DOLPHIN

"Damn it!" I mutter, chucking my pillow at what I think is the direction of the door. It makes it maybe halfway and lands with a soft thump. Pillows aren't very aerodynamic anyway. "Shut up!"

There's a brief second of blessed silence before another round of those blasted beeps starts up again. I can literally feel each one in my teeth, and I swear to God they go on forever (okay, maybe four seconds).

Finally, finally, they stop, but only to be replaced by a deep, authoritative male voice that freaking blares over the ship's intercom. While loud enough to wake the dead, the closed door muffles the words themselves, so I'm not really sure what this loudmouth is saying. In a way, he kind of sounds like the adults in the Peanuts cartoons.

"Wah… wah-wuh-wah…"

Just louder.

"Shut up! Oh, my God, shut up, you son of a whore!" I yell at the door.

Don't side-eye me. So I'm not a happy person in the morning. It's not my fault that I need a minimum of two point five cups of coffee to be even remotely polite.

When I lift my face from the mattress, the room spins for a second. My head's throbbing, too, and that's never fun to wake up to. It's no wonder that the only words I know how to say right now are unpleasant.

Plus, I really, really hate this guy because he's still talking. And I'm this close to picking up the phone and calling the ship's concierge all diva-style. I just want to ask what kind of asshole makes announcements at… I squint at the alarm clock by the bed… eight in the morning?! Aggravated, because he just keeps on going and going like that stupid Energizer bunny, I decide the best recourse is to plug my ears, hide under the covers, and sleep another two hours.

With a huff, I grab the sheet and flip to my side, stopping short when I roll into something… warm.

And hard.

And currently occupying the other half of my bed.

Intercom asshole forgotten and instantly awake, my eyes shoot wide. Right about the time my heart stops and my breath catches in my throat, a low, familiar voice, thick with sleep, mumbles, "Morning."

Have you ever ridden one of those roller coasters that slowly climbs and climbs and climbs, inching its way up to the top of some stupidly high steel mountain, where it pauses at the top, leaving you suspended in the air and utterly exposed, before it suddenly, without warning, just… falls, taking with it your lunch?

Yeah, this is… the exact same thing.

Slowly, reluctantly, not wanting to believe what my eyes are seeing, I look up a long path of beautifully carved muscle and pale peach skin, only to find Edward Cullen on his back, his hand casually resting beneath his head, and with one eye squeezed shut against the brightness of the early morning sun coming in through the open curtains.

Oh, and he's naked.

In my bed.

Fuck me.

Never mind. Wrong, wrong, wrong expletive. Hopefully not appropriate.

It takes me a moment to find my voice. Really, I only find it when Edward's lips twist up into a wicked smirk. I groan from the nearly crippling instant mortification and dread. "Shit… Did I throw up on you?"

Smooth, right?

See, over the years, I've learned to always lead potentially traumatic conversations with the most telling and most important questions, and what's better than asking the outrageously hot guy you maybe/possibly/probably slept with whether or not you defiled him with barf?

Exactly.

It can only go one of two ways from there.

That smirk turns into a full-fledged beaming grin and his eyes, if a touch tired, dance with emerald-shaded amusement. "Not that I remember," he finally says. Only after I poke him in the ribs.

"Wait, did you throw up on me?" I grimace. Cause that's only slightly better than me vomiting on him. Or not at all. I hear some people are actually into that shit. Um, gross.

Edward laughs so hard that it shakes the whole bed. "Nope." Did he seriously just pop the "p" on that? "I don't think there was any vomiting from either of us," he adds when I scowl at him. He's still laughing, though, and it reminds me.

When was it that I'd thought something about Edward laughing in bed? Oh, that's right. It was last night at dinner. Apparently, I was right about that. And how do I know this? Because clearly, I'm a floozy – Grandma's word, not mine (although it does sound a little better than saying drunken ho right?).

