Chapter 7

A tremor of distinct unease ran through Lilly as she gazed up at Alec. She clasped her fingers together more tightly, aware of the alarm bells clanging in her head. Her childhood had honed her self-protective instincts. She knew when to hide and when to duck. Now…time to definitely dodge whatever was incoming, she thought.

Jumping to her feet, she shifted her gaze to the door, intent on avoiding the missile of some unpleasant truth he seemed determined to fling at her.

“I should go,” she said, taking a step forward.

He moved to block her escape. “Now?”

Right now.

“I’m sure Audra needs me…” She let that trail off because they both knew that for Audra to need Lilly, Lilly needed to be able to get through to her friend, something that had remained stubbornly out of reach since their arrival.

“I shouldn’t have said what I said to Jessie when we were in the lobby.” Alec forked his fingers through his hair, obviously unsettled. “The fact is, you’re not a stranger.”

“We don’t know each other at all,” Lilly hastened to contradict him.

He winged a brow her way.

A heat flushed over her face as she thought of how she’d been sprawled over his lap earlier in the evening. Of the deep kisses and the unforgettable climax he’d given her. “That’s just a physical thing,” she mumbled, her gaze dropping to her toes. “You know that. You’ve said it yourself.”

“Still, my parents have taken a shine to you. It’s only fair for you to understand the entire picture since you’re bound to run into them again this week.”

“I can make sure that doesn’t happen,” she offered. “I can hole up in our bungalow. I’ll never venture onto the resort grounds again.” Then she bit her lip. “Um…after I take a turn walking Buster tomorrow morning, that is. I ran into your mom on the way to yoga class today and that puppy’s just so darn cute…”

“You need to know this, Lilly.” One of his big hands urged her back to the bed and she found herself perching on the mattress again.

After a moment, he joined her, his gaze on the rug between his feet. Air blew out of his lungs, like he was preparing himself to lift some heavy weight.

Until now, she hadn’t allowed herself to imagine what he might impart. Again, she tamped down any urge to do so and put her hands to the mattress, preparing to push off and make yet another effort at escape.

Without looking over, his fingers covered hers, holding her in place. “I…I haven’t had to tell anyone in a long time,” he said.

“No?”

“It doesn’t come up in my professional life. In the course of a business day.”

Perhaps explaining his workaholic ways? But what was it? She could hardly help speculating now.

“Five years ago, my mother, my father, our whole family…everything changed for us in an instant.”

Lilly’s brows knitted. A financial setback? An illness? The elder Thatchers appeared hale and hearty, but he’d hinted that his mother had gone through something bad. However, she would swear that everything had ultimately come up roses for the family. They were just that type—good fortune and good times their inalienable right.

Alec cleared his throat. She stared at him now, trying to read something in the chiseled planes of his face and the tight muscles of his jaw. Was it true that he hadn’t gone to bed with a woman in two years? It seemed impossible for a man so good-looking and confident to avoid scratching what he must certainly consider a mere biological itch.

As she gazed at his features, tight with an emotion she couldn’t identify, something stirred in her belly. Nurturing had never been part of Lilly’s childhood and thus not part of her makeup, she’d always thought, but there was a new feeling springing forth inside her. The sudden and undeniable need to touch Alec, to take up his burden, to somehow make things easier for him.

Her hand turned under his so she could clasp his fingers in a firm, steady grip. “Tell me,” she heard herself whisper.

His head turned toward her.

“Tell me,” she urged again, even as part of her desperately wanted to snatch back the words and to smother this unfamiliar caring welling from deep in her belly.

Alec cupped her cheek in his free hand. “Oh, sugar.” Then he sighed again. “My brother, Simon…”

She hadn’t met him, nor heard anything about him. So far. “Simon?”

“He was two years older than me, six older than my sister.”

Was. Lilly felt her heart stumble in her chest.

“He was enrolled in med school.”

Was. Again. She cleared her throat. “A doctor.”

