Making a Splash

Sure enough, he’d sailed into sight on the Vesta. She might have taken a moment’s pleasure in knowing he’d kept the boat even though he’d dumped her. But he’d probably just been too busy saving the world to ditch the sailboat the second he’d ousted Alicia from his life.

Damn the man.

Still, he was hot and hard everywhere in this dream moment that would be over all too soon. She kissed his chest, her tongue darting along one flat pectoral to steal a taste of him. He was salty with sea air, just the way she remembered. Turning her cheek against him again, she absorbed his warmth, her fingers finding the silky hair at the center of his chest. She followed the path lower, savoring the way his skin tightened at her touch, his muscles twitching in response.

Greedy for more, she rubbed her breasts against him, arching into his body so she touched as much of him as she could. The friction had her heart racing. Pleasure simmered in her veins and she wondered why her brain insisted on maintaining the reality of her tank top between them in the fantasy.

Ditto Jack’s boxer shorts.

She’d slid a thigh between his at some point and she resented the presence of lightweight cotton, no matter that the fabric was soft. What she wanted throbbed behind the fly, and she had every intention of enjoying it. Enjoying him.

“Jack,” she murmured, liking the feel of his name on her tongue, loving that he felt so real.

Smoothing her fingers over his face, she encountered deep stubble that would sting her cheek if she rubbed it against him there. The strong, square line of his jaw remained as stubborn and immovable as ever, broken only by a dimple centered in his chin. For old time’s sake, she touched the depression, but the contact was too full of past emotions when she wanted only passion.

It had been so long for her. No one else compared to this man, even though she’d searched for someone to fill the void in her heart.

But right now, she could have him again.

“Alicia?” His voice warmed her ear, his lips coming alive as she undulated against him.

“Yes,” she confirmed, wanting to be the only one he thought about. There’d been a time she’d been certain she was the only woman who mattered to him. “I’m so ready,” she whispered, rocking her hips against his.

Heat blossomed between her legs and she palmed his thigh to keep the pressure of him right where she wanted it.

“Alicia.” The cold bark of his voice knifed through the dream like a pin to a balloon, deflating all that sexed-up heat.

The warm body beside hers scrambled away. Hell, he scrambled right out of the bed. She blinked in the darkness, her pulse racing as her knee fell against the empty mattress without his thigh to prop hers up. What the…

A horrible thought occurred to her.

“I’m not dreaming.” She clutched the bedspread to her aching body, straining to see in the cabin with only a sliver of moonlight coming through a porthole and a dull glow from a night-light flickering out in the hall.

She prayed she would wake up, prayed this was a fantasy turned mortifying nightmare. But as she took in Jack Murphy’s glowering expression above her, Alicia knew she didn’t have enough imagination to conjure up all the fury she saw there.

Oh, God. There must have been some mix-up… .

“What are you doing here?” He flipped on an overhead light, frying her retinas and making her all too aware of the thin pajama shorts she’d worn to bed with her tank top.

No, it was Jack’s forest-green eyes raking up and down her exposed gams that tripped a keen awareness of the limited wardrobe. Flipping the rest of the bedspread over her lower half, she sat up in the bed.

“I might ask you the same question,” she retorted, already imagining ways to strangle Keith for this. “Where is your brother?”

Not waiting for an answer, she hopped off the bed and marched past Jack, ready to duke it out with the only Murphy she’d remained friends with after the big breakup between her and Jack.

“He’s not here.” Jack halted her forward progress with one long arm, hauling her back into the bedroom. “And if he was, don’t you think you’re a little under-dressed to speak with him?”

The feel of Jack’s arm across her stomach, even through double layers of quilt, burned into her skin. Her breast brushed his forearm for the briefest moment, but the memory of that contact remained in her tingling flesh. She tightened her hold on the bedspread, wishing she could squeeze away the sensation.

His naked chest was mere inches from her in the small cabin, the berth just big enough for a bed and a space to dress. It occurred to her she’d actually kissed—licked—that chest only moments ago in her sleep. In fact, her hormones were still so ramped up that the thought of her lips on his tanned skin made her mouth run dry.

