The Ocean Dark

10

Sometimes Tori wished she would never have to set foot on land again. Out on the ocean, the expectations of the modern world burnt off like morning mist. You took people at face value and judged them by the work they put in. What they might do on their own time — especially back on solid ground — didn’t matter a damn.

The crew of the Antoinette didn’t talk much about their lives, and that suited her just fine. Sailors were rough creatures with quick-draw emotions, but they seemed to share her desire to forget the world they’d left behind. Oh, they might have families back home, wives to make love to and children to feed, but in Tori’s experience they were all running from something. Escaping the past, and a world that didn’t love them enough.

There might be exceptions to the rule, but Tori wasn’t one of them. Like the rest, she had joined the crew of the Antoinette in search of simplicity. Out here, it didn’t matter who she’d been before, and nobody would even wonder. Without that freedom, the ability to be someone new, she doubted she would ever have been able to make the connection with Josh that she had. She liked being at sea, apart from the world.

Now they were headed home, with just a couple of stops along the way. Three years earlier she had adopted a new identity and a new name, but inside she had been the same woman, trapped in the same thought patterns. Leaving Ted had been the beginning of a change, not its completion. Trying to bury the past, to shed the skin of the woman she’d been — to whom names like bitch and whore had been the closest thing to terms of endearment — and to start over, she had gone through many phases, many cycles of hope and dejection. But with the culmination of this voyage, she believed she would finally have achieved that change. Once they were back in Miami, Tori really would be starting over. And as kind as the guys at Viscaya had been to her, and as much as she owed them, she knew that sometime soon she would have to begin one last time, in a job and a life where no one carried a gun or made their living outside the law.

That night, Tori lay on her bunk with a book propped on her chest, pillow and blanket behind her head, and her legs tangled in the bedsheet. It could get chilly in the middle of the night in the accommodations block, but the remaining heat of the day lingered so that — despite the bed itself being a sort of torture device — Tori was quite comfortable. On land she sometimes had trouble sleeping, but throughout this voyage she had slept like a baby, lulled by the hum of the ship and the rocking of the sea.

Warm and comfortable, she felt sleep coming to claim her. Several times the book began to dip in her hands, but she struggled to keep reading. Only when a knock came at the door did she realize she had nodded off. The book had slipped from her hands, closing, and she’d lost her page.

“Who is it?”

“Hey. It’s Josh.”

Tori nearly fell off the bunk extricating herself from the sheet. She dropped the book on the mattress and grabbed the shorts she’d shucked off earlier. Thongs had never been on her shopping list — too uncomfortable — but the high-cut underwear she had on didn’t leave much more to the imagination.

“Hang on!”

Her hair had been damp from the shower when she lay down and had dried wild. She picked up the worn-out black scrunchy she used to keep her hair off her face when she was washing up and pulled it all back into a ponytail.

As she flung open the door she realized she wasn’t wearing a bra — that it hung from the back of the worn and scratched ladder-back chair next to the bed — but it was too late to do anything except blush.

Josh stood in the gangway carrying a covered plate and a small carafe of purplish-pink liquid. He had showered and changed since the last time she’d seen him, rinsing off the day’s grime, and now he wore blue jeans and a loose blue cotton shirt. His sneakers had seen better days.

“Oh, crap,” he said, a sheepish look on his face, “I woke you up. I’m sorry, I didn’t think you’d be—”

“I wasn’t,” Tori said. “I was just doing some reading, actually.”

She gestured into her cabin, intending to draw his attention to the book on the bunk but likely only succeeding in pointing out the boring beige bra hanging from the chair. To his credit, Josh didn’t immediately glance at her chest to examine the aesthetic effect of her braless state. It took him an entire five seconds. He was fairly subtle about it, too.

“Oh. Cool.” He paused, shifted uncomfortably, blue eyes showing second thoughts. “Look, maybe I shouldn’t have—”

“No, it’s fine,” Tori told him. Which was when he checked out her breasts. She had a T-shirt on, but still felt curiously exposed. Most men couldn’t help a glance now and then. Women learned to put up with it or ignore it. But Tori found herself glad he was looking, and wondered how badly she was blushing.

