The sound of trucks woke Matt. He opened his eyes and focused on the carved ceiling above his head. Sometimes on the road he’d have to leave himself a note on the hotel nightstand to remind him what city he was in. He didn’t need a reminder today.
He leaned up in the bed and turned to Alana. Her hair was spread across the pillows, dark curls against white linen. Her lips, plump from hours of lovemaking, were pursed in a sleep-drenched smile. She didn’t stir as he rose from the bed.
Shock bolted through him when he saw it was already seven.
He hadn’t planned on spending the night. But then he hadn’t planned anything that had happened after he’d arrived at the ranch. At least Sophie was tucked away safely down in the kid's camp.
And what he’d felt while making love with Alana was way more than he’d planned, way beyond physical attraction. He wanted the sex, yes, but what he really wanted was more of her. The depth of his wanting shocked him because he thought he’d defended against it.
He’d been wrong. Again.
He pulled his briefs and tux pants off the bureau, knocking over a picture frame. He picked up the photo. It was a close-cropped shot. Alana wore a dress that made her look like a goddess, a goddess whose lips were locked with a dark-haired man’s in an apparently deeply sensual kiss. He picked up the photo next to it. She stood on a balcony that looked out over vineyards, smiling at the camera. The same man had his arm draped possessively over her bare shoulders.
He wondered who they might have asked to take such an intimate photo. The photo next to it was of a different man—tall and brooding—standing beside a Lamborghini, the Eiffel Tower in the background.
Of course she had men in her life. Apparently several.
He didn’t want to jump to conclusions—after all, Parker had been her cousin, not a lover. But still...
He shoved down the bile of jealousy that rose into his throat. He and Alana had no agreement, had hardly spoken about their lives. She’d done nothing to mislead him. And he’d never countered her comment about no-strings sex, about the freedom that such affairs provided. At the time he’d agreed with her, even though part of him resisted. He had no right to intrude into her life.
But what stopped his thoughts was the drawing beside the photos. Sophie’s hand-colored depiction of Alana in the butterfly garden was unmistakable. So was Sophie’s depiction of herself clutching Alana’s outstretched hand.
“That’s Parker’s brother,” Alana said in a sleepy morning voice, motioning from the bed.
He didn’t ask about the other photo, the photo of locking lips. One did not lock lips like that with a cousin.
She had her choice of men—he’d known that from the start. The reality just hadn’t sunk in. He looked back at the guy in the photo. The man looked happy. She probably summoned the best in all her lovers.
“Sophie gave me the drawing,” she said as she sat up in the bed. “After we put the hummingbird mint in the garden. It’s sweet, isn’t it?”
It was more than sweet. It was a drawing of a child’s hope.
The tightness ratcheting in his chest told him he was in way too deep. Another mistake.
There was a theme here. Whenever he made decisions involving Alana, he made the wrong ones. He should’ve stopped when it would’ve been easier, before the event, before last night. And he had to stop now. Before Sophie got caught in the crossfire. Hell, before he did.
But he wouldn’t have given up what he’d felt making love with Alana for anything. To know such power, such ball-rocking, world-shaking, mind-blowing passion, if even only for two nights, was worth any price.
Maybe that’s what worried him most.
He sat on the edge of the mattress.
“We need to talk,” he said.
She slid to the side of the bed and stretched a hand to his tux trousers. “Only if you take these off,” she said with what should’ve been a resistible smile. The sheet fell away from her, revealing the lush curves of her breasts.
He let her undo his trousers.
He shouldn’t have.
For so many reasons he should have simply walked away. Not least was that they didn’t have that talk. And then he was late to the ballpark.
Though he fought traffic and drove like a madman, he nearly missed batting practice. He totally missed the stretching workout. But after a night and a morning in bed with Alana Tavonesi, he didn’t need to stretch. But he did need another stiff cup of coffee. That and a new brain. The one he had obviously wasn’t paying any heed to him.
He’d never gotten around to telling Alana that they should cool it. He should. He would. He admitted that breaking it off before they got even more involved would be the best play.
What he didn’t want to admit was that he wanted to win her so that his would be the only photo gracing her dresser.
His name the only one on her lips and in her mind.