“Mom,” Jojo remonstrated with a giggle in her voice. “Are you actually licking it there?”
Miranda groused that she should have pre-screened the film, but then more Thatcher siblings marched onto the screen. First Alec, then Jojo. They were all there, growing older, opening gifts, on family ski vacations, in Hawaii, that time their mother attempted to exhibit her famous swan dive and made a spectacular belly flop instead.
Alec’s eye kept being drawn to his big brother. He hadn’t seen him in five years, he realized. Not once had he been tempted to look at old photographs or videos. And it wasn’t because Simon was an active presence in his memory.
Alec had been actively working to avoid his memories of his brother altogether.
I think we all retreated to our preferred refuges and now it’s time to step out of them.
Settling back in his seat, he absorbed each image, remembering his brother’s infectious grins, his athletic grace, the big-brother glee on his face when he threw both his siblings in the pool and then followed after them. Damn it, Alec thought, rage slicing through him like the blade of a knife. Simon shouldn’t be dead. Simon shouldn’t be fucking dead.
“Are you all right?” Lilly whispered, her hand tightening on his.
He glanced her way, light from the movie playing over her face and clearly showing her concerned expression.
Then a shout redirected his focus to the screen and it was Simon again, staring into the camera that last Christmas, just months before the fatal car crash. Simon looking as healthy and alive as he’d ever been.
Ready for Alec to remember him in just that way.
Gone, but not out of reach. Never out of reach, if Alec stopped filling his life with so much work and lists and numbers that they became a block that didn’t let his brother in.
His anger receded, the pain inside him morphing into something both bitter and sweet. Simon would always be available as a memory to smile about, an older-sibling voice in his head, right where Alec needed him, right there whenever he needed him.
Alec shouldn’t have shut Simon out for so long.
A small hand squeezed his once again. “Alec?”
“I’m okay, sugar.” Maybe on the way to being more okay than I’ve been in a long, long time.
The last minutes of the digital film returned the focus solely to Miranda and Vic. There they were on the top of the Eiffel Tower, riding tandem on a scooter in Italy, atop the deck of their recently completed house on the beach at sunset. As the song “Say You Won’t Let Go” played, they toasted each other with glasses of wine, turned to smile at the camera, then turned back to face the horizon as the orange orb in the distance slipped into the sea.
The crowd went wild.
Over their appreciative applause and calls of congratulations, he heard Lilly’s voice. “Bad things shouldn’t happen to those people.”
He gave her a sharp look. There were tears in her eyes. “Sugar?”
“Don’t mind me,” she said, then jumping from her seat, hurried up the aisle toward the exit.
Alec couldn’t follow immediately. As the lights came up in the theater, relatives and friends surrounded the Thatcher family to praise and congratulate. But he extracted himself as quickly as possible and went off in search of her.
Luck was on his side, because he found Lilly on one of the twisted paths leading back to the main part of the resort. She stood alone, her arms wrapped around her waist.
The self-comforting pose made him hurry toward her, tenderness and concern sluicing through his veins
Coming up behind her, he kept his voice low. “Lost?” he asked, trying not to startle her.
She whirled.
Oh, hell. Tears were streaming down her face. “Sweet girl,” he said, reaching for her even as she stepped back. “Let’s go to my room. We’ll order some…tea or something and you can tell me what’s wrong.”
“Nothing’s wrong,” she said, swiping at her cheeks. “And you should be with your parents right now. That was a beautiful movie.”
“Yeah.” He cupped her face, drying the leftover dampness with his thumbs. “But I don’t need to be with them.”
“You don’t need to be with me either. You probably shouldn’t be.”
“What?”
“Your brother. I…it had to be hard to see him on the screen. He seemed so…vibrant.”
“Yeah.” Alec’s hands tightened on her, then he forced himself to relax. “But it’s okay.”
“Are you okay? Because I got to thinking.”
He frowned. “Thinking what?”
“You said you hadn’t been with a woman in two years.”