“So, what did you want?” she asked.

Josh gave her that lopsided grin and she felt a delicious warmth spreading through her belly.

“I made something I wanted you to taste, if you don’t mind being my test subject.”

Tori stepped back to let him pass. “If it’s something you’re cooking, I’m always happy to play guinea pig.”

She debated leaving the door open, then closed it. The cabin created an immediate intimacy that couldn’t be avoided and, once again, the space between them seemed to crackle with electricity.

“I can’t believe you were cooking this late, after the day you already put in,” she said, leaning against the door as she studied him, trying to work out what, exactly, he had in mind.

Josh smiled. “I spend too much time thinking about ways to make the meals interesting. Anyone who knows how to cook and doesn’t mind a little hard work could do this job, but I want it to be fun. I want people to be surprised.”

Well, I’m surprised, she thought.

“You could cook in some swanky restaurant, Josh. The crew on this ship is probably used to eating stuff they wouldn’t serve in school cafeterias. Trust me, you’ve been surprising them since day one.”

“Sit,” he said, pointing to the chair.

Tori obeyed, glad to block his view of her bra.

“The problem is, we’re running out of surprises,” he said. “I picked up some fun spices and things when we resupplied in Brazil, but pretty much all of the stuff I brought on board is gone. Now I’m just improvising with the things that are left.”

He set the carafe of juice on the floor so he had one free hand, then took the metal cover off the plate and put it on her bed. A little steam rose from what appeared to be an omelet with chopped peppers mixed into the egg.

“I’ll have breakfast potatoes with this in the morning, a little cumin mixed in, but nothing special. Try this, though.”

“What happened to the frozen breakfast burritos?” she asked, arching an eyebrow.

“They’re a last resort, for a day I really need to sleep in, or if I’m sick and you need to make something easy,” he explained.

“What, you automatically assume I’m not any good in the kitchen?”

It was Josh’s turn to raise an eyebrow, but if his thoughts were reading any innuendo into her words, he didn’t let on.

“Eat,” he commanded.

“You’re the boss.”

He’d had a fork on the plate, so she picked it up, split the omelet down the middle, and cut off a small bite. She saw cheese of some kind, bits of asparagus, and what she thought was ham. Taking the plate from Josh, she held it on her lap as she brought the fork to her mouth.

She tasted eggs and peppers, but as she chewed, other flavors asserted themselves: sharp provolone cheese, asparagus, and sweet prosciutto. The prosciutto had its own wonderful flavor and texture, but instead of overwhelming any of the others, it seemed to enhance them.

Tori swallowed. “That’s really good.”

Encouraged, Josh raised the carafe. “I didn’t have enough hands to bring a glass but have a sip of this.”

Balancing the plate on her knees, she raised the carafe, careful not to let it spill. Just a sip, and then another, and a third small swallow.

“Strawberry and something,” she said. “It’s good. Did you add sugar?”

“Not really. It’s pomegranate juice and actual strawberries, but of course I didn’t have fresh so I had to use the frozen kind and they’re in that syrup. I drained most of it off, but the flavor is still there.”

Tori handed him back the carafe and had another forkful of the omelet. She wouldn’t have thought she was hungry, but it was really good.

“So I take it that’s a thumbs-up?” he asked.

She obliged with both thumbs. “Oh, yes. I wish you could cook for me every morning.”

His eyes sparkled with mischief. “There are an infinite number of replies to that comment, most of them suggestive and some downright crude.”

The tiny cabin felt very close again. Josh was perched on the edge of her bunk, his knee only inches from hers. Tori felt her ugly past crushing in around her, but she’d had years now to work at overcoming it, and she forced such thoughts away. For three years, she’d felt dogged by the shadow of a fate she had averted, convinced it would catch up with her eventually. But her voyage on the Antoinette had started her thinking that perhaps she had a different fate in store after all.

“I’ll bet half of them involve breakfast in bed,” she whispered.

