by Tawna Fenske
“I thought you were going back to bed,” he said.
“This sounds like more fun. Truth or Dare?”
Alex shrugged. “Fine. Dare.”
“That’s no way to get to the bottom of each other’s secrets, but okay. I dare you to give me a foot massage for the next five minutes and not use it to seduce me.”
Alex grinned and reached for her other foot. Juli leaned back on her stool to let him prop both feet on his lap. He began to stroke her arches in tandem, his thumbs strong and clever over the tense band of muscle. The rest of his fingers curved over the top of her insteps and Juli marveled at how small her feet looked in his oversized hands. His thumbs stroked upward over the outside of her arch and Juli gasped in pleasure.
“The foot massage I can do,” he said. “I make no guarantees about the seduction. Not my fault if you melt in a puddle at my feet.”
“I’ll try to avoid it.”
She would have been a lot more convincing if her voice hadn’t cracked. Alex slid his thumbs over her arches for a few more pulse beats before moving up to the balls of her feet. He stroked her there, kneading the pad of flesh on each sole until Juli had to bite her lip to keep from moaning.
“Truth or Dare?” he asked.
She jumped, having forgotten already that they were playing. “Truth.”
“Who are you and why are you on my boat?”
She laughed. “Don’t beat around the bush, sailor boy. Aren’t you supposed to work up to that sort of question? Like foreplay or something.”
“I think I’ve got the foreplay covered,” he said, caressing her arches again. “I’ll repeat the question—who are you and why are you on my boat?”
“Has anyone ever told you that you have serious trust issues?”
“Yes. Who are you and—”
“All right, all right,” she said as his thumb slid over her arch and made her gasp. “That’s a waste of a good question.” Her voice sounded high and strained, so she cleared her throat and tried again. “I’ve already told you everything. My name is Juli Flynn, and as God is my witness, I got on your boat thinking it was my charter. I just want to dump my uncle’s ashes and go home.”
His eyes bored into hers, the green of them flashing in the dim light of the cabin as the heel of his right hand pressed firmly into the heel of her left foot. He moved the pads of his index fingers along the narrow hollow at the base of each toe, his touch not soft enough to tickle, not firm enough to hurt. Juli concentrated on breathing so she wouldn’t crawl into his lap and force him to put those hands on other parts of her body.
“Why do I think there’s more to your story?” he asked.
“There’s always more to a story,” she replied. “Truth or Dare?”
“Truth.”
“How daring of you.”
“I try.”
Juli cleared her throat and tried to think of something besides the suggestive way his thumb had worked its way into the crease between her big and middle toe. He massaged her there for a moment, increasing the pressure as the pressure in Juli’s brain built to a point where she thought her head might explode.
“Where is your favorite place to be kissed?” she asked.
He raised an eyebrow but didn’t stop what he was doing to her toes. “I thought your big idea here was to get to the bottom of my deepest, darkest secrets.”
“Would you tell me yours?”
“No.”
“Exactly. So this is what I want to know. It’s not collarbone, is it?”
“No,” Alex said, looking thoughtful. “Close though. You really want to know this?”
“Absolutely.”
“Fine. Anytime a woman does anything with her mouth anywhere near my neck, I lose it completely.”
“Completely?”
“Not completely. I’m just saying—it’s my Achilles heel.”
As if reminded by his own suggestion, he slid his thumbs downward and began to stroke the tendon along the back of her heel. Juli gasped as he hit a spot that sent an electric jolt all the way up the back of her calves and through her thighs, delivering pulses of pleasure between her legs.
She gave up playing it cool and closed her eyes, only dimly aware of the soft hum in the back of her throat. She let her thoughts roam to dark places where she could back him up against a wall and breathe warm against his neck, trailing her tongue along the tendons there and up toward his ear—
“My turn,” he said, his voice soft and dark like melted chocolate. Juli opened her eyes, not sure what he was suggesting. Alex licked his lips. “What do you do for a living?”