“Yes…”
“And…maybe it’s because he can’t be with anybody.”
Shocked, Alec stared down at her.
“And then I came along. Before me you’ve been…you’ve been maybe honoring his memory or something like that.”
Something seriously fucked-up like that. Jesus. Jesus. He’d never taken the time to examine what had been behind his unwillingness to take someone to his bed during the last couple of years.
“That fucker,” Alec said now, half in admiration, half in frustration and he didn’t know if he wanted to laugh or bend the nearest lamp post in half with his bare hands. “That fuckity fucking fucker. He’d just love this, wouldn’t he?”
Lilly blinked up at him. “W-what?”
He grabbed her by the wrist and began towing her along the path.
“Who are you talking about?” she asked, scurrying to keep up with him.
“Simon’s got to be guffawing his ass off in the afterlife,” Alec said grimly. “But that’s gonna stop. It’s gonna stop right now.”
“What’s going to stop?”
“The fact that he’s been cockblocking his little brother from beyond the grave.”
Chapter 10
Lilly landed on the inside of Alec’s hotel room door, breathless and bewildered. Once there, he let go of her hand and crossed to the minibar, where he pulled out a beer and nearly downed it in one swallow.
Then he sent her an apologetic look. “Sorry, sugar. Can I get you something? Wine? We can call room service for that tea I mentioned.”
She shook her head. “I should leave.”
“Oh, no,” Alec said, setting the beer aside. “You definitely can’t go. We’ve got something to do first.”
Ignoring that, she smoothed her palms over her thighs. “I just wanted to make sure you got to your room okay. You seem…agitated.”
“Yeah.” He laughed, his expression turning crafty as his gaze ran over her. Beneath her clothes, heat gathered at the small of her back and between her breasts.
“Why don’t you come over here and let me agitate you a little?”
Uh-oh. Without thinking, she glanced in the direction of the dark alcove where a meager light over the padded headboard illuminated the king-size bed, covers turned back, a wrapped chocolate on each pillow. “Now, Alec…”
He followed her gaze, his voice low and sexy. “You want candy, sugar?”
Eek.
“I can give you candy.” He prowled toward her, a smile ghosting his lips.
Lilly considered retreating, actually, literally, running from him, but her feet seemed rooted to the floor. Maybe it was because Audra’s advice still hung in her mind—that regrets weren’t something to avoid.
“I can make you feel so good,” Alec said in a voice oozing with dark promise. He got close enough to draw the back of his hand down the side of her face. Goose bumps rushed down her neck and her nipples pricked up, already weighing in on the idea.
“You won’t have to do anything at all, not even think. Just feel me, Lilly. Just feel me and you.”
Not thinking. Now there was an offer she found hard to refuse. It seemed like that’s all she’d been doing the past days, thinking about Audra’s pain, thinking about the ever-present demands of her relatives, thinking about the Thatchers’ loss of a beloved son, thinking abo
ut how she couldn’t seem to tame this wild attraction she had for the one right now looking at her with such intent.
Already she was swaying toward him, her body seeking the heat of his, seduced by the idea of an interlude of feeling, no thinking required. Hadn’t it been like that with him before?
She put her hand on his shoulder to steady herself and felt the deep tremor that went through him. It was that reaction to her touch that set the match to the desire pouring into her system.
His head bent over hers as if sensing her capitulation. “That’s right, sugar,” he said, his breath against her lips making them tingle. “Let’s get you out of these clothes.”
That took more time that she expected. While he was kissing her, his mouth slow and coaxing, his hands were busy, finding ways to her bare flesh. Before she was naked he’d touched her everywhere, her breasts swollen and aching from the way he scissored long fingers around her nipples inside her bra, tugging and twisting lightly until she was moaning against his lips, her tongue pushing into his mouth.
He sucked it inside wet heat and then found her own using a sneaky hand that worked its way beneath her loosened jeans and then her panties, the sensation of his hot palm on her cheeks making her clutch at him, going woozy with arousal. Popping up on her tiptoes, she allowed him easier access and shuddered as one long finger slid inside her.
