Macy Beckett - Make You Mine

Alex glanced up from his paperwork. “Allie made Chef choke on a nut yesterday.” At Marc’s dubious glare, Alex clarified, “She used the Heimlich on him, but still. He almost died.”

“Let’s see if I’ve got this right,” Marc began. “You dragged me away from the pilothouse so I could track down our pastry chef and make sure she hasn’t cursed the boat?” Marc expected this kind of idiocy from Pawpaw—maybe even from himself at one time—but not from his sister. Perhaps the Dumont crazy had started rubbing off on her.

“Oh, I don’t think she cursed the boat,” Ella said with a flap of her hand. “Just Phil.”

“And we need him,” Alex added. “So see if you can get her to undo it.”

“Uh-huh.” Undo it. Lord, it was too early for this mess. Marc heaved a sigh. “Fine. I’ll go check on her.”

“Nicky saw her take the stairs,” Alex said. “So she’s probably in her suite.”

All alone with Allie Mauvais in her suite . . .

The idea should have scared Marc, but it put a small bounce in his heels as he crossed the lobby to the main staircase. He was still springing when he knocked on her door, but the instant she answered, that buoyancy deflated faster than a leaky tire.

She looked like a drowned rat.

Her soaking-wet curls hung low and heavy, the locks dripping onto the lapels of her fluffy white guest robe. The oversized garment covered her from fingertips to ankles, dwarfing her body beneath yards of terry cloth. Mascara ran down her face in muddy streams as if she hadn’t bothered to wipe away her tears.

Oddly enough, the effect was freaking adorable, but he still felt terrible for her.

“Aw, sugar,” Marc said with a sympathetic tilt of his head. “That bad?”

“Don’t!” She held up an index finger. “Don’t do that! I’m a professional, not some hot piece of ass from th-th-th-th”—she gulped a hitched breath—“the swamp!”

Marc wanted to tell her the two weren’t mutually exclusive, but it seemed like the wrong thing to say. “Of course you’re a professional.” He nudged his way inside and shut the door behind him, then kicked aside a pile of dirty clothes. “Honey, I tasted your coffee cake. It was so good, I had to take a cold shower when I was done.”

That earned a weak smile. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and led her to the foot of the bed. She plopped down, and when he lowered himself beside her, she leaned her soggy head on his shoulder. Marc didn’t mind. He wanted to make her feel better, and besides, she smelled like warm vanilla sugar.

“Who told you?” Allie asked.

“Ella-Claire. She’s worried you hexed the chef.”

She sat up and faced him, her red-rimmed eyes softening in hurt. “Really?”

The look on her face sent an unexpected shock of pain through Marc, especially when he realized he’d contributed to the problem. Until now, he’d never put himself in Allie’s shoes, never imagined how she might feel each time he crossed to the other side of the street when she walked by. He’d been an idiot to assume Allie was some unshakable force of nature. She bled like everyone else. How had he never seen it before?

“I’m sorry, hon,” he said, pulling her close again. “Ella didn’t mean anything by it.”

Allie got quiet for a while, punctuating the silence with an occasional sniffle. When she finally spoke again, her voice sounded so small it tugged a knot in Marc’s chest. “Do you believe that?” she asked. “That I curse people?”

“No, not really,” he said. “But I’m not going to lie. I used to.”

“Is that why you dumped me after junior prom?”

Junior prom . The memory brought an instant smile to Marc’s lips, mostly out of embarrassment for his seventeen-year-old self. Talk about a blow to his ego.

He’d been so nervous that night he’d sweated through two dress shirts before he left to pick up Allie for the dance. Pawpaw had him half believing the devil would spring from the punch bowl and drag Marc straight to hell. His hands had trembled so hard Allie’d had to pin on her own corsage; his knees had knocked together so violently he could barely dance with her. It was a miracle he’d worked up the nerve to kiss her at the end of the night. Not his best performance, either—barely more than a shaky peck. She probably thought he was a lousy kisser, which he wasn’t, thank you very much.

“Yes and no,” he said with a chuckle.

She slid him a glare. “It’s not funny.” But one corner of her pink lips twitched in a grin. “I skipped a trip to the beach with my sister that weekend so I could stay home and wait by the phone.”

Marc sucked a breath through his teeth. “And I never called.”

“No, you didn’t,” she said, then added, “ ever again.”

“I’m sorry, hon.” He dropped a quick kiss atop her head. “It wasn’t anything you did. I was telling the truth that night when I said I wanted to take you out again.”

“So what changed?”

He’d changed. More specifically, the skin all over his happy place. “The next day something happened that made me think the curse was real. I woke up with, uh . . .” Was there a delicate way to say blisters all over my johnson ? “Well, an outbreak.”

She glanced up at him with a question in her eyes.

“On my manhood,” he clarified.

Allie gasped and gave him a playful shove. “And you thought that was my fault?”

Marc shrugged. “Daddy and Pawpaw kept telling me sex with a Mauvais woman would make my junk fall off, so . . .” He trailed off because the rest seemed obvious to him.

“But a rash could mean a dozen different things,” Allie said, ticking items off on her fingers. “A reaction to your laundry detergent, a new soap, a food allergy, or—if that rumor about you and the cheer squad is true—a social disease.”

“No way.” Marc held up one hand in oath. “I’ve never gone bareback in my life, and I get tested on the regular. I’m cleaner than a priest on Sunday.” He didn’t mention that the old rumor was true. He had worked his way through the varsity squad—but always protected by a barrier of nice, safe latex.

“Still, I can’t believe you blamed that on me.”

“Not you,” Marc said. He’d never believed Allie meant him harm. “The curse.”

“Same difference.”

“Not really.” It was Allie’s great-great-grandma who’d cursed the Dumonts, not her. “One is beyond your control and the other isn’t.”

“The other?” she asked.

“You know. Hexing people on purpose.” At her piercing glare, Marc added, “Just speaking hypothetically. I don’t pay a lick of credence to that stuff.”

“Uh-huh,” Allie said, clearly not buying it. “So you don’t even believe the curse is real anymore?”

“Nope.”

“Care to test it?” Her eyes—one the color of fine whiskey, the other grayer than a summer storm—twinkled with mischief and put a skip in Marc’s pulse. “Because I know a way to find out for sure.”

“What’s that?”

“Easy,” she said, raising one brow in a challenge. “Kiss me again.”

Of its own volition, Marc’s gaze flew to her mouth, full and soft and still wet from the shower. He froze, unable to form a response to her proposal. He’d often fantasized about taking that pouty lower lip between his teeth and tasting Allie Mauvais—kissing her and doing it right this time.

So what was stopping him?

“What’s the matter, baby?” she teased. “You scared?”

Maybe a little, but he’d never own up to it.

“Of kissing a pretty woman? Never.” Marc accepted her dare, pushing up her robe sleeve and taking her hand in both of his. “But I think we should start small. You know, make sure lightning doesn’t strike us dead.”