Suspicious Ways

by Lexxie Couper

  Jack gave a weak chuckle and his eyes fluttered closed.

  “We’ve lost the headsail,” she said quickly, wanting him to stay awake. He was sure to be suffering from a bad concussion, and letting him sleep was dangerous. “But I managed to get the others down before the storm did too much damage. We’ll have to limp home, but we’ll still get there.”

  She knew she was prattling, but no matter how much she fought it, shock was settling in and she had to keep it at bay. God, how close she’d been to losing him.

  “Ali,” Jack mumbled, squeezing her hand with gentle pressure. “Thank you.”

  She looked at him, unsure what to say. “It’s okay.” She dropped her eyes from the sudden intensity of his gaze, her cheeks burning. “It’s not like I would let you drown.”

  “I wouldn’t blame you if you did.” His whisper sounded weak, but his hand moved in hers until their fingers were threaded. “I’ve been a bit of a bastard.”

  Ali let him see her small grin. “I wouldn’t use the word bit.”

  Jack’s answering chuckle filled her with warmth, a warmth that blossomed into heat when he raised her hand to his mouth and pressed his lips against her palm. “Christ, I’m sorry. I have been such a stupid idiot.”

  The raw emotion in his voice lifted her head and she stared at him, her heart in her throat. “Yes,” she replied, not looking away. “You have.”

  His gaze held hers, his lips moving over her palm in such a way that her stomach began to squirm with hot ribbons. “Jack.” She breathed his name, trying to pull her hand away. “You almost drowned. I don’t think—”

  But he didn’t let her finish. “I love you, Ali.” He pushed himself up so he could look her straight in the eye. “And I’m sorry for every moment of hurt and pain I’ve caused you.”

  His whole body was in pain. His head felt like it was two seconds away from exploding and his lungs felt like they’d been put through a wringer. But the only thing Jack cared about at that very moment was how much his heart ached. He stared at Ali, desperate for her reaction. Jesus, what if her response was to get up and leave? If she turned away from him now, ignore or disregarded what he’d just said…well, he didn’t know what he would do.

  “Jack.” Ali looked back at him. He could see the confusion and doubt in her eyes. “I don’t think this is the time—”

  He put his fingers on her lips. “Please. Let me talk. I need to explain.” He swung his legs around and put his feet on the floor, ignoring the giddiness making his head swim. He dragged in a breath and reached for his glasses before remembering they’d gone overboard with him. It didn’t matter—he could see Ali without them, and right now she was the only thing he wanted to see.

  “Jack—” she said again, but he shook his head.

  “Trudi was my big sister’s only child,” he began. “Kate and Richard had her when they were only teenagers, but she was their life. When she told them she wanted to go to university to study medicine, God, I haven’t seen anyone so proud…or upset. The farm wasn’t going well. Richard was fighting with the banks and Kate had gone back to work to make ends meet. They so much wanted their little girl to achieve her dream—she’d worked so hard at school—but they knew they couldn’t afford it. The cost of accommodation alone was beyond them. So I offered for her to live with me. Trudi was ecstatic. I’d never seen her so excited, but Kate…”

  Jack sighed as he remembered his older sister’s reluctance. “Kate was worried. Trudi was a country girl. The big smoke was completely alien to her. Kate worried it would eat her little girl alive, but she also knew how much her daughter wanted to do it. The fact she’d been accepted into Sydney University was pretty impressive, and Kate knew she’d never forgive herself if she didn’t let Trudi go. Richard was just as unsure. He thought Trudi should go to their local college instead and study education. It wasn’t that far from the farm, they could see her most weekends and the cost of campus accommodation wasn’t that high there. Trudi called me at home, two days before the acceptance deadline. She begged me to convince her mom and dad to let her come to Sydney. She told me she would be the best housemate ever. I can still hear her laugh as she said that.”

