Winning the Right Brother (12 page)

“Hey there, crazy lady, get the heck inside!” Alex shouted over the rising wind and thundering rain. She flashed a grin at him and ran for the door he was holding open. The two of them practically fell into the front hallway, panting and dripping and shivering, and Alex slammed the door shut behind them.

He flicked on the light switch, and the old-fashioned chandelier shed its dim, crystalline light over Holly, her face glowing from the wet and the cold. She stood there breathing hard and deeply, her green eyes enormous and filled with laughter. She let her dripping raincoat slide to the floor and shook her head like a dog shedding water, giggling when Alex got a spray of droplets in his face.

She was so beautiful. In his whole life he’d never seen anything to equal her. She was like that woman in the story, the one with the seven veils. Just when you
thought you’d seen every side of her, you realized you hadn’t even begun.

She was twisting her hair now to wring out the rain-water, and she looked like a mermaid. Alex was the sailor watching her, knowing he could never have her, knowing she lived in a world he would never be allowed to enter.

Except she wasn’t some unattainable nymph out of a fairy tale. She was flesh and blood, and he wanted her. Everything in him was distilled into that wanting, the desire to make love to her until she forgot everything but the fire that burned between them.

He took two quick strides until he was close enough to touch her, and Holly looked up in surprise.

Alex was beside her so suddenly Holly was startled, and then the expression on his face froze her where she stood. Her heart began to pound. When he began to walk forward, slowly and deliberately, she found herself backing up until she was pressed up against the inside of the front door.

The electricity between them seemed to crackle in the air, an echo of the storm outside.

“How do you do that?” he asked her, his voice low.

“Do what? What are you talking about?” Holly’s eyes were wide as she stared at him, knowing now, when it was too late, that she’d been a fool to think she could bury her attraction to this man.

“This,” he said, looking at her, at the water that clung to her hair, her lips, her lashes. “You play it safe and I go along with it, because I think that’s what you want, and then you dance out in that storm like…” He paused, searching for the words he wanted. “There’s something elemental about you, Holly. It’s hidden most of the
time, but it’s there. You let it out once in a while, and then you cover it right back up. Something primal. Untamed.”

Holly didn’t like the sound of that. “I like to think of myself as very tame,” she objected, trying for a light tone. “Polished and refined.”

Alex shook his head. “I know you do. That’s what’s so funny. You wear these conservative outfits and you think you’re fooling everyone. Even yourself. Hell, it probably works most of the time. But I’ve never been fooled. Even back in high school I wasn’t fooled, and I still let you lie to me and to yourself, over and over again, and never did a damn thing about it.”

It was getting harder to breathe. Desire was making her tremble, and if she didn’t get away right now, Alex would know.

“I think I’ll go and—” she started to say, taking a step sideways, but in a flash Alex’s arms had trapped her, his hands flat against the door.

“Not until we finish this conversation,” he said.

“What conversation? This isn’t a conversation. This is—”

“This is me finally telling you the truth and you finally listening.”

His blue eyes had never been more intense as they bored into hers, unyielding in their challenge. The planes of his face looked harsh and dangerous and his rain-soaked hair made him seem… What was the word he’d used before?

Elemental.

“Stop it,” she whispered.

“Make me,” he said roughly. “You know you can if you want to. Push me away. Better yet, just tell me
you’re not attracted to me. If you can do that, I’ll walk away.” He pulled back a little. “Can you do that?”

She could. She had to. Because if she gave in to these feelings, her life would never be the same again.

She opened her mouth to say the words, but nothing came out.

He pushed away from the door, backing off a few paces, but his eyes never left hers.

“You can’t do it. But you can’t reach out for what you want, either.” He took a step back toward her. “You’re scared. And you’re letting fear make your decisions for you.”

Another step. “I’ve been scared, too. I’ve been scared since the night we kissed. But I’m damned if I’m going to let either of us run away again. Not without a fight, anyway. So go ahead, Holly. Give me all you’ve got. All the reasons why we can’t do this.”

