by S. L. Adams
“Well, let me save you the time. Alex already slept with me.” Her sharp tone slices through my heart like a freshly sharpened chef’s knife.
“Really?” He glances at Alex. “That’s some dirty pool, man.”
“I never agreed to any bet, Bart,” I say, gazing at Shelby with an apologetic smile.
“I didn’t realize you guys even knew each other.” He looks from Shelby to me.
“Alex took my virginity and then dumped me,” she says, draining her glass. “Actually, that isn't accurate. He didn’t dump me. He just took off and never called me again.”
“Shelby,” Gretchen says quietly, resting her hand on her wrist. “Let’s not do this here.”
I glance down the table. Everyone is staring at us.
“I’m sorry,” Shelby mumbles, her face beet red. She pushes back her chair and rises from the table. “I’m going to go back to my room. I’m quite tired.”
“Shit,” I mutter under my breath. I had hoped our reunion would play out differently than it did. I clear my throat and stand up. “Please excuse me. My apologies, Gretchen.”
“It’s okay, Alex.” She smiles up at me. “Go after her. You guys need to get all this dirty laundry aired and put away tonight.”
I walked briskly across the restaurant, catching up to her at the elevator.
Chapter 16
Shelby
I push the elevator button repeatedly, jamming my thumb into the little round disk as hard as I can. The tequila is fucking with my ability to walk in heels, so I kick them off. When I lean down to scoop them up, the hotel lobby tilts. I brace my hand against the wall to steady myself.
Shit. I’m drunk. I have to get back to my room before I make a fool of myself. Why is the elevator taking so fucking long? I press the button again, cursing under my breath.
“I don’t think that’s going to make it come any faster.”
I whirl around to see Alex approaching with an amused grin. “Leave me alone, please.” I cross my arms over my chest and stare at the floor indicator light above the elevator.
“I think we should talk, Shelby.”
I turn my head and give him the coldest stare I can muster up in my inebriated state. “Oh really? After twelve years, you want to talk?” My voice drips with sarcasm.
He expels a frustrated sigh, running his hands through his short hair. “We have to spend twelve days together. I think, out of respect for Blake and Gretchen, we should clear the air.”
“Oh. Well then, I guess that is a good reason. It’s necessary now. It wasn’t important twelve years ago, but it is now.”
The elevator door slides open and I dart in with Alex on my heels. We ride up to our floor in silence. When the door opens, I dash out and barrel down the hall to my suite. By the time I dig my key card out of my purse, he catches up, hovering behind me. I jam the card into the slot but the door doesn’t open. Not surprising. I have trouble with these cards when I’m sober.
“Can I try?” Alex asks.
“Sure,” I growl, handing him the card.
He slides it in the slot and the lock buzzes, allowing him to turn the handle and push the door open. “There you go,” he says softly, handing the card back to me.
“Thanks,” I mumble without making eye contact with him. Against my better judgement, I let him follow me inside. I throw my purse on the coffee table and reach for the bourbon, taking a swig directly from the bottle.
“What?” I snap when I catch him frowning at me.
“Nothing. Except, I’m thinking you might not want to be hungover when we hit the open sea tomorrow.”
“I don’t suffer from seasickness. I’ve been on a cruise before, Alex.” I roll my eyes at him as I flop down on the love seat.
“Oh right. You went to Alaska.” He sits down next to me. “I’ve always wanted to go there.”
“You should. Of all the places I’ve been, Alaska ranks right up there. How did you know I went there?”
“I watched all your YouTube videos. You guys did some really neat stuff.”
“You watched all my videos?” I stare at him as my anger dissipates. For a moment, I forget what he did to me.
“Yep.” He looks away and clears his throat.
“Why?”
“I started and I just couldn’t stop,” he says, shrugging as he turns back to me, his emerald eyes filled with sadness and regret. “Shelby, I know it’s been twelve years. But I want to apologize for how things ended between us.”
“Why did you leave without even saying goodbye?”
