“I-I don’t know what you mean,” she finally managed to croak out.
“Okay,” he said, stroking her hair from her forehead again. “It’s okay, Lilly. You don’t have to answer.”
Letting her head fall to his shoulder, she allowed her tense limbs to relax again. He continued the soothing caresses, the silence between them a balm to the last of her tattered nerves.
Lassitude swept her again and an odd thought drifted into her brain. What if she told him? What if she explained about being abandoned by her mother and about her aunt and uncle and the defect in her bloodline?
This is how Durands love.
“Are you going to take a nap on me?” he asked, his voice amused.
“Maybe,” she admitted, trying to ignore the temptation to let down her guard and tell Alec everything she kept behind her wire-wrapped heart. Audra knew the basic details, but Lily had never told those to any man and even her best friend didn’t know how it felt to have such a tenuous hold on survival.
As far back as she remembered, her aunt and uncle had threatened to kick her out of their apartment, or worse, pack up and leave and not take her with them.
To her despair, those experiences had only served to feed her most private, unspoken, and deep-set need for roots and real family, even as she knew she didn’t have the tools or the bravery to try and satisfy it. If you didn’t strive for something, it wouldn’t hurt when you failed to achieve it.
Once she’d met Audra, Lilly had lived in the Montgomery orbit, trying not to take up too much space, but basking in the outer edges of the sunshine they created as a unit.
The Thatchers radiated that same nourishing warmth, she thought. Stability. Security. Which meant Alec would never understand her or her situation and he’d likely offer up in return an embarrassed pity if she told him about it. People like him didn’t want to know there was ugliness and upset in the world. He would resent her for lifting the screen.
She stirred in the warm cup of his big body, thinking that he couldn’t be comfortable, and knowing she’d have to exit the comfort of his arms at some point. “I’m too heavy,” she said.
“You’re a feather.”
A low note in his voice had her turning her head to glance up at him. “Are you falling asleep too?”
“No.” As he stared down at her, that power he held to weave a cocoon around them was at work again. The surrounding darkness became velvet curtains enclosing them and she wasn’t afraid or upset to have lost her sense of direction again. If she held a compass it would point to Alec as true north and she couldn’t look away from him as his mouth lowered to hers.
Lilly’s limbs went heavy and her stomach seemed to float upward as she breathlessly anticipated the kiss. Maybe she should demur, but there wasn’t a chance of that occurring, no chance at all.
His breath rushed out, making her lips tingle. Then his tongue traced the edges of them, a tickle that he soothed with a soft swipe across her lower lip.
Her mouth opened and he surged inside.
Lilly’s nipples tightened in a rush and a pulse throbbed between her legs. She felt heavy there, too, swollen and ripening as he deepened the kiss.
Squirming in his lap, she heard him groan as her hip pressed against the stiffening erection there. He adjusted her, hitching her into a different position, and his fingers found her bare thigh, the skin revealed because the hem of her dress had ridden high on her leg.
He stilled.
Then his mouth became more demanding, the kiss scorching her lips, setting fire to her blood. She wiggled again, trying to get closer to him, her need near-desperate. Desire had never before caught her like this, sweeping her up and leaving her thoughts and concerns behind.
Helpless, she thought, and wondered why the idea didn’t terrify her.
“Alec,” she said, dragging her fingers through his hair and holding him to her. “Alec.”
One of his hands soothed her, running down her side, but then his fingers found the hem of her silky dress and he groaned. His palm burned as he pushed it higher to follow the curve of her flank to her hip. He toyed with the edge of her panties there and Lilly moaned.
Lifting his head, he drew in a fast breath. “Sugar. Sugar, I’ve got to touch you.”
Her tongue drew a line along his jaw.
“God,” he said, shaking his head as if to clear it. “Let me…let me…”
“Yes,” she murmured, shivering as he traced the elastic line of her underwear with one fingertip. “Anything you want.”
Distant warning bells sounded at that remark, but they receded as he adjusted her on his lap again. Her back to his front now, and he spread her legs over his. She bucked at the wanton pose, but he hushed her and spread one big hand between her hip bones to keep her in place.
The heavy heat of it made her inner muscles clench and she turned her head to instinctively seek his kiss once more. His mouth found hers and they were at it again, their tongues twining, then seeking. He drove deep and she sucked on his, making him shudder.
His free hand roamed her neck, her throat, her collarbone and then skimmed over one breast. She quivered, and he came back to it, with a light touch pressing her tight nipple into the cup of his palm. His fingers closed over the rounded flesh and it swelled, the ache causing her to moan, a sound he swallowed down his throat.
He found the little buttons marching down her bodice and managed to undo them, their mouths still fused. Pushing aside the fabric, he shoved his hand beneath the stretchy lace of the cup of her bra and his big body went taut as he covered her bare flesh.
Lilly arched into his touch, wanting more. His mouth trailed across