Just like that, she was on the brink, her hips tilting, sensation gathering low in her belly, a tightening spiral that promised gratification. Tearing his mouth from hers, he laughed, his lips against her hot ear. “You’re gonna come that easy, baby?”
She refused to be ashamed by the idea. He wasn’t the only one with a long dry spell before this week. “Yes.”
Laughing again, he stripped down her pants and panties, flung her shirt and bra to the floor, then he had her against him again, her bare limbs pressed to his clothed body. He was hot and hard and she writhed against him, pressing herself to the rough front of his jeans as his hands ran down her back to cup her bottom.
“Show me,” he demanded, his fingers trailing a shivery path along her cleft and around to the place where she was wet and swollen for him. “Show me how fast you can come for me.”
The ascent took seconds, but the flight was joyful, weightless, a long bliss of rippling pleasure. She was still quivering with aftershocks when he laid her on the cool sheets. His gaze on her, he took off his own garments and she watched his lean, powerful body emerge from the cloth. Her arousal went from satisfied to simmering again as he palmed his erection, stiff and flushed.
“Let me see,” he said, nodding down at her. “Spread your legs for me, Lilly.”
On a shiver, she did as he ordered, knowing he would find her soft and ready for him there, the flesh pulsing and eager for his penetration. His arm reached toward the bedside table and he found something in the drawer there.
“A condom,” she said, surprised, remembering the lack of them before.
“Yeah.” He rolled it over himself with a practiced efficiency that embarrassed her to find so exciting. More goose bumps, prickling her scalp this time and scattering down her back. She squirmed against the sheets.
Alec caught his breath, his gaze burning with new lust. “Fuck, Lilly, you’re so damn sexy.”
She lifted her arms to him, needing to be held. “And you’re too far away.”
Then it was all he promised and more. Feeling. More feeling. No thoughts intruding on the decadent sensation of hot skin sliding against hot skin, of heavy muscle pressing against delicate bones, of masculine power finding its balance in the gentle sway of female surrender.
Lilly did that—surrender to Alec, because he was mastering her with long, drugging kisses and the slow drag of his hands over every inch of her body. He bent to worship her breasts, his touch reverent until it wasn’t when he drew the tips into his mouth and sucked so hard she arched from the sheets, crying out, lifting into him to offer more, more, all.
Her fingers dug into his back, feeling the long planes of heavy muscle there, testing them with her nails until he grunted and fed on her harder, opening his mouth to take in more of the round flesh as his tongue licked and flicked at her nipple.
She thought she might die of sensation. Yet she begged for more of it, with soundless demands from her hips and hands, with the moans she tried swallowing down but escaped anyway. Alec moved up to taste them, sipping them from between her lips as his fingers trailed down to the place left open by her wantonly splayed thighs. She was shaking, so ready for him she could feel wet leaking onto the sheet, and he groaned as his fingertips found it too, and used it to paint her tender flesh, circular strokes that touched her everywhere but the exact place throbbing for him.
“Alec,” she whispered, urgent and needy. Her head fell back and his mouth went to her throat, kissing there, his breath hot against her as he teased the entrance to her body. “Alec,” she said again, trying to impale herself on his fingers.
He spoke into her ear, puffs of sound that sent more shivers rolling down her body. Be sweet now…wait for it…wait until I say.
Desperate, she grasped at him, trying to pull him farther over her, trying to entice him to take the thing they both wanted most.
He settled between her legs and she instantly wrapped them around his hips. With a grunt, he let her draw him to her and then the blunt head of his penis was at her entrance, pressing in, a slow slide that parted her soft flesh. He went deeper, deeper and she bit her lip at the sensation of being opened, being owned, and then he was whispering again. Relax, sugar, easy…you can take all of me…relax, baby, yeah. There you go.
