by Joanne Rock
He waved for her to join him at the helm, obviously wanting to stick close to the controls until they were out of the more popular boating lanes.
“I remember you said the same thing about buying the Vesta.” He’d purchased it on eBay for a song, and spent a summer restoring it. He’d been working on it before they started dating, but he hadn’t finished it—and christened it—until after they were an item.
Those hot August days when she’d come over to the house to hang out with Kyle and his friends were etched in her brain with visions of Jack hand-sanding the hull of the sailboat. She remembered tanned, glistening muscles sprinkled with a sheen of sawdust.
And she’d been dying for him to notice her.
“Right.” He slid into the captain’s chair as he gave a nod to a guy on an aluminum fishing trawler. “I didn’t want the big-ass boat my dad had his eye on for me. I wanted something proven seaworthy. A classic. And I wanted to buy it myself.”
“You also bought it from a guy who was going to lose his house and needed to sell off everything.” She hadn’t thought about that for a long time, but it fit with the way Jack moved through his life—always helping out someone else. “Kind of like how you’re investing in all these run-down bars? Are those club owners struggling, too?”
She twisted her damp hair into a knot on top of her head. Finding a lone golf tee rolling around in a tray of loose change near the windshield, she threaded the wooden object into the knot to hold it in place.
“I’m hardly the benefactor of bar owners. I just happen to like live music, and if those places go under, we’ll have a lot fewer venues for cultivating new talent.”
“A philanthropist with a taste for the blues.” She shook her head, laughing at the image of him paying the bars to stay open so his favorite bands could play. “Seriously, Jack, if you’re not going into the bar business and you’re not working for your dad, what’s next for you now that you’re done floating around the Pacific?”
“You really want to know?”
“Yes.”
“And I really want to know why you feel the need to move three states away to start a business.”
Alicia frowned. She didn’t have any intention of defending the move to Bar Harbor again. Besides, how could she tell him she couldn’t bear to watch The One Who Got Away move on with the next girl? She hated to admit it to herself, let alone speak it out loud.
“Since I don’t want to talk and neither do you, what do you say we play a game of poker for the answers?” He pulled out a deck of cards from the same change tray where she’d found the golf tee. “Loser has to answer the question of the winner’s choosing.”
Damn it. He knew she couldn’t resist a challenge any more than he could.
“Since when are we counting poker as a legitimate form of competition?”
“Would you rather arm wrestle?” He flexed a biceps to emphasize his obvious advantage in that arena.
A suggestion that ticked her off even though the sight of his arms made her salivate most of the time.
“How about we fish for it?”
He scrubbed a hand along his jaw, considering. “Whoever catches the biggest fish gets to ask their question.”
“Loser has to answer and cook the fish,” she clarified, already seeing him at the on-board grill in her mind’s eye.
“Deal. Care to up the stakes?” Something about the mischievous wriggle of his eyebrows warned her that whatever he had in mind would be trouble.
It didn’t mean she could say no.
“Name your terms, Murphy.”
“Winner claims a sexual favor.” His green eyes seared her as his gaze locked on her, and she had the distinct impression he already had something specific in mind.
Something he was visualizing right this moment.
A heat wave flashed along her skin. Her heart rate quadrupled. She had to lick her lips to edge words from a throat gone dry.
“You have yourself a deal.”
7
HER COMPETITIVE NATURE had blinded her to the truth—she’d never been much of a fisher.
In a bid to grab her father’s attention at an early age, she’d always been the first to volunteer and the first to line up for a competition. She’d hoped a win would snag her dad’s notice. It hadn’t, of course. But she’d found a lot of other satisfaction in ambition. That’s how she’d discovered her talent for swimming.
Unfortunately, her race to enter a fishing contest with Jack didn’t seem destined to end favorably. Especially not when he got a second bite on his line within a few minutes.
“What is that?” she yelped, jumping to her feet as his reel went spinning about a hundred miles an hour, his line yanked tight.
