Dream Lake (Friday Harbor #3)(75)

“Oops,” he heard Justine mutter. “Sorry.”

Zoë turned her face toward her cousin. “Justine,” she said, sounding remarkably calm, “you don’t have to drive Emma and me back to the cottage. Alex is going to do it.”

“He is?” Justine asked warily.

Zoë’s warm blue eyes stared up into his. Daring him. Entreating.

All right, then. He had finally reached the point where he didn’t care. He was sick of struggling and needing, and never having. He didn’t give a damn about anything except getting what he wanted.

Alex gave her a single nod.

Against every instinct he possessed.

Twenty

Emma was sleepy and contented on the drive back to Dream Lake, not to mention relieved that Zoë hadn’t been upset by her father’s behavior.

“Of course I wasn’t,” Zoë said with a light laugh. “I know how he is. I’m glad he brought Phyllis, though. I like her.”

“I do, too,” Emma said. A reflective pause. “It must say something good about James, that he can attract a woman like her.”

“Maybe he’s different when he’s away from us,” Zoë said. “Maybe when he’s in Arizona, he’s more positive.”

“I hope so,” Emma said doubtfully.

Alex was quiet, occupied with a fierce inner battle. He knew that he should drop Zoë and Emma off at the cottage and leave at once. He even thought there was a chance he could do that. The odds were seventy–thirty in favor of leaving.

Maybe sixty–forty.

Alex wanted Zoë so badly there was no room left for anything else. He was molten inside, but in the past few minutes his heart had shut down and turned glacier-cold. The difference in temperature, the tension between fire and ice, threatened to crack his chest in a thermal downshock.

The ghost, occupying the backseat next to Emma, was silent. There was no doubt that he’d sensed Alex’s turmoil. He understood something was wrong.

“Alex is coming in for a drink,” Zoë told Emma as they got out of the car.

“Oh, how nice.” Emma linked arms with her granddaughter as they headed to the front door.

“Would you like something, too, Upsie?”

“At this hour? No, no, I’ve had a lovely day, but I’m tired now.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Thank you for driving us, Alex.”

“No problem.”

They went into the house, and Zoë murmured to Alex, “I’ll just be a few minutes. There’s lavender lemonade in the fridge.”

She went into Emma’s room and closed the door.

Lavender lemonade. Alex suspected it would taste like leftover water from a flower vase. But heat was thrumming in his body, turning his skin dry and parching his mouth. He went to the refrigerator, found the pitcher of lemonade, and poured a glass.

It was tart and light, wonderfully cool. He drank deeply, sitting on one of the bar stools at the kitchen island. The ghost was nowhere in sight.

A heavy mass of emotion had gathered inside, and he struggled to separate it into identifiable parts. Lust, first and foremost. Anger. Maybe a trace of fear, but it was so mixed up with the anger that he couldn’t be sure. And worse than anything was a terrible knifing tenderness he’d never felt for anyone in his life.

The women he’d been with in the past, including Darcy, had all been experienced, confident, seasoned. With Zoë it would be different. The familiar terms for sex … nailing, boning, banging … did not apply. She would expect him to be gentle … gentlemanly … God help him, he’d have to figure out how to fake that.

The bedroom door opened and closed quietly. Zoë had slipped off her high heels. She walked toward him in that damned black dress, the gathered fabric hugging every luxurious curve. Alex didn’t move from the bar stool. A tightening feeling spread over him, the lust threatening to annihilate him, and her along with him.

“She’s asleep now,” Zoë whispered, coming to stand in front of him. Her smile was tremulous. He reached out and touched the pure line of her throat, pale as moonglow. His fingertips trailed softly downward to her collarbone. The light touch drew a shiver from deep within her.

He pulled her closer between his spread thighs and gripped one strap of her dress, dragging it down a few inches. Pressing his mouth to the side of her neck, he kissed the smooth skin, working his way down. Gently he bit the fine, firm muscle at the top of her shoulder. A gasp escaped her. He could feel a blush in her, burning its way to the surface. For a moment it was enough just to hold her like this, to savor the female form caught between his thighs, the veil of her hair sliding against his face and neck.

“You know this is a mistake,” he said gruffly, lifting his head.

“I don’t care.”

He sank his hand into her hair and kissed her, opening her mouth with his, searching aggressively with his tongue, then caressing in softer, deeper strokes. She tensed against him, a sound caught in her throat, her hands groping around his shoulders.

He had never known such intense need, more than could be satisfied in ten lifetimes. He wanted to spread her out like a feast, kiss and taste every part of her. Reaching behind her, he found the hidden zipper of the dress, and it gave way with a metallic hiss. His hand slipped inside the shadowed opening, fingers spreading across the satiny warmth of her back. The pleasure of touching her shot through him. His mouth traveled over her throat, and he breathed her name, rubbing the syllables into her skin with his lips and tongue—