He takes a deep breath and rubs his hands over his thighs. “I was twenty-one. I didn’t know how to deal with that situation. Blake said you were a mess. I was feeling tremendous guilt. We were going to be six hundred miles apart anyway. It wouldn’t have worked.”
“You still should have come and talked to me,” I say, pulling my legs up and tucking them underneath me.
Alex rises up and goes to the closet, coming back with a blanket that he throws over my legs.
“Thanks. I’m not cold, though.”
“Shelby, you’re a very sexy woman. I want to finish this long overdue talk, and I can’t do that with your dress riding up your thighs like that. It’s quite distracting. If you weren’t drunk, I’d take you to bed right now.”
I snort loudly. “That’s pretty presumptive. And I’m not drunk.”
“You’re right. I should have come and talked to you before I left.”
“Oh. We’re back to that topic again. I thought we were talking about my sexy thighs.” Shelby! Zip it. I kick the bourbon bottle away. It's time to cut myself off before I do something stupid.
He pulls on his earlobe, a low chuckle erupting from his throat. “Can you accept my apology, Shelby? I’d like us to be able to move past this.”
“I moved past it a long time ago, Alex. I had a good therapist at Columbia. But seeing you tonight brought it all back. I need to get my shit together or I’m going to ruin my friend’s wedding.”
“It wasn’t our fault. She obviously had some other issues to do what she did.”
“I know. It took me a long time to come to terms with that though.” I glance over at him. He’s staring off into space. “Did you know she left a suicide note that put the blame squarely on my shoulders?”
He turns to me, a frown touching his lips. “No. I didn’t. That’s terrible. What a horrible thing to do to your best friend.”
“Yep. Her family hasn’t spoken to me since she died. They actually asked me not to attend her funeral.” I stare down at my hands, fiddling with the seam on the blanket. “But you know what?”
“What?”
“I don’t care anymore. The only thing I did wrong was keep our relationship a secret. That is not a good reason to take your own life. And suicide is selfish. She took the easy way out, fully intending to punish me from the grave. That's the work of someone with some serious issues.”
He gazes at me, his eyes boring into mine with a level of intensity that sends my heart off in a galloping frenzy. The old feelings are still there. Buried deep under the guilt and anger. But still very much there. My stomach erupts with butterflies when he smiles warmly, revealing his beautiful teeth and those cute dimples that I fell in love with all those years ago.
“You’re an incredibly strong woman, Shelby.” His voice is low and husky.
“I am. What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger.”
“I’ve thought about you a lot over the years. I considered contacting you on several occasions. But every time I did, Blake said you had a boyfriend. Then he broke up with Gretchen and I lost my only connection to you. And you were in New York and I was in Michigan, so it didn’t make sense anyway.”
“I thought about you too, Alex. That last night together was amazing. I never regretted it.”
“Me either, baby doll.”
Oh boy. Hearing Alex use his old pet name for me elicits excited shivers up my spine. I swallow over the lump forming
in my throat. He reaches out and squeezes my hand, sending jolts of electricity on a direct path to my clit. Holy smokes. Our eyes lock, the sexual tension unmistakable.
“I should go,” he says, dropping my hand like a hot potato and jumping up from the love seat.
“That’s probably a good idea,” I laugh.
He stops at the door, hesitates, and turns around. “Would you like to have breakfast together in the morning?”
“Sure.”
“Great. I’ll stop by at seven?”
“Sounds good.”
After he leaves, I strip off my dress and crawl into the enormous bed, buck naked. I feel like a huge weight has been lifted from my shoulders. One conversation with Alex has cleared away the final remnants of anger and guilt that have persisted in my brain for twelve years. Why didn’t my therapist ever suggest talking to him? I thought that seeing him would bring it all back, causing a huge relapse. And it did at first. But once I relaxed, I was just fine. I’m sure the booze had something to do with that. I smile to myself, closing my eyes and drifting off into my best sleep since I broke up with Fitz.
