I certainly didn’t have a bodyguard with benefits on my Lemon Tree Cruise itinerary, but the great thing about well-thought-out plans was that they were always adaptable...
Chapter Seven
Right as Krysta finished sucking her fingers clean, Bailey crashed back into the cabana to tell us the director was calling everyone back to the ship. Which meant I couldn’t wring a promise out of Krysta that she would forget her stupid rules and let me return the orgasm favor, and then it didn’t matter anyway because a storm was rolling in, and there was no talking over the building wind.
I gave Krysta a horny puppy dog look as we went to board, but her eyes were on my legs under my short dress, her stare hot and interested. I could make out the faint imprint of her beaded nipples through her bra and top. I just needed to get her alone—somehow, immediately—but then I felt my watch buzz on my wrist, reminding me that I had twenty minutes to change for dinner and another exclusive influencer gathering after.
For once, my tightly planned schedule was a bad thing and not the singular freeing force from my existential dread.
Okay, okay.Afterdinner,afterthe exclusive gathering. I was having Krysta use my mouth like she paid for it, and then we were having a good long talk about why rules were made to be broken.
Except Krysta’s mood gradually but inexorably deteriorated throughout the evening. As the ship pulled back into open water and rocked over the waves, Krysta’s expression mirrored the sky outside: turbulent and foreboding.
And when I accidentally-on-purpose grazed my fingers against hers at the influencer party, she reared back like I’d just burned her with coals.
Her eyebrows were drawn together, her mouth white at the corners again. “I’ll be in the corner near the bathroom,” she said in a tight, terse tone and then stalked away.
I watched her go, feeling wounded. Vexed, even! I wasn’t expecting tastefully arranged sustainable flowers or anything, but surely fingering someone under their dress meant you’d graduated tonot running awayfrom them?
You know what? Fine. I didn’t have the bandwidth to deal with this right now. Krysta’s hot-and-cold act might have been sexy to someone who didn’t have a virgin cruise to devirginify, but that wasn’t the case for me. My calendar was too full for feelings! For emotional entanglements! This was why I preferred hookups from the discreet celebrity-only app I used from time to time. It kept things neat, simple, and, most importantly, locked down under ironclad NDAs. No hurt feelings, no stealing glances across the room to see if a tall person was still glaring at me. Just sex.
Maybe that was what I needed now, actually. Maybe everything that happened today was a natural response to having been too busy to make a washi tape–bordered time block for fornicating in my planner. In which case, maybe the sooner I reset to my normal routine, the better! The sooner I had sex with someone else, the sooner I could return my focus tothe plan. The sooner I could prove to myself that I didn’t care if my bodyguard went from screwing to scowling in the blink of an eye.
The prospect of making her jealous had nothing to do with how quickly I pulled out my phone and opened the app. It wouldn’t even work anyway. She’d probably feel relieved that I was being so mature about the whole cabana-sex scenario and not doing awkward postorgasm things. Like catching feelings.
Which I definitely wasn’t doing because we barely knew each other! And even if a real relationshipwerescheduled this early in the plan, Krysta wouldn’t be my type anyway. I needed someone warm and consistent and who enjoyed smiling every now and again; I needed someone who would add brand value, not a bodyguard who considered being invisible a way of life.
The app’s minimalist interface showed me that there were a handful of members aboard—mostly influencers with significant platforms. I debated with myself for a moment (influencers were messy prospects, even through the app—you could practically hear them thinking about content opportunities while you were fucking them), but then decided I owed it to myself and to Krysta to prove that I,just like her, wasn’t at all hung up by a measly little orgasm.
One of the members was here at the party, if the geolocating were to be believed, a curvy woman with deep brown skin and tight curls in a halo around her head. Her profile note said that she only did hookups with her partner, who was included in her profile picture—a petite woman with olive skin and expressive eyebrows. When I swiped on them, my phone immediately chimed.
We’d matched.
I scanned the room and found the two of them near the open-air balcony, the influencer’s partner trying and failing to take a selfie with the party in the background. Then her phone must have chimed too, because her mouth fell open and her partner giggled and kissed her shoulder.
Seeing the empty glasses on the high-top table nearby, I grabbed two flutes of champagne and glided over, making sure that I was showing off my legs in their lace-up heels to their best effect.
The influencer whose profile was on the app—Nova—tossed me a flirtatious grin. “Well, hello, there.”
“Hello back,” I said in my best purr. It was a pretty good purr, if I said so myself. Hookup sex didn’t have to be devoid of seduction! “Bubbles?”
Nova took both glasses and then handed one to her partner. “This is Elena.”
“Hi, Elena,” I said, and a dark flush stained Elena’s cheeks.
“Hello,” she said. Any shyness in her voice was undercut by the way her eyes kept dropping to my mouth.
Nova grinned and lifted her glass to me. “I was hoping we’d match when I saw you on the app. So Addison Hayes is on the prowl—and for ladies, no less?”
“Dare I ask if you’re surprised?”
“Ten years ago I would have been. But you’re not the same Addison Hayes you were then, are you?”
I beamed, delighted that the painstaking endeavor of extricating my brand from its origins had worked so well. But I also added, “I’m the same Addison Hayes as I was ten years ago. Technology has just caught up.” I waved my phone.
Elena and Nova beamed back, and I saw that we understood each other.
“So do you have to hang around the party long?” Elena asked, voice still a little on the shy side. “I know everyone is excited to see you.”
