Oh, God. When she realized how she’d gone on and on and on—the lady doth protest too much—she almost put her heated face in her hands.
“Never mind,” Miranda said, taking obvious pity on her as she patted her hand. “Tell me more about your job. You work at the Montgomerys’ sustainable energy company, you said?”
By the time the dessert plates had been cleared away and coffee was being served, Lilly decided she could make her getaway. Pleading a need to check on Audra, she gave her thanks to Miranda and her husband Vic and sketched a goodbye to the others around her. Then, hoping to leave without attracting Alec’s attention, she pushed up and out of her chair, quickly heading in the opposite direction from where he sat.
Within a few minutes she realized she was once again lost.
Standing amongst the ground’s lush foliage, she cursed her lousy sense of direction. She withdrew her phone from the pocket of her dress and was trying to call up a map of the resort when a hand touched her elbow. A powerful jolt nearly crashed her nervous system and she whirled to face the newcomer.
Alec, natch, the shadows caused by the landscape lighting etching his cheekbones and jaw making him even more impossibly handsome. She frowned at him. “What do you want?”
“You snuck off,” he said.
She slipped her phone back into her pocket. “That was the plan,” she said, hearing the disgruntled note in her voice. Being around him, as always, set her hackles up.
He grinned. “Sugar. You should know already that doesn’t work out for us. We’re each other’s bad pennies. We keep turning up.”
“It’s wrong.”
He drew closer, close enough that she could smell the aftershave he wore. She’d noticed it before, the scent something classic, like lime and salt. “Why?” he asked.
Lilly glanced down, unwilling to meet his eyes. “You already know. You already said.” Bringing up what he referred to as “the pull” wouldn’t make it go away any faster.
“I should tell you,” he began. “My family…we’re here until next Sunday.”
Her head came up. Damn. “That long?”
Alec nodded. “Mom wanted a very special celebration.”
“How…nice.” What could she say?
“It means we’re destined to run into each other again.”
Lilly grimaced. “I suppose.” It was the way her luck ran, after all.
Alec smiled, seeming amused by her displeasure. “So,” he mused, taking hold of her chin to lift her face. “I figure we should just get this out of the way.” His head bent over hers.
Lilly froze. She felt his breath on her lips and they began to tingle in crazy anticipation. He was going to kiss her! Alec Thatcher was going to kiss her! God, half of her wanted to bolt, and the other half wanted it so much that goose bumps broke out all over her body.
“Alec…” Her voice sounded unsteady. Breathless. “W-what are you doing?”
His voice lowered. “I’m just taking another moment to anticipate kissing you. I’ve been fantasizing about your mouth, the heat of it, the taste of it. Your tongue. God, Lilly, you have the pinkest tongue I’ve ever seen in my life.”
Her pulse scrambled and fire shot through her veins.
“Your tongue makes me think of what else you have that’s pink and I want to taste that like hell too.”
Her eyes went round, between her thighs rushed a damp heat. “You can’t…you shouldn’t…” Her limbs were trembling now and she couldn’t string three words together.
With a low, throaty laugh, Alec’s hand left her face, only to envelop her in his arms, bringing her body flush against his. Heat to need. She tried to keep herself from melting against him, told herself to be a mannequin, to not surrender, to not let him know how much he affected her.
But then came the bittersweet knowledge that this was the one time, the only time, she’d have this experience with sensual, beautiful, so-attractive Alec Thatcher.
Of their own accord, her arms lifted and wrapped around his powerful body and she buried her face in his throat, breathing him in. Sealing his scent, his feel into her memory.
His hold tightened. “Lilly,” he said, and there was tender demand in his voice.
She looked up and then his lips crushed hers, all tenderness gone and only that demand as he claimed her with his mouth. He ate at her lips, stinging bites, that had Lilly clutching him as he opened them for his tongue. It plunged inside, wet and insistent, and she went pliant, surrendering to his unspoken command of her.
She reveled in the surrender to him as the kiss went on and on, wrecking her, leaving her thoughts in ruins and her heartbeat wild and untamed.
Decades passed, and then his head lifted and he drew in air. “Lilly,” he murmured and his head lowered again. She anticipated another bruising kiss—longed for it, to be honest—but he changed tactics now, going from marauder to would-be lover as he brushed comforting, gentle kisses along her hairline, temple, eyebrows.
Player, she thought woozily, shivers rolling down her spine, one after another. Only a player could so thoroughly mess with a woman’s mind by switching from fierce, burning kisses to nearly affectionate caresses. But they weren’t calming her thrashing heart.
“Sugar,” he said, kissing first one cheek and then the other. “Breathe, baby. Your head will stop spinning.”
The fact that he could read her so well did that instead. Her mind sharpened and she scrambled to reassert her willpower and common sense. “Okay, that’s done,” she managed to croak out, hoping he’d read that as a signal to let her go and step back.
He did neither, instead keeping her close. “I came on too strong,” he said, apology in his voice as he ran a soothing hand down her back.
She should say yes, except for the small fact that she’d loved every raw, domineering, moment of it.
“You can only blame yourself,” he continued, then laughed a little. “Christ, you do something to me.”
“It’s