“Something big. Crap.” He scrambled to find leverage. “There’s no harness for stand-up fishing.”
“Put the rod in the holder!” She pointed to the gizmo he’d showed her that secured the rod to the boat when wrestling a big catch.
Before he could, the reel stopped spinning as the line ran out. His arms were yanked forward, pitching his whole body off balance. She screamed as Jack skidded toward the edge of the deck, still holding the fishing rod.
“It’s gotta be five hundred pounds.” His voice was hoarse with the strain of holding on to the catch, but he managed a laugh even as the veins on his forehead bulged. “I bet it’s a bluefin.”
“Let it go!” She dropped her gear and ran to him, hooking a hand in the waistband of his cargo shorts.
As if she could hold back a two-hundred-pound guy and Shamu, too.
“Depends,” he muttered between gritted teeth, his body slipping closer to the deck railing as he risked a glance at her. “Do I win?”
If she hadn’t been scared to death for him, she might have let him go overboard with the damn fish. “Yes! For crying out loud, Jack—”
He hit something on the reel and the line spun free of the rod. The tension released so fast she stumbled backward with the jolt. The whole boat rocked as if freed of a giant anchor.
In the aftermath of the battle, the sea felt oddly calm and quiet. Gentle waves sloshed the hull as she and Jack each caught their breath.
He must have recovered his sooner because the next sound she heard was warm male laughter.
Blinking against the bright sun, she focused in on him where he sprawled on the deck, the fishing rod by his side as he propped himself up on one elbow. Watching her.
“You nearly got yourself killed, and scared me out of my mind,” she reminded him sternly. “What, might I ask, is so amusing?”
“You should have seen your expression when you conceded the fight.” His grin was so big now that the elusive second dimple—the one in his cheek—had put in an appearance.
She frowned harder than he smiled.
“I’m sure anger and disbelief isn’t my most attractive look,” she conceded.
His grin faded.
“It just goes to show you what lengths a guy will go to in order to be with you.” Shoving aside the rod, he slid over on the deck until they sat beside each other, their backs resting against the built-in seats. “I was dying to win that bet.”
“You could have died winning that damn bet,” she admonished, although she was feeling less mad now that he sat so close to her, his hand slipping on top of hers. “You must really want to ask me a question.”
“Yeah. But I have to confess I’m looking forward to the other aspect even more.”
The sexual favor.
Awareness flamed hot between them. Her breath hitched in her throat and her mouth felt dry.
“So what’s your question? You want to know more about my move to Bar Harbor?” She let her head tip onto his shoulder, just for a moment, she told herself. Her heart rate hadn’t quite recovered from seeing him wrestle the big fish.
If anything had happened to him…
Her heart lurched in her chest, revealing how much she still cared about him in spite of everything.
“No.�
� His cheek rested on top of her head, the bristles at his jaw catching her hair. “I want to ask something stupid and selfish. Something I have no right to ask at all.”
Surprised by the tension in his voice, she disentangled herself enough to look him in the eye.
“What?”
He stared down at the remote control that operated the GPS for the anchoring feature that kept the boat in position by satellite. Finally, he set it aside and met her gaze.
“What made you go out with Chase Freeman after we broke up?”
“Chase?” She tried to think why such a short chapter in her life would inspire the obvious jealousy she heard in his voice. “The banker?”
Jack rolled his eyes. “Or whatever he calls himself these days. Last I heard from him he was a Wall Street superstar.”
“I forgot you two would have graduated the same year.” In a small town, the dating options weren’t exactly abundant. No matter that the seasonal population swelled to astronomical numbers. The year-round residents in Chatham were only so plentiful.
“Yeah? I’m willing to bet he didn’t forget you were my ex-girlfriend.” Jack picked up her hand and held it, smoothing his fingers over her knuckles in a way that gave her shivers despite the mild weather.
