Full Steam Ahead (Sea Swept #1) (11 page)

“I’d only get sick,” I warn him.

“We’ll deal with that later. Right now you need something in your stomach.” When I don’t move toward the pizza, he captures my gaze. “Please, Georgie.”

His eyes are green and mesmerizing.
 

“Stop calling me Georgie,” I mumble, but I’m weakening.

“Maybe I will, if you eat.”

“Really?”

“Maybe.” He’s wearing a smirk, and I know he doesn’t mean it, but I start eating. It’s his fault if he winds up with puke all over his gray suit. Jace also has a slice of pizza, which is as good as it smells, and we eat in silence until the plate is empty.

After I swallow the last bit of crust, I wipe my hands with a napkin and avoid Jace’s gaze.

Now that I have some solid food in my stomach, for however long it manages to stay there, I’m horrified by what just happened. Almost happened. What was I doing, leaning over the railing? Trying to reach the water? No wonder Jace thought …

We are inside, but close enough to the ballroom down the carpeted promenade that we can dimly hear the DJ say something about how it’s nearly midnight. He starts counting at thirty, and it feels like the ship throbs with the chanted numbers. Several thousand voices count down to one, then erupt in cheers. The guy behind the pizza counter barely looks up from his smartphone.
 

Jace picks up his water and taps the glass against mine.
 

“Here’s hoping next year will be better than the last,” he says, and takes a sip.

“It couldn’t be worse,” I mutter.

“It can always be worse.”
 

“You’re right. It probably will be.” My stomach turns as the familiar anxiety invades my mind. Every day that passes, the closer I get to my new blackmail deadline. I might be able to scrape enough money together to pay for this one, but what about the next one, and the one after that? I didn’t think it was possible, but this new year will probably be worse than the one that just ended.

Exhausted and nauseated by the thought, I fold my arms on the table. But as my stomach starts to churn in earnest, warning me that it will reject that slice of pizza, Jace touches my fingers.

“Next year will be better,” he says. “I promise.”

There is no way he can promise me that. No way he can know the darkness that lays ahead, if I can’t figure out how to keep paying up. And my family … How can it be better when it is going to get so, so much worse? But I look up into his green eyes, and for just a moment, he banishes the darkness. Maybe things will be okay, somehow.

Then fear shoots through me, reaches in and rips out the warmth, because I know better than to get my hopes up. There is no escape for me, and pretending otherwise, even for a little while, will make everything more painful later on. Jace might be looking at me in a way I thought no one would look at me again, but if he ever finds out the truth …

“Stop it,” Jace says.
 

I blink, startled. “Stop what?”
 

“Whatever you’re thinking up there.” He points at his temple. “You’re making yourself sick.”
 

“So you’re a mind reader now too?”
 

Jace ignores that. “Think about something else. Like the modern art you love so much. What’s your favorite piece?”
 

No one has asked me that before. Not my parents. Not Hunter. But the answer comes easily to me. “It’s a work by Georgia O’Keefe. It has an odd name—
Jack-in-Pulpit Abstraction No.5
—but I love it.” The print is still on my wall.
 

“Then focus on that.”
 

I throw him a doubtful look, but visualize the O’Keefe piece, recalling the lovely strokes of color and how the oil paint melded from green to purple to white and that surprisingly stroke of pink. Sooner than I’d have thought possible, my stomach is calm again.
 

“It worked,” I say in surprise. “How did you …”

“I was in elementary school and we went to a museum once, the Umlauf sculpture garden in Austin. They have all these stone and bronze sculptures, a lot of them of people. After that, whenever things got bad for me growing up, I would imagine I was one of those sculptures.”

Made of stone, so that he couldn’t get hurt? I wonder what in Jace’s past made him need the mental trick, but I can’t ask, because then I’d owe him my own explanations.
 

Silently, we listen to the celebratory cheers of the passengers at the ball.

It strikes me again that Jace probably saved my life. I want to kiss him. Or for him to kiss me. A New Year’s kiss, sweet and glittering. But he turned me down last night, and I can’t bring myself to so much as look at him.