A small smile ghosted over Alec’s lips. “You should see the procedures he used to enact on our sister Jojo’s dolls. He always wanted to be a surgeon.”

Sitting quietly, she waited for him to speak again.

“Coming back from a study group, late one night…”

Lilly squeezed his hand.

“A drunk was driving the wrong way on the freeway.”

Cold poured over her skin and her heart seized. No. No.

“People had been calling 911 for several miles but the CHP hadn’t managed to catch up with him yet.”

Lilly found herself sliding to the floor, coming to kneel between Alec’s bent legs and then clutching at both his hands. Nothing truly bad could happen to a Thatcher, she tried telling herself. Nothing truly terrible.

“The man hit Simon’s car head-on. My brother died at the scene.”

My brother died at the scene.

Her entire body went leaden and white noise buzzed in her ears. Alec’s words began crawling across her brain like the chyron on a TV screen. He hit Simon’s car head-on. My brother died at the scene. He hit Simon’s car head-on. My brother died at the scene. He hit Simon’s car head-on. My brother died at the scene.

“I…” Her lips felt numb. “That’s terrible.” Her words sounded faint.

“Yeah.” Alec glanced away. “We all…were shocked. Distraught. My mom…we thought we might lose her, too. She’s just now coming back to us.”

That lovely, lively woman must have been devastated. Such a thing wasn’t supposed to happen to people like the Thatchers.

Without thinking, Lilly bowed her head to press her brow to their linked hands, hoping somehow the touch might ease him. The buzz in her head hushed and she could hear Alec’s steady breathing. Hers synced to it, and it seemed to connect them in a new, deeper way.

She was no stranger. Not to this man. Not to his pain.

Something about that felt right. Righter than anything. She pressed a kiss to his knuckles.

“Sugar,” he whispered.

Lifting her head, Lilly looked into his face, the lines of it more relaxed than before. He untangled one of his hands and stroked a thumb over her cheek. “Don’t cry.”

“I never cry,” she said, because she didn’t.

The corners of his lips quirked, and he stroked her other cheek. “Okay. It must be the rain then.”

“The rain?” Inside the room? What a silly idea.

“A slow, gentle rain.” He shook his head and caressed her face again. “It…feels good.” For a moment he was silent, as if considering that. “I feel…better.”

A rush of warmth filled her chest. “I’m glad,” she said. Uncommonly glad. Then she rose up to brush her mouth against his.

His lips caught hers…or maybe it was her failure to keep the contact casual. Either way, what she intended as comfort became fire, their mouths fusing, and it became a full-fledged kiss, his mouth hungry, greedy on hers. Then it was a chain of kisses, each one with a beginning, middle, and end, story after story of kissing, as decipherable as words on paper.

Your tongue is velvet. You taste like heaven. I can’t get close enough to you.

She made a sound in the back of her throat, a needy near-whimper. Alec jerked his head back, staring down at her with surprise and heat in his eyes. His breath panted in and out of his lungs.

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” he said, his voice rough.

Lilly’s fought for air too. “What…” She swallowed, started again. “Was it supposed to be like?”

He shook his head, as if an answer wouldn’t come to him. “You had better go.”

“Why?”

“If you don’t go, I…” His head shake this time seemed more deliberate, as if the action might sort the thoughts jumbled there. “I’ll take you to bed.”

He looked so perplexed by that, she wanted to soothe him with her hands, her mouth, a hug, her previously unknown yearning to reassure rising up again. “Are you afraid of losing your membership in the Celibacy Club?”

His narrow-eyed look told her he didn’t think much of his celibacy at all at the moment. “I just didn’t expect…”

“You don’t have condoms?”

He froze. “That too,” he muttered.

The hint of frustration in his voice made her want to smile. “But you asked me back here earlier in the evening. You seemed to imply—”

“My head was muddled then too,” he said, his tone fervent. “Believe me.”