One more step, and he was so close she couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see anything but him. He leaned in until his mouth was at her ear, and when he spoke his breath sent shivers down her spine.

“Come on, Holly. I’m sure you can think of just one reason.”

At last she found her voice. “Stop it, Alex! I can’t think when you’re…when you’re like this. You’re too close. It’s not a fair fight!” Even as she said the words she heard their absurdity, but Alex just smiled grimly.

“A fair fight is exactly what it is. What we’ve always had. We’ve been fighting each other from the moment we met, and you’d think we’d have figured out by now that neither one of us is going to win. Why the hell can’t you see that? What are you so afraid of?”

There was something in his eyes Holly recognized.
He was daring her, damn him, just like he’d done back in high school.

He shook his head. “I guess you really are too much of a coward to go after what you want.”

He paused, and when he spoke again, his voice was different, calmer and somehow more dangerous. “Unless it’s in your dreams, right, Holly? Because you do dream about me. I heard you last week, through your door. I went in and you were asleep, calling out my name again and again. And from the tone of your voice, I’d say whatever was happening in that dream, you were enjoying it.”

Holly was so furious and so embarrassed that she finally found the strength to push past him, turning so he was between her and the door and she could face him with a little breathing room.

“How could you do something like that?” she spat out, her cheeks burning. “Come into my bedroom, listen to me talking in my sleep. How could you invade my privacy like that?”

Alex didn’t give any ground. “Why not?” he asked. “You’ve invaded mine. You’ve invaded every part of me. Every nerve, every cell in my body. You think I don’t dream about
you?
”

He walked toward her again, but this time Holly didn’t back up. She knew this was her last stand. She held her head high, jaw clenched and nostrils flaring, and her eyes flashed as they met his.

“I want you, Holly,” he said, and for the first time she saw the yearning behind his passion. “I want you like I’ve never wanted anything in my life. And you want me. But the only time you let us be together is when you’re alone in your bed at night. Do you think about
me then? What it would be like if I put my hands on you the way I want to?”

And suddenly Holly realized something.

He hadn’t put his hands on her. Not tonight. He was battering at her defenses, but he hadn’t used the one weapon she couldn’t have resisted. If he’d grabbed her and kissed her like he had after Will’s game, she would have surrendered without a fight. She would have been his for the taking.

But he didn’t want that. He didn’t want to take.

Holly closed her eyes. She felt something surging through her, an electricity so bright and fierce it made everything else fall away.

Alex was still talking, but she didn’t care. She’d thought of one sure way to shut him up.

Alex never finished his last sentence. Holly put her hands on his chest and pushed, and he was so surprised he lost his balance, stumbling backward until he crashed up against the front door. Before he could recover she was there, against him, and then her mouth was pressed to his, fierce and desperate and clumsy.

For a second Alex was stunned into immobility. Then he was kissing her back, and he was so crazy for her and so terrified she would change her mind that he lifted her up and spun them so their positions were reversed, trapping her between the door and his body, shuddering when she wrapped her legs around his waist, and never for one second taking his mouth away from hers.

She tasted like rain, like heat, like Holly. His hunger was making him savage, his mouth crushing hers, but she was kissing him back just as fiercely. If the door
hadn’t been there to hold them up Alex would have fallen to his knees.

She was so raw, so passionate, this woman he’d dreamed about for so long and never, never thought he’d have. Now he was tasting her, feeling her, the heat between them so intense it seemed to burn through the layers of wet denim that separated them.

He broke the kiss and pressed his lips to her throat, right at her pulse point. She gasped and let her head fall back, her fingers digging into his shoulders hard enough to bruise.

He had to be inside her. Now. But they couldn’t go upstairs to one of the beds. Alex was afraid to take the time, afraid she’d slip away from him somehow, change her mind, push him away. He’d wanted her for so long and now she was his, for as long as he could hold her—and he wasn’t going to let her go.