“So what’s going on with you?” Jace finally asks.

I shrug and fiddle with a napkin. “Just … you know. Upset about the break-up.” Somewhere in the mass of people, Hunter is likely making out with Kelsey, but I realize I don’t care anymore.

“You’ve been upset for months. Way before you and Hunter broke up.”

“That’s not true.”

Jace leans toward me, forcing me to look up at him. He’s scowling. “You can’t admit that something’s not perfect, can you?” he says. “You’d pretend until the earth broke apart that you’re fine.”

“Why do you care?” I shoot back. “You wouldn’t even hook up with me last night.” As soon as I say it I feel my face flush red. Jace sits back a little.

“Georgia, I didn’t sleep with you last night because … Look, you were beyond drunk. I don’t take advantage of girls like that.”

Something inside me softens, because that was the answer I’d wanted to hear. But I can’t help remembering how after taking me to our room, he went back to the party. “So who was the lucky girl? The one you slept with instead of me.”

His brows rise. “You really do think I hop into bed with every girl who gives me the eye, don’t you?” A grin starts to play around his lips. “And does that mean you’re jealous?”

I wish I’d kept my mouth shut. “Forget it. Doesn’t matter. Can you let me out now? I want to go sleep.”

He shakes his head. “You aren’t getting out of this conversation that easily.”

“Move. Please.” But he doesn’t, just sits there grinning at me cockily. I feel steadier now, though, so I take a last sip of water, then contort myself so I slide under the table and then out around his legs.
 

Standing, I brush myself off and glance triumphantly at Jace. He makes no move to stop me, and his grin is gone.

“All right,” he says quietly. “If you want so badly to get away from me, go.”

That makes me pause, because it wasn’t
him
I wanted to get away from so much as the line of conversation. Did I hurt his feelings? Until this trip I never thought Jace cared for anything but a good time, but I’m starting to realize that there is more to him than he lets on.
 

“Thank you,” I say. “For … the pizza. And for pulling me back. I think I was … a little off-balance.”

His gaze flicks up to search mine. “In more ways than one?”

It should annoy me that Jace seems to understand. But it doesn’t. “Yeah,” I admit, and walk out of the cafe. The fastest way back to the elevators is outside—inside the promenade makes you wind your way around the casino and shops in a not-so-subtle attempt to get you to spend money—so I duck through an open door.

The night is warm and breezy, and the stars shine like gems above, and again in the water. I am glad my moment of idiotic wooziness didn’t lead to a more fatal accident, but right now I just need to sleep. If I can get to sleep soon, my stomach might not remember it hates food.

“Georgia,” I hear behind me. Jace. I mean to march onwards, but my feet slow, and I turn to find him coming toward me in the moonlight. Jace really has no right to look that good in a suit, considering how fantastic he also looks in nothing but a towel. “You forgot something,” he adds.

I frown—other than the room key and driver’s license tucked into the top of my dress, I brought nothing with me tonight, not even a clutch. Without a phone, I didn’t need one. But before I can say that, Jace reaches me. He takes my face in his hands, and I’m so surprised by how close he suddenly is that I pause.
 

Before I can ask Jace what he’s doing, he lowers his lips to mine.

Chapter 11

Georgia

Surprise and heat course through me as Jace’s mouth claims mine. Before I realize it, my arms are around his shoulders and I’m kissing him back. His hands drop to my waist, sliding over the fabric of my dress, and God, this feels so good.

It’s like the stars have swooped out of the sky to inhabit my body, because I’m filled with light and heat. It rushes from Jace into me and even the slight coolness of the breeze from the water is banished by his touch.

I’m not sure how many minutes pass by with the sky wide open above us and with Jace’s hands caressing my back through the dress, but it’s too soon when he pulls away. His gaze holds mine.
 

“What was that for?” I say breathlessly.
 

“For the New Year,” he says, one side of his mouth quirking up. “See, it’s already better than the last one, isn’t it?”

I smile. Even though none of my problems have been solved, Jace’s cocky grin is something I can’t help but respond to. Not to mention the kiss … yes, we made out yesterday, but I was drunk then. I’d figured maybe my tipsy memory had exaggerated how good his kisses were. It hadn’t.