She recalled his distraction when staring at her kiss-swollen mouth and felt a quick rush of feminine pride. He might exude experience and confidence, but she had a power over him, too.

“Go away, Lilly,” he said.

She didn’t believe for a moment he meant it, not when she saw that bulge beneath his jeans and the flush of arousal along his cheekbones. The fingers of one of his hands was still twined with hers and he’d made no move to disengage.

“What will you do if I leave?” she asked.

Another narrow-eyed look.

Oh, my. Now a new thought took hold, that when he said he’d not been with a woman in two years that didn’t mean he hadn’t found pleasure. A burn rose up her neck as she imagined how he likely pursued his own release. Between her thighs, a heavy ache began to throb.

He groaned. “Lilly, don’t look at me like that.”

She spread his fingers with hers, and used her other hand to pet him from knuckles to wrist. “So this celibacy thing isn’t like a…like a vow?” The difference between the two of them fascinated her. He was heavy bone and strong muscle and touching him like this sent her pulse into overdrive. Her skin felt like it was being stretched over her bones.

“I’m not a monk,” he said, and she noticed he’d gone still beneath her caresses.

Was it wrong to desire Alec so very badly on the heels of learning what had happened to his brother? Except it felt so right to her, affirming life when death had done so much damage. Giving him warmth and pleasure to chase away the lingering shadows.

It might only be a temporary reprieve—of course anything between them was only temporary—but her doubts and fears had been silenced by the way this beautiful man was looking at her, as if she were the one casting spells. As if she enchanted him.

“I want you, Alec Thatcher.”

“And I don’t want you to regret this, Lilly Durand.”

That made her smile. And be sure. Because hadn’t Audra sent her out to do that very thing? Get some regrets.

But moving into Alec’s arms, she didn’t believe for a second that she’d be sorry for whatever she found within them tonight.

 

As much as his libido was raging to get on with taking Lilly Durand at her word and exploring her luscious little body for their mutual enjoyment, Alec found himself hesitating. He’d yanked back the covers and then tugged her up the mattress, so they lay on the sheets with their heads on adjoining pillows. His gaze on her face, he did nothing more than look at her for several long minutes, his heart thumping like a gong inside his chest.

“Are you all right?” she whispered.

He wasn’t sure. Her tears, a sure sign of sympathy that in any other woman would have cooled his lust, had seemed to cleanse him like a spring shower instead—and only caused his desire for her to grow.

It staggered him, how one small woman could upend every intention, every familiar inclination.

“Alec?”

He stroked a fingertip across her full bottom lip. “This is going to be a change. It’s been two years of using only my imagination.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Exactly who have you been imagining?” she demanded.

Her little flare of jealousy made him laugh. “Now, sugar, this was before I met you.”

“Well, okay,” she allowed.

“And maybe I’m a bit nervous about being out of practice,” he said, as he stripped off his shirt and toed off his shoes. They thumped to the floor to land next to hers.

A skeptical eyebrow rose. “Somehow I doubt that.” Then she frowned. “But why…well…why…”

He knew what she was getting at. What had caused him to avoid intimacy. “I don’t know that I can entirely explain.”

She nodded, as if satisfied with that. “But are you sure about tonight…”

“I’m sure about tonight.” He wasn’t, because two years without it naturally gave this first time of mutual sexual engagement a seriousness that would make any man wary, but Lilly was warm and fragrant in his arms and looking at him with those exotic eyes of hers. Looking at him as if he could hang the moon in the sky for her if only she asked.

And damn, he’d want to.

Yes, there was no backing away from her.

“If it makes you feel any better,” she said, “it’s been longer for me than two years.”

His brows flew toward his hairline. Lilly said she didn’t have a lot of time outside of work, but there had to be guys she met at the grocery store and the coffee line who tried like mad to get in there and win her favor. God knows, he would be one of them if he ran across her picking up her favorite croissants on Saturday mornings or her flat white on Fridays.