“What do you mean, he’s not here?” With the lights on and her bare feet planted on the carpeted cabin floor, she realized something was wrong—something beyond finding Jack in her bed. Peering out the nearest porthole, she couldn’t see the marina lights. Dark ocean glimmered back at her. They were out to sea. The beginnings of panic tickled the back of her neck. “Where is he?”

“You were waiting for Keith?” Jack ignored her question to ask his own.

And didn’t that help remind her why it was just as well they’d broken up? He was a man accustomed to having his own way.

“Yes, damn it.” The panic jumped higher, clogging her throat. “He’s supposed to take me to Bar Harbor and help me finalize a business plan on the way. I’m looking at a bed-and-breakfast up there—”

“Why?” Jack interrupted.

That couldn’t possibly be jealousy she heard in his voice. Frustration spiked, mingled with embarrassment, and all around made it difficult to maintain her patience.

“First tell me what happened to Keith.” She worked up a glower of her own, recalling how Jack could steam-roll her if she didn’t give as good as she got with him. “Tell me where we are and why Keith is not here.”

She’d save the questions about why Jack felt it was okay to climb into bed with her after breaking her heart and leaving town four years ago. Damn him, she was the one who deserved some answers.

“Keith knew you were on the boat.” Jack didn’t seem terribly cowed by her threatening glare, but at least he’d paused in the inquisition to take out his cell phone. Tapping some keys, he appeared to scroll through a screen. “That must have been what he texted me about.”

“Well, I still don’t understand.” She barreled past him again, determined to check their headings if Jack wouldn’t pony up any answers. “Has it occurred to you or your brother that I might have a lot riding on this trip?”

Not waiting for his answers this time, she stomped through the galley and up toward the helm, clutching the spread tight against the sea winds that swirled down the hatch.

“And did you know the Murphys aren’t the only people in the world who are passionate about their business?” she asked, on a roll now. “I never would have taken such a slow route to Bar Harbor if Keith hadn’t agreed to look over my business plan for me and give me his input on it along the way.” An awful thought occurred to her. She whirled around on the stairs to find Jack a half step behind her. “Does this have to do with some brotherly wager?”

Bets and contests of all varieties were favorite pastimes of the Murphy men. Just ask anyone who’d lived in Chatham, Massachusetts, for the last decade. After their family’s annual Thanksgiving regatta out on the open water, they returned home for their front-lawn Turkey Bowl, a contest so official there were paid refs imported from out of town. Then there was the bet Jack had once made to see how fast he could talk her into a kiss. Although that one…well, she hadn’t been all that offended at the time.

Jack’s pause was telling.

“Come back downstairs,” he insisted. “We need to talk.”

“Hmm. You forget that conversation for you consists of asking all the questions while I do all the answering. Sorry, but I’ll pass.” She had every intention of reaching Bar Harbor with a workable business plan in place before her appointment with the owner of the seaside bed-and-breakfast she’d had her eye on these last few months. With little capital to put down on the place, she wanted to have a thorough game plan mapped out for the bank. If she couldn’t nab a business loan, the inn might wind up in foreclosure.

She needed a fresh start someplace new now that Jack was back home on the Cape. She’d gotten over their breakup a long time ago. Truly, she had. But it had been easier when he was in the navy and she didn’t have to see him around town. Now that he’d started investing in` businesses around Chatham—a fact well circulated by the local rumor mill—he’d obviously be spending more time there. And while she’d like to think they could live in the same town, she wasn’t anxious to see him show up at the local clambake with some girl she’d gone to school with, or worse, some jet-set sophisticate from one of the European jaunts he’d likely go on once he was back on the Murphy Resorts payroll.

She was over him on the condition she didn’t have his future rubbed in her face. While she wouldn’t call herself a sore loser per se, she was competitive enough to prefer winning.

