Jack Rogan - The Ocean Dark

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.