Buying time, I reach up to wipe the sleep from my eyes but I stop when I notice that my arms are covered in soft, white fabric. I almost groan again when I smell the lingering cologne. Really, really good cologne that I'd recognize anywhere. "Why am I wearing your shirt?"

Because apparently, everything is funny, his lips twitch. "I think it was a little chilly up top."

I'm somehow both relieved and disappointed (floozy, remember?) when I look down and see that underneath his shirt, I'm still in my blue dress. It's wrinkled and while the hem has ridden up past propriety, at least it's still there. Though, I have to admit, it's very tempting to ask why I'm his shirt instead of his jacket, but after a second of consideration, I hold my tongue on that one because I'm not sure I really want to know.

In fact, I really don't.

There's no good answer there.

But the longer I'm awake and the more we talk, the clearer things become. Sort of.

While I don't remember everything… or even most things, it's not quite as bad as I'd feared. In other words, last night isn't a complete blank slate. It's more of a fuzzy mural of sorts with a few… missing spots. Granted, they're possibly (probably) important missing spots, but yeah...

Dancing. We did a lot of that, I remember.

A lot of touching during the dancing, too.

Okay, a lot of touching, period.

And somewhere in there, I know that Edward and I both had at least a couple of those glow in the dark neon drinks.

Maybe it was more than a couple.

As an aside, holy shit, those things are lethal. They go down like Kool-Aid but hit like straight tequila. Oh, and then they proceed to make you willingly participate in bizarre, embarrassing rituals like the Conga and doing the limbo to the peppy, salsa beat of Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine.

I wince. Yeah… we did that.

Oh, and I also remember ED Alec being there at the club, still dressed in his godawful Hawaiian shirt and shorty-shorts, bobbing his head and snapping his fingers. That pretty little bastard was damned near preening when we congoed past him on our way out the door, Edward's hands, of course, firmly planted on my sashaying floozy-hips.

I frown then, because things get a little blurry after Sky Lounge…

Likely a result of all those neon drinks kicking in. Whatever.

But at some point, I know that we were on the top deck because I distinctly remember looking out across the water while sitting in one of the loungers, my back to Edward's chest. And I do remember it being a fairly choppy and a little windy (maybe a lot).

And I remember how Edward was space heater warm wrapped all around me like he was.

And I remember how solid he felt.

And how insanely good he smelled.

And how his fingers kept making these little random patterns across my forearms.

Oh, right… and his mouth.

His sinfully decadent mouth doing sinfully decadent things to mine…

The same sinfully decadent mouth I'm staring at right now. Yeah, I definitely remember that mouth. Well enough that my belly clenches just thinking about it.

Shit.

"Um, we didn't… you know, did we?" My face feels like it's on fire, but this is one of those things that even though I am (and have been for the last… fifteen-plus years) on birth control, it's just better to find out sooner rather than later, regardless of the embarrassment. Considering my lack of recent action, I'm clean, I know, but a man who looks like that?

Please, God, at least say we used a condom.

I think this question must have surprised my probable lover, though. Cause Edward makes this half-choking, half-laughing strangled kind of noise and then he coughs like he's buying time. His cheeks pinken, too, but where I look all splotchy like I've been running a marathon when I blush, he just looks cute. Like young, high school boy caught kissing his girlfriend behind the gym cute.

How someone goes from being the sexiest man alive to being cute, I don't know. You'd think he'd be one or the other, right?

"Ah… no."

My lungs deflate in instant relief/disappointment. "Do you really remember or are you just saying that?"

Something in my expression makes him laugh. "I'm sure."

Something in his expression makes me cringe. "Did we do anything stupid?"

Tapping his chin with one long finger, lips pursed in contemplation, Edward makes a show of thinking, and I can't decide if I want to kiss him or if I want to punch him for purposefully drawing out my torture. I settle for needling his ribs again until he gives me what I want.