“I’m sensing an old rivalry here?”
“It’s not a big deal.” He shrugged his shoulders, even though they were still so taut and tense that the motion appeared decidedly awkward. “And it’s none of my business, since we were broken up. I’ve just always wondered about it because it seemed so sudden. After I left for Rhode Island, you dated Chase and then Tom, one right after the other and…yeah. Why?”
Clamping her other hand on top of his roving one, she captured his palm between hers.
“You’re right about it being none of your business. But since I can see it upset you, I’m going to confess I thought that getting back in the dating pool would help me shake the funk of you leaving.” Memories of that summer were still painful. “My dad kept a close eye on me around then to personally ensure I didn’t make the trip to Omaha for the Olympic-team trials in swimming. He staged some kind of weird intervention with a bunch of his Wall Street cronies the week before the trials, where they all gathered to inform me there was lots of money to be made in business and none in amateur sports. Basically, Dad wanted to be sure I knew my Olympic hopes were juvenile.”
“Wow. I didn’t know you were seriously considering trying out. Why didn’t you just leave? Get on a plane and fight for your dream?” Jack had always gotten along with Alicia’s father, but maybe part of that stemmed from the fact that Bruce LeBlanc went out of his way to be affable with Jack.
“In retrospect, I wish I had. But I was tired of fighting about everything, and I was so exhausted I knew I wouldn’t perform at my best level, anyhow. Maybe my father had gotten into my head a little more than I realized.”
Jack raised his eyebrows but made no comment. Hating the personal-confession time, Alicia retrieved her fishing pole from where she’d dropped it, and slid toward the edge of the deck to recast.
“Dad was angry with me for giving up my job with Murphy Resorts. And he was even less impressed with me for ‘losing’ you. You can guess how well that went over.”
“I’m still trying to process the fact that Bruce stifled a shot at the Olympics for his own daughter. What the hell was he thinking? Ally, I didn’t mean to bring up—”
“It’s okay. I was just getting to the point about Chase. But this is all relevant.” Staring down into the fathomless Atlantic, she searched for fish and answers. It had been a long time since she’d thought about that crappy summer. “By the time I told my dad I’d had enough of his plans for my life, I was determined to put on a front of having it all together. And I figured I needed to get out of the house as much as possible to survive that last summer at home. So I threw myself into a new job as a water-sports instructor. I was at the beach every day and saw a lot of people, including Chase.”
“I couldn’t picture you being dazzled by the ‘Wall Street superstar’ routine.” Jack sounded more accepting. Less jealous.
With good reason. She’d never lost her heart to anyone but him.
“We only went out a few times, since he turned out to be incredibly self-centered and a little too much like my dad’s money-driven colleagues. But I needed a diversion. So when I broke up with him, I went out with Tom Rupert a few times. And a couple of other unmemorable guys over the next year.” She felt her line tug and adjusted her grip on the rod. “I guess I threw myself into dating with as much ambition as I tackle most things. I didn’t think about the fact that it might make me appear…undiscriminating.”
She stood, welcoming the physical outlet of fishing, since she felt twitchy and uncomfortable with too much self-revelation.
“It didn’t.” Jack put on a glove and grabbed the line to steer it away from the engine’s propeller. Even at a standstill, the blade could cut the heavy nylon if the pilot wasn’t careful. “You had every reason to move on.”
Because he’d already moved on with his life by that time.
Recalling as much didn’t bolster her spirit, but at least she’d tackled the question. Been a good sport.
Reaching lower on the line, Jack jerked up her catch. A long silver fish gleamed in the sun, which had shifted closer to the horizon.
“What is it?” She sincerely hoped he intended to help her clean it.
“Dinner.” Grinning, he dropped a kiss on her cheek and removed the hook from the fish’s mouth. “I’ll go put this on ice so we can work on the more interesting part of our bet.”
The sexual favor?
Her gaze flashed to his.
“You didn’t think I’d forget, did you?”
