A Royal Christmas Cruise: Stonewall Investigations Miami Read online

  And I had liked every damn second of it. Became drunk off it. Thought it had ended way too soon.

  Maybe that’s why I followed after him. Why I interrupted him and his friends even though Shiro had never dropped anything. The lip balm I handed him had come from my pocket.

  And he had accepted it.

  “I mean, did you come here by yourself? Do you have any friends here?” Shiro asked.

  If only I could answer that honestly.

  “Not here, no.”

  Not anywhere. Luna was a friend, but it became murky when her literal job was taking care of my life. She got paid to be around me twenty-four seven. In fact, I could spot her from the corner of my vision, standing with a cup of water and a straw to her lips, sunglasses and hat on.

  Shiro looked me up and down. He crossed his arms, making them look even bigger. The buttons on his shirt pushed apart, giving me a look at his chest, letting me see the curve of muscle, the hint of a nipple.

  “Fine, let’s be friends.”

  A smile spread over my face. I switched my hat so that it wasn’t throwing a shadow over my face. I had initially freaked out over the fake-boyfriend question as images of me and Shiro holding hands flashed across my face, splattered over every newsstand and grocery store aisle. It would also hit the internet in rapid-fire time, but the Spaniards did love their magazines, and I had no doubt I’d be front-cover material for months.

  When I declined the offer, it didn’t fill me with any kind of relief. Instead, I had a major what-if moment. The exact kind of thing I was trying to avoid by breaking up with my girlfriend and taking this spontaneous trip.

  But friends? That we could definitely do. If, on the small chance there was someone who recognized me on this cruise and was the type to sell photos, then they’d have nothing except for a prince hanging out with his American friends, cruising through the Caribbean for the holidays.

  How scandalous could this possibly get?

  “So, friend,” I said with a grin, “what’s one thing I should know about you?” I wanted to get as big a rundown on him as I could before his friends returned and the charades officially began. The air, aside from having a fine ocean mist in it, was also beginning to crackle with excitement. This would be fun; I could already tell. In fact, I was willing to bet that doing anything with Shiro would be fun.

  “Well… friend. Let’s see—I’m twenty-five, I’m a Pisces, I work for a detective agency called Stonewall Investigations. I hate long walks on the beach and love to watch sunsets from places that are high up.”

  I filed away all that information. “Should a friend know that last one?”

  Shiro seemed to have caught himself. He chuckled, his cheeks flashing pink. “Your turn.”

  “I’m twenty-three. I’m a Virgo. I work with a lot of charities in my spare time. I too hate long walks on the beach, but I also hate heights. So no sunsets from the top of a mountain for me.”

  Also I’m a closeted prince running away from his life back at home.

  “Noted.” His face cracked into a smirk. “You’re not really into astrology, are you?”

  “I’m lucky I even remembered my sign. I thought you were.”

  Shiro shook his head, the two of us laughing, the sounds mixing well together. “Full disclosure: I am googling whether or not Virgos and Pisces are compatible.”

  “As friends?”

  He nodded, lips pursed. “Only as friends.” He spoke confidently, but the rosy flush at the base of his neck told me his thoughts went past the boundary of friendship. I imagined what it would feel like to trace the rose-colored flesh with my tongue.

  “So you’re a detective?” I asked, trying to stop my mind from going rogue and my cock from going rigid.

  “Yup. I’ve been working at Stonewall for three years now. Started right out of college. Got my degree in criminology and interviewed with their Miami branch. They luckily took a risk on hiring me, but I don’t think I’ve made them regret it. I’ve closed about ninety percent of the cases that come to my desk.”

  “That’s a damn good number.”

  “It is. I’m proud of it.”

  I could tell he was by the way he held his chest up when he spoke about his career. There was a glint in his eyes, too, something I didn’t often see when people brought up their jobs.

  A faint red flag flew up in my brain. If Shiro made a living by uncovering secrets, then he very well could uncover mine. Out of the thousand people on board this ship, of course I had to bump into and fall for the one keen-eyed and incredibly attractive detective.