"Fine," he laughs (more like, he giggles), twisting away from my prodding finger, which honestly makes me a little melty since most guys don't tickle well. Most guys – okay, at least jerk-face asshole – play all stoic because they think tickling isn't manly. "Okay, already!" He grabs both of my hands when I swap to a two-pronged attack. "If you don't count our Celine Dion rendition at the bow around 2., then, no, we were perfect little passengers."

Horrified, I still. "We did not!"

When he nods, smiling like the cat that ate the canary, I try to pull away, but he's having none of that and tugs me bodily onto his chest. "Don't be embarrassed. You were fine, I promise. We had fun… Or I did at least."

Edward isn't the most comfortable of mattresses, and being draped across a half-naked (correcting my earlier assumption, he's still in his dress pants) man I don't really know should bother the shit out of me, but I find that I don't care at all. Defying the laws of the universe and dating in general, it feels… natural. Comfortable even, despite the light throbbing still going on behind my eyes.

Resting my chin on his sternum, I decide to swap gears and ask, "So did you hear what that guy was saying?"

"What guy?" His forehead folds in confusion.

What?! How did he not hear that asshole? "The asshole on the intercom."

"You mean the captain?"

"Whoever he is." I roll my eyes and without thinking, run my fingertips through the same patch of wiry chest hair that I'd eyed last night. It's a shade darker than the hair on his head, but in the light, I can still tell that it's not exactly brown. I wonder if he was a straight up ginger when he was little.

I'm uncertain if it's intentional or not, but Edward mimics my exploration by curling a strand of my hair around his forefinger and lifting it up to the sunlight. "I couldn't hear it all," he says, as he turns my hair over, looking at it from a different angle. "Someone was yelling obscenities."

I pop him for that, but he just laughs at me. He does that a lot, I notice, and frankly, I don't know whether I should be flattered or offended that he finds me so damned amusing. "Seriously, what'd he say?"

"I think I caught something about that tropical storm somewhere east of us. It looks like it's turned and heading in the direction they didn't expect, which explains all the wind. Sounded like today's port is cancelled so they can try to get out of the path of the wind and waves."

Tropical storm?!

Okay, I really, really should have turned on the Weather Channel.

My nose scrunches. "Which port was that again?"

The look Edward gives me is priceless. "How do you not know this?!"

I shrug, which is actually pretty hard to do when you're draped on top of someone, and then briefly explain just how last minute this trip was for me.

I do not tell him about the phantom tarantulas. I have enough problems as is (like almost sleeping with strangers on boats, for example).

From the way Edward still eyes me, incredulous and maybe even a little affronted, I gather he's more of the planning type. You and me both, Bub. Shaking his head, but seemingly satisfied enough with my excuses, he finally answers my question, "Today was going to be St. Maarten, which is a really nice island, by the way. It's kind of a shame we're having to skip."

Remembering our dinner conversation and my mask and fins plans, I sulk a little. "Are the fish good there?"

Quick even in the morning and hungover, Edward catches my meaning immediately and this kid-like elation takes over his whole face. Okay, and he's utterly adorable, and I instantly conclude that I really, really do like that he's a little bit of a dork when it comes to all things marine life. It makes him so much more… human or attainable. Or something.

"Not the best, but not bad… There are some good spots." He pauses for a second and when he takes a deeper than usual breath, his chest rises beneath me, lifting me slightly and making me teeter. "But… how about you just wait on the snorkeling, okay? Just… let me see if I can arrange something to Andros when we hit the Bahamas. That is, if we get to go at all with this storm and all. And, of course, that's if you want to… you, know, go with me."

I have no idea where or what Andros is or even what he means, but there's some subtext in that little statement that I don't miss. It makes me beam right back. "Okay. " I try to not show just how giddy I am by glancing down and busying myself with pulling on his chest hair.

A second later, Edward's chest collapses in what I can only describe as relief, taking me right along with it. I don't know what's up with that little show of nerves, but I don't ask because men usually don't really like to talk about things like that… Even still, that the nerves were there makes my stomach do really pleasant things.

