The Chocolate Ship: A Novel - Softcover

Monteilh, Marissa

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0060011483 ISBN 13: 9780060011482

Publisher: Avon Books, 2003

Synopsis

During a Caribbean voyage aboard an African American-owned cruise ship, Mia White and Miles Lewis test their three-year relationship during a long-overdue vacation as they encounter a colorful array of fellow travelers and crewmembers.

About this title

About the Author:

Marissa Monteilh is a former commercial actress and television news reporter. A single mother of three, she lives in Los Angeles and is currently developing projects for television and film.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

Chapter One
When First They Met
Three years ago

It had been over six months since Mia had sex. She broke up with her boyfriend of two years nearly seven months ago, but they did get together one last time after that. She did it just to see if the thrill was gone ... and it was.

Perhaps she'd lost that loving feeling because she found out he'd slept with her co-worker last summer. She knew he was eyeballing this chick with a little too much intensity at the Reebok employees' Christmas party last year. But she had no idea they would run into each other again at the mall and embark upon an affair behind Mia's back.

He was an airline pilot, so needless to say he was out of town quite often. Actually Mia's mother had hooked them up after taking a flight a few years ago. She bumrushed him after the flight once the stewardess informed her that he was single and lived in Los Angeles. She gave him Mia's number and he called that same day.

The particular week Mia had busted him with her co-worker, he was supposed to be on a flight from Los Angeles to New York. Mia went to dinner with her sister-friend Bianca at their favorite Italian restaurant in Westwood, and bam, there was the happy little couple sitting amongst their own intimate laughter just across the elegant dining room on the other side of the bar. Before Mia and Bianca could even be greeted by their regular tuxedo-clad waiter, Bianca stopped in mid-sentence and her eyes directed Mia's vision toward the skin-crawling sight. Mia dropped her eggshell cotton lap napkin onto her empty white ceramic bread plate. From the sheer strength of her emotion, she effortlessly pushed her fancy cane seat away from the table to make room for her own departure to the sound of the rounded chair legs scooting along the hard floor.

"Excuse me for a second," she told her best friend, with eyes fixed on target.

She stood tall, adjusted the stretch fabric of her skintight bluejean jumpsuit around her ba-du-ka-dunk hips and placed one foot in front of the other, hearing only her quickened heartbeat and the sound of her burgundy spiked heels clacking upon the roman tile flooring. She stopped within two inches of their table and shifted her weight onto her right leg with her hands clasped behind her.

His eyes met her waistline, and shame prevented him from looking up toward her face, but he knew either by her familiar sturdy build or the familiar scent of Escape, mixed compatibly with her chemistry, that he was busted. Her co-worker cracked a painted-on smile about as fake as a three-dollar bill as though the two simply managed to hook up because maybe he decided to interview her regarding a stewardess position, only holding hands across the table was perhaps a way of testing her mile-high people skills.

Mia looked through him from the top of his sweat-beaded, tobacco-colored bald head and said, "Take a good, close look at this plump rear end as I walk away because you're never going to get it again. Have a nice evening." She nodded to her co-worker, almost giving the girl permission to continue her tryst, and after a runway pivot, Mia switched the hell out of her size thirty-eight hips, picked up her wine-colored leather purse, and motioned for Bianca to follow her out of the door. Mia and Bianca went to a cozy, much more private Thai restaurant down the street. She asked Bianca to never mention another word about it.

After he'd placed fifty million "Oh, baby please" phone messages and in spite of her idle threat that he was never gonna get it again, Mia thought she would just lay the bomb nana on him one last time, just to give him a taste of what he'd be missing.

After Mia tossed and turned deep into the wee hours of the morning, she showed up at his apartment wearing nothing but a coal black trench coat and scarlet Charles David high heels. She stepped one foot in the door, dropped her coat to the floor, and as he pulled her inside, she let him go down on her with her back flat against the closed door. But the thought of the very tongue that was pleasing her giving pleasure to that woman turned her stomach. The idea of him inside of someone else's body brought tears to Mia's eyes. Or perhaps it was just the feeling of betrayal. So with a tear forced down her left cheek by the repeated blinking of her bloodshot eyes, she forced him to wear a glove and got it over with, him taking her from behind while she stood against the door, high heels and all, and even without an orgasm on her part. More tears continued to flow down her cheek as the palms of her sweaty hands repeatedly pressed against the wooden inlaid door in conjunction with his last-ditch effort at pump-mania. He got off like he'd never gotten off before.

"Please, Mia. I need you so much, I ... " He lost his words in his manly explosion.

Mia simply put on her coat and left.

One thing was for sure, when Mia was done with a man, she was done for good. She changed her phone number and rejected every attempt he made to contact her.

Today, Mia forced her heavy eyelids open to the unwelcome light of day peering through her maple-colored plantation shut ters. It seemed as though she had only bonded with her slumber for fifteen minutes. Actually, it had been more than nine hours. She laid still upon her canary yellow cotton bedding, flat on her back in the exact spot she'd awoken alone ...

About this edition

• Publisher: Avon Books
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0060011483
• ISBN 13: 9780060011482
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352