by Macy Beckett
“Now, ain’t that somethin’?” he said with pure sin in his voice. “I always wanted my very own pastry chef.”
Chapter 8
Marc stood near the second-floor lounge window and watched Beau strut on board the Belle like he owned everything in his wake—including the two women squashed to his sides. Marc felt a headache pressing the walls of his temples, and he reminded himself to unclench his jaw. He’d have to jerk a knot in Beau’s tail, and soon. The wily SOB had some nerve blowing into town and moving in on Marc’s kid sister as well as his . . . well, his Allie.
He didn’t know how else to label her.
Allie wasn’t his girl, but he couldn’t deny she was a lot more than an employee. He’d drifted into uncharted waters with her, someplace beyond simple lust but outside the boundaries of a relationship. They had no claim on each other, but damned if that meant he liked seeing her in another man’s arms, least of all those of his asshole brother. Marc wanted Allie for himself, but he didn’t want to want her.
It was fifty shades of fucked up.
Worse than that, she’d stolen his mojo, making it impossible for him to enjoy other women. When Nora had paid him a surprise visit that morning, he should have led the flame-haired vixen to his suite and released a week’s worth of sexual tension.
But he couldn’t do it.
The moment she’d thrown her arms around his neck, his body had rejected her like an old splinter. She’d felt all wrong pressed up against him, and she stank of stale cigarettes—something that had never bothered Marc before. Now it was a complete deal breaker. Nora didn’t smell like sweet cinnamon. She didn’t taste of clean honeydew.
Because she wasn’t Allie.
“Up shit creek without a paddle,” he muttered to himself.
He focused again on Beau, who’d just leaned down to take a bite of Ella-Claire’s ice-cream cone. Cocky as ever. At least Ella had the good sense to give it to him afterward instead of sharing it. Allie glared at Beau as if warning him away from her ice cream, then ducked out from beneath his arm.
Good girl.
Marc grinned and turned away from the window. It was time for a little family reunion.
When he reached the galley, he found the door propped open by a twenty-pound canister of flour, so he paused a moment to gain his bearings.
In other words, to spy. No shame in that.
Beau was alone with Allie, but neither spoke as they busied themselves gathering ingredients for the evening meal. Despite the companionable silence in the kitchen, Marc sensed clear tension in their movements. Something in the wide berth they gave each other and the stiff set of their bodies reassured him that Beau hadn’t succeeded in hooking Allie with that sticky “charm” of his.
Yet.
Beau had a way of wearing folks down. Marc knew firsthand. By way of introduction, Marc leaned against the doorjamb and folded his arms, then cleared his throat.
Allie glanced at him as a smile formed and simultaneously died on her lips. With a huff, she narrowed her mismatched eyes and turned her back on him, then flung her raven curls over one shoulder to rub it in. Marc suspected a certain redheaded waitress had put a burr in Allie’s bra, but he kept mum on the subject and nodded a greeting at his big brother.
“Look what the cat dragged in,” Marc said.
Beau’s ugly mug split into a grin so wide it crinkled the tanned skin around his eyes. The reaction stunned Marc into a beat of silence. He’d seen a lot of smiles cross his brother’s face—the I’m faster than you, the I ate the last cookie, and the ever-popular I’m gonna pound on you when Dad’s not looking—but this one said I’m glad you’re here.
That couldn’t be right.
“Well, look at you.” Beau wiped his hands on a dishtowel and scanned Marc from the bill of his white captain’s hat to the tips of his polished black dress shoes. He shook his head in appreciation. “I don’t know whether to hug your neck or salute you, little brother.”
Neither of those options appealed to Marc. He extended his right hand, and Beau strode forward to shake it, his grasp firm but not overbearing. They pumped hands while sizing each other up. Beau appeared to have found four inches of height and twenty pounds of muscle while he’d been away. Marc wondered where his brother had been since he’d left the marines a couple years ago, but he didn’t bother to ask. If Beau had wanted him to know, he’d have called or e-mailed.
