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“Captain?” I asked as he started to set me down.
“Yes. I’m the Captain of this ship. And lucky for you, I stopped in to introduce myself to the guests and just happened to be by the stage when you fell.”
As my feet touched the ground, I was pulled from the intimate bubble he’d created by rescuing me from certain injury. Suddenly, I was back on the ship in a room full of spectators, and I’d just fallen off the stage in front of them.
“Alice!” Doris called as she hustled toward us with the other two widows in tow. “Are you hurt?”
My horrified gaze swept across the shocked guests, pausing on the smirking Jessica Rabbit before coming back to the widows now arriving beside me.
“Um, yes. I’m fine.” I lifted my chin. “I’m not used to such a small stage. And the ship hit a wave, I think,” I lied loudly enough I knew most of the diners could hear.
The truth was we hadn’t hit a wave, and it wasn’t the size of the stage. It was that my body had betrayed me once again, and the realization of what that meant sent a wave of anxiety through me even stronger than what I’d felt knowing I’d fallen from grace in front of all the cubs and women still staring at me.
And in front ofhim.
I looked back up at Captain Alejandro, and my knees went weak when I locked eyes with him again. And this time, my knees weren’t going weak from the arthritis settling in. Emotions I didn’t even know I possessed awakened inside me as I stood captive in his hypnotic gaze.
“I’m sorry about the extra motion that caused you to fall,” he said, his eyes holding steady on mine as he lied to protect my pride. “You’ll get your sea legs in a day or two, and you’ll have no problem kicking those legs up as high as you want. Until then, perhaps stay on the ground.”
“My sea legs. Yes,” I agreed, grateful for the extra ammo to regain my lost pride. “I didn’t take the movement of the ship into account. I’m not used to my stage tipping beneath me.”
“You sure you’re okay?” Doris passed a motherly check over me.
I waved her off. “Yes. I’m fine.”
“Cripes. Thought you were gonna break your neck on the fall, and we’d have to get you a helper monkey to feed you for the rest of your life.” Marge blew out a puff of air.
I narrowed my eyes at her. “I don’t need ahelper monkey.I am just fine, thank you very much. Captain Alejandro here broke my fall. Thank you, Alejandro.” I gave him my most alluring smile, hoping it would erase all memories of my embarrassing fall from grace.
“Always happy to help a damsel in distress.” He grinned back, tipping his chin. “It was nice to meet you, Single and Horny. I mean, Alice.”
I caught his sly smile just before he turned and walked away, and I took a moment to appreciate how his white uniform clung to his impressive physique ... especially the round ass I couldn’t tear my eyes away from. He had to be in his late fifties and yet had more sex appeal in his little finger than every twenty-something musclebound cub on the ship.
“Yum,” Sylvie whispered in my ear, noting my locked gaze. “Not exactly the young cub you’ve been hunting, but damn. He’s a fine specimen.”
As I stared at him until he disappeared from sight, I took a moment to process all the emotions he’d shaken awake inside of me. I felt like a young, excited girl again with her very first crush on the cute new boy at school. But I was no young girl, and he was no boy.
I shook my head and looked back at Sylvie with a smile. “No. He’s not a cub at all. That man is a lion.”
A lion I wanted to tame.