Her gaze drifted away from his and she concentrated on the cap of his shoulder, one small fingertip smoothing over it. “Also, it’s possible that I’m less than aggressive and…and accomplished in the whole doing it department,” she confessed then. “I, um, want to get that out there so you’re not disappointed.”

He said nothing and she glanced up, peeking at him through her tangle of sooty lashes. In the low light from the one reading lamp on the bedside table, he could see the pink color washing across her cheeks.

“No worries, sugar,” he replied finally, trying to keep the grin out of his voice. “In bed I’m a certified badass, assertive and demanding, so we should be just fine.”

She made a sound like a squeak.

“You be a good girl and just do as your told and we’ll both get our rewards.”

Her eyes flared wide at that and he surrendered to his laugh. “Are you truly this serious? Do you think this much all the time, Lilly?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Then I have a challenge,” he answered, lowering his voice. “To make it so that you can’t think at all.”

He recalled the lack of condoms and considered, briefly, calling down to the front desk to have some delivered. Figuring Lilly might cut and run at that and the ensuing delay, he urged her closer with one hand at her hip. He slid his leg between hers.

Then he kissed her, a delicate sip at her mouth that quickly turned ravenous. Damn, she did this to him, her taste, her pink little tongue turning him greedy and his hands hard. He clutched at her dress, yanking up the skirt with desperate handfuls so he could jerk the stretchy fabric over her head.

The action forced up her arms and he halted when the garment was tangled at her wrists. His gaze drank her in like this, at his mercy, and though he’d thought he’d been kidding her about being an assertive badass, her creamy limbs and heaving breasts brought out the animal in him. He drew in a harsh breath and lifted his gaze to her face, her mouth swollen, her eyelids half-mast.

“How many vowels are in the alphabet?” he asked, testing.

She blinked rapidly. “Five,” she said, after a moment. “Six if you count ‘y.’”

“Still able to think.” He twisted the material of her dress so it was tighter around her wrists. “We can’t have that.”

Her arms remained overhead as he slid down her body, burying his face between her breasts to breathe in the silken, perfumed flesh. He nuzzled there, even as she squirmed beneath his weight. Then he shifted to close his mouth over the delicate peak pressing through the thin fabric of her bra.

Instantly, her hips thrust upward, but he contained them by pushing down as he stroked and sucked, wetting her bra with his tongue so when he lifted his head her nipple stood high and stiff and her breasts quivered. He moved to the other side, giving that second sweet morsel his full attention, reveling in the feel of her trembling beneath him.

Little sounds came from her throat, half-moans and half-whimpers and he smiled against her soft breast, wanting to steep her in sensation.

Spoil her, he decided. That was his goal. Spoil her with kisses and caresses and make her mindless with need for him.

He sucked harder, and she bucked against him, making a newly urgent sound that ratcheted up his own lust. His cock was aching and he couldn’t help but press it against her thigh, rubbing there in short strokes.

“Alec,” she said, low as a groan, and he moved his mouth to her neck.

She arched, so accommodating, and he kissed her there, sucked there too, fucking glad to think of the small bruise he might leave behind.

Yeah, a beast he was, happy to mark her.

“Alec,” she said again and he glanced up, the sight of her arms manacled by his hand and her dress just another turn-on. Maybe two years of celibacy had kinked his sexuality a little.

“Yeah, sugar?”

“I need to touch you.”

“Mm-hmm.” He bent his head to lick across her collarbone. “How many reindeer pull Santa’s sleigh?”

A beat of silence. “Thirteen. No! Nine,” she said, with a touch of triumph. “Counting Rudolph.”

Clucking his tongue, he lifted his head again. “Baby, I know good girls are always striving for the best grades, but this time you don’t want to pass the test.”

She looked adorably confused and he laughed again. “Now you keep your hands right where I have them and I’ll get down to the dirty work of making you forget everything…including your own name.”

