Page 120 of Why Cruise

She sighed and I slid out from under her. I wiped the beading sweat from my forehead. The cabana created shade, but it was holding in the heat. I picked at the collar of my shirt. Her naked back practically glowed in the soft light.Focus, Theo.

I started on the small of her back. My thumbs pressing in next to her spine. She purred and settled in. I concentrated on sending all that yummy omeganess through my fingers as I worked my way up to her shoulders.

She turned her head to the side, not caring or noticing her face was lost in her mass of hair. I swiped it off her face and her shoulders. The necklace charm was right there. Right next to her lips. I leaned over it to take a better look at it. Definitely could be a thumb drive. It looked like a little silver filigree cage that had a tiny hinge so you could flip the cap back.

“You’re so good at this,” she mumbled into the lounger. “Maybe you could go a little lower…”

I tensed. “Let’s stick to the shoulders for now. Relax those muscles.”

She huffed but didn’t argue, her limbs heavy and pliant.

A “psst” made me jump. Mackenzie’s head popped into the cabana, her eyes wide. “Incoming,” she mouthed, tilting her head toward the beach. Gritting my teeth, I willed my fingers not to shake and I gingerly picked at the clasp until I got it apart. Another psst from Mackenzie.

Catherine stirred. “Wha…”

“Shhh, just rest,” I soothed. What the fuck was I even saying? I was not built for this. My stomach hurt, my dick was hard, and I was sweating.

Like I was performing surgery, I pinched the thumb drive with two fingers and gently pulled it away from her. The chain snaked through, freeing the charm, and dropped to the lounger with what I felt like was a deafening plop. I stuffed it in my pocket, taking a moment to rearrange my hard dick.

Mackenzie made a frantic hurry up motion with her hands. I side-stepped the lounger to make a getaway, but paused. Catherine’s phone was lying right there. I glanced back at her sleeping back. I bent at the waist, stomach protesting, and pocketed the phone too.

“That kid!” Mackenzie hissed as I stepped out of the cabana. “He’s in her pack.” And he was headed right for us.

I threaded my arm through Mackenzie’s. “Act natural,” I whispered out of the side of my mouth.

She gave the young alpha some side eye as we passed. We both looked back and caught him dipping his head to enter the cabana.

“Run!”

Theo

I had one hand on the small of Mackenzie’s back, the other clenching my stomach when we crashed into Justice’s stateroom. She was practically vibrating with tension and out of breath.

“Hey, I was just coming to find you,” Justice said. He was pulling on a shirt, standing next to the dining table. “Theo, there’s a lunch with dolphins excursion today. It was highlighted on your spreadsheet.”

He looked good, half naked. All naked. And he remembered my spreadsheet.Focus, Theo.No time for thinking about your dick in his hands, her mouth, slick everywhere.I shook my head and took a breath.

“We have to explain something to you, and you can’t freak out.”

“I don’t freak out.” His jaw ticked.

“You absolutely freak out,” I said. “Let… let us explain.”

I opened my mouth, then closed it. Where do you even start with something like this? The fight? The blackmail? The thumb drive currently burning a hole in my pocket?

“Ren thinks he killed Nolan,” Mackenzie blurted out. “He didn’t. We have proof. But if you don’t do something, by the end of the day he’s either going to be in jail or bitten into a pack that’s not…” She licked her lips and tried again. “A pack he hates.”

Justice went still. So still I was tempted to take a step back. “Explain?”

“He didn’t kill anyone,” Mackenzie rushed on, the words tumbling out faster and faster. “But Catherine, that tall sexy female alpha has this phone, well had this phone, we have it now, and there’s video of the fight with Nolan, on her necklace, but it’s not a necklace, it’s a thumb drive.” She shoved her hand into my pocket for the thumb drive and phone, practically knocked me off balance. She held it up for Justice and then put it on the table. “We did crime and stuff. And Gaston said Nolan’s dead with fifteen stab wounds, but Ren only stabbed him once so I’m not sure what’s happening there, he was just stealing a dumb car now he’s using it to blackmail him into joining their pack or worse, and Ren was going to do it to protect you because there’s stuff about you on the phone too probably and…” She sucked in a breath.

Justice put up a hand to stop her. “Start over,” Justice said. His voice was careful, controlled and very, very cold. “Slowly.”

We were either about to fix everything or fuck everything up. Nausea rose, making my mouth dry.

Mackenzie took a breath, a calming one this time, and started from the beginning. How she’d seen Ren with that pack. Justice mentioning Nolan at dinner. The overheard conversation. What Ren said last night.

Justice looked away. His jaw ticked. Fuck. Mackenzie had panic in her eyes.No, no, no.

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