The hot anticipation in his eyes burned through her. Distracted her completely. Gave her something heady to fantasize about as he moved to put away their rods and gear.
Because even though she’d been on the losing end of their bet, she had the feeling she would enjoy every moment of whatever he had in mind.
“YOU WANT ME TO WHAT?” Her eyes were wide as she hugged her arms around herself in the cooling breeze.
The sky had turned purple and pink in the west, the color lighting her skin with a warm glow.
It was a rare moment when Alicia LeBlanc didn’t look completely sure of herself.
And it probably made Jack a total cad that he couldn’t help but enjoy her uncertainty as she shifted from one foot to the other on the foredeck near the hot tub just before sunset.
“I want you to give up the reins. Let me have control.” He closed the distance between them now that he’d cleaned up the deck. Dinner could wait until after he’d cashed in on the prize he wanted most.
“While you do what, exactly?” She watched him warily, but her chest rose and fell with rapid breaths that told him she wasn’t completely opposed to hearing him out.
“Whatever I like.” He growled the words into her ear so she could feel how much he wanted this. Wanted her with no restraints.
“That isn’t much of a favor,” she protested, her fingers digging into the fabric of his shirt and knotting up in the cotton as she dragged herself closer. “Don’t you want…”
She glanced south meaningfully.
His erection throbbed in response, clearly liking that idea just fine. But he planned on making this favor as much for her as for him. He had only so many days to convince her to give him a second chance.
“I’m saving that request for the next bet I win,” he promised, threading his fingers through the belt loops of her cargo shorts and drawing her hips to his. “Tonight, I want to see you get in touch with your submissive side.”
“I don’t think I have one of those.” She brushed a tantalizing kiss along his lips with slow deliberation. “Sorry.”
She stared at him in the twilight, unapologetic in spite of her words.
“You think you can distract me with kisses?”
“Maybe.�
�� Arching into him, she pressed her breasts to his chest. “How am I doing?”
“A little too well,” he admitted, his brain already seizing up at the feel of her. “That’s why I’m going to stop you right there.” He eased back about half an inch, which was all his fevered body could manage. “And demand you pay up your end of the bet.”
Her frown came deliciously close to a pout, her lips pursed like a berry ready for squeezing.
“Submissive?” She shivered again and he decided it was time to warm her up.
Leaning down, he flipped the cover off the hot tub, releasing a cloud of steam into the rapidly cooling night air. They hadn’t seen another boat in hours and were well out of the main traffic lanes, so he wasn’t worried about witnesses.
“That’s right. Total compliance. But don’t worry, I’m not going to do anything too kinky. Yet.”
Eyes narrowing, she lifted a hand to the hem of her shirt and whipped it up, over her head. Off.
Her pink cotton bra molded to subtle curves, her body visible in the fading light thanks to the glow from the illuminated tub. A silver-star charm on a leather cord rested between her breasts.
“I’ll do my best,” she said finally, perhaps realizing he’d been struck dumb by the sight of her. “But I can hardly comply with your demands when I don’t know what they are.”
Jack unglued his gaze from her body, lifting his focus to her face. A wicked gleam lit her eyes.
“You can start by letting me undress the rest.” He stepped closer, forcing himself to keep his touch light. Functional. If he got caught up in the feel of her now, he might not be able to pry his hands away long enough to play this game out. “I didn’t get to see you naked in the hot tub last night and it’s an image that’s been wreaking havoc with my head all day.”
Unfastening her shorts, he let them fall to the deck around her bare feet. Her hips were clad in the same pink cotton as her breasts, the fabric soft as a T-shirt, yet still not as soft as what was inside. He tucked a finger under the waistband of her panties and flicked them lower over her hips. When they slid off to join her shorts, he turned his attention to her bra, working hooks free until she stood naked and unbelievable in front of him. True to her word, she’d let him undress her without helping, keeping her hands to herself.