A gloomy, overcast sky looms behind the curtains. Alcatraz is barely visible through the early morning fog. Not the best day for sail away. Perhaps it will clear up by eleven, our scheduled embarkation time on The Grand Countess.
I indulge in an extra long shower. Why not? I’m on vacation. The hot water courses over my body, my mind wandering to the night before. I wasn’t prepared for the sexual heat with Alex. But it was definitely there, still burning after twelve years apart.
I'm not an innocent eighteen-year old girl anymore. Nope. She's long gone. Dr. Shelby Richardson is a thirty-year old woman with a ton of experience in the bedroom. I spent the last five years of my life with a man thirty years my senior.
Fitzroy Stonewall was an incredible lover. He could fuck for hours, with amazing stamina for a guy in his fifties. Fitz had a kinky sexual appetite. When I met him, I was very inexperienced with only had two sexual relationships under my belt since arriving at Columbia. And they were less than memorable. Fitz trained me to be a skilled lover, picking up where Alex left off. Alex gave me my first orgasms, but Fitz took it to the next level, showing me things I never could have imagined men and women doing together.
There’s no reason I can’t hook up with Alex. He’s divorced. I’m single. We’re going to be stuck on a boat for five days. Why not? Nothing serious. Just a casual thing. I smile to myself. Maybe this trip might not be so dismal after all.
The weather station predicts a chilly day with only a high of fifty-nine. I pull on a chic pair of blue capris with black polka dots, paired with a white blouse and a blue cardigan.
Alex knocks at seven on the dot. He’s still punctual. I always liked that about him. I slip on my white sandals and open the door.
Chapter 17
Alex
“Ready?” I ask, smiling as my eyes roam over her body.
“Yes.” She pulls the door closed and we head toward the elevator. She’s close enough that her shoulder brushes mine. Shelby has definitely warmed up to me, apparently letting go of her anger quite easily. Which tells me that the chip on her shoulder wasn’t that big to begin with. Once we cleared the air last night, she looked at me like she wanted to fuck me. And the booze had very little to do with it.
“You’re going to freeze your butt off,” she says, eyeing my beige khaki shorts and deep green golf shirt.
I shrug. “I’m sure I'll survive. My brain was in Hawaii mode when I packed, not rainy San Francisco.”
“Good morning, fellow wedding guests.”
I cringe at the sound of Lester’s nasally voice. He seems like a nice enough guy, but he’s boring and irritating. And I want to be alone with Shelby.
“Wait up,” he calls, coming up behind us with his fugly wife in tow.
I mutter under my breath, shooting Shelby an annoyed look as Lester and Leslie join us at the elevator. She rolls her eyes in agreement.
“Is everyone ready for embarkation?” Leslie asks.
“Yes,” I reply, giving her a fake smile as I take in her outfit. Doesn't she have a mirror in her room? She's wearing tan polyester pants, a blue, striped shirt with a giant anchor in the middle and running shoes with Velcro straps. Holy fuck. As I take in her shoes, I notice that Lester is wearing a matching pair. I glance over at Shelby as she suppresses a giggle.
We crowd into the elevator behind the dork twins. Shelby stares at their backs with a bemused expression on her gorgeous face. I rest my hand on the small of her back and lean in close to her ear, inhaling the scent of her lavender shampoo. “Be nice. Not everyone is as hot as you, baby doll.”
She gazes up at me, our lips inches apart. What would happen if I kissed her? Why does it feel like we’ve never been apart? I’m horny. The result of going several months without sex. But it’s more than lust. I’ve had no desire to be with a woman since my divorce. Until now. It’s her. It’s always been her.
“We should try to snag a table for four,” Lester suggests as we make our way across the lobby. “I don’t see anyone else from our group. We must be the only early risers.”
“We’ll have to make this our thing on the ship,” Leslie says, pushing her glasses up.
I glance over at Shelby, her wide eyes matching my thoughts. They talked non-stop about ocean currents at dinner the night before, their monotone voices droning on and on with occasional snorts of laughter.
