"Jail?" she repeated slowly, unsure of how to process that comment. Was she rooming with a criminal? Slipping by him, she went and sat on her bed, with him following behind her.

"I'm going to need a beer," he said, wandering over to the phone. "Hi, yes, could you have the steward bring beer up to our room ASAP. It hasn't been dropped off yet."

She never heard the response, but he hung up the phone calmly and went to take a seat beside her. "No way. You have your own bed to sit on." If he sat next to her, she might not be strong enough to not punch him or something. Turning, she faced his bed as he sat down on the edge and said, "Talk."

"Can we wait until the beer comes?"

"What do you mean jail, Logan?"

Did he have a secret life that she didn't know about? What kept a person in jail for 14 years? What stopped a person from coming back to the one they loved? "You didn't kill anyone, did you?" she asked again with bated breath. That wasn't something she could imagine him doing. He was too much of a sweetheart to have that dark of a past.

"Of course not!"

Tamara breathed a sigh of relief, her hand on her chest. After that, neither spoke again until they heard the knock at the door. They both got up simultaneously to answer, desperately wanting a beer before they continued.

Thankful to have something to do with her hands, Tamara accepted the beer from Logan. Their fingers brushed sending a delightful, but annoying tingle through her body. She fumbled with the beer, but Logan caught it before it hit the ground, handing it to her again.

"I don't remember you being Ms. Butter Fingers," he said, winking at her.

"And I don't remember you being a sneaky twerp as to worm your way into my room."

"Our room."

She didn't grace him with a response, instead she opened her beer and took a long drink, finishing half of it in one gulp.

"Impressive," he said, holding his own up in the air like a toast.

Tamara rolled her eyes. "So, you've got your beer. Now speak!"

He laughed nervously. "You are exactly as I remember, always barking orders."

"Logan," she said, her voice was deep with a hint of warning in her tone.

"Okay, okay. You remember how I used to work for my dad, right?"

"Yes, he was in pharmaceuticals, wasn't he?"

"In a manner of speaking," Logan replied, as his face flushed a bright red color. "It was a cover for him to move illegal drugs around the country."

Tamara pulled her knees up to her chest as she leaned against the head of the bed. "Well, if you helped your dad sell street drugs, you deserved to wind up in jail."

His face crumbled and his eyes pleaded with her to not accuse him yet. "Will you at least let me speak instead of jumping to bloody conclusions?"

"Go on," she muttered, trying desperately to hold back her tongue.

"I had no idea what he was doing, and to be honest, I never gave it much thought. But, I started to question his actions when delivery after delivery took me to weird rundown warehouses. People would drive inside with their dark tinted vans and take the merchandise, and wire their payment to my dad."

"Talk about mind blowing," she said, taking another sip of her beer, desperately trying to give him the benefit of the doubt. Not that he deserved it. "What did you do when you found out?"

"Well, I thought I'd try to be the sneaky one and uncover the whole thing to the police, but my dad led me into a trap. I still don't know what I did that tipped him off, but my next drop was at a sleezy bar downtown. That alone should have made me raise my eyebrows, but I was young and stupid. They told me that the person wasn't there yet and to have a drink."

She could see where this was going and her stomach knotted. "They drugged you, didn't they?"

Logan nodded as he swallowed hard, fear swirling like a storm in his eyes. "And the next thing I know, I'm being dragged out by the cops, in nothing but my boxers, for having se-sexually assaulted a 16 year old girl. I only caught a glimpse of her cowering in the corner, her shirt torn and her shorts cut to shreds."

"Damn!" She wasn't even sure she wanted to hear the rest of the story. Evidence had to be pretty compelling if he got jailed for that. She knew all that went into booking someone for a crime like that.

"Long story short, I was put in jail for four years until my dad finally got caught and confessed to everything."

Tamara whistled through her teeth, her heart pounding. She was somewhere between relieved that she hadn't been stood up and angry that all this happened 11 years ago, and he still never came back to her.

"Okay, that explains leaving me in the lurch at Dry Grad, but that doesn't explain why I was snubbed for 11 years." She picked up another pillow and chucked it at him. "11 years, Logan!"

Despite the sheepish look on his face, he snatched the pillow out of the air and returned fire, almost knocking the beer out of her hand.

"Hey, not the beer," she said, wagging her finger at him. "Never the beer!"

"By the time I got out, you were already involved with someone else and just about finished at the academy. I figured the best thing I could do for you, considering, was to stay out of the picture."

That didn't make any sense. "Who told you I was seeing someone?" Logan pulled at the collar of his shirt, as a brilliant shade of red crept up his neck. "Speak, damn it!"

"Woof!" he replied, giving her a lopsided uncertain grin. He was hiding something.

"Don't make me come over there and wrestle the answer out of you."

"I'd love to see you try."

Of course he would. She remembered their wrestling matches all too well. They always ended up tangled in some obscene position and either ended up laughing or having sex, and she wasn't sure she wanted to try that method yet.

"Just answer me, please," she said, thoroughly exhausted.

Looking at the beer in his hands, Logan cringed as he said, "Caleb."

Now she really felt like punching something. Why didn't Caleb tell her? He knew how much she had loved Logan. Hell, she had already planned their wedding before they even graduated.

Logan swung his legs over the side of the bed and came to sit down beside her. "Don't be mad at him. I told him not to say anything."

A sob welled up in the back of her throat, and she looked away from him, fighting terribly to keep her emotions under control. He had came back and left without choosing to see her. "Why? Why didn't you come to see me?"

"I wanted to, but what did I have to offer you? You were with a man who was set to be a lawyer and you were getting ready to be a cop, and I had nothing but the clothes on my back."

"That's a pathetic excuse," she snapped, scooting over to the other side of the bed."