  Except no one’s falling for anyone.

  “And you?” Shiro asked. “What kind of charities do you work with?”

  Thankfully, he didn’t dig into my “current” employment. Was he throwing me a bone? I didn’t think he’d leave that thread untouched unless he wanted to.

  “I work a lot with children,” I said, taking whatever bone Shiro gave me. “I have a therapy dog back at home. Eli. A big ol’ baby. We go in almost every weekend, if not every other weekend, and we spend time with the kids staying at the hospital. It really brightens up their day, and I feel like Eli gets a lot out of it, too. Hell, I know I do.”

  Shiro’s eyes locked with mine, his brows lifting. “What kind of dog is Eli?”

  “A golden retriever,” I said, pulling out my phone. It was an unwritten law that whenever one brings up their dog to an interested party, they must be followed up with one of the thousands of cute photos stored in their phone.

  I pulled up the most recent. A picture of me and Eli with Patreeka, a little girl who called herself Eli’s biggest stan. She had an arm thrown over Eli, her face buried in the side of his fur, his red bandana covering the top of her head. My smile matched Eli’s in the photo.

  “Oh my freaking God,” Shiro exclaimed, grabbing the phone from my hand. “Eli looks like the absolute best dog there is. Literally who the phrase ‘good boy’ was made for.” He smiled a genuine smile, one that spread to me.

  “I take it you’re a dog person?”

  “I am. I’m an animal person. Except for spiders. Or bugs. Any kind of bugs. Then I’m a ‘oh fuck no’ kind of person.”

  “Same here,” I said, taking back my phone and finding another photo of Eli. This one was of him sitting at the edge of Lake Biscay, directly behind our palace. It was a photo only of Eli, looking back with his tongue lolling out, the lake glowing orange from the light of the setting sun. I showed Shiro, eliciting another high-pitched sound.

  “Wow, you have literally the best dog ever. This looks like an ad for organic dog food and blissful retirement all rolled into one cute, fluffy package.”

  I took back my phone, laughing. Shiro’s friends joined us, Ace coming up behind Shiro and nudging him with a shoulder. I noticed his eyes lingered on me for a moment longer than normal, resurrecting the thoughts of him possibly knowing me. He was distracted by his boyfriend, who pointed out at the bay. Lou and his girlfriend, Elle—or as I secretly named her, Elvira, Mistress of the Text—went over to the railing and took a peek over the deck. I was surprised Elle managed to take her eyes off her phone screen long enough to admire the view. When we had been introduced, I wasn’t even sure if I’d get her to look up at me, her shiny black hair almost creating a curtain around her face.

  “Oh, look,” Shiro said, tapping me with an elbow and pointing up with his chin. I looked up at the ship’s towering exhaust stack, a Christmas tree painted onto the front of it, giving the illusion that we would be cruising with a twenty-foot tree on the boat. But that wasn’t what had caught Shiro’s attention. He was pointing at the white puffs of fake snow that were beginning to fall, propelled out from hidden pipes coming from behind the exhaust stack. The snow filled the air, landing on our foreheads and instantly dissolving. The ship gave a loud and prolonged blast of its horn and started to push forward.

  The momentum must have caught Shiro off guard. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to make him tip over, f
alling into my arms. I instinctively opened to catch him, his head landing square on my chest. He looked up at me, saying a soft “thanks,” his amber pools catching me as off guard as his trip.

  I wasn’t sure how long we stayed in that position. Most likely seconds, although it felt like years passed us by.

  He regained his footing. I peeled my eyes off him, scared of what I’d do if I kept looking. Scared I would be pushed into reaching out, holding him again. It had felt so natural. A flash of a moment that sealed everything for me. Made me realize exactly what I wanted.

  Who I wanted.

  “Snow in Miami,” Shiro said, speaking so he could be heard over the excited crowd and the wind now beginning to stir around us, whipping the fake snow into swirls as the cruise ship left the bay. “It’s a Christmas miracle.”

