“Don’t pout, sugar,” he said. “Think of it as a power you can use for good.”
He was teasing her, but she had to straighten out the situation, right now. She forced in a long breath. “I’m not going to use the ‘power,’ as you call it, ever again. We got it out of the way, right? Out of our systems. That was your intention.”
Finally, finally, Alec backed off, putting space between their bodies, though his hands cupped her shoulders to keep her in place. He studied her face and she didn’t avoid his gaze, though hoping she didn’t look as disheveled as she felt. Of course the damn man only appeared sexier. Even in the low landscape lighting she could see a flush of color on his cheekbones and across the bridge of his nose.
He shook his head. “That damn mouth.”
Wariness added to the mix of emotions inside her. Yeah, fine, she told herself. Caution should have arrived a little earlier.
“I want to kiss it again,” Alec confessed.
Yes, she clearly had every right to be concerned. “That was it. It’s over.” Why did she sound so damn unsure of herself?
Alec shook his head. “Over? Did we start something that I don’t know about?”
She glared at him. “It” had started the moment they met and he knew it.
“I’ll tell you what’s going to happen next,” Alec said, his big hands massaging her shoulders. “You’re going to stop running from me. We’re going to do some talking, we’re going to spend time together like reasonable, grown-up adults, we’re going to get to know each other. Then we’ll see.”
“See what? We don’t want an involvement with each other.”
“That’s what we’ll see about.”
If it wasn’t so childish she’d stamp her foot. What would it take to reach this stubborn man? “Alec—”
He cut her off with another kiss. Before it caught fire, a cheery voice intruded.
“I knew there was something going on between the two of you,” Miranda Thatcher said, her voice gleeful. “How very wonderful.”
Chapter 4
It was the stupidest move he’d ever made, Alec decided. He should never have kissed Lilly Durand yesterday, he told himself, kicking the damp sand with his bare foot. Overnight, fog had moved in, blanketing the long Dragonfly Beach and the ocean beside it with one soft color. Later in the day the sun would burn it off, but now it wrapped him and everything else thoroughly. Damply.
He reached out a hand and it nearly was lost in the thick mist, reminding him of the recurring dream he’d had the night before. In it, he’d been driving without headlights, the darkness around him absolute. Out of nowhere a pair of high beams appeared, aiming straight for him. A jolt of terror had sliced through him, jagged and deep.
The stunning pain had woken him, like it always did.
He fucking hated that dream.
Running a hand through his hair, Alec supposed recalling the damn thing meant he’d gotten at least some shut-eye the night before, though it seemed like he’d stared at the ceiling of his room for hours. As soon as thin light leaked around the edges of his window curtains, he’d opted for a walk to clear his head.
Yet after fifteen minutes on this deserted beach, Lilly Durand—kissing Lilly Durand—remained front and center in his brain.
He wished he could blame it on her, but it had all been his idea. Not that she’d pushed him off—and the way she’d molded herself to his body had only boosted his arousal—but then he’d gone on to propose a plan of sorts.
For them to get to know each other better.
With her taste on his tongue and the heat of her small, sexy body imprinted onto his, it wasn’t his big head that had been doing the talking then. His dick had thought getting some more time with Lilly was a grand idea.
The brain on the top of his neck now recognized that as a grand mistake instead.
Furthering their acquaintance felt like a promise he couldn’t deliver on, and Alec considered himself an honorable guy. He immersed himself in work, spending long days at his desk. His phone pinged to remind him to get to the gym several times a week and he set his alarm early every other day for a morning run, but then it was dull boy-Alec and he liked it that way.
His mother would likely claim “refuge” with a knowing glint in her eye, but he didn’t work to retreat from anything, he told himself. He worked because he liked having a sense of purpose, his mind filled with long lists of tasks and line items, the ends of which were never to be reached.
That left him with no time or inclination to make someone’s acquaintance.
There was no leisure built into his life for getting to know someone like Lilly Durand who was the opposite of simple with her midnight eyes and her prickly, contrary ways. She didn’t want him, but she responded like she did.
She doesn’t want to want you, different things, a voice inside him said.
“Well, I don’t want to want her, either,” he replied aloud, the syllables swallowed up by the surrounding fog. “Haven’t I made it clear I have no time?”
Except that you have the next few days, that voice responded.
He shook his head, trudging onward. Not gonna happen. Fate—if you wanted to call it that instead of coincidence—had played its tricks on them, so that they were staying at the same resort and that she’d happened to save Buster. But there was no rule that he’d have to follow through on what he’d said the night before, with her so sweetly in his arms.
We’re going to spend time together like reasonable, grown-up adults.
Frowning, Alec stared down at his feet as he shuffled through the sand. No, he was going to act like a jackass instead and avoid her for the rest of the week.
“Oof!” Colliding with something that materialized out of the