Which he hadn’t.
Finally the giant stepped back and nodded at Marc’s black eye. “I believe you had a shiner the last time I saw you, too.”
“Other eye,” Marc said. “You’re the one who’d given it to me.”
Beau chuckled quietly to himself. “That’s right. And you broke my nose.”
Damn straight. That fight was the first time Marc had dished out more than he’d taken, disrupting the pecking order in their daddy’s household for once. Marc grinned at the slight bend of his brother’s nose.
“What were we even fighting about?” Beau asked.
Marc remembered like it was yesterday. Beau had been horsing around on the dock with his idiot friends and thought it would be fun to trash Marc’s mama to score a few laughs. He’d said Your mama’s so broke, when she goes to KFC she’s got to lick other people’s fingers. But his big brother hadn’t talked any smack after that—kind of hard to do with blood gushing out of his nostrils. Every decent man knew better than to insult another guy’s mother.
Besides, he and his mama weren’t that poor.
Marc shrugged. “Don’t remember.”
“Probably something stupid,” Beau said.
“Probably,” Marc agreed.
A few beats passed in awkward silence before Beau changed the subject. “I talked to Daddy last month.” He sniffed a laugh. “Is he really having another baby?”
“Yep,” Marc said. “They’re due around Christmas.”
Beau stroked his jaw in disbelief, though Marc didn’t see why he was surprised. This was par for the course when it came to their daddy. “When I left,” Beau said, “Jack was still in training pants. I figured that’d be the last kid.”
Jack? Marc furrowed his brow until understanding dawned. “Oh. We call him Worm. He’s fourteen now—busing tables for the first time. I’ll introduce you later.”
“Appreciate that.”
Allie made a noise of exasperation, standing on tiptoe to retrieve a stainless steel bowl beyond her reach. Just as Marc made a move to help her, Beau clopped over in two mammoth strides and plucked it from the shelf, then handed it over with a smile. Which she reciprocated with a bit too much warmth for Marc’s liking.
His headache made a sudden reappearance. Before thinking better of it, he announced, “Miss Mauvais, I need a word with you in the hall.”
She didn’t reply. Instead, she ignored him and bent over to study a recipe card on the counter. Marc gave her a few seconds to acknowledge his request, and when she refused, he repeated himself more firmly. He wasn’t about to let her disrespect his authority—not in front of Beau, who’d lead the crew into mutiny if given an inch.
But Allie only hummed an indistinct tune and sashayed to the pantry for a bin of confectioner’s sugar. She didn’t even spare a glance in his direction.
Marc gritted his teeth. If she thought he’d let this go, she was dead wrong.
“Allie,” Beau said, resting an oversized hand on her shoulder. When she acknowledged his existence, Beau gave her a playful look and a squeeze. “The captain wants you. I think he needs to talk to you, too.”
What an ass.
She huffed a sigh and threw down her bowl scraper, muttering to herself in Creole. Still refusing to meet Marc’s gaze, she stalked across the galley and brushed past him into the hall.
Beau chuckled and began dicing a clove of garlic. “You must be losing your touch, little brother. They don’t
fall at your feet like they used to.”
“Please,” Marc said with a sneer. “Let’s bring her sister on board and see how well you run your game.”
That shut his piehole.
Marc followed Allie’s trail of sweet perfume. When he didn’t find her in the service hallway behind the galley, he continued to the utility stairwell and pulled open the door. There she was, stewing on the third step with both hands gripping her hips. She glared at him hard enough to melt his face, Raiders of the Lost Ark style.
“Well?” she demanded. “What do you have to say to me?”
Marc froze for a few beats. He’d only wanted to get her away from Beau, but he couldn’t very well cop to that.
“Uh . . .” The only excuse he could pluck from his foggy brain was, “You should be in uniform when you’re on the clock. Especially when you’re working in the galley. It’s a hygiene thing.”