  I watched him move his hand through the air, eyes turned to the sky, smile spreading across his face, and I had to agree wholeheartedly with him.

  “It sure is.”

  6 Shiro Brooks

  The dining room had been transformed into a winter paradise. After sitting at a booth tucked inside a snow globe for close to an hour, I almost forgot we were cruising through the tropics, with the sun beaming bright on people getting tans by the pool. And our booth wasn’t the only snow globe you could sit in. They were found at all corners of the dining room, each one painted a little differently. Ours had a gold-and-blue base, and the glass that semi-surrounded us was frosted with snowflakes painted onto the sides, making it seem like we were the ornaments locked inside.

  The rest of the room had touches of the holiday season everywhere you looked. From the employees who looked like Santa’s elves with their red-and-green uniforms and droopy hats to the flat-screen TVs that were hung on a couple of different columns, each showing a different holiday film, all of them pulling from the classics. The one that faced us was playing the stop-motion Rudolph film, which happened to be one of my absolute favorites.

  “So, Shy, what happened to Mace?” The question had come from across the table, Jada smiling with her bright pink lips. “Did he get nervous about being on a ship for so long? He was always weird about the ocean.”

  I took a long sip of my Coke, trying to think of some kind of excuse. Nick must have seen me mentally flailing.

  “He got sick,” Nick answered.

  I nod, going along with the story. “He came down with something pretty nasty.”

  “Well, I should text him, then.” Jada grabbed her phone from her sunflower-yellow clutch.

  “No! Uh, I mean, he’s probably sleeping. He’s been sleeping a lot.”

  “You sure? I feel bad. We haven’t talked in months.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure,” I said.

  This was unsustainable. I was going to have to come clean. Maybe I should just say it, rip it off like a Band-Aid? “You guys…”

  I was interrupted by a loud voice, singing a beat I couldn’t recognize right away but one that rang faint bells. The dining room started to grow quiet as the singing grew louder, the original voice joined by more. And then the song started in earnest: “Deck the Halls.” I looked around and spotted the Christmas carolers. A group of eight, all different from one another, their voices harmonizing perfectly. The women wore plaid skirts that billowed around them, with deep red velvet jackets and luxurious-looking white scarves. The men wore similar outfits, swapping out the skirts of plaid slacks, the deep reds, royal blues, and emerald greens complementing each other well. They bobbed back and forth, singing and raising their hands, lifting the books they carried up to the ceiling.

  And then the music switched up, a beat beginning to play from the speakers and not the carolers. They looked around, all eight of them smiling, and they tossed their caroling books to the side. All eight of them grabbed their outfits and tore their clothes off, revealing bright beach clothes underneath. They busted out into an entire modern dance choreography to a pop version of Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas,” the crowd erupting in cheers.

  As they performed, Nick and I had gravitated closer to each other. He had to crane over me a little bit to get a good view, and so that provided some cover as to why I could practically lick the inside of his ear if I wanted to.

  I restrained myself, content with just smelling his cologne, feeling his warmth against me. I tried reminding myself that he technically said “no” to being boyfriends, so he might not have even wanted me in the first place, but… damn it, I couldn’t help myself. Especially not when his hand was now resting on my knee, hidden from sight by the large table that covered us. I glanced around my friend group real quick, seeing that everyone was absorbed with the dancers, who were moving around the dining room and interacting with people now, getting some to get up and dance.

  Nick’s hand moved, his thumb drawing circles over my bare skin, my shorts having ridden up to about midthigh. I tried controlling my breaths but could feel them start coming in more and more jagged. He squeezed gently, causing a heat to blossom from the point of contact, rising right up to my tightening balls. My thoughts drifted back to our kiss, to his tongue against mine.

  I grew harder. To the point that I started hoping none of the dancers came my way and asked to dance with me—

  Oh, fuck.

  A dancer—a tall guy with short blond hair—locked eyes with me and shimmied over to me, wearing a pair of Christmas tree board shorts. He motioned for me to get up.

  “No, that’s okay, I’m okay,” I said, Nick’s hand coming off my knee but my dick still working on a fifteen-second delay.

