Winning the Right Brother by Abigail Strom Page A

tape for his latest crush. Well, at least he’d moved on from high school. He was progressing. By next week maybe he’d be up to his late twenties.
    Man, this was a sexy song. Alex closed his eyes and imagined kissing Holly to this song, swaying with her on a dance floor somewhere and feeling every inch of her pressed against him as he tasted her, slow and soft at first and then hard and insistent, bringing out the passion he knew was just under the surface, waiting to be unleashed.
    Alex sighed and pressed a cushion to his face. Yeah, he had it bad.
    He headed upstairs for bed, pausing as he walked past Holly’s door to lay a palm flat against the wood, thinking of her on the other side, curled up in bed with her red hair fanned out across the pillow.
    Then he heard her call out his name.
    He froze.
    “Alex,” he heard again, distinctly, and there was no question it was Holly’s voice.
    Okay, this was weird. Did she know he was out here? How could she? Was something wrong? Did she need him?
    Confused, uncertain, Alex turned the knob as softly as he could and slipped inside her room, his eyes adjusting to the darkness and moonlight as he focused on the figure curled up on the bed.
    “Holly?” he asked softly, barely above a whisper. “Is everything all right? Do you need something?”
    She didn’t answer him. After a moment or two of listening to her deep, even breathing, Alex decided that she was definitely asleep and that his mind had been playing tricks on him. Time to make his getaway before she woke up and punched him again, this time with cause.
    He’d put his hand on the door knob when she stirred, stretching languidly.
    “Alex,” she said clearly.
    She was still asleep. She was lying in full moonlight now and he could see that her eyes were closed. What the—
    And then she said it again, softly.
    “Alex…”
    There was warmth in her voice and a kind of longing.
    “Alex,” she said a third time, a sensual whisper that went straight to his groin. She shifted a little in her sleep.
    For one unbearable minute Alex just stood there. Then he turned the knob soundlessly and got the hell out, shutting her door softly and firmly behind him and moving swiftly down the hall.
    Alex ran a shaking hand across his forehead. This was bad. Oh, man, this was bad. It had been torture enough just imagining what her voice would sound like saying his name like that. Now he knew, and the reality was more intense than his fantasies, and Alex couldn’t think of the last time that had happened.
    He’d courted the torture. Hell, he’d sent an engraved invitation. If he hadn’t been standing outside her door like some kind of lovesick puppy dog he never would have heard her. He wasn’t supposed to have heard her. He’d been listening in to her dreams, and if torture was the result, well, it was his own fault.
    Maybe he should be glad that at least he knew, now, that she felt some of what he did. But somehow it made it worse, knowing that her subconscious or unconscious or whatever felt something for him, while her conscious had made it perfectly clear she didn’t even want him to flirt with her.
    And now the image of her moving in her sleep, her back arching ever so slightly and her lips parting, was burned into his brain.
    But no matter what sleeping Holly thought about him, wide-awake Holly had asked him to keep his distance, in very clear and unambiguous terms. And somehow, someway, he was going to find a way to manage it.
    Starting tomorrow, he was going to spend every waking hour focused on football and his players. And if that didn’t work, maybe he could pack himself in ice.
    That ought to do it.
     
    Holly woke up slowly, feeling a delicious warmth running through her body. She stretched, thoroughly and with pleasure, feeling how delightful it was to move, to use her muscles. She must have gotten a really good night’s sleep, she decided.
    Then her dream came flooding back. Alex. She’d dreamed about Alex last