As in confessing who she came from. Crap people, she tried out in her head.
Yet even the crap people hadn’t really wanted her.
Upon reaching the lobby, she found herself overwhelmed by the bright lights and the noise. Chattering people stood around with coffees or cocktails in hand. Lilly hung back and Alec looked down at her, concern in his gaze.
“Okay?” he asked. He looked rumpled and delicious. Sexy.
She probably appeared a mess. “I need to freshen up,” she said, glancing in the direction of the women’s lounge.
“Give me your check slip and I’ll collect both our phones,” he said.
Lilly dug hers from her pocket, then skedaddled out of sight. In the restroom, she cooled her face with a bath of water and finger-combed the waves of her hair. Her mouth gave her away, she thought, grimacing at her reflection. No doubt about it, her lips appeared extremely well-kissed.
But would that be so terrible? she suddenly thought. So what if visitors caught sight of her at Alec’s side with her pink afterglow and her giveaway mouth? If even Tina saw them together the world wouldn’t end.
Her eyes widened and with a guilty start she realized she might be glad for the other woman to see them together and wonder.
Bad Lilly, she mouthed to herself and shaking her head, returned to the lobby.
But the platinum blonde wasn’t the woman talking to Alec as Lilly approached him from behind. It was instead Jessie Hathaway, the friendly resort staff person she’d spoken with a few times and who, she’d learned, was Alec’s second cousin. “She came to me crying the blues,” Jessie was saying.
Alec scowled. “Hey, I didn’t do anything to give Tina the impression I was interested.” As Lilly came to his side, he glanced over. His gaze then fixed on her mouth.
Yep, Lilly thought, total giveaway.
His hand reached up to tuck a tendril of hair behind her ear.
“And clearly you’re not available,” Jessie said drily.
“What?” Alec asked absently, still looking at Lilly.
Jessie sighed. “I do think she was sincere about her apology, though.”
Alec clearly wasn’t listening. “Uh-huh.”
“She feels bad she didn’t do more after—”
“No.” In an instant, Alec’s demeanor changed. His spine shot straight and he arrowed a narrow look at Jessie. “Let’s not—”
“You had a horrible tragedy in the family, Alec, and your supposed girlfriend at the time couldn’t bring herself to show up at the house with a frickin’ casserole.” Jessie’s lip curled. “She knows how shallow that made her seem.”
Alec grimaced, his posture tense. “We don’t have to air this in front of the whole world, Jess.”
“But Alec—”
“Some things are better left unspoken.” He cleared his throat. “Especially in front of strangers.”
The young woman blinked. “Oh.” Her eyes shifted in the direction of Lilly. “Oh. I wasn’t thinking.”
“Yeah,” he agreed.
“Well.” Jessie made a big show of shoving her hands in the pockets of her white jeans. “I’ll just take me and my big mouth off. See you kids around.”
Then she left, leaving Alec and Lilly—the stranger—and the elephant she hadn’t known about. He didn’t look at all happy to have her aware of some secret he held.
How ironic, when all she’d been concerned about until now were her own.
Studying her in the bright lights of the lobby, Alec saw that Lilly had her game face on—he already knew her that well. Her mouth curved in a neutral half-smile that she might have been able to pull off better if her lips weren’t puffy and red from his kisses.
Fuck, those kisses. He wasn’t sure he could even think of kissing again without thinking of Lilly, the warmth of her light, supple body against him, the searing power of their lips fused together. When she was near a hunger rose inside of him and he found himself so damn greedy he couldn’t keep his hands off her.
“If you’d just give me my cell phone, I’ll get back to my bungalow to check on Audra,” she said. Her gaze was trained just an inch above his left shoulder.
The “stranger” remark had offended her. He got that. He just hadn’t known how else to signal Jess to stop blabbing in that loud voice in the middle of the hotel lobby.
“Let’s go to my room,” he said quietly, then put up his hands when she seemed certain to protest. “Not…not for that. But I should explain—”
“You don’t owe me any explanation,” she said, and like a hedgehog, he could see all her prickly parts were on alert, ready to pierce the closest predator.
He could let this go, he thought. Avoid any further entanglement with the woman.
But Lilly fascinated him with her plucky vulnerability and her delicate independence—absurd contrasts that didn’t really make sense but appealed to him in some elemental, visceral way. And now that he’d bared her skin he was ravenous to taste more of it, hungry once again to smell her perfume when he’d heated her body with his touch. Of course he wanted her in his bed so he could see her come apart in his arms before thrusting into that wet, soft heat between her legs.
Sure, he wanted what he wanted, but was it right?
She’d rejected the idea of a one-night stand, remember? How fair was it to seduce her into that very thing now?
Except if he told her what happened five years before, he most definitely wouldn’t be in any mood to seduce. And there was that persistent, nagging itch digging between his shoulders making it obvious he couldn’t let her walk away from him after that unkind “stranger” remark.
He couldn’t let her walk away knowing that he’d hurt her feelings.
Shit, he thought, stifling a sigh. He’d suspected he would come to like her and it had already happened. He liked her very, very much.
A barrel-chested guy in nothing more than a towel wrapped around his waist stumbled by, almost plowing over Lilly. “Hey,” Alec said sharply. “Watch it.”
“Watch what?” Belligerent, the man reeled toward Alec. The quick movement caused him to stagger, now