I want more, but shyness overtakes me. Last night’s rejection still burns at the back of my mind. I don’t want to be unceremoniously dumped on my bed again. Not alone, anyway.

Somehow, Jace seems to read my thoughts because he cups my face in his hands and draws me back in for a long, slow kiss. I move against him. His breath hitches and I feel him respond, and that’s my cue to deepen the kiss, parting my mouth. His fingertips trace the line of my dress along my collarbone, and then his lips skim down my neck. The delicious sensations make me dizzy, lightheaded, but then Jace sets me a little bit away.
 

“There’s something I want to show you,” he says.
 

I almost tell him exactly what I want to show him—namely, my dress on the floor of our cabin—but I can hear my mother’s sharp voice telling me that’s not the kind of thing a lady says. So instead, I just nod and try to calm the fire racing through me.

Taking my hand, Jace leads me toward the nearest door. Soon we’re entering the atrium of the ship. It’s several stories high, and on one side a gleaming bank of elevators stab through the heart of the boat. Along the other wall, there’s a great curving fish tank, three levels tall. Couches and lounge chairs are scattered along the tank so passengers can admire the fish swimming through the turquoise waters. The area is pretty empty now, with most people off celebrating the new year. Aside from a woman curled up reading on one of the chairs, Jace and I have the view to ourselves.
 

Jace walks up to the glass and gestures to a few orange-and-white striped clownfish that have hidden themselves in a tangle of bright pink anemones.
 

“This is my favorite part of the ship,” he says.
 

“Really? I wouldn’t have pegged you as a fish guy,” I tease.

“It’s not the fish, exactly. Although they are
so adorable
,” he jokes. He looks up at a manta ray gliding like a gray angel above us, and for a minute we watch the sea life drift by, serenely gliding around and around in their insulated world.
 

“It’s really peaceful here,” I say, pressing my hand against the cool glass of the tank. “Is that what you like about it?”
 

“Yeah. I guess it reminds of how there are lives out here completely different than my own. What’s an iPhone to a fish, you know?” He gives me a sheepish glance. “It’s stupid, but that’s what I think about.”

“No, I get it. Fish don’t worry about being broke,” I say wistfully. You can’t blackmail a fish. They wouldn’t even understand the concept. It wouldn’t be so bad to be the yellow and blue angelfish over there.
 

“Exactly." Jace’s gaze follows the manta ray for a while before he turns to me. “You don’t have to tell me what’s been going on with you if you don’t want to, but do you have anyone to talk to about it? Yasmin or someone?”
 

I study the angelfish. “Sure, we talk.”
 

“Georgie.” Jace sees right through my lie. Part of me is relieved, the part of me that craves an end to all the fiction my life has become. But the other part, the part that knows I can't chance letting him see the real me, summons up an eye roll.

“I’m fine. She can’t help me, anyway.” I hadn't meant to let that last part slip out, so I duck my head and stare at clump of seaweed in the tank. I never thought I’d be envious of some fish, but I am. I wish the only thing I had to worry about was which way to swim.
 

“So you don’t talk to anyone.” His voice is much closer now, and I glance up to find him at my shoulder. His gaze pierces mine, and I feel almost like I’m naked before him. His voice, when he continues, is gentle. “I get that you’re afraid, but everyone has ugly parts of their life.”

“But they don’t have to talk about them.” I should turn away, flee this line of conversation, but my feet won’t move.

“Sometimes it helps,” Jace says. He sounds so sympathetic that for a crazy second I nearly say something I can't take back, but I manage to shake my head.
 

“Let’s talk about your ugly parts. See how you like it,” I say, going on the attack.

Jace’s shoulders tense. “What is it you want to know?” he finally says, leaning back against the fish tank. “You must’ve heard the rumors.”

Yes, I have. People say his parents are in jail. People say he leaves campus every weekend to hook up with girls at neighboring schools. Some of my sorority sisters, the snootier ones, whisper that you can still smell the trailer park on him. I’ve heard all the rumors; and until this trip, I believed them without a thought.