Darting the rest of the way up the stairs, she stepped onto the deck and headed for the helm. Night air blew over her, the temperatures out on the water decidedly cool even though the day had been gorgeous back home on the Cape. Sea breezes dotted her cheek with cool moisture, the taste of the salt spray on her lips reminding her of Jack’s skin. Ignoring the hum of residual pleasure that memory brought, she bent to check the chart plotter and the headings he’d set. Thankfully, Jack didn’t try to stop her. She didn’t think she could handle any more touching. Her body still sang with the seductive contact from earlier.

“We’re going to Bar Harbor,” Jack told her finally, since the high-tech gadgetry wasn’t giving up any obvious clues. He checked a few instruments and made an adjustment to some stray dial. “Keith and I traded boats tonight after we got into a BS argument about who had the better vessel. Dumb guy stuff.”

Alicia whirled around to face him. She wondered how he could stand the wind with no shirt on, but then, he’d practically been born on a boat. He looked like a gorgeous Poseidon with his granite wedge of shoulders and his dark brown hair blowing in the breeze. He’d pulled on a pair of trousers, which were unbuttoned at his waist, a hint of dark cotton boxers showing through the open V above the fly.

And whoa. How did her eyes end up on that southward journey? She yanked her gaze back to his tanned skin and the crinkle of tiny lines around his eyes that spoke of long days outdoors. They’d been there even when he was younger—he had a smile that lit up his whole expression, but it was one that she’d been privy to only for a single incredible year. The lines were deeper now, as if they’d been baked in by the sun from all those months on a destroyer in the Pacific.

“So if you told him you had a better boat than him, how exactly did you end up sailing his out of the marina while I was sleeping?” Keith had told her to make herself comfortable because he’d be late arriving. Had he set her up for this? Her stomach dropped at the thought that he would do something so underhanded when she’d believed they were friends.

“Hmm…” Jack scrubbed a hand over his jaw. “I might have taunted him about not knowing how to sail. I mean, will you look at this thing?” He gestured to the top-notch equipment at the helm. The tiny hot tub built into the foredeck. “How does this floating house party bear any resemblance to boating as we know it?”

For a moment, the “we” sucked her in, included her in that exclusive little club of insiders that Jack respected. His list had always been short, his high standards tough for most mortals to meet. When she had been among the people Jack trusted, the feeling had been awfully damn good for a girl who’d grown up without the mother who’d left long ago, and with a father more committed to his job than his kids. Jack Murphy had once seemed like Prince Charming, there to save the day.

Not anymore.

“So you didn’t want to take his party cruiser, but you were so dead set on forcing him to sail a real man’s boat that you swapped vessels.” She was starting to form a picture now. She could almost hear the conversation at Ryan’s party. “And what do you think Keith’s motive was for taking you up on the trade when he knew damn well I would be on board?”

A gust of wind blew the bedspread open around her legs, the fabric lifting clear up to her hip. She battled it back down, stuffing the excess fabric between her knees to pin it in place.

She thought she spied a flash of male appreciation in Jack’s eyes before he recovered the glower that now seemed to be his trademark expression around her.

“I can’t imagine what he was thinking, but you can bet I’m going to find out.” He waved his phone again.

“If you even get a cell signal out here.” She sighed. “Look, why don’t we just tuck into land wherever we are and I’ll catch a bus to Bar Harbor. No harm, no foul.”

She moved back toward the hatch to return downstairs and dress. She didn’t need this kind of garbage in her life. Whatever Keith had in mind by throwing her together with Jack tonight, it wasn’t going to work. Any chance of making peace between them had ended when he’d signed up for the navy the second he’d finished telling her they were through.

It’d been the ultimate kiss-off. Not only had he dumped her, he’d hot-footed it to the other side of the globe and sold himself to Uncle Sam in the process, just to make damn sure she knew how serious he was about getting away from her.

Or at least, that’s how it had seemed. And he’d never disabused her of the notion, keeping his explanations to a bare minimum in a way that had hurt like hell.

“No.” Jack’s arms were around her, stopping her.

It didn’t make sense, because she could see how much of a hardship it was for him to be near her. To touch her. Most guys would have at least let her dream on in her aroused state when they’d been in bed together, but Mr. Noble and Upstanding had been too honorable to cop an extra ten-second feel, bolting out of bed as if she was a pariah.