She smiled. “I didn’t say I wanted truth.”
“Dare, then?”
“I’m thinking,” she said. “Yes, dare.”
“I dare you to tell me what you do for a living.”
She rolled her eyes. “Lame, sailor boy. Very lame. I have nothing to hide, though. I am currently unemployed, though my most recent position was in the marketing department for a software company. Would you like to phone my references or take my word for it?”
He shook his head. “You’re giving me nothing here.”
She shot a pointed look at his lap, then lifted her right foot from his grasp. Slowly, gently, she grazed him with her heel. “I’m pretty sure I’m giving you something.”
For the first time all evening, Alex looked startled. He shifted on his stool but didn’t break contact. Juli angled her leg the other way and felt him get harder beneath the ball of her foot. She felt a shiver of triumph knowing she was the cause. She flexed her calf and continued to stroke him through his trousers, making slow, gentle circles.
Feeling him grow harder still, she increased the pressure. Alex closed his eyes and gripped her other ankle so hard Juli gasped. She slid her arch over the length of him, satisfied to feel him moving against her.
“You’re killing me here,” he murmured.
“How unfortunate.”
She stroked him again, curling her toes over the hard length of him.
“We have to stop.” Alex opened his eyes and swallowed, looking down at her feet as though noticing them for the first time. “Your second toe is much longer than your big toe.”
“I know. It means I’m destined to be the one in charge in my family.”
“Yeah?”
“That’s the old wives’ tale,” she said, keeping the ball of her foot pressed against him. “I’ve also heard in men it means they’re particularly well-endowed. Are you picking dare next?”
“Maybe.”
She grinned. “Good. Take off your shoes.”
Alex laughed and slid his palms under her feet. He took a deep breath, then lifted them off his lap and set them on the rungs of her stool. When he sat back up, his expression was an odd mix of desire and regret.
“Your five minutes are up, darlin’,” he said in a voice that didn’t sound very steady. “You got your foot massage and I didn’t seduce you. Much.”
Juli nodded and bit her lip. “I thank you for that.”
“So are we done playing?”
For a second, she wasn’t sure what he meant. Was he going to shove her up against the wall of the pilothouse and have his way with her? She swallowed, met his eyes. “Oh. The game?”
“The game.”
“Yes, we’re done.”
“And sadly, neither of us got anything from your intensive truth-finding mission.”
She shrugged and gave him a small smile. “I wouldn’t say that.”
He grinned back and angled his body away from her, turning his attention back to the controls of the ship. “Neither would I,” he said. “But we’d better stop now. Jake is going to be here soon to relieve me at the helm, and it would be best if I weren’t sitting here with a raging hard-on.”
“Relieve you at the helm? That’s a euphemism I haven’t heard before.”
“Go to sleep, nut-job.”
Juli stood up, her body still humming with pleasure and need. She straight
ened her top, noticing how it clung to her body. She looked up to see Alex noticing too.
He shook his head, looking pained. “Get out of here.”
“Good night, sailor boy.”
She turned and sashayed back to her cabin. Once inside, she latched the door behind her. Her body was still tingling everywhere Alex had touched her—not to mention a few places he hadn’t. Ignoring that for now, Juli moved toward the bed and reached under the pillow. She pulled out the laptop she’d sneaked from the salon when no one was looking. Phyllis had just left it there when she’d gone to bed, and no one else had been paying attention.
Juli fiddled with the wireless Internet connection, disabling it. She ignored the pang of guilt she felt. They’d figure it out sooner or later, or Juli could show them how to fix it eventually.
She just needed some time. A little more time before they found out about her. Just a little more time to fit in.
If only she could figure out how to do that.
Chapter 6
The next morning, Alex lay stretched out on a deck chair on the flybridge. He wasn’t asleep. Just resting in the early dawn air, the sun drizzling through a light cloud cover to pool on his arms and legs.