When he leaned over to kiss her, she held her breath. The situation should have felt ridiculous, her with a plate of eggs on her lap and him still holding that carafe of juice, but nothing about it felt silly. His lips brushed hers gently, and then he kissed her more deeply, his free hand coming up to touch her cheek and neck, and she shivered.

Tori had wondered about this moment, thought that when it came the electrical charge between them would vanish. But the effect was quite the opposite. Josh cupped the back of her neck with one hand, fingers tangling in her hair, and deepened the kiss, their tongues lightly dancing.

He slid the plate from her lap and set it on the floor, then rose slightly, almost bent over her as he kissed her eyes, the line of her jaw, brushed his lips over her throat. She felt his breath hot and intimate on her neck. Tori opened her eyes wide and looked up at Josh. The lopsided grin had vanished, replaced by a look of pure desire. She had seen men hungry before, but never like this. The way he stood above her, so utterly in control, made her slide down in the chair in surrender.

But Josh had other ideas. Slowly, tracing his fingers along the bare flesh of her arms, he knelt on the floor in front of her chair. Looking up at her now, their situation reversed, he reached out and gently stroked her body through the thin cotton of her shirt. The backs of his fingers brushed across her nipples and she uttered a tiny gasp of pleasure, arching her back, as little shocks spread out from her core. With one thumb he traced circles around the nubs that were so prominent now, straining against the cotton, and with the other he reached up to caress her face.

It seemed strange not to be kissing him — not to be pressed together, eyes closed, lost in herself the way she had often been with men. It felt so open, so intensely wanton, that she was torn between wishing he would tease her like this forever and craving the finish, the gratification of his flesh.

Keeping her gaze locked with his, she reached for his belt, but Josh pushed her hand away. Now the lopsided grin returned and, for an instant, she stopped breathing entirely. He pulled her down to kiss him, and as he did, he hooked his fingers into her shorts and panties. She rose just enough for him to slide them down, and he removed them with unhurried tenderness.

When he touched the insides of her thighs, her legs fell open of their own accord and he settled on his knees between them, hands opening her farther, kissing her there, tracing every line with his tongue. And all the while he never took his eyes off hers, gazing at her, not letting her look away, even when her body began to quiver and then to tremble and then to buck against his ministrations.

“Oh, my God,” she whispered, pushing her fingers through his hair, still staring into his eyes as the first wave subsided.

Josh reached up again, but this time he pulled her down onto the floor, onto him. Tori helped him undress but made no attempt to move them to the bed. If he wanted her on the floor, that was where he would have her. The metal was cold and she felt the sway of the ship against her back, but her skin was hot and flushed. Josh stroked her hair and kissed her deeply, trembling now himself with each breath. When he slid inside her, she thrust upward to meet him halfway and wrapped her legs around him. As he moved within her, his hands on her body, his lips upon hers, Tori felt another orgasm building. And suddenly it was as if they were no longer on board the Antoinette—as though nothing remained of the world but the places where their flesh came into contact.

With her legs around him still, Josh sat back, pulling her up onto his lap, and they made love in that undulating embrace until his breath began to hitch and she saw a warning in his eyes. With a whisper, she assured him he had no need to hesitate, and then she held him as he bucked inside her.

“Wow,” she said softly, as their bodies rested against each other and she felt his heartbeat against her chest, slowing in time with her own.

“Yeah,” he whispered, brushing the hair from her face and kissing her softly.

They grinned at each other, then laughed a little, and she tensed with tremors of pleasure because he remained inside her.

“It’s about time you got the hint,” Tori said.

“Are you kidding?” Josh asked. “I’ve been struggling to keep my hands off you for weeks.”

She stared at him. “Why would you do that? Vow of chastity?”

Josh gave her a tiny shrug, causing another wonderful tremor. “You said you had a thing for bad men. I didn’t want you to think I was one of them.”

“I used to have a thing for bad men,” she said. “It’s something I’ve been working on.”

Josh arched an eyebrow. “I wish you’d been clearer about that.”

She ran her fingers across his chest, smiling up at him. “Me, too,” she said, and then she grew serious. “So, you’re a good guy, are you?”