  “Come on!” Lou said, cheering me on from down the booth. “Do it.” His girlfriend was finally looking up from her phone, using it to take snapshots of everything happening.

  Great, there’s going to be photographic evidence of my boner.

  “Seriously, I’m a bad dancer,” I protested. The dancing caroler took my answer as final and shimmied over to the table next to us, pulling up a grandpa and getting him to twirl his hips to a cheering crowd. Meanwhile, I breathed out a sigh of silent relief.

  The show finished shortly after. My blood pressure was still through the roof, and I could feel the sweat that beaded on the nape of my neck.

  “I have to run to the bathroom,” I said, feeling more than a little flustered with how close Nick and I got under the table. I stood up. Should I have been surprised when Nick stood up right after me, saying he had to go, too? Maybe. But I wasn’t.

  I also wasn’t exactly upset about it.

  We walked through the dining room, passing around a stack of gift boxes that looked like they’d been pulled from a Dr. Seuss movie. They were all kinds of different shapes, wrapped in pastel colors with bold patterns. One item was clearly a trumpet, another a unicorn.

  The bathrooms were spared of the holiday decorations. The only touches were in the red and white tinsel that hung above the long mirror, four farm-style basin sinks sitting on top of the marble counter.

  Nick was on me in seconds. He started kissing my neck, pushing me back against the counter, his tongue flicking at my skin, his teeth barely pressing down, applying just the right amount of pressure to get me rock hard. I pushed my erection onto him, my hands gliding up and down his back, my head thrown back so I could expose more of my neck to him. A sign of pure submission. He could tear me apart, and I wanted him to. I didn’t even care that we were in a public bathroom. Anyone could have walked in, and I would have kept on going, offering a free show with prime seating.

  But he stopped. “Let’s get in a stall.”

  He grabbed my hand and started me toward the open stall.

  The thought hit me like Grandma getting hit by a herd of reindeer: Is this a mistake?

  Sure, I could follow Nick into the stall and lose myself to a man who’d walked out of my wildest and horniest fantasies, or I could take a step back and think with the head on my shoulders and not the one below them. Maybe this was right—maybe this was what we should both be doing.

&n
bsp; But not yet.

  It was my turn to stop. I wanted this in a really bad way. I wanted everything Nick had to offer and more.

  I didn’t want it here, though. Nor did I want it when we were under friendship pretenses. Those situations never worked out well. Ever. Even if the friendship started as weirdly as ours had. I had to set some kind of boundaries, some ground rules.

  “As hard as this is—” I shot a look down between us. “Clearly.” We both chuckled. “I’ve got to bring this up… Damn it, another pun. I didn’t even mean that one.”

  Nick flashed me that perfect grin before kissing me again. Freaking hell, he was making this so difficult. Here I was, literally getting exactly what I had asked Santa for, and yet I was ready to shove it right back up the chimney.

  “Ugh,” I groaned as I broke from the kiss. “Sorry, but… we’ve got to set friendship rules. This should clearly be a rule. For friendship. You know?”

  “And what’s the rule?” Nick’s hand went down, past my stomach, rubbing me over my pants and almost causing my eyes to roll backward. “That we have to do this inside of every bathroom? You know”—Nick squeezed, licking his lips—“for friendship.”

  I parted my lips, ready to succumb. All I had to do was get in the damn stall. Then Nick’s hand could be on me without the annoying clothes between us. I could have him, give myself to him. So what if this practical stranger turned out to be a rebound fling for me?

  “I can’t,” I said, the words sounding as if they came from someone else. Instead of moving away, though, I reached for him, an instinct I couldn’t quite place but one that felt loud and forceful. I hooked a thumb through a belt loop on his pants. His hand had moved off me, leaving me with a powerful need that threatened to derail my rules before I even said them out loud.

  “This has to be one of the rules,” I said. “We have to act like friends. It’ll just make things complicated if we don’t. There’s plenty of guys on this ship; I’m sure we can bump into one under a mistletoe somewhere.”