“Oh there you are. I was just making sure everything was in order before your arrival. I’m afraid the cleaning crew hasn’t gotten to the master suite just yet, so you might want to have a talk with the captain, I’m afraid.” His voice faded away until I heard the snick of the door again.
I let out a breath and reached for the handle to open the closet door. There was no handle. I pushed on the door. No movement whatsoever.
“Fuck.”
I moved my hands all around the edges looking for any way to open the closet door from the inside.
“I will not make a joke about being stuck in the closet,” I murmured, guessing at the time. Maybe it was around five in the afternoon. We’d stayed at the club till at least 2:00 a.m. and then had come back and raided the fridge in the galley before starting the sexfest. By the time we’d finally fallen asleep, the sun had been rising. Still, I felt completely out of sorts considering I’d been keeping sailor’s hours all summer.
My stomach let out a loud grumble. I hadn’t eaten in twelve hours. Fine. At least I’d gotten up an hour ago to pee. I couldn’t imagine Prescott appreciating my urine puddled in his fancy leather deck shoes.
As my eyes adjusted to the clothes around me, I began flicking through the hanging items to select something to put on. At least when Pres realized he’d locked me in here, I could confront him with my dignity intact.
The softest shirt I came to was a T-shirt that felt like it had been washed a million times. I couldn’t read the logo on it in the dark, but I figured at least it was old enough not to be anything too special. I slipped it on, noticing the fresh scent of the laundry detergent mixed with the faint traces of a Tom Ford cologne I recognized from a tuxedo I borrowed once from my brother-in-law Augie. That was expensive shit, way too rich for my blood. But it was sexy. I wondered why I hadn’t noticed it on him the night before. He’d smelled more like rotten limes and cheap tequila.
I slid into a pair of uber-soft cotton lounge pants since they were the only thing I could find with a drawstring. At least I was comfortable. I pulled a thick bathrobe down and used it as a pillow to make myself a little nest after several bouts of banging on the door had only resulted in loud pop music being cranked up somewhere on board.
Stupid asshole. My brother was right. Older rich guys weren’t worth the trouble. I closed my eyes and wondered how long it would be before Prescott returned to his stateroom. If only I hadn’t left my phone in the shorts I’d tossed aside when I came on board, I could have at least been playing a game or catching up with my family.
Time passed like watching fresh paint peel on the side of a barn. The temperature climbed in the little space until the Tom Ford scent was intimately comingled with the Cal Wilde scent. At some point the engines began rumbling, and I reassured myself that while Prescott Resnick may have been a pompous ass, he didn’t seem like a felony kidnapper to me.
I was wrong.
“What the fuck?” I yelped when I felt the ship begin to move. The familiar sounds of the dock hands calling out and tossing ropes made it through the space under the closet door now that the music had been turned off. I banged on the door again and called out. “Hey! I’m stuck in here! Let me out!”
I racked my brain trying to remember the specs I’d read about the Sunseeker Ocean Club. If I wasn’t mistaken, the master closets were right underneath the bridge where the captain would be currently sitting if we were underway. So why the fuck couldn’t he hear me banging? Was the master suite soundproofed?
I thought back to the night before and couldn’t help but hope it was, if only so the crew didn’t lose respect for poor Prescott. He’d had a moment of begging and sobbing that hadn’t reflected well on his ability to command a ship. There’d also been an unfortunate moment where he’d wanted to role-play pirate and mate, and let’s just say the interlude had gone in a more… prisoner/warden direction.
“Fuck,” I said again for the millionth time. “Fucking asshole.”
The sex for sure hadn’t been worth it, and now it was looking less and less likely I’d even want a job working for this jackass. How could he not have realized my fucking clothes were still on board?
Suddenly, the closet door opened and an arm shot in to grab something.
“Ah!” I squawked, jerking out of the way of the claw.