His big fist squeezed her hands together and then he slid lower on her body. He licked across her ribs and felt her hold her breath as he whirled his tongue in the narrow indent of her navel. His fingers found the front clasp of her bra and he unfastened it as he peppered her flat belly with kisses, then peeled the cups from her flesh.

His good girl remained in the position he’d placed her, fingers entwined near the headboard, and he murmured praise as he slid her panties down her legs. “Oh, God,” he said, his hand fisting the damp material as he stared at the glistening pinkness between her thighs. “You’re so beautiful.” How could he have spent two years away from this?

But no other woman could be as tempting, as lovely, as Lilly Durand, who made a muffled sound of thrilled want as he insinuated himself between her thighs, pushing them open with the flat of his palms. She was breathing hard, and her muscles tensed as he lowered his mouth to her.

His tongue grazed over her flesh.

She whimpered, and the sound shot heat through his bloodstream. His cock felt as big as a bat and so sensitive even the cotton of his boxers felt abrasive. Still, he rubbed his crotch against the mattress in time with the short strokes of his tongue on her pleated flesh, her juices spilling onto his tongue so he was drunk with the taste of her.

He feasted on her, his mouth opening her labia to explore all the smooth inner surfaces. Even with his hands on her hips, she was lifting into him, and he loved the wet of her on his mouth, his chin, his cheeks. He was steeped in her.

And her flavor and her response to him was taking him so damn high. His balls had swelled and hugged the base of his dick and he knew what that meant. Forcing his face from her, he looked up, trying to stave off the inevitable.

But at her blissed-out expression, his cock twitched in painful, gleeful anticipation. Her eyes opened and she ran her tongue along her full bottom lip.

Fucking beautiful.

“Sugar,” he said, his voice rough. “Can you tell me who’s buried in Grant’s tomb?”

And it was clear she couldn’t even parse his question, that she wasn’t even trying to, so he muttered, “Mission accomplished,” and buried his face in her pussy again, this time adding a finger, then two, as she cried out with pleasure.

He fucked her like that, his stiff fingers in a steady rhythm, his tongue flicking her clit as she angled her hips to allow him fuller access. His mind blanked out and he was glad for it, all the worry about this first act after two years having some major import evaporating in the fucking, fucking goodness of her inner walls clamping on his fingers and her accelerated whimpers testifying to the closeness of her orgasm.

Shifting onto his knees, with his free hand he yanked down his zipper and pulled his cock through his boxers and jeans, palming it. He glanced up to see that Lilly was staring there, her mouth half-open, her gaze glassy, her breath seemingly caught in her lungs as he jacked himself. Pleasure pulled inside him, stretching to a fine, quivering line until, as it felt about to break, he dove back to her pussy and clamped the edges of his teeth around her clit. Keeping his hold delicate, he sucked the jewel into his mouth.

Lilly moaned, the sound cut off as her body froze for one long moment, then shuddered in the obvious throes of climax. Alec kept at her, his fingers penetrating her in time with his own strokes of his rampant, aching erection.

Then he convulsed, his seed shooting up his dick to spill over the sensitive head and then onto his fingers, his muscles contracting in waves of almost-painful physical delight.

His blood hadn’t yet cooled before he found himself lying beside her again, his body still buzzing with satisfaction. He wiped his spilled seed onto the trailing edge of a sheet and then carefully unwound the dress from Lilly’s now-lax hands.

Her body boneless, she seemed unaware of him, nearly asleep.

Or she was hiding from him behind her closed, delicate eyelids.

Tenderness swamped him as he gazed on her, transfixed by the emotion filling his chest. He wanted to protect her, cherish her, and yes, spoil her in every way, and not just sexually. By day, he’d put her on a pedestal. By night, he’d drag her off and dirty her in every filthy manner he could imagine.

And he’d been worried that having sex after two years of celibacy might mess him up.

He hadn’t seen it coming, but it was being post-coital with Lilly Durand that was doing something to him that was far, far more dangerous.