He knew he’d screwed up, even before two lines appeared between her brows.
“Are you serious?” she asked sharply. “You dragged me out here to tell me to change clothes?”
“Now, don’t go gettin’ all—”
“Silly me,” she ranted on. “’Cause I thought you might want to come clean about your girlfriend—maybe even apologize for using me and acting like a lying sack of pig innards!”
Marc pulled off his hat and hung his head in frustration. Whatever had been brewing between him and Allie, he could end it right here. All he had to do was let her believe the whopper Nora had told everyone when she’d snuck on the boat—that she was his steady girl. He knew Allie wasn’t the type to pursue someone else’s man. If she thought he was taken, she’d quit tempting him with her lush body and those exotic whiskey-and-gray eyes. Maybe he’d find a moment’s peace then. But when he glanced up into those eyes, he saw pain shining there, and it hit him like a baseball to the chest.
Just like that, he broke.
“I don’t have a girlfriend,” he admitted.
Allie raised one skeptical brow. “But she said—”
“Nora lied.”
“Why would she do that?”
“Stage-four clinger, I guess. We met in a bar last month and we had some fun. Nothing more than that.” He turned his hat over in his hands and took a seat on the step beside Allie’s pretty little sandals. “Come on, you know me. The last time I had a real girlfriend was senior year.” Because that was the only way the cheer captain would put out. “I don’t do the whole ‘girlfriend’ thing.”
While she processed that, Marc leaned back on his elbows and studied the slender curve of Allie’s calves beneath the hem of that gauzy sundress. If he gazed upward and tilted his head at just the right angle, he could see the outline of her lacy French-cut undies. “Lord, sugar,” he said. “You need to sit down before I start looking up your dress.”
She laughed and finally relaxed, descending the stairs to take the spot next to him. She leaned forward to wrap both arms around her knees but sat near enough to fill his space with her heat. Curiously, she glanced at him over one shoulder. “Why is that, do you think?”
“Because you’ve got great legs,” he told her. “I’d stare at ’em all day if you’d let me.”
“No,” she said, bumping him with her shoulder. “I’m not talking about my dress. I mean, why don’t you ‘do the whole girlfriend thing’?”
Marc shrugged and wondered if he should tell her the ugly truth. The reason he didn’t do relationships was because there were only two possible outcomes when folks paired off—either they’d stay together until death, or they’d go their separate ways. And ninety-nine percent of the time, it was the latter, usually with a whole lot of tears and drama thrown into the mix. So why not be logical and avoid the hassle?
He decided to give it to her straight. Allie was a big girl—she could handle it. “Never works out anyway. Just makes sense to keep it casual.”
She wrinkled her forehead. “I can see why you think that, given your family history. And I won’t lie; dating can be painful. My last boyfriend moved up north for a job, and I spent the next week in bed with a gallon of fudge ripple.”
Of their own volition, Marc’s brows tugged down into a scowl. He didn’t know Allie’d had a semiserious man in her life. He didn’t like it, though he refused to ponder why he felt that way. “See? So what’s the point if it never lasts?”
“The point is,” she said, “you can’t know if someone’s a good fit until you try. As long as you keep nipping every relationship in the bud, you’ll never smell the rose.”
Marc’s lips twitched in a grin. “Never been a fan of roses.”
“You can’t win if you don’t play, baby.” Allie leaned back with him, shoulder to shoulder. “You weren’t afraid to take a risk on the Belle, right?”
He saw where she was going with this. But love and money were two different kettles of fish. “Apples to oranges.”
“Not really,” she argued. “By taking over your daddy’s boat, you’re risking bankruptcy, right?”
“Yeah,” he said cautiously.
“So you’re willing to risk your credit and all your cash, but not your feelings? Where’s the logic in that?”
It made total sense to Marc. “The difference is I know what I’m doing with the Belle. I have an actual shot at succeeding.”
“And you don’t at love?”
“Of course not.”
