Except he did. Jacob, the would-be groom whom Alec had known through summer camp since they were six, had warned him about his fiancée’s best friend and the maid of honor. “A prickly little thing,” the guy had said. “Kind of private and definitely hard to get to know.”
He’d shrugged then. “To be honest, I don’t think she likes me.”
Well, Alec couldn’t fault her for being a spot-on judge of character. He didn’t like Jacob any longer either.
But when he’d met Lilly…
He’d seen her from across a crowded bar where the engaged couple had planned a mingle of the bridal party—three bridesmaids, three groomsmen. Even from that far away he could see Lilly was hyper-watchful, her slim body’s posture erect, her gaze alert as it moved between the faces of the people who stood around her. Like a hummingbird.
Or like, he thought now with new clarity, someone expecting a sudden move…a sudden blow?
Shit. No, he didn’t want to think like that.
So instead he thought about that evening, how he’d strolled up, casually greeting those he already knew then turning to her and introducing himself. He’d held out his hand.
For a second, she’d looked at it with suspicion. Then she’d reached forward. They’d touched palm-to-palm, and her eyes had jerked up to his, surprise washing across her beautiful face along with a watercolor stain of pink. He’d stared at her full mouth and exotic, tip-tilted eyes.
Lilly.
In that moment, he’d felt as stunned as she looked.
Instant chemistry. Fiery. Like a blast from a furnace. He’d never been burned like that before.
Beside him, his second cousin now let out a low whistle. Alec shifted his focus from the past to the other man. “What?”
“Today must be a lucky one for me. Check out the sweet little brunette standing at the coffee and smoothie cart on the patio.”
Even before directing his gaze in that direction, the sudden tightness in Alec’s gut told him who he’d find there.
“That’s Lilly,” he said, feeling his fingers curl into fists. He pressed back into the concierge desk instead of breaking into a run for her. “The maid of honor.”
Dressed in clothes made to drive him nuts. Yoga pants clung to her legs and a T-shirt with an oval cut-out exposed a slice of her back and the band of a colorful sports bra. Her flushed face attested to recent physical activity.
He tried not to think of her looking just like that after they’d gone a round or two in bed. And he remembered, even as sexual urge clamored at him to go after her, that he’d vowed to put her out of his head. The broken engagement had snipped the lit fuse that would have led to their inevitable explosion.
Anyway, always safer not to fool around with fire, he told himself.
“Hey,” Kane said in a musing tone. “I just realized there’s no reason for her not to like me.” He glanced over at Alec, a wicked gleam in his eye. “But just in case, do me a favor and pretend we don’t know each other, okay?”
Not okay. And with the knowledge that there were likely a dozen men in the vicinity who had similar designs as Kane on beautiful, maddening, delectable Lilly Durand, Alec pushed off the concierge desk and headed straight for the woman just now accepting a smoothie the color of a California sunrise.
Coming up behind her, he watched her take a sip through the long straw, those lips circling the plastic like a kiss, her cheeks hollowing. His cock twitched and he gave it a stern downward glance before clearing his throat. “Would you recommend the flavor?” he asked.
She whirled. “You.”
He tried to appear apologetic. “If you don’t want to keep meeting like this, you’re going to have to wear a bell around your neck like a kitten so I can hear you coming.”
“You’d be sure to avoid me then?” she asked.
Clever girl.
“How’s Audra today?” he asked, changing the subject.
“When are you checking out?” Lilly said instead of answering, then held up a hand. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter. After this, we’re really not going to see each other again. I’m willing it to be so.”
Alec suppressed the urge to grin. A woman with a resolve of steel. But he found he couldn’t like her fierce determination to be done with him even though he’d made the same decision himself. “Look, Lilly. You know I’m not Jacob. This situation isn’t my fault.”
She looked down at her smoothie for a long minute, then sighed. “I know. It’s just…Audra…”
“Audra…” he echoed.
Lilly’s head came up and she bit her bottom lip. “I can’t get her out of bed. She’s still wearing the wedding dress.”
Grimacing, Alec reached over to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. Her cheek felt hot as his fingertips drifted over it. “I’m sorry, sugar.”
Her beautiful eyes were fixed on him, the darkest blue, the deepest mystery. “How long should I wait until I wrestle her out of the thing?”
He would have laughed or at least made some comment about the lasciviousness of the image if he hadn’t seen the clear distress in her expression. He shook his head. “I don’t have an answer. I only know you’re a really good friend.”
“Audra’s a better one,” Lilly said.
“You were roommates in college, right?”
“Yes. We weren’t supposed to be. Audra had the single room on our floor. I had the horny roommate with the horny in-town boyfriend. The first week I spent my nights trying to sleep in the hallway while the sounds of their teenage fornication filtered through the gap at the bottom of the door.”
He remembered, with not a little guilt, leaving signals for his own roommate when a hookup was in progress. “Teenage fornication has its indisputable lure.”
Lilly gave him a knowing glance that communicated she