He lowered them to the floor right where they were, pulling away only long enough to tug off his still-damp sweatshirt.

Then he turned back to her. His heart was pounding so hard the rush of blood in his ears drowned out the storm outside. With shaking hands he pulled her wet top over her torso and arms until she was free, and the only thing in his way was her cotton bra.

They reached for the front clasp at the same time. Their hands bumped, and their mutual clumsiness made them laugh in surprise. “Let me,” Alex whispered, his eyes on hers, and somehow he managed to unhook the tiny piece of metal so the thin barrier fell away, and then his hands were cupped around her perfect breasts, her nipples pebbled against his palms.

Holly gasped, arching her back, and Alex lowered his
head. He grazed his teeth across one nipple and flicked the other back and forth with his thumb until Holly writhed against him, her hands fisting in his hair as she moaned his name.

That sound broke the last of his restraint.

But before he could move to take off her wet jeans Holly had unzipped them herself and was working them down her legs, her teeth sunk in her lower lip as she concentrated. Alex had to tear his eyes away in order to focus on his own clothes, losing pants and shoes and boxers in one damp heap. Then he remembered his wallet. He reached for his jeans again to grab it out of the back pocket, and thanked every deity he could when he found the condom inside.

In a second he was sheathed and could turn back to Holly.

He could hardly believe how beautiful she was. She was naked, stretched out on his hallway floor gazing up at him with her lips parted, her red hair curling damply around her bare shoulders and a flush of heat staining her cheeks. She reached for him, getting her hands on his shoulders and tugging him down to her, and when he hesitated just a moment, fighting for control so he wouldn’t come before he even touched her, she arched up into him.

“Please, Alex,” she said raggedly, her green eyes enormous. “Don’t tease me. I need you…need you inside me.”

Her words were fuel to a fire. Alex liked foreplay, the kind that went on for hours, but right now he’d be lucky if he lasted two minutes. And besides, he told himself as he positioned himself at her entrance, he and Holly had already had about eighteen years of foreplay. He wasn’t going to wait one more second.

He thrust inside her, hard and deep, and the shock reverberated through both their bodies.

He went still. No woman had ever felt like this. He stared down at her, every muscle in his body taut, and saw she was frozen like he was, her eyes wide with the astonished awe he knew was mirrored in his own.

Then she was moving against him, her fingernails raking down his chest as she moaned. Her hips arched up against his and he couldn’t stop himself from rocking into her again.

Alex’s jaw clenched as he tried to go slow, knowing he didn’t have long. But Holly was gripping his arms, her legs wrapped around him, and she was gasping, “Not slow—Alex, please—” And then he was driving into her with all the passion of repressed desire, his rhythm hard and fierce and brutally possessive, and Holly was biting her lips to keep from screaming.

Her eyes flew open and she stared at him, panting, and he saw the very moment she fell over the edge, her body jerking beneath him and her head arching back, and then she did scream, calling out his name, and the sound pulled him over the cliff with her as he came, harder than he thought possible, collapsing on top of Holly as he fought for breath and the world shattered around him.

It took a long, long time to come back to earth. As soon as he could move again Alex rolled over onto his side so he wouldn’t crush the woman lying spent and lovely beneath him, drawing her close and wrapping her up tight, as if he intended to hold on to her forever.

It was an endless time before Holly could move again. It might have been hours. It seemed to take at
least that long for her heart rate to slow and her breathing to return to some semblance of normal. Cradled against Alex’s chest she could hear his heartbeat better than her own, as it slowed gradually to a strong, regular rhythm.

She kept her eyes shut, not wanting this moment to end, until the contrast between the warmth of Alex’s body and the cold floor beneath her became uncomfortable and she began to long for a bed, a warm, soft bed they could burrow into and hibernate in till spring.

But to say that out loud seemed presumptuous.

As Holly felt the wonderful sexual haze start to dissipate, she pressed herself closer to Alex in an effort to recapture the warmth. He responded immediately, his arms tightening around her and one hand moving to stroke her hair.