Allie turned and peered at him as if she’d just learned Santa wasn’t real. Her eyes overflowed with emotion, and it stirred something deep inside him—a warm swelling similar to the sensation he’d felt before kissing her. He couldn’t decide whether he liked it or not.
“Aw, honey, that breaks my heart,” Allie whispered, reaching up to cup his face. “You don’t even know what you’re missing, do you?”
Marc knew what he was missing.
One of his earliest memories was walking home from elementary school and finding his parents locked in battle because Mama had just discovered Daddy’s pregnant mistress. A month later, the other woman had delivered twins—Nicky and Alex—and Daddy had taken a hike to create a happy home elsewhere. Marc would never forget the look of hurt and shame on his mother’s face. That’s what he was missing.
Or so he thought.
Now, with his cheek cradled in Allie’s soft palm, her sweet breath mingling with his . . . he wasn’t so sure. He saw a flash of what could be: an image of Allie tangled in his sheets, the satisfaction of having her all to himself. It felt good for a moment, until he realized how deeply it would burn when it all fell apart.
Because that’s what would happen.
The concept of happily-ever-after was like finding sunken treasure at the bottom of the ocean—sure, he’d heard stories about it, but he’d never actually seen it happen.
“I know what I’m missing.” He took her hand from his face and placed it on her thigh.
With a shake of her head, Allie laced her fingers between his. The intensity behind that one innocent gesture sent an electric pulse buzzing along his flesh like a completed circuit—energy flowing in a circle back to where it belonged.
“No, you don’t,” she said. “Not yet.”
Using her free hand, she grasped his tie and pulled him in for a gentle kiss, a taunting sweep of lips that obliterated his control and had him instantly falling into her arms. She ran her tongue lightly along his bottom lip and inched away, forcing him to chase her mouth, to admit to both of them how badly he craved her touch. He hated himself for his weakness, but that didn’t stop him from wrapping an arm around her waist to draw her as near as she could get.
With Allie’s mouth moving in sync with his own, the world fell away. There was no Belle, no staircase, no river, only the intoxicating press of her wet lips and the luscious taste of her on his tongue. He gave himself up to the swell of longing that radiated from de
ep within, devouring her mouth and taking as much as he could get. But no matter how tightly he crushed her to his chest, it wasn’t enough. On an instinctive level, he knew one time with Allie would never be enough.
This was different from their last kiss—every bit as scorching but bigger somehow. Like he’d taken a piece of Allie and left a slice of himself with her in return. It was a foreign experience for him, equal parts wondrous and frightening, but as the seconds passed, the fear began to outweigh the pleasure. The sensations were too much.
He pulled back to escape the intensity, breaking their kiss but keeping his eyes closed to trap a bit of her inside him. When he opened his eyes, Allie was watching him from beneath heavy lids. The loaded smile that curved her lips made him grin in return.
“What?” he asked.
She untangled their fingers and used the stair rail to stand, then brushed off her backside. “Nothing.” Nodding toward the next landing, she said, “I’d better go change. After all, I’m back on the clock, and there’s all that hygiene to consider.” Then she left him to admire the gorgeous curve of her legs as she climbed the stairs.
“We’ve got to stop doing this, you know,” he called after her.
He couldn’t quite hear her response, but it sounded like, “You’ll be back.”
And, yeah, he probably would be. It took all his control not to dash up the stairs after her.
Marc leaned to the side and shamelessly peeked up her dress before returning to his duties. He didn’t know what to do about Allie, but he couldn’t wipe the dopey expression off his face. It was still slanting his mouth when he returned to the galley.
Beau glanced up from his cutting board and gave Marc a smirking once-over. “So, did you set her straight, Captain?” The sarcasm in his voice could cut steel. “Show her who’s boss?”
“Very funny.” Refusing to be baited, Marc pulled a bottled water from the fridge. He unscrewed the top and chugged a few gulps, then leaned against the counter near Allie’s workstation. “I’m here to set you straight before she gets back.”