As silly as it sounds, it reminds me of those little fluttery thrills I used to get when I was in high school and talking to a cute boy. But I play it cool by redirecting the conversation, which is something I've always done well. I'm the capital A in avoidance. "So… what happens when they do this kind of thing – skipping a port, I mean?"

Now, it's Edward's turn to frown. "Usually they just plan a bunch of horrible group activities."

I frown right back. "Let me guess, Bingo?" It comes out kind of like a curse.

Still making that adorably sour face, Edward nods. "And shuffleboard down on Deck 6. Old men love that shit, you know. Shitty cigars, bottom shelf bourbon, and shuffleboard. There will probably be an extra art auction or two, as well."

"Awesome." No way to hide the sarcasm there. Or the rolling eyes. "I've always wanted a velvet painting of a martini glass."

Edward does that bed-shaking laugh of his again, but this time I'm right there with him. "Oh yeah? I'd pegged you to be the Thomas Kincaid sort. I figured you had little mauve and green cottages all over your house back home."

I fake vomit, which isn't too smart considering that my stomach is still more than a little queasy from our late night shenanigans. Edward just laughs. Again.

After a couple of minutes of making fun of the onboard art and a resulting second minor tickling/wrestling match, I reluctantly roll off of Edward's chest. Cause after all the laughing and roughhousing, I have to pee. I don't share that little detail, however. I'm a firm believer that there's something to be said about maintaining one's feminine mystique and all that.

"Pool?" he asks, as I attempt to sit up.

My head does that swimming thing, but I'm thinking that after a shower, an entire medium-sized bottle of aspirin, and maybe eighteen or twenty cups of double-shot expresso, I'll be human again. With a quick shake of my head, I look back and catch that Edward is staring at me in that intense, weird way again, and it reminds me of that very first night's dinner.

I don't get it and I feel like maybe I'm missing something very obvious and maybe even important.

But there's something new in his eyes, too, and I don't quite understand that either.

I'd swear it's apprehension? But that can't be right. Men like Edward do not get nervous.

I am a different story, however, and I'm suddenly distracted by his question and very aware of what "pool" means.

Me in a bikini for one.

Ugh.

I'm not dumb, though, because on the other hand, it also means more shirtless Edward, which is a very good thing for me. Provided, of course, that I don't fall on my face or something equally embarrassing because I'm too busy staring at him to notice where I'm walking. Which, let's be honest, could easily happen.

So, Edward's chest?

Now that I'm actually looking at it and not spread across it or battling it out for tickle captain, I decide it might as well have been carved from stone. He's, honest to God, like some textbook example of perfect male musculature – the type where I can see every single pretty little line, hill, and valley. The term six-pack is an insult. No lie, he's working a solid eight-or-more-pack, and there's also these lickable, v-shaped muscles, which probably have some complicated official name but no one knows what it is, that slant together and dip beneath his waistband like an arrow. They must be sentient, too, because they're legit screaming, "Follow me to the treasure!"

Shirtless, wet Edward definitely wins out.

"Okay," I answer a little too quickly. Well, sort of, because I'm not 100% sure if I said it or just mouthed it.

Following my lead, Edward rolls out of bed.

"So," he says, drawing out the long vowel as he shoves his hands into his pockets. The motion pushes his waistband lower on his hips, revealing another inch of that follow-me V. With wilder than normal hair, squinty eyes, and barefoot, he's deliciously rumpled, and when he notes me staring, he smirks like an evil bastard. A sexy, evil bastard that I'd kind of like to pounce on. "Are you going to give me my shirt or are you making me do the walk of shame half naked?"

Blushing (again), but laughing when his smirk morphs into a mischievous, boy-like grin, I move to pull his button-up off, but before I even have one arm out, he's already halfway out the door, calling over his shoulder. "What do you want in your coffee?"

"Um, cream?"

Nope, don't even go there.

Edward peeks around the door before pulling it shut, looking all devilish, disheveled, playful, and just unf.

"Consider it done." He winks. "Meet you upstairs in thirty."