He kissed her again, then studied her, unsmiling. “I’ve done my share of bad things. But I try.”

Barely realizing it, she had begun to slowly rotate her hips on his lap, and though he had nearly slipped out of her, she felt him stir once more.

“Good enough,” she whispered.

Tori stood and led him to her bed. The first time had been slow and powerfully sensual, her arousal completely intoxicating. Now their rhythm changed and they tore into each other with hunger and abandon, hard and fast, and in the end she screamed, and didn’t care who heard.

In the aftermath, she lay in his arms, the two of them tangled together in her sheets. It’s been too long, she thought. And then chided herself — for, in truth, it had never been like this before. It wasn’t love — Tori didn’t think she believed in love — but it was glorious.

“Do you feel that?” Josh asked, his voice sounding very far away.

Tori would have answered in the affirmative, thinking he had been referring to the intensity of what had just happened between them, but then she opened her eyes and saw his troubled expression, and knew he wasn’t talking about sex.

“We’re changing course,” she said.

But not just changing course. Usually a change in heading was so gradual it was hardly noticeable. They were turning.

“And speeding up,” Josh said. He looked in the general direction of the bridge, as though he wished he could see through all that metal. “What are they up to, in the middle of the night?”

Tori wondered as well. Was this the sort of thing she ought to be looking into as part of her job doing quality control? Under normal circumstances, she would think so. But just today Captain Rio had seemed to lose some of his irritation with her, and she hesitated to piss him off. And right now, naked and drained, she really didn’t feel like getting up.

“Maybe we’d just gotten off course somehow.”

Josh shrugged. “Maybe. Weird, though.”

“Yeah.” She thought about it a moment, then sighed. “Damn it. I should probably go up and check it out.”

“Are you sure?” he asked.

The temptation to stay and see if he had it in him to go a third round was powerful, but she knew what her bosses would expect of her. They had given her the gift of this work, this voyage, and the adventure she’d always hoped for. She owed it to them to do the job.

“Unfortunately. Anyway, you’ve gotta be in the galley before dawn, so your bed is calling. But this isn’t over.”

Josh kissed her. “Not even close.”

They dressed quickly and she made him take the plate with him. He set the juice next to her bed. “I’ll leave this in case you want some later, but don’t let it sit too long. Once it warms up, it won’t taste very good.”

She thought of several filthy retorts, but decided to save them for another night. She opened the door for him.

“I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Bright and early,” Josh agreed.

As she ushered him out, preparing to lock the door behind her, they heard someone else coming down the corridor and turned to see Dwyer heading for his quarters. The deckhands and Hank Boggs’s engine room minions all had to bunk up two to a room. But the mates, like Dwyer and Suarez, got their own space, as did Josh and Tori.

“Hey. What’s going on? Why are we in such a hurry all of a sudden?” Dwyer asked. He looked squirrelly, like a kid who’d been interrupted looking at porn on the Net.

“I should be asking you that,” Tori replied.

“I’m not on duty right now.”

“I’m headed to the bridge, if you’re curious,” she told him.

Dwyer hesitated, then gestured for her to continue. “I’ll be up in a minute. Just need to stop off at my quarters first.”

He went on, sliding past them in the narrow corridor. Something about the way he said it made Tori watch him as he went, and frown.

“What is it?” Josh asked.

She shrugged. “Nothing.”

Maybe Dwyer and Angie had had a fight. Whatever it was, something had him on edge.

Josh reached out, linked his fingers with hers for a second. “See you in the morning.”

Tori looked at him. The last thing she had expected when she had signed on for this voyage was that she might meet a cute, soft-spoken guy who would wake a passion inside her unlike anything she’d ever felt. Her legs were still weak. Up until now, they’d only been friends, working side by side, getting to know each other. What would happen next, she had no idea, but she found, for the first time in forever, that the unknown excited her. He did have an edge, a roughness that appealed to her. But whatever he might have done in his past, she knew Josh wasn’t a bad guy. She’d had her share, and no black-hearted man could make love like that.

She gave his fingers a squeeze. “It’s not breakfast in bed, but I’ll take it.”