Dismissing them with difficulty, I crouch, extending my hand down to help him up. He grabs my hand and tries to get up but he displaces his weight, and I feel myself falling onto him. I try to throw my weight to the side, but I can’t, and I’m heavy enough to warrant the startled “oof” he makes when I land on him.
For a second we stay still. Then he starts to giggle and it’s so infectious that I join in, right up until he threads his hand in my hair and I tip my chin up to look at him.
“So pretty,” he says almost wonderingly, and for a long second that seems to stretch out like hot toffee we stare at each other. I can feel every inch of his long, hard body under me as I lie between his thighs, including what feels like a very lucky eight inches pressing against my hip. He’s hard. I inhale sharply, getting a gust of his spicy vanilla scent, and our gazes tangle and slip together.
I don’t know who moves, but in the next second our lips meet and my head reels. His lips are full and slightly dry. I can smell pot on his breath, but that’s my last thought because then our groins press together and we groan in synchrony.
His lips part, and I lose my head. Reason screams at me that this is a terrible idea and we’re in a bloody corridor, but I throw it away completely. Instead, I kiss him back, forcing his lips open and tangling my tongue with his. He seems to melt back into the carpet in surrender and I follow him, chasing his mouth and taking it again as he gives a throaty groan. Every cell in my body is beseeching me to grind on him, to strip him and put my cock inside him, because his surrender tells me everything.
I card my hands through the soft waves of his hair, holding his skull gently and directing his face so I can get as deep into his mouth as I can. I want to meld into him so totally that you couldn’t tell where he ends and I begin.
Fuck knows what would have happened, but at that moment the speaker above us crackles and reason returns to clear away the lust just enough for me to realise what I’m fucking doing. I move back, and it’s so very hard to do – like I’m pulling away from the brink – and my cock throbs painfully. Gideon tries to grab me, but I pull free and sit back on my haunches, panting and staring at him.
As my thoughts clear, I look around frantically and sag with relief to find no one taking photos of us. We’ve been lucky that there are no witnesses to the supposedly straight famous actor rolling around on the carpet in the corridor with his male nurse. I wince at the thought of the shitstorm that would create.
I scrub my hands down my face, smelling vanilla on my fingers where they dug into his skin. “Fuck!” I say. “What the fuck am I thinking? You’re my bloody patient.”
He stares up at me, his expression dazed and blind for a second. Then he sits up, pushing me off him. “Nice of you to remember.”
I sigh. “I’m so sorry,” I say earnestly. “Oliver dropped my phone in the sea, and we missed the boat.”
I stop because he’s patently not listening to me again. He gets to his feet, swaying and clinging to the wall for a second. “Is it stormy?” he says vaguely. “Why is the ship moving about like this? Can’t they get a competent captain?” I shake my head at his lord of the manor impression. “I’msohungry,” he says very loudly and plaintively. “I want something to eat now.”
I get to my feet. “Okay,” I say softly. “We’ll talk about this in the morning.” I pause. “If you remember.”
He reels into the suite, and I follow him.Do I hope he remembers it or not?I can’t make my mind up.
GIDEON
I wake up the next morning coughing, and my chest feels sore enough for me to remember doing the same in the middle of the night. I cough and cough, feeling my breath catch and my eyes stream. I try to suck in some air but I can’t get enough, and my head swims as I start to panic.Fuck!
The door bangs open, and Eli dashes in. He takes one look at me bent double and clutching at my chest, and he immediately grabs the portable oxygen tank that has sat redundantly in my room since the beginning of the cruise. Well, I hope it feels better now that it’s needed.
“Easy,” he says, his voice warm and steady, and immediately I feel calmer, the panic that fizzed inside me like lemonade, dissipating under his control of the situation. He straps the mask onto my face and props two pillows behind me, settling me back against them. “Deep breaths,” he says, his hand on my wrist feeling my pulse. His face has that inward look he gets when he does anything like this.
I breathe in slowly, feeling the tight grip on my chest gradually ease. When it’s gone and I can breathe steadily, I go to take the mask off, but his hand stops me. I swallow hard because it’s warm and firm, the fingers long and spread over mine.
He looks at me and hesitates. I open my eyes, trying to make myself look pitiful, but it doesn’t work, and I sag slightly as his face takes on a stern look that really shouldn’t make my cock as interested as it is.
“What were you thinking?” he bursts out. “You’ve had pneumonia, for God’s sake. Your lung collapsed. You were in intensive care. This trip home was supposed to be about rest and relaxation.”
I lift the mask up. “Dope is very relaxing. It’s a medical fact.”
He snaps the mask back on, and I swear he pings the elastic far harder than he should. “Gideon, you use the words ‘medical facts’ the way that some people quote the Bible. At no point in any medical research has anyone added the words, ‘And after they’ve had a collapsed lung, the patient should definitely roll a really nice fat doobie and try to eat his body weight in pizza.’”
I purse my lips and raise the mask. “Someone should commission that study.” I take one look at his cross face and realise it won’t be me doing that. I’m about to continue being flippant when I take note of the dark circles under his eyes. He’s got to be as tired as me, since he was in here with me most of the night rubbing my back and talking me down from panic.
Regret fills me suddenly, and it’s such an alien emotion that it takes me a few minutes to realise what it is. I speak before I can second-guess myself. “I’m sorry,” I say honestly. “I’m sorry you’ve had to deal with this.”
“Gideon, it’s my job. But it would be much easier if my patient wasn’t so hell-bent on self-destruction.”
“I didn’t drink, though,” I say quickly, unable to bear the disappointment in his voice.
He shakes his head. “Well done,” he says smartly, but his fingers when he removes the mask are gentle and his expression is softer, so I know he’s forgiven me. He takes my pulse again. “I’m sorry about yesterday,” he says suddenly, his eyes fixed on my wrist and his expression troubled. He looks up at me, his eyes like the depth of a clear brook. “My phone fell in the sea and Oliver missed the boat.”
“Did you have a good time?” I hold my breath waiting for his answer.
He shakes his head. “Not after I refused his offer of a hotel room that rented by the hour. It sort of soured the afternoon.”
