy up. Colby told me you were really wrecked over that fucker.” I let out a long, dejected exhale. “I’m just a grenade tonight. Save yourself and stay far, far away from the shrapnel.”

  “You really liked this flight attendant, huh?”

  I nod.

  “I had no idea you had a flight attendant fetish.”

  “I don’t. Well, I mean, yeah, when she first walked into the bar in her sexy little uniform, I’d be lying if I didn’t instantly imagine a little role-play.”

  Kat laughs. “God, we share a brain.”

  “But two minutes after I started talking to her, I forgot all about my teenage fantasies and I was just totally into her. The chemistry between us was just through the roof.”

  “Like, on a scale of one to ten?”

  “Eighty-thousand-and-seventy-three.”

  “Holy shitballs.”

  “I’ve never felt anything like it—not even close. It felt like...” I trail off and shake my head.