Her body, persuaded by the rough-sweet sound of his voice, gave way to his possession, each thrust taking him a little farther inside her.
When she’d taken all, he was still above her, perched on his elbows, his eyes trained on her face as if to impress the moment onto his memory. Then he began a deliberate rhythm, the friction delicious as he pulled out and lunged back in, and she clutched at his heavy shoulders as he drove on her pleasure, pushing it higher as her breath caught in her chest. One of his hands slid beneath her bottom and urged her upward, so that she met each of his lush strokes, the root of his erection pressing her throbbing clit, grinding there a moment until she became helpless against the gathering tension, slave to the thing she wanted more than breath.
Her eyes squeezed shut and Alec’s hand tightened on her cheek and then it happened, sensation shattered, flinging shards of bright and sharp pleasure across them and about the room.
They lay pressed together, chests heaving, breaths loud and harsh in the quiet. Lilly couldn’t move, and didn’t realize he had, until she heard his voice, a low rumble murmuring in her ear. A chocolate was held to her mouth and her tongue reached out for a tentative lick, then she gobbled up the rest, ravenous for the dark and sweet taste.
Alec gathered her into his arms and fed her the second piece. This time she took it in small bites, savoring the taste and the sense of being cared for.
Finally, she thought about leaving. “I should—”
“Hush,” Alec insisted, and she subsided instantly, drifting into sleep.
Hours later she found herself in a dream. A man was kissing her neck, sliding his mouth down to her breast, dragging his tongue over her hip and then turning right to seek the center of her body. Whimpering, she turned and moved and opened at his command, and then found herself awake, awake in bed with Alec Thatcher, and she ran her hands through his hair and then urged him into a different position.
Then they were tasting each other, and it was still part of the dream-not-dream and she didn’t think anything was as good as trying to entice him just as he was enticing her. The room was quiet except for licks and groans and sighs, the sounds of luscious wetness and dark, intimate pleasures. His fingers parted her and slid inside and she was sore from before, but a delicious soreness and she slid her hands between his legs to fondle the cool sac, and then they were coming, his climax
triggering hers or vice versa, it didn’t matter, it was a chain of promise and of pleasure.
He gained command of his limbs before she did and he arranged them again, heads on pillows, bodies spooned, his heavy arm draped over her middle. Alec nuzzled her hair aside, finding the bare skin of the nape of her neck. He kissed her there, a gesture imbued with both friendliness and affection, even as her body still twitched with leftover pulses of glorious, naughty sex.
His voice was drowsy as he spoke, his breath stirring her hair. “You should let me be something to you, Lilly.”
Her body jolted, her eyes snapped open, her mind instantly engaged, whirring to life after hours of being mesmerized into a sensuous hypnotic state. “Alec,” she whispered, her voice tight with unease.
But he didn’t respond, or move, even when she wiggled under the weight of his confining arm. His breaths were measured behind her, the steady, slow rhythm of sleep. And though she could have shoved away from him, insist he wake and let her up, free, away, she remained still in the dark, her jaw tight.
Hours of punishment for forgetting her place.
As dawn filtered into Alec’s hotel room, the alcove containing the bed stayed shadowed and cool, like her heart, Lilly thought. When enough time had passed that she wouldn’t feel guilty for disturbing him, she managed to slip out of the bed and tiptoed to the bathroom, where she took a brief shower and then redressed in her clothes.
Returning to the alcove, she saw that Alec remained asleep, so she drew up a straight chair and waited, her knees and ankles locked together, her gaze trained on his face.
So handsome, she thought, and there wasn’t censure for herself in the thought. By any objective measure, he was a man whose masculine features and chiseled body would catch a woman’s eye. Any female with a single working hormone would be tempted into seeking some regrets by going to bed with him.
Still, she wished he’d wake up so she could get on with what she had to say, though another part of her acknowledged she could find contentment in staring at sleeping Alec all day long. Way to go whole hog with the regret thing, she told herself. Audra would be so proud.
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