“Actually, if you guys don’t mind, I think Shelby and I are going to sit by ourselves this morning.” I say. “We have a lot of catching up to do.”
“Oh, I see,” Lester says, pressing his lips together in a straight line.
Leslie glares at her husband. “Les, they want to be alone,” she hisses under her breath.
“Oh, okay,” he says with a snorty laugh. “I thought you just didn’t want to sit with us.”
Shelby lets out a sigh of relief as the waiter takes them to a table. “Thank you. They’re nice people, but I can’t sit through another geography lesson.”
I chuckle. “Me either. But that wasn’t the only reason. I want to be alone with you. We have lots more to talk about.”
I request a private booth in the back corner. After the waiter pours our coffee, I watch Shelby add cream and sugar and take her first sip, her luscious lips leaving a trace of pink lipstick on the edge of the mug.
Fuck, she's hot. We only had sex that one time. Our last night together at Remington’s. I can recall every moment like it was yesterday. But that was a different time. She was an eighteen-year old virgin and the sex was pretty tame. I wonder what it would be like now. My cock hardens as I fantasize about her long legs wrapped around me while I push her against a wall and fuck her brains out.
“You should probably look at the menu,” she says, laughing nervously.
“I already know what I want.”
She blushes, squirming in her seat as she hides behind her menu. I smile to myself and adjust my shorts, my hard on straining to break free.
“So, what are you doing these days?” she asks after our food arrives and we begin eating.
“I’m working as a financial advisor,“ I reply, slathering jam on my toast. “I moved back to Ann Arbor after my football career ended.”
She glances up from her plate with a sympathetic smile. “I heard about your injury. That must have been difficult.”
“Career ending injuries happen all the time. That’s why you make sure you have an education and something to fall back on.”
“I guess so,” she says, biting into a piece of bacon.
“What about you, Dr.?” I grin as I watch her shovel food in her mouth. “It’s nice to see a girl with a good appetite.”
“I’m on vacation. It just means some extra time in the gym on the ship.”
“I can’t believe you’re actually an orthodontist. How did you get through ten years of school? You must have some enormous student loans.”
“Nope. I don’t have any debt.” She clears her throat, staring at her eggs as a shadow casts across her face.
“Wow. That’s impressive. I guess you made a lot from your YouTube channel.”
“Yep.”
I sense there’s more to the story, but I’m afraid to push her. I just got back in her good graces. “So, what happened to your boyfriend?” Wow. Way to not push her, dumbass. Apparently, the filter between my brain and mouth isn’t working today.
She swallows a mouthful of food and takes a drink of her coffee. I wait for her to say something but she just stares at me, her expression unreadable.
“As far as I knew, he was coming,” I say softly, carefully scrutinizing her reaction before forging ahead. “Blake just told me last week about the breakup. I’m guessing it was fairly recent since his name is on all Gretchen’s itineraries.”
“We broke up a month ago,” she says, taking a deep breath as she stares down at her plate. “I didn’t tell Gretchen right away because I thought he might change his mind and come on the trip.”
I reach across the table, taking her hand and caressing it softly. When she looks up, I see the hurt and disappointment in her eyes. “What happened?”
“I turned thirty.”
“So what? I thought Blake said he was a lot older than you?”
“He is. Thirty years older. We actually share the same birthday. He just turned sixty.”
“What? You’re too old for him or something? He wants to go find himself a little twenty-year old?”
She laughs. “No. It was an amicable breakup. Fitz is a good man. He loves me. That's why he dumped me. He didn’t want me to be tied down with an old man. Fitz thinks he knows what’s best for me. He decided that I needed to find someone my own age and settle down with a family. And open my own practice. So he gave me my wings and kicked me out of the nest, so to speak. His dental practice that I’ve been working in since I graduated, and his bed. I’m actually still living in his brownstone. It’s large enough that we can coexist there for the time being, until I decide where I want to go.”