So why did he have his arms around her now?

“Excuse me?” Her hair whipped about her face in a crosswind and she had to push it aside so she could see him.

“I will take you to Bar Harbor.” His hands warmed her right through the quilt fabric. The rest of her remained chilled, while two perfect imprints of his palms flared hot on her forearms. “I have to go there anyhow to drop off the boat for Keith’s colleague.”

“That doesn’t mean we ought to travel together.” How could she survive being penned up on a boat with her controlling, I-know-best ex-boyfriend? Not in this lifetime. “In fact, that’s the worst idea I’ve ever heard.”

He turned her out of the wind, taking most of it on his back and shielding her from the light spray the gusts kicked up. He was protective like that. Always had been. Some would call that thoughtful. But there came a point where a woman didn’t want to be wound up in bubble wrap for safekeeping, and somehow Jack had never understood that about her. He’d told her she shouldn’t wait for him while he was in the navy, since it would be too much to expect of her.

Another way he’d cut her to the core.

“You didn’t think it was such a bad idea ten minutes ago when we were in bed together.”

She’d need a crowbar to pry her jaw off the deck.

“You did not just say that to me,” she managed to reply finally, her throat cracking on a dry note at the reminder of how she’d been drawn to him like a magnet. “I was asleep. Are you going to hold it against me that I was having some anonymous sexy dream?”

“It was hardly anonymous. You said my name.”

“Did I?” She vaguely recalled this. “I wouldn’t know what I said or did because I was sleeping.”

“Would you like me to remind you?” His hands shifted ever so subtly on her arms, the play of his fingers up her shoulders taking the touch from gentle restraint to…Sensual? Romantic?

She didn’t know how to define it—the last time she’d checked, Jack Murphy had told her to have a nice life, since they clearly weren’t meant for each other. The news had come after their umpteenth argument about how to make a relationship work while she was still in college and he was globe-trotting for his father’s company. He’d ditched her and the family job in one swoop, encouraging her to date guys her own age since he was “tying her down,” preventing her from having a real college experience.

“You. Wouldn’t. Dare.” She knew him well enough to know he would never use her attraction against her. He was all about protectiveness. Doing what was best for her even when she’d hated it.

As his eyes narrowed, a dangerous light glittered in their depths. Too late she realized she’d just issued a challenge to a man who’d never known how to walk away from one.

2

HE WOULDN’T DARE?

Jack suspected she didn’t have any idea what he would dare when it came to her.

Alicia LeBlanc had transformed from a sweet college coed in need of a date for her fall formal, to a sexual dynamo with an attitude.

He didn’t know what to make of this woman who bore little resemblance to the studious business major she’d once been, or even the hardworking swimmer and sorority girl he remembered from before he’d joined the navy. But he didn’t feel the same limits with her as he had four years ago, that was for damn certain.

She’d grown even more beautiful, her athletic body still trim and lean but the curves subtly more voluptuous. Long blond waves fell around her shoulders. She wasn’t as tall as most swimmers, but she had a can’t-miss presence when she walked into a room. A throaty laugh you could hear across a crowded party. The abundance of freckles across her nose reminded him that as an avid diver and surfer, she loved the outdoors as much as he did. She’d started giving lessons in a variety of water sports during her senior year of college and had grown the business to include equipment rentals and a couple of employees.

Hell, she’d been game for any sport he’d ever wanted to play, and that was saying something. Most guys he knew couldn’t handle the mega-competitive weekend reunions at the Murphy household, but Alicia hadn’t just sat on the sidelines flipping burgers. She’d tried her hand as starting pitcher when they’d played stickball, and got prickly when her receivers hadn’t run the routes she’d dictated when they’d let her quarterback a team in the Turkey Bowl. She had a natural competitiveness that made her fit right in with his family.

If she hadn’t been so damn young—or maybe if she hadn’t been every bit as strong-willed as him—they might have gotten somewhere. But both those things had tripped them up and he hadn’t thought it would be fair to maintain the relationship when he’d made the decision to take a navy contract after…well, when the call to serve had become undeniably personal.

