[Standard Disclaimer: All of my stories, including this one, are purely works of fiction, and any similarities to real world persons or events are purely coincidental. All characters involved in any sexual content are 18 years of age or older at the time such content occurs.]
For as long as I can remember, my little sister, Nikki, was always scared. When she was little she was scared of thunder, running to my room, and snuggling against me for protection. I moved out of our parents' house when I was twenty-two, but only for four years. After I moved back in for financial reasons, my now eighteen-year-old sister resumed her habit of sleeping in my bed during thunderstorms. However, we soon became sexually involved with each other, giving into our desires, ending up making love. We finally admitted that we were in love with each other, and Nikki admitted she'd stopped being afraid of thunder a long time ago. However, our parents split up soon afterwards, forcing us apart once more. With Nikki living with our mom, and me living in my own apartment nearby, we only got to spend appropriate sibling time together, going on a few dates every now and then, but never got to spend the night together.
That was, until the next year, just after Nikki finished her first year of college, when she and I went on a camping trip with our cousins, Morgan, Max, and Michelle. Neither of us had been camping before, and the first night there we found out Nikki was afraid of the forest after dark. Rather than sleep in individual tents like we'd planned, I spent the night in Nikki's tent, so she wouldn't be as scared, and we ended up making love once again. Despite trying to be quiet the first night, during the second night we discovered that not only had our cousins heard us, but that Max and Michelle, who were siblings, had also been having sex, not only with each other, but also with Morgan. With Nikki's approval, Morgan joined us in our tent and I fucked Nikki while she ate out Morgan.
The next morning, Morgan explained that she was glad she and Nikki had been able to share the experience, even if it ended up being a one-time thing, having decided to get a flower tattoo to commemorate the event, as was her tradition when sharing "first time" experiences with someone, and this was Nikki's first time doing anything sexual with a girl. As it turned out, our cousins' relationship was only as friends (or in their case, relatives) with benefits. However, after seeing how in love Nikki and I were, the three seemed to grow closer, being more affectionate by the end of the camping trip. Nikki told them she really didn't want to go camping again, but wasn't opposed to spending more time with them. We ended up planning a trip to a mountain cabin for Christmas, which was over half a year away.
Despite being okay with our shared experience with our cousins, Nikki decided she didn't want to spend another night in the woods, so she and I left that afternoon, and ended up getting a hotel room, where we made love like the lovers we were, rather than pretending to be siblings who had to hide that they were in love. On the way home the next morning, Nikki and I floated the idea of going on a cruise later that year.
After dropping Nikki off at our mom's house, and returning to my own apartment, I began to look into affordable cruises, scheduling one for us for the last week of September. We spent the next few months back In our old routine of having lunch or dinner a couple times a week, just siblings getting along, and going to the movies every few weeks. When the time for our cruise finally arrived, Nikki was so excited. We were going to have an entire week together where nobody knew we were siblings, and we didn't have to pretend anymore. Little did we know that the events of the week-long vacation would change the course of our lives... forever...
*
"Nate! I can't believe we're actually doing this!" Nikki beamed excitedly.
We were sitting in the waiting area of the dock outside our cruise liner, awaiting the signal to begin boarding. We'd been planning this trip for months, and Nikki took off a week of school in order to be able to come. She'd worked her butt off the last two weeks, having convinced her professors to allow her to do her coursework early so she wouldn't be behind when she got back from our vacation.
"I know," I hugged her tightly, and nobody invited themselves to come along this time."
Nikki laughed, "That's because we didn't tell anyone until last month. You should have seen Mom's face when I told her you were taking me on a cruise. She started complaining that, 'I always wanted to go on a cruise, but
your father
would never spend that kind if money on
me
.'"
I laughed at her mocking impression of our mom's complaining, "She always complains about stuff Dad never did with her, doesn't she."
"Mhmm," Nikki smiled, "I'm lucky that
my boyfriend
is so wonderful, I never have any complaints about
him
."
She leaned over onto my shoulder. She giggled as I gently kissed the top of her head.
We sat there waiting for another thirty minutes until boarding started. By one o'clock we were on board the ship, our luggage being delivered to our cabin, enjoying the nice ocean breeze. We had dressed casually for boarding, since we wouldn't really be doing much until we unpacked our stuff. Nikki was wearing a yellow T-shirt with sleeves that barely covered her shoulders, and a white knee-length skirt with yellow flowers on it. I was wearing a simple white, button down short sleeve T-shirt, and a pair of black pants.
"Thank you for doing this with me," Nikki swooned as we walked to the ship's buffet restaurant, the
Windjammer Café
.
"Your welcome, love," I squeezed her hand, which she had been holding the whole time since we boarded, "but you know I'd do anything for you. "
She blushed, "I know."
Our cabin wouldn't be ready for a little while, so we had decided to check out the food options. Nikki's eyes widened as she saw all the food.
"And this is all free?!" she exclaimed.
"Apparently, " I replied, looking over all the tasty looking food.
After browsing the selections, Nikki and I got a small plate of food and sat down at a table.
"I keep waiting for something to go wrong," Nikki admitted, "we've had such a difficult time getting away together that I'm afraid we may never truly be able to be together."
I placed my hand on hers gently, "We're together, now," I squeezed her hand, "And I'm not going anywhere without you."
She smiled, blushing, "I know. It's just..."
"Shhhhh," I put a finger up to her lips, "Nicole, it's okay. I know your first instinct is to expect the worst. But today... this week... is all about
us
."
She grabbed my hand gently, kissing the back of it, a tear in her eye, "You called me 'Nicole'..."
Ever since we'd been intimate, and admitted our feelings for each other, my sister and I had had to keep to the pretext that we where just normal siblings, hiding the fact that we were in love. After our camping trip earlier that year, we had spent a night in a hotel, and while we were there, we dropped the pretext that we were just Nate and Nikki, siblings hiding their feelings, and we could truly be ourselves: Nathan and Nicole, the lovers who cared about each other more than anything else.