Jake had relieved him at three o’clock that morning and he’d come up here intending to sleep. But sleep hadn’t come. Usually he slept soundly under the stars with the ocean rocking beneath him, soothing him into a slumber.
But nothing about him was feeling soothed at the moment.
When they’d sailed to St. John, it hadn’t really hit him what they were attempting to do. It had seemed like a far-off fantasy, something in an action flick or a pirate novel.
Okay, admittedly they weren’t the cast of Ocean’s Eleven, but still.
Of course, now that they’d boarded the powerboat and were headed toward their rendezvous with the cargo ship, everything had changed. They were really going to do this. Really going to take charge of a ship and pilfer thousands of dollars worth of diamonds.
Illegal diamonds, he reminded himself. Diamonds acquired in a shady transaction. Diamonds that just barely cover the amount of the pensions Portelli stole from us.
So it wasn’t his conscience keeping him awake. When he closed his eyes to sleep, the face he saw on the inside of his eyelids wasn’t Tom Portelli. Not unless his former boss had sprouted a mass of golden curls and flashing blue eyes.
Thirty more seconds last night and he would have had her pressed up against the wall, wrists pinned over her head as he drove himself into her over and over and over. He was lucky she’d gone to bed when she had. Hell, they were both lucky.
He thought of his ex-fiancée and her damn dentist lover and suddenly didn’t feel so lucky.
The last thing you need right now is another woman you can’t trust, he told himself. You’re penniless and jobless, and you’re about to commit an act of high-seas piracy. Hardly the time to start dating.
They were ditching Juli in a matter of hours. No one had been able to get a straight answer from her about who she was or what she did for a living. The story about the dead uncle seemed fishy. The idea that she’d accidentally stowed away on the boat didn’t add up.
And Jake and Phyllis were right—there was something oddly familiar about her. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but it was there.
No, there was no reason to complicate things. No sense getting to know her, making love to her, getting attached to her. No sense risking their pirate heist for anything. Not even a beautiful pair of—
Alex cleared his throat and forced himself to relax, throwing an arm over his face to block the sun as he lay back on the deck chair. At least the weather was beautiful. And the boat handled like a dream. If they were going to commit a felony on the high seas, at least they’d chosen a good time for it.
When he heard footsteps, he tried not to move. Even though he knew it was her. Even though he wanted to look.
“Ahoy, matey!” she called. “Prepare to be boarded!”
What the—?
Alex opened his eyes and stared at the inside of his elbow. He closed his eyes again, not sure he wanted to move his arm. Maybe she’d think he was asleep. He was sure as hell trying to be.
The feeling of her knee pressing against his chest dispelled that possibility. He tried to focus on being annoyed, but all he could think was how good it felt to have any part of her body pressed against any part of his.
“Fancy a walk on the plank before breakfast?” Juli chirped. “Come on, lad! Scrape the barnacles off your rudder and get up!”
Okay, he couldn’t not look. She sounded like a deleted scene from a bad pirate movie, and curiosity was getting the best of him. He could sleep another time.
Alex drew his arm away from his face and sat up, blinking in the sunlight.
The first thing he noticed was the eye patch. Though he’d certainly admired the black thong panties when she’d tossed them out of her knapsack the day before, this wasn’t quite how he’d imagined her wearing them.
The second thing he noticed was her left hand tucked up in the sleeve of her blouse.
“What are you doing with my boat hook?”
“I’m a pirate,” she informed him. “Arrr.”
“Arrr,” Alex repeated, sure he hadn’t heard her right. He was starting to wonder if he’d fallen asleep after all, and this was just a weird dream. Any minute now, a unicorn was going to appear on deck and ask to borrow a bottle of ketchup.
“Shiver me timbers!” she said. “Is that a cutlass in your trousers, or are you just—”
“Oh, Jesus.” Alex lay back down and closed his eyes. Juli nudged him with her toe.
