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“It’s so great to see Auntie M like this,” Kane said. “And with a new pet besides.”
“Yeah.” Glancing over, Alec saw his dad was smiling at the sight too. “I think she’s turned the corner.”
“I think she’s passed it by a few blocks,” Kane said.
“You joining us for dinner?” Alec asked the other man.
He shook his head. “Got a date. New girl.”
For some reason Alec’s mind leaped to Lilly, though he didn’t think that Kane would go there, having seen Alec’s reaction when he’d mentioned it before. “Do you ask women out that you meet on the job?”
“You mean resort guests?” Kane mocked a deep shudder. “God, no. The ghost of Great-Great-Grandfather Hathaway would rise from the grave to haunt me. Very unprofessional.”
Now relieved, Alec smiled. “Of you or Grandpa Hathaway?”
“Hah hah,” Kane said, then glanced at his watch.
“You seem eager,” Alec pointed out. “Might this new girl be the one?”
Kane shuddered again. “If there will ever be the one, now is not the time. I am not looking for the one.”
“Don’t tell that to my mother. Besides planning parties and raising puppies, her new lease on life includes meddling into romantic affairs. You talk like that around her and she’ll take it as a personal challenge.” And bad though it might be of him, Alec hoped she’d switch her focus to Kane. At least it would get her off his back.
“I have no problem explaining to Auntie M that I am not in the market for anyone serious.”
“At the moment.”
After a pause, Kane concurred. “At the moment.”
“But what if the right woman passes into your life now?” Alec asked. “When you’re not expecting her, or looking for her, or ready for her?”
“If I’m not ready for her, then I won’t see her, right? Well, maybe I’ll see a pretty face across a crowded room and all that, but if I approach I’ll be able to tell she’s looking for something serious and move on.”
Alec raised a brow. “How do you tell that?”
“I’m pretty upfront about what I’m interested in, aren’t you?”
His exchange with Lilly floated through his mind. Her: I suppose you’d be satisfied with something you’d think of as ‘simple,’ like a one-night stand. Him: It’s probably the best I’ve got. Well, possibly a few nights.
Yeah, he’d been honest.
“But what if she’s the right woman and you lose her forever?” Alec heard himself say.
Kane was staring at him, a quizzical look on his face. “You’re disturbing me, man. Maybe we can trade diaries tomorrow. I’ll let you borrow my glitter pens if you lend me the ones you have that smell like bubblegum.”
“Fuck off.” Maybe he was disturbing himself just a little too. Gritting his teeth, Alec looked away.
And as if he’d conjured her, across the pool he saw Lilly strolling along a bordering pathway. His senses went on alert as he drank her in. She wore that little silky dress she’d had on earlier in the day and in his mind he could smell her perfume, the scent floral and clean. Then, he’d wanted to bury his face against her throat and breathe her in before stripping her clothes from her once and for all, ending the torment of not knowing the color of her nipples and the taste of her arousal. He’d been dying to get his hands on her, a palm cupping her mons, a finger sliding into her wet heat.
Just a single time with her and he’d be able to move on.
This fierce need for her would be assuaged in bed and he’d be able to understand it for what it was…a bad case of desperate lust. No big deal.
Now she paused and brushed her hair off her shoulders, giving him a better look at her face. His hand curled into a fist as he took in her pensive expression and the small line of worry between her brows.
Damn, he hated to see that. But Lilly was devoted to her friend and likely fretting over Audra’s state of mind. It seemed likely that Alec’s small exotic brunette could use a friend of her own at the minute.
Without thinking, he began striding in her direction, planning to cut off her path so that he could…what?