He hadn’t been at liberty to discuss the way the war had hit close to home back then. Couldn’t let her in on why he’d needed to sign that contract so badly. And the secrecy had cost them both.

He’d heard she’d dated half his high-school graduating class since then—okay, two other guys that he knew about. But she’d dated with enough of a vengeance that she’d shown him she didn’t care about the breakup.

It’d stung when he’d gotten the news on his first stint overseas, back when he’d been sitting on a ship in the Gulf of Oman.

“I’m going to give you fair warning, Alicia.” He kept his hands on her, ill prepared to deal with the riptide effect of being alone with her for the first time in four years. He was too exhausted—and too turned on from finding himself in bed with her. “Because even though I play to win, I believe in a level playing field.”

“How generous of you.” The soft words held plenty of sarcasm, but she didn’t move a muscle, her body perfectly still under his hands.

“I would dare a lot when it comes to you.” Because he’d never forgotten about her. Because she’d moved on with an ease that had rankled long afterward. “So if you won’t admit you felt something for me in the cabin earlier, I’m not going to think twice about proving what a lie that is.”

“Okay, so I felt something, damn it,” she snapped, leaning forward to get in his face. “Satisfied?”

Her gutsiness had always made her irresistible. And he had no reason to hold back now. She’d sparked a flame inside him and he couldn’t think of any reason not to follow it to its natural conclusion. Maybe this time it would burn itself out, since trying to shut it down four years ago had backfired. He’d thought about her more than any other woman he’d ever been with, probably because he’d stomped out the relationship too soon.

They might not have personalities that meshed for the long term. But they sure as hell had chemistry that would light things up in the here and now.

Damn it, they needed to find out what was between them once and for all.

“No. Admit it was for me. You were dreaming about me. You said my name.”

She pursed her lips. Brown eyes narrowed. Everything about her posture told him she would argue this all night. So he opted for a preemptive strike. Winding one arm around her waist and one around her back, he drew her to him. Her hands still clutched the blanket to her neck, so he pinned them between his chest and hers. Captive.

Her eyes went wide in the reflected glow of the running lights. Surprised. He could feel the rapid tattoo of her heartbeat against his chest. And he had no qualms about fitting his mouth to hers and tasting her lips.

The flavor of her damn near took out his knees. Familiar and foreign all at once, her mouth followed his. Part of him couldn’t believe she was here, in his arms, allowing him to touch her and kiss her. But they’d always been good together physically. And even though he’d been dead to the world when he’d fallen into that berth earlier, he could have sworn she’d been aware it was him she was touching.

He hadn’t been positive she’d said his name at all, half afraid he’d dreamed up all that heat radiating from her when she’d rubbed her thigh against his. Licked him. But now, feeling her mouth come alive under his, he knew he’d been right. The spark between them was still there.

Without warning, she broke the kiss and stepped back. Ocean air blew between them, cooling his hot skin and stirring the blanket she gripped around her as if it were a life vest.

“Uncle.” One hand lifted to her mouth, as if to stroke away his kiss. Or to preserve the feel of it? “Okay? You win. I must have known on some level it was you in bed because I thought I was dreaming about you. But you have to believe that I never would have started coming on to you if I’d been awake. It’s been four years and a lot of water under the bridge.”

He did not want to think about the water under the bridge. The other guys she’d dated. The feelings for her that had run deep even after they broke up. He rerouted his thoughts with an effort.

“Subconsciously, you still want me.” Personally, he thought the desire was pretty obvious on the surface, too, or she wouldn’t have returned his kiss just now. But he recalled she had pride as fierce as his own, and he didn’t think pushing any harder right now would be wise.

“Or maybe I have a selective memory when I’m sleeping, and I can choose to remember your positive attributes instead of that famous Murphy arrogance.” She tucked into the stairwell. “I’m going below. It’s freezing up here.”

Funny. He’d been plenty warm until she’d walked away. After one more quick glance to check the horizon for traffic, Jack followed her down into the galley. She slid into a seat at the built-in table near the bag of supplies he’d picked up on his way to the marina.