"I was nothing, Mara. People still thought I did the deed even though I'd been acquitted. I couldn't bring that into your life, not until I knew I was worthy of you in other people's eyes."

"You don't get it, do you? I didn't and still don't care what other people think. How do you think I wound up on this damn boat?"

Logan raked a hand through his sweet blond hair, messing it up slightly, giving him a ruggedly handsome look. "I don't suppose it was time off for good behavior."

She stared at him in the eyes, like a matador staring down a bull. "I decked my supervisor."

"Yep. That's my girl!" he replied, adding a cheeky grin to his already sexy look. Heat pooled deep in her gut and all she wanted to do was hide from the growing awareness between them. He studied her intently, desire flickering in his eyes. Her heart did a double beat causing her breath to snag in her throat.

"Stop!"

"What?" he asked innocently.

"You know what!"

"Yep!"

Oh God. There was no way she could share the suite with him for two weeks and still keep her wits about her. "Yep?" she asked, unsure of what he meant.

"You still want me."

"In your dreams , dickhead."

"My dick is already dreaming of burying itself—"

Tamara smacked his face with a pillow, effectively silencing him. Before she realized it, he pulled her onto his lap face down, giving her a tap on the rear. The tingling sensation of his hand on her butt whipped its way through her body, bouncing around like a ping pong ball. Warm moisture slid between her legs, dampening her underwear.

"Hey!" she cried, struggling to get away, but he held her firmly, giving her butt another whack, slightly harder this time.

"That's for hitting me with the pillow."

"Let me go, damn it!" Obediently, he did as he was told, letting her roll off his lap. "I should be the one spanking you."

Grabbing her, he pulled her towards him and looked up at her. "Has anyone told you how sexy you are lately?"

She wanted to tell him to let her go, but as his hands dipped beneath her shirt, longing coursed through her. Tamara needed him. Wanted to remember what his hands felt like on her body and not just in her memories anymore.

"Tamara?" he asked, as his fingers slid up her shirt, brushing the sides of her breasts.

Anger gave way to lust, and she moved towards him of her own accord. She kneeled on the bed, straddling him. Her hands moved into his hair, pulling his lips to hers. And the moments their lips touched, it was like she was transported through time to when she was just 16 years old, and he'd kissed her for the first time in the middle of the hall at school, students passing on either side.

They'd lost track of time and by time they broke apart, the halls were empty and a very angry principal was barreling down the hall towards them. He took her by the hand and took off in the opposite direction and out the door, taking cover under the bleachers.

It was the one and only time she'd played hooky. And after her parents found out, she'd been grounded for a month, but it was so totally worth it. He felt her up for the first time under those same bleachers.

And, now, his lips, warm and moist, moving over hers brought her back to the present moment. He tasted the same as always with a hint of Kokanee beer. She knew that she could drink her fill of him and still be left wanting.

Grabbing his shirt, she yanked it over his head, letting her fingers run down his back, touching a smooth ridge in the process. Tamara gasped, breaking their kiss. That wasn't there before. Leaning to her side, she tried to peek around him, but he refused to let her. He quickly grabbed his shirt and slipped it on as he moved away from her.

"H-how'd you get hurt? Did that happen when they drugged you?"

Logan shook his head and stood up, embarrassment rushing through him. "Sorry, I shouldn't have pushed you into a physical relationship so quickly."

He thought he was ready to let her see all of him, but his back was ugly and no amount of surgery was ever going to correct it. They didn't treat child molesters very nicely in jail. He'd had his ass handed to him on a platter more than once. No one cared that he'd been innocent.

"You didn't push me, Logan."

"I think I'm going to go out and get a drink," he said, walking towards the door. "I'll let you go to sleep."

And with that, he left the room. It took him a few minutes to find The Emerald Lounge. He snaked his way through the shiny green tables and chairs and over to the green marble countertop bar. "Can I have a rum and coke, please." He handed the bartender his room card. A minute later he had the drink in hand and took a seat in the corner of the room.

Logan was thankful to have the ultimate drink package, which meant unending drinks for the duration of his trip. He was going to need it. He'd wanted to have sex with Tamara, fall back into their same old games, but the moment her finger touched his scar, his memories assaulted him.

It had been his second night in jail when it made the rounds that he had sexually assaulted a kid. The looks he had been given was like something out of a horror movie. Two inmates cornered him in the communal bathroom while the guards turned their backs.

And well, let's just say he came away from it naked and battered to the bone. He'd stayed in the infirmary for a week while the wounds on his back healed. The creeps somehow found a broken piece of metal and made him well acquainted with it. No one made them pay for what they did, but he was happy when he got out, and they were still behind bars. They could stay their for life for all he cared.

The memories of those days were never far away from him. He didn't think that when she saw them or felt them for the first time that he'd have trouble with it, but the moment her finger grazed it, his stomach churned and he had to stop.

She wasn't going to want him once she found out. Once she knew that he had been another man's bitch, she was going to toss him as far as she could throw him. He struggled to get his manhood back, to find himself, after he left prison. That was the biggest reason why he didn't fight when Caleb told him she was taken.

Why would she want soiled goods? Caleb had said he was being ridiculous, but Mara deserved better than him or at least deserved more from him, so he had chosen to do something about it. And that required him to go away for a while. He thought he was back in a good spot again, but his mind just proved he hadn't moved forward at all.

Lifting the glass to his lips, he took a sip of his drink and stared out the window into the darkness. It was about two in the morning now and the ship was still brimming with life. Not too many people were in the bar itself, but it was like an all-night mall in the atrium, people walking this way and that, some stumbling along while hanging onto their partners.

And then some innate feeling filled him and he found himself glancing to the northeast corner of the bar entrance and there Tamara stood in her crop top and shorts, crooking a finger his way, telling him to come.