Alec winced. “Bloodthirsty.”
Lilly stepped closer to him. “Do you know? Do you know what exactly is going on with Jacob?”
“He texted me the morning of the wedding to say it was off and he wouldn’t be talking about it or changing his mind. I was so pissed I didn’t even respond.” He hesitated. “Do you really want me to try and contact him?”
She looked down. “He’s your friend.”
Alec reached out, snagged her hand, drew her a couple of steps closer. He played with it and she watched the movement, fascinated by the way his bigger, longer fingers looked in contrast to her slimmer, paler ones.
“Audra is after some closure, I suppose,” Lilly said, her breath catching in her lungs as his fingers pushed between hers, widening the spaces there and sliding along the sensitive inner surfaces in a way that made her nipples prick beneath the cups of her bra.
He tugged her closer yet again, widening his knees so she was moved into that intimate space he created. “Alec!” she said, and this time her breathlessness was evident in the tight quality of her voice.
“Lilly.” He looked bemused, his head tilting. “You know, your name is all about the tongue. It’s like a short but very hot French kiss.”
A shiver scuttled down her spine and she frowned. “You shouldn’t say things like that.” Her glance lifted over his shoulder to see that busty blonde who’d practically mauled him standing no more than fifteen feet away.
“Why not? It’s true.” Catching the direction of her gaze, he looked behind him. A smile quirked the corners of his mouth as he turned back to Lilly. “An old friend, nothing more.”
“Right. Whatever.” Lilly gave a half-shrug to prove she didn’t care a thing about who the blonde was to him. But she couldn’t seem to pull her hand from his or move away. “So if you find out anything about Jacob, you can text me, okay?”
The hint of a smile on Alec’s face widened to a full-fledged grin. “You don’t want an in-person report?”
She hesitated, and then her brain scrambled as he drew the forefinger of his free hand over the slope of her shoulder and down her bare arm. Goose bumps followed in the wake of his touch.
His voice lowered, and the air seemed to thicken around them, creating a private capsule. She was hyper-aware of the heavy beat of her heart as she stared into his brown eyes, their color darkening as his pupils expanded. Trying to escape the exciting promise in them, she dropped her gaze only to fixate on his mouth instead, the lips looking so very soft in contrast to the hard angles of his cheekbones and jaw. His pure, vital maleness spoke to something deep and very feminine inside her.
Lilly’s thighs quivered and she felt a heated swelling between them.
Alec’s wandering finger meandered from the pulse pounding in her wrist to the delicate skin at the inner bend of her elbow. He traced the crease there, back and forth, like he had all the time in the world to indulge in just that one, single touch.
“I forgot,” he began, and Lilly met his eyes again, only to be snared once more by the sexual intent burning there.
She forced herself to breathe. “You forgot…?”
“To mention what else we have in common.” Now his finger continued up her arm, across her shoulder, then to her neck, where her pulse tapped out a frenzied beat she supposed he could see as well as feel.
“This,” Alec said, his thumb replacing his finger to caress the thin skin of her throat. “This…pull.”
Pull. Chemistry, attraction, allure, temptation, enticement. She felt helpless against it, a piece of flotsam caught in a riptide and dragged out to dangerous seas.
“I…”
A loud splash signaled someone entering the nearby pool and jerked Lilly from the spell Alec seemed to cast over her. Her hand yanked from his and she managed to step back. “Just text me,” she said unsteadily. “When you find out anything.”
He looked amused again, and if he felt as stirred up as she was, he certainly handled it with more savoir faire. “If I do you the favor, what do I get in return?”
Before, when they’d first met, they’d discovered they lived not far from each other and visited some of the same shops and restaurants. They’d marveled they didn’t recall each other from any of them. Unless she took measures, Lilly knew her luck on that end wouldn’t hold.
“You know it’s best we don’t see each other. It’s just…” Torture. Temptation. A path to bad outcomes. “…pointless.”
He forked his hand through his hair again, grimacing. “Because you and I aren’t going to—”
“Right.” She nodded briskly, not wanting him to spell it out. “So here’s what I’ll give you. That little market on the corner of Garnet and Carter. I won’t go there anymore. Except on Saturday mornings. I have to be able to get a croissant there on Saturday mornings.”
“What else?” His arms folded over his chest.
“Uh…the dim sum place. And that’s a sacrifice.”
He sighed. “Lilly—”
“Okay. Fine. You can also have Carol’s Coffee. I’ll find a new morning stop and we’ll never bump into each other on a caffeine run. We’ll never have to see each other again.”
With that, she spun on her heel and strode away. She was almost beyond earshot when she heard him call out, “Somehow I doubt that, sugar.”
Chapter 3
“Who was that pretty woman you were talking to earlier today?” Alec’s mother, Miranda, asked.
“How old am I?” he countered, but he was smiling down at her all the same.
She sipped her pre-dinner cocktail, a skinny margarita, her preference. Trim and youthful-looking despite time and tragedy, she gave a gentle but reproving slap to his forearm. “Thirty years old might as well be three to a mother.”
“I caught on to that when you warned me away from the edge of the pool a few minutes ago.” The guests of the Thatcher anniversary party were