  Jack stopped and ran his hands through his hair. “Anyway, I called Kate that night. I reminded her of the time she left home, how Dad had been dead against it. She’d only been seventeen, with a baby girl and a boyfriend who had just landed his first job as a farm hand three hundred kilometers away. Dad and Kate argued for weeks, and finally she just up and left. Without his blessing. It was almost four years before they talked again, and that was in the hospital after Dad suffered his first stroke.” He paused for a moment, remembering the tearful but happy reunion of father and daughter. “Anyway, Kate finally agreed to let Trudi study in Sydney—as long as I looked after her.” He dropped his head into his hands, a wave of dizzy sickness rolling over him.

  “Jack.” Ali’s voice was alarmed. “You shouldn’t—”

  He straightened, looking her in the eye. “Let me finish. Please.”

  She studied him for a long, silent moment, a frown creasing her forehead and her eyes concerned. Jack wanted to take her into his arms there and then, wanted to feel her heat seep into his cold, aching body. Instead, he raised his hand and touched her cheek, even that slight contact giving him strength to continue.

  “Trudi moved to Sydney about four months before your father’s death. She loved it. Watching her was like watching a little kid in a toyshop. We climbed the Harbor Bridge, went to the zoo, the theatre. You name it, we did it. I’d promised her I would teach her to sail after her first-semester exams. Remember the night we all had dinner together at the yacht club? After your family left, Trudi asked me when I was going to ask you out. I told her to stop being so bloody ridiculous, that you were just the daughter of a good friend, but she laughed and rolled her eyes. That night I lay in bed, panicking that your old man was going to beat the shit out of me the next time he saw me. I mean, if my eighteen-year-old niece from the country could see how I felt about you…” He shook his head and laughed. “Anyway, the following night I took Trudi on a sail around Middle Harbor, and while we were packing up Zane Peterson stopped at our pen.” Jack stopped. Bile filled his throat. “The way he looked at Trudi…with hungry, depraved lust…I wanted to kill him.” He turned his gaze to Ali. “He looks at you the very same way.”

  Ali stared at him, silent.

  “I’ve never made it a secret that I think Peterson is a sleaze-bag. Most of the club knew we weren’t exactly friends, but watching the bastard size up my niece…” Jack repressed an angry shudder.

  “What happened?”

  Ali’s voice was soft, but it was enough to help him go on. God knew he’d need all her help to get through what came next.

  “Peterson asked her out. A lot. Trudi turned him down. I thought he’d lost interest, but I was wrong. He was just waiting for the right moment to launch another attack, and unfortunately, I gave it to him.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “After your father’s funeral, after we… When I left Sydney to get my head together, Peterson made his move. Trudi was a defenseless target, still in awe of the city and the high-life, and he got to her. Before any of us knew what was happening, he’d sucked her into his extravagant, indulgent lifestyle, showering her with expensive gifts, flying her to New York, introducing her to drugs.” He stopped, remembering the last conversation he’d had with his niece—a fiery confrontation over the telephone during which she told him she was moving into Peterson’s apartment, that Zane was going to take care of everything, that she wasn’t a little girl anymore and her family should wake up to the fact.

  “The last time we talked, some things were said that shouldn’t have been. I tried to talk some sense into her, but she told me to mind my own business and then hung up. I took the first available flight back from West Australia, but the next time I saw her was in the morgue, two days after she’d been found dead on Mako I from a h
eroin overdose.” His stomach churned and clenched. “So much for looking after my niece.”

  “Oh, Jack, I’m so sorry.” Ali squeezed his hand, and when he looked into her eyes he saw pain and sorrow. “But it’s not your fault, you can’t blame—”

  “Do you know how the papers ran the story?” Jack interrupted, not letting go of her hand. “‘Female university drop-out dies from drug overdose in a failed attempt to seduce local businessman.’ The prick’s contacts spun the story so it sounded like a little country girl had become obsessed with a rich, successful businessman and did everything to become a part of his world—including sneaking aboard his boat in an attempt to entrap him. Can you imagine how Kate and Richard handled that? My sister still hasn’t forgiven me.”

  “Jack, it wasn’t your fault.”

