chest. I moved against him but it wasn’t enough. As if sensing my frustration he flipped me onto my back and settled on top of me, his delicious weight pressing me into the bed. My hair had come loose from its messy knot and was spread across the pillow. He kissed down my neck as one of his hands combed through the thick, silky mass of loose hair at the side of my head.
“You’re so beautiful. I can’t believe you’re real. How can you be real?” he murmured against my mouth and my breath hitched.
Then there was a thud next to us like something had fallen. I barely registered it and was all set to ignore it, but Jack’s mouth wrenched away from mine to look over the side of the bed to see what it was.
“Bloody fucking hell,” he groaned then pushed up off me and bent to retrieve my diabetic kit. “What am I doing? You haven’t even taken your blood glucose yet. Jesus, I’m such a selfish shitbag, it’s like I’m fifteen again.”
Chapter 10
Real Character
Urvi
“Look, I’m sorry but this is making me feel really uncomfortable now,” I told Jack as I pushed back from the table and stood up. We’d just been served lunch for two in the main dining room by all the people I’d worked with for the last three days. It was weird. They didn’t even talk to me, well apart from Kira, who had to be the worst waitress of all time. By the time she’d spilt my soup onto my hand and knocked over my water glass I actually felt a certain level of sympathy for all the people that had complained about her earlier in the week. And she kept winking at me and then jerking her head from me to Jack as if she expected us to copulate right there on the table. To be honest, from some of the stories she’d told me before, that really wouldn’t be such an unusual a happenstance in Kira World.
“Urvi, please sit down,” he said, looking from my still-full plate to me.
I threw up my hands and huffed out a frustrated breath. “I can’t eat when the situation is so ridiculous. I can’t have these guys serve me.”
“Urvi,” he said through gritted teeth. “You’ve just taken your insulin. I’d really like you to sit and eat lunch now.”
“But –”
He stood up suddenly, grabbed his plate, then mine, and stalked out of the salon.
“What the –” I muttered as I followed him, and we wound our way down to the kitchen. Once there he nodded to the surprised staff, put both our plates up on the counter, and pulled out a stool for me.
“Happy now?” he asked. I nodded slowly, although if I was honest this seemed just as uncomfortable. There were some people sipping tea and eating sandwiches around the kitchen table who’d stopped to stare at us, clearly torn as to whether or not they should look like they were getting on with busy work since the boss was in their domain. But I knew that without the usual all-day entertaining on the boat (Jack seemed to have cancelled everything today, and all the staying guests had gone to shore) that there really wasn’t much for the staff to do.
“Listen up, guys,” Jack said to the room as he took his own stool and started eating his chicken. “I’m sorry Mr Blight was such a gigantic arsehole. Next time please feel free to complain to me, to the captain, whoever. This isn’t North Korea. We do actually need to comply with the European Working Time Directive, whatever amount we pay you. So what he was doing wasn’t even strictly legal. I’ve paired down events now for the rest of the week, but I can’t get out of tomorrow night as its been set up for months, sorry. But it’ll just be snacks and drinks, nothing fancy. Everyone’s out tonight so no guests to cook for. That work for you lot?”
There were some mumbled yeses and lots of nodding.
“Great. Well, aside from getting ready for tomorrow night feel free to do whatever the fuck you want on the boat today. And please don’t think you have to tiptoe around me. I’ll do my thing, you do yours.”
His little speech worked and the kitchen relaxed - to the extent that a ripple of laughter went through the staff when ten minutes later Kira strutted in wearing her dental floss bikini.
“Well you said we could