Chapter 3

3

LEXIE

L ong Island iced tea tasted nothing like tea. That was my summation after taking just a couple of sips.

“Just how much alcohol is in this?” I asked.

We were lounging on the upper deck in a corner that was mostly deserted. Even the more popular areas of this ship were clearing out as people headed to their cabins to shower and get ready for dinner.

My phone was still zipped up in my purse, on silent, so if my friends were trying to reach me, I wouldn’t know about it until much later. There was freedom in letting them wonder where I’d gone. There was freedom in doing whatever the heck I wanted for a change.

“Four kinds of liquor.” He looked off in the distance thoughtfully and said, “There was rum, tequila, and gin. And something called white rum, but I couldn’t find that, so I just doubled the regular rum.”

“Sheesh.” I lifted the cup and sloshed it around to mix things up a little better. Finally, I began stirring it with the straw. “Is there anything but alcohol in this?”

“Sweet and sour mix,” he said. “A fuckton of it. Still, that’s a pretty strong drink. A lot more alcohol than mine has. Do you want to taste it?”

He held his drink toward me, and I eyed it. This all seemed so rebellious. I’d never tried any alcohol before, and today I was considering two separate drinks. One which apparently had every type of alcohol known to man.

“Sure,” I said.

I reached over to take the cup and my pinky finger landed solidly against his forefinger. The brief contact sent sparks shooting through me. It also made the area between my legs warm. Maybe even a little wet.

Okay, that area had been feeling that way since the first time I imagined having sex with him. It wasn’t an unfamiliar feeling. It had just never been this intense or lasted this long.

My hand shook as I lifted the cup to my face and wrapped my lips around the end of the straw. Was he thinking about what else my lips could wrap around as he watched? Did men imagine those things? Probably, when they were attracted to a woman.

But I couldn’t get my hopes up that he found me attractive. Not when there were drop-dead gorgeous women like Violet on this ship.

As the liquid hit my mouth, the taste took over my thoughts. Holy cow, that was awful. It tasted like I’d just taken a big swig of antiseptic.

I immediately shifted the cup back toward him. I tried to find words, but my throat was struggling to recover from what had just gone down it.

Austin’s chuckle told me I didn’t have to say a word. My expression said it all.

“I’m guessing you’re more into fruity drinks,” he said as I reached for the cup I’d set on the ground next to my chair.

I lifted it to show him. “This isn’t exactly sweet. Sweeter, but not sweet.”

“I’m guessing that’s not your go-to drink, though,” he said.

I took a deep breath and let it out. May as well be honest. I wanted him to see me as a woman who’d experienced life, but if he wasn’t attracted to me, what difference did it make?

“This is my first alcoholic drink,” I said. “Ever.”

Then I held it up, as though in a toast, before taking a generous sip. I was all too aware of him staring at me, though, as I fought to hold in a wince.

“You mean liquor?” he said. “You’ve had wine. Beer? Hard seltzer?”

I leaned my head back against the headrest and stared out across the ocean in front of us. “None of it,” I said. “My first taste of anything alcoholic was when I took the first sip of this drink. I grew up in a very religious household. I went to a private Christian school from kindergarten through twelfth grade. When it was time to pick a college, my parents pushed me toward Christian school, and since they were paying, that’s where I went. And that’s where I met other people—people who were a little wilder than I was. I was the only virgin in my area of the dorm.”

A cough next to me alerted me that I’d just broken some major news. Virginity wasn’t all that common among twenty-three-year-olds, I’d found, and this guy looked to be in his mid-thirties. He probably hadn’t slept with a virgin since he was one himself.

Not that he would consider sleeping with me. Why did I have to keep reminding myself that he wasn’t attracted to me?

“Virgin, you say?” he asked. “You mean the types of drink? Or actual virgin?”

“Virgin, virgin,” I said. “As in, I’ve never had sex. Most of my friends haven’t, but not all. Even in high school, I had a couple of friends who pretended to be good little Christian girls to their parents and did whatever they wanted. I guess I’m just honest to a fault.”

I looked down at my drink. The ice had done quite a bit of melting, watering it down. I just couldn’t bring myself to take more than a sip at a time. It might be tastier than what Austin had, but that wasn’t saying much.

“So you’re waiting for marriage?” he asked.

I looked over at him. Our eyes met, and I saw something there. Respect. But what if I wanted him to disrespect me in a good way? Maybe tie me up and kiss me from head to toe. Or push me up against a wall and plunge into me, filling me with his hard, thick?—

“No!” I blurted, mostly to get those thoughts out of my mind.

The word had come out loud, and Austin’s eyes widened as a result. But I swore I saw the corners of his mouth tilt upward just a little, like he was amused.

“You don’t plan to get married?” he asked.

“Not that.” I shook my head. “I don’t plan to wait until I’m married to have sex. I at least want to finish school before I get married and settle down, and that’s three years away. I’ll be twenty-six. I don’t want to wait that long.”

Now that I’d met this guy, I didn’t even want to wait until this cruise ship docked. In fact, I might not even want to wait another thirty minutes, but that was just a fantasy.

“I can help you with that right now,” he said.

He had to be joking. But when I looked over at him, the expression on his face was dead serious.

“Help me how?” I somehow managed to choke out.

It was a silly question. I knew it and he probably knew it. But I was so stunned, and I wanted to hear him say the words. I wanted to know he wanted me.

“I’ll give you whatever help you need, sweetie,” he said.

From anyone else, the term of endearment might have come across as condescending. But not from him. Coming from him, the word warmed me from the inside out. I wanted to hear him say it over and over again.

“Is it safe?” I asked.

“I have a condom in my wallet,” he said.

That wasn’t what I meant at all, but I should have been concerned about that. “No, I mean, will we be caught?”

I looked around. We were on the upper deck, and it seemed deserted, but while these chairs were tucked over into a corner, they could be spotted from across the deck.

He didn’t answer. Instead, he said, for the second time in minutes, “Come with me.”

And for the second time, I followed without question. Yeah, I already had it bad for this guy, which probably made sleeping with him a bad idea. But I couldn’t back out now. I had to know what would happen next.