Dream Lake

Seeing Justine begin to stand, Alex said quietly, “Let me.”

She frowned but remained seated as he headed after Zoë. Alex wasn’t entirely certain what he would say to Zoë once he reached her. For the past two hours, he had watched her set plate after plate of magnificent food in front of a father who would never appreciate such offerings. He understood the situation all too well. From his own experiences, Alex knew that parental love was an ideal, not a guarantee. Some parents had nothing to give their children. And some, like James Hoffman, blamed and punished their children for things they’d had nothing to do with.

Zoë was occupied with measuring grounds into the basket of the small coffeemaker. Hearing his footsteps, she turned to face him. She looked expectant, oddly intent, as if she wanted something from him. “I wasn’t surprised,” she said. “I knew what to expect from my father.”

“Then why did you make this dinner for him?”

“It wasn’t for him.”

His eyes widened.

“If you hadn’t agreed to come here tonight,” Zoë continued, “we would have gone to a restaurant. I wanted to cook for you. I planned every course trying to think of what you would enjoy.”

Frustration and bewilderment tangled inside him. He had the sense of being manipulated in the softest possible way, like silken nets being drawn around him. A woman didn’t do these things purely for the sake of kindness or generosity. There had to be something behind it, a motive he would only discover when it was too late.

“Why would you do that for me?” he asked roughly.

“If I were an opera singer, I would have sung you an aria. If I were an artist, I would have painted your portrait. But cooking is what I’m best at.”

He could still taste the flavor of the pot-de-crème, clover and wildflowers and deep amber nectar. The taste bloomed on his tongue and tightened his throat with sweetness, and flowed through him until he could have sworn the honey scent was even rising from his pores. Without meaning to, he reached Zoë in two strides and took her by the arms. The feel of her, voluptuous and silky, sent his blood racing. Emotion and sensation swirled together in a volatile mixture, and all it would take was a single spark to obliterate him. He was so hard, so hungry for her. So tired of trying to keep apart from her.

“Zoë,” he said, “this has to stop. I don’t want you to do things for me. I don’t want you to think about ways to please me. You’ve already ruined me. For the rest of my life, I’ll never be able to look at another woman without wanting her to be you. You’re woven all through me. I can’t even dream without you being there in my head. But I can’t be with you. I hurt people. It’s what I’m best at.”

Her face changed, her mouth rounding in an O of tender dismay. “Alex, no.”

“I’ll hurt you,” he said ruthlessly. “I’ll turn you into someone we both would hate.” The truth came from the deepest part of his soul. You’re nothing. You deserve nothing. You have nothing to give anyone except pain. Knowing that, believing it, was the only way the world made sense.

As Zoë held his gaze, he saw anger gathering on her face. The sight relieved him. It meant she would strike him, reject him. It meant she would be safe.

Her hand came to his cheek. But softly.

Her fingers were gentle against his jaw, her thumb brushing his lower lip as if to erase the razor-edged words. It threw him into hot confusion to realize that her anger wasn’t directed at him. “No,” she murmured, “you’ve twisted it all around. You’re the one who’s been hurt. You’re not trying to protect me. You’re trying to protect yourself.”

He shoved her hand away from him. “It doesn’t matter who the hell I’m trying to protect. The point is, some things are broken too bad to be fixed.”

“Not people.”

“Especially people.”

Seconds passed, sawing deep through the silence.

“If either of us gets hurt,” Zoë said carefully, “it’s still better than never taking a chance.”

“You want to take a chance on something hopeless,” he said in a scornful tone.

She shook her head. “Something hopeful.”

In that moment Alex hated her for what she was trying to do, for making him want to believe her. “Don’t be stupid. Don’t you get what having a relationship with me would do to you?”

“We’re already having the relationship,” she said in exasperation. “We have been for a while.”

Alex seized her, wanting to shake some sense into her. But instead he was gripping her close against his hammering heart, forcing her to stand on her toes. He didn’t kiss her, only held her with his head bent so that he could feel her breath on his face.

“I want you,” she whispered. “And you want me. So take me home and do something about it. Tonight.”

The sound of the kitchen door made him flinch, but he still couldn’t let go of Zoë.

“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—

A harsh caterwaul came from behind him. Startled, he nearly jumped out of his shoes. He turned to see the big, baleful cat glaring at him.

Zoë pulled away from Alex, her eyes wide. Seeing the cat, she laughed breathlessly. “I’m sorry. Poor Byron.” She bent to pet the Persian.

“Poor Byron?” Alex asked incredulously.

“He’s insecure,” she explained. “I think he needs reassurance.”

Alex gave the cat a narrow-eyed glance. “I think he needs to be drop-kicked from the front doorstep.” His attention was diverted as Zoë held up the gaping front of her dress with one hand.

“Let’s go into the bedroom,” she said. “He’ll settle down in a few minutes.”

Following Zoë, Alex turned and closed the door in the cat’s face. After a moment of silence, they heard a drawn-out yowl, accompanied by scratching.

Zoë gave Alex an apologetic glance. “He’ll be quiet if we leave the door open.”

There was no way he was letting a cat watch while he had sex. “Zoë, do you know what the word ‘cockblocked’ means?”

“No.”

“It’s what your cat is trying to do to me.”

“I’ll give him some catnip,” Zoë said in a moment of inspiration. Opening the door, she paused at the threshold and told him, “Don’t change your mind while I’m gone.”

“I can’t change my mind,” he said darkly. “I’ve already lost it.”

Zoë put a spoonful of dried catnip into a brown paper grocery bag, and set it sideways on the kitchen floor. Byron purred and arched against her hand, pleased to have her attention focused on him. “Be a good boy and stay in here, okay?” Zoë whispered.

The cat sniffed at the grocery bag and crept in. The paper crackled and sagged as Byron executed a slow roll inside.

Returning to the bedroom, Zoë closed the door.

Alex had taken off his shoes and was sitting on the edge of the bed, which was covered with a flowered duvet. He looked big and vaguely dangerous in the confines of her bedroom. The glow from the lamp played over the hard perfection of his features, the gleaming black layers of his hair.

“We may have to get creative,” he said. “Not being forewarned, I don’t have any kind of protection for you.”

“I bought some just in case,” she admitted.

One of his brows arched. “You were pretty sure I’d end up at your place.”

“Not sure,” she said. “Just optimistic.”

“Bring them to me.” The raw velvet of his voice caused the back of her neck to prickle in excitement.

Zoë went to the tiny bathroom and closed the door. After undressing and slipping into a soft pink robe, she found the box of condoms, and returned to the bed.

Alex’s gaze traveled slowly over the robe, down to her exposed ankles and bare feet, and back to her flushed face. Taking the box from her, he opened it, took out a packet, and set it on the night table. To her surprise, Alex took out another packet and set it beside the first. She blinked and felt her face turn hot. Sending her a pointed glance, Alex put a third packet on the nightstand.

Zoë couldn’t hold back an airless giggle. “Now you’re being optimistic,” she said.

“No,” came his measured reply, “I’m sure.”

She thought with private amusement that there were situations in which a touch of male arrogance was not necessarily a bad thing.

Alex set aside the box and stood. He unbuttoned his charcoal gray shirt and let it drop to the floor. His vee-neck undershirt was crisp white against tanned skin. Tentatively Zoë reached for the hem of the tee, the bleached cotton holding the warmth and salty-clean scent of his body. She pulled it upward, and he moved to help her. As the undershirt was stripped away, his body was revealed, elegant in its spare, hard strength. For a split second, she wondered if he would be gentle enough, careful enough. It had been so long since she’d been intimate with anyone.