“Come on. This is funny. You have to admit, it’s funny.”
“What’s funny?”
“You’re pirates. Come on, you didn’t really expect me to believe you’re cartographers, did you? Cody asked me last night why we couldn’t see the stripes in the water like we could on the map.”
Alex gritted his teeth, trying to hide his alarm. And trying not to notice how beautiful she looked with the sunlight glinting in her hair.
“You’re delusional,” he muttered.
“And then there was the way you all freaked out when I made the pirate joke last night.”
“Truly, truly delusional.”
“And then I overheard Jake talking about booty—”
“Jake always talks about booty.”
“And I saw Phyllis reviewing some diagrams of a really big boat that doesn’t look anything like this one.”
Alex groaned inwardly, praying like hell she’d give up this line of questioning and go away. Okay, so maybe he didn’t want her to go away. He really didn’t want her to go away. He just wanted her to stop talking about pirates. And to stop jiggling around under that top. “You’re insane.”
“And yet, you deny nothing. I’m right. You know I’m right. You’re pirates.”
“Have you been taking that seasick medication again?”
She nudged him again with her knee. “Come on, Alex. I want to be a pirate too. I’ll be good at it. Really, I will. I promise, I’ll be a big help.”
“Juli, seriously. You’re nuts.”
“Arrr.”
Alex sighed. She wasn’t giving up. And she clearly wasn’t going away. Alex sat up again and stared at her.
“Nice pirate pants,” he observed.
“You like? They’re pajama bottoms. I didn’t really have anything that worked as a pirate shirt.”
“No, the blouse over the plaid bikini top is a nice touch.”
“I was going for a Scottish pirate thing.”
“Scottish pirate. Of course. A formidable bunch. Do you have any aspirin?”
“If I give you some, will you let me stay?”
Alex sighed. “Juli. Seriously. Drop it. This isn’t what you think.”
“Then why don’t you explain it to me?”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Come on. I watch CNN. I know piracy
has been increasing globally in the last few years. Estimated worldwide losses of about sixteen billion dollars a year. Mostly near Somalia and places like that, but still. It’s a blooming industry. I want to be a part of it. I want to join you.”
“Stop jumping around. The stripes on those pants are making me queasy.”
“You want some candied ginger?”
Alex folded his arms over his chest. “Juli. Come on. You’re getting off this boat in less than twelve hours. You’ll have a nice adventure getting back to St. John, and then you’re going to go home and forget you ever knew us.”
“Alex, please—”
“No.”
Juli sighed. She raised her thong eye patch and crossed her arms over her chest, wincing a little as the boat hook caught on her bikini top.
“I don’t want to leave,” she said. “And do you really want to leave me? Think about it. You ditch me on a deserted island and call someone to come get me, how do you know I won’t scream? How do you know I won’t tell anyone who comes to rescue me exactly who you are and what you’re up to? I could tell them which way you’re headed and what the boat looks like. I could even tell them about that little anchor tattoo on your left shoulder blade. I’m very observant.”
Alex narrowed his eyes, trying to remember when he’d been shirtless with his back turned to her. Perhaps she was a better spy than he’d thought.
“White linen,” she said, reading his thoughts. “Very see-through.”
Alex sighed. “So maybe we just leave you on the island. What do you think about that? Maybe we don’t call anyone to come rescue you. Maybe we just leave you there to fend for yourself. It’s not inhabited. Maybe no one will find you. Did you consider that?”
Juli shook her head and smiled. “You may be a pirate, but you’re not an evil one. No way you’re going to leave me on a deserted island alone. Jake and Phyllis might, but not you. You’re one of the good guys, Alex. Or is it Dread Pirate Alex?”
“Juli—”
“Alex, please.” Her expression was so earnest that Alex felt something soften inside him. He wasn’t sure if the desperation in her eyes was real or not, but obviously her intention was sincere. She truly wanted to stay.