  Jack met Ali’s fierce stare. “I’d promised Kate I’d look after her daughter. I took off and left her alone. I have to bear some of the blame.”

  “Do you? If that’s the case, then so should I. I was the reason you left Sydney.”

  Jack shook his head. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “I’m being just as ridiculous as you are. Trudi was almost twenty when she met Peterson. How can you be responsible for what someone that age does or thinks? Do you blame Trudi?”

  “No. She was just another play toy for Zane Peterson. Another challenge. I told him to leave her alone the day after they met. It was like waving a red flag in front of a bull. He destroyed her. He destroyed her family. Do you understand now why I hate him so much? Do you understand why the thought of you with him made me insane? God, Ali, when I saw you with him…it was like I’d died inside. I’d caused you so much pain and grief when all I’ve ever wanted was to make you happy, and just when I thought I’d finally got the chance to do just that, I found you with him.”

  Ali pulled her eyebrows together and gave her head a sharp shake. “But I wasn’t with him. I’ve only ever been with you. In every sense of the word.” She pulled at her bottom lip with her teeth. “I’ve only ever wanted to be with you.” And then, so slow and shy his heart swelled with love, she leant forward and kissed him on the mouth. And his pain and anger and hate was no more.

  “Let me show you how much I love you, Jack,” she whispered against his lips. “Let me show you how you make me feel.” She pulled away, just enough to find the edges of the blanket wrapped around his shoulders and slid them from his body.

  She touched him, sliding her hands over his chest, tracing little circles around his rock-hard nipples. A sigh slipped past her lips, the sound intensely erotic in the silence of the cabin, the feel of her breath on his skin more so.

  Jack opened his eyes, looking for her in the dimness of the shadows. The sun had dropped below the horizon, casting her in shadows. All he could do was feel her and be felt by her. “Ali,” he groaned, not wanting her to hear the tension in his voice.

  She moved, repositioning herself in the darkness, her limbs brushing against his hot flesh, slick skin against slick skin.

  His hands sought her, encountering a smooth curve of flesh that could only be her hips, before moving onto a flat plane that was her stomach. His heartbeat tripled. She was facing from him on all fours, her body suspended above his. “Ali,” he said again, hearing his voice in the blackness followed by another soft, erotic sigh.

  Something silky feathered over his shoulders and chest, and he sucked in a sharp breath as he realized it was her hair. Fingers played along his arms, traveling down and up, down and up in slow delicious lines that echoed the stroking caress of her knee against his inner thigh. He moaned. The briefest touch of her knee to his rigid length like liquid electricity. With steady hands, he reached for the blanket she wore and released it from her body.

  She gasped, her breath sharp and ragged, before stroking her chest and belly over his, a teasing, wonderful torment he reveled in. He couldn’t believe he’d almost drowned, not when he felt like this. “I want to be inside you,” he murmured against her throat.

  “You can’t.” She slid her thigh over his, pressing her very heat to his growing shaft. “You almost died.”

  “What better reason?” he answered with a groan.

  “Because you love me?”

  His breath caught at her shy question, his groin stiffening to its engorged fullest. “Because I love you,” he answered.

  She raised her head and gazed at him in the shadows. “That is reason enough.” She moved, straddling his hips with gentle pressure, her breasts brushing his face as she slid down his length.

  He heard her sigh his name as he filled her, a moan in her voice. She gripped him with muscles that felt like hot fingers as her hands tangled in his hair. Swiftly, he sat and held her still with his arms, his own fingers burying into the cool strands of hair at her nape, arching her neck so his lips and teeth could devour the satiny-smooth skin.

  “Jack,” she said his name again as she wrapped her legs around him and pressed her heels against his backside, forcing him closer to her, deeper into her. “Don’t stop.”

  It was a simple demand, one he would gladly obey.

  He would never stop. How could he? He would not know he was alive if he didn’t feel her, smell her. Hold her.

  “Never,” he replied before kissing her. Their tongues met, fierce and hungry.

