Making a Splash

Unfortunately, he remembered all too well.

On the plus side, he’d put some serious nautical miles between himself and the woman he’d walked out on, before he finally drifted into exhausted sleep… .

ALICIA LEBLANC COULD almost swear Jack Murphy was back in her arms.

An annoying rational voice—inescapable even in her dreams—told her that was because she was on board a Murphy-owned boat. Dealing with Keith had put his whole family back in the forefront of her mind after all these years, and that’s why her subconscious had concocted a delicious nighttime fantasy about her ex.

“Jack…” She sighed his name in her half sleep, resenting the practical side of her that insisted she was just dreaming. Why couldn’t she simply enjoy sexy dreams like the rest of the population?

Because dreaming about him makes you weak! her cranky ego shouted.

Undaunted, she pressed her cheek to Jack’s broad, bare chest. Her dreams added muscle and weight to his younger body, altering her memories of him to account for the navy-hardened form he sported these days. She’d caught sight of him on the beach earlier in the week, when she’d been giving kite-surfing lessons to tourists—one facet of the water sports business she’d started to save money for her own coastal bed-and-breakfast. Nothing big like Murphy Resorts owned all over the Cape, but something small and personal, where she could entertain all the time and share her love of the water with travelers. She’d been hooking up the safety harness on a couple of college kids who wanted to catch big air on the water when she had heard Jack’s voice carrying from farther out in the surf.

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.