Page 92 of Falling Overboard

“Somebody should get that girl a thirst aid kit,” Georgia stage-whispered to me. I wondered if her pun was a result of Hunter’s influence, and I also wholeheartedly agreed with her assessment.

Emilie either didn’t hear Georgia or didn’t care. She said, “Hunter, truth or dare?”

“Dare.”

I winced. Bad choice. Given her answer, she was obviously going to dare him to make out with her or something equally terrible. I was going to have to scour my retinas after. Maybe it was time to make a break for it. I didn’t know how committed he would be to following through with a dare. He might have been the kind of guy who would do whatever the other person said, or he might blow her off. I could not sit here while they kissed.

I wasn’t interested in ending my night in a French prison.

Then she did something surprising. She turned toward me and said, “I dare you to kiss Lucky.”

There was a combination of protests and cheers. I heard Pieter say, “That doesn’t count! They’re already dating!”

Hunter looked alarmed, and I wanted to say, “Yeah, the jig is up,” and make him explain. But so many other people were talking that I just pretended like I hadn’t heard.

Emilie’s expression was sharp, calculating. She’d made this dare as some kind of test. Maybe if we were awkward about it, like we were sure to be, given that we’d never done it before, it would be confirmation that we weren’t together.

Or she might have wanted to see our reactions to her demand. She obviously suspected something was up and was using this as a way to test her theory.

“Choose something else,” he said, sounding casual.

And like he thought her request was ridiculous.

Rejection, humiliation, burned me from the inside out. He told everyone we were dating and then he didn’t even want to kiss me?

None of this made any kind of sense, and now my anger was easily outweighing my lust.

“Kill the music!” Georgia suddenly called. François switched it off and she told everyone to shut up.

We all went silent and listened and there was definitely the sound of a door opening.

“The captain! Scatter!” she said, and everybody scrambled to get away. We all headed out in different directions to return to our cabins. I ran through the main salon with Hunter right behind me.

We got to our cabin and he slammed the door shut. We both leaned against it, listening, breathing hard.

I was struck with a desire to laugh until I caught sight of his expression.

And despite the fact that he’d just publicly said “No, thanks” to kissing me, he looked like he was now seriously considering it.

“Alone yacht last,” he said. He wasn’t going to charm his way out of this situation. I didn’t care how beautiful he was or how cute his puns were.

I was keenly aware of how little clothing we were wearing, how warm he was, how much skin we were both showing, and the way his chest was currently glistening from the still-evaporating water. I would not let myself get distracted by his shiny body.

Would. Not.

“Lucky.” He said my name so softly, and I told my nerve endings to stop exploding with excitement. “We didn’t get to do our dare.”

Yes, because he hadn’t wanted to and had let everyone on this ship know that he wasn’t even a tiny bit interested in me and that kissing me was the worst thing in the entire world.

“I know how much you love to follow rules, and the rules of that game say that we have to ...” His voice trailed off, his eyes moving down to my mouth.

His head moved toward mine. He was definitely going to kiss me.

Because of a game?

I deserved better than that.

And I deserved to be kissed by someone who wanted to kiss me, not by someone who felt socially obligated.

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