  A sound escaped her, a hitching of her breath that told him she was there, ready to fall and explode. She dragged her fingers across his shoulders and into his hair once more, holding his head still as her hips began to buck against his. Her orgasm was powerful. He could feel the pulses that rocked through her. Clenching and releasing, clenching and releasing. That power was suddenly alive in him, erupting from him, through him like a bursting furnace that scalded him from head to toe.

  He collapsed backwards, Ali coming with him to lie along his chest, their skin slicked with perspiration and their breath short and ragged.

  Closing his eyes, he listened to her heartbeat as it slowly returned to normal, letting his fingertips trace small patterns over her back.

  “Don’t stop,” she whispered against his chest.

  “Never,” he replied.

  Chapter Twelve

  She didn’t understand.

  Ali studied the plastic wrapped package in her hands and felt like someone had delivered a swift, brutal kick to her stomach. She shook her head, partly in confusion, partly in denial. She was pretty certain she knew what was wrapped in the clear plastic, but she didn’t have a clue how it had come to be tucked among the spare sails and rigging under Wind Seekers’ starboard stern bunk. She blinked, eyes feeling like they were coated with gritty glue. What the hell was going on?

  After Jack had taken her to sexual heaven and back, Ali had decided to hoist the spare spinnaker and headsail while he slept. He may be feeling better—their lovemaking was a delicious testament to that—but only forty-eight hours had passed since she’d pulled him from the ocean, and she wasn’t about to let him go climbing all over the deck. Replacing the sails herself was no problem at all. She’d been doing it since she was fourteen. Sailing by mainsail alone, they were two days, three at most, out of Sydney, but they’d get there a whole lot faster under full sail. Besides, it would be a nice surprise for Jack when he woke. However, it seemed she was the one who was surprised. Big time.

  Swallowing a sudden lump in her throat, Ali chewed on her lip and stared hard at the package in her hands. There were three separate bundles of tightly wrapped white powder, the type she recognized from countless Hollywood films.

  Drugs.

  Aboard her yacht.

  “Shit.” The words were barely more than an exhaled breath.

  Who the hell had hidden drugs aboard her yacht?

  Icy realization hit her like a blow from a sledgehammer. Peterson. “Oh, you bastard.” This is what she got for saying no to Zane Peterson. Belly knotting, she looked again at the solid, heavy package in her hands. Was she right? Would he do that to her?

  Hey,
you kicked him in the groin and locked him in the stateroom for close to two days. Of course he would.

  She closed her eyes. “So what do I do now?”

  “About what?”

  Dropping the package like it was a writhing snake, Ali spun around to find Jack standing at mid-bulkhead, looking sexy as hell in nothing but a pair of black boxer shorts. “Jack.”

  “Who else would it be?” A small smile played with his lips, but his eyes didn’t look humored. His eyes looked uncertain. Wary. “What’s the problem, babe?”

  What’s the problem? God, how did she answer that?

  It’s now or never. What better way to learn if he really does trust me?

  She stared at him for a long second then released a heavy sigh, her heart feeling like it was about to explode. “I’ve just found something on Wind Seeker. Something bad.”

  The smile left Jack’s face altogether. “What do you mean bad?”

  Stepping aside, she glanced down at the drugs and then back at Jack. “Bad.”

  In a heartbeat, he was beside her, any signs of humor gone as he looked down into the compartment. He said nothing, but he didn’t need to. It was as if someone had come along and carved his face from hard ice. Just looking at him made Ali shiver. His jaw was clenched and his nostrils flared, his hands curled into fists that looked capable of smashing through granite. Every muscle in his torso was hard and tight, ready to snap. Yet his eyes troubled her the most. Everything about him had become cold except his eyes. They burned with a murderous intensity she’d not seen before but nevertheless recognized—he’d looked at Peterson with similar rage that night at the clubhouse. When he’d found them sitting together. Ali had thought his eyes scary then, but the blazing anger in them now…

  “Jack?”

  For a second, he didn’t respond. It was almost like he was frozen. Then, with a sharp intake of breath through his nostrils he turned to her, face still cold but his eyes—thankfully—less frightening. “When did you find them?”