Lila knew that it wasn't in a man like Alec's nature to expose his vulnerabilities.
And she fully understood too why he didn't want to be alone.
After everything that had happened and changed in his life, it only made sense for him to still be in shock.
She slightly nodded and closed the door.
Upon dropping her backpack on the vast designer couch, she made herself comfortable- while he located two glasses and generously poured them some whisky.
When it came to exploring liquors, the furthest she had gone was wine and gin. And therefore was a stranger to his preference.
So much that she screwed up her nose in anticipation of a sharp aroma, while she took her first sip.
But with more small gulps in, she started liking the warmth that spread down from her throat to her stomach.
What she loved even more was feeling her tense and stressed body relaxing a bit, and the pain of her stress numbing down.
She didn't mind the silence between them.
Instead, she tucked her legs under her, and settled even deeper into her thoughts. Well, until he pulled her out of her reverie.
"So, are you ever going to tell me why you were crying at the hospital?" He watched her from the corner of his eye as he asked.
Lila blew raspberries, to buy time.
She was caught off guard. As she hadn't thought that someone had noticed her silent weeping by the corner.
"I was feeling a bit overwhelmed after visiting someone, I guess." She shrugged.
Even though it was nothing close to the actual truth, it was still a lie that she could sell to the stranger. Because the truth was much harder and complicated for her to even consider.
"I see," he narrowed his eyes for a moment, as if considering calling her out- but in the last minute decided against it.
"Are there relatives that will come for Zac?" She removed the attention from herself, and directed it at the child that she couldn't help but worry about.
"No," he shook his head. "Like I said earlier, he only has me now. And I have to ensure that it stays that way too."
"Meaning that there are other options, then?" Lila may have been slightly intimidated by the self assured man's presence, but she wasn't slow. And could read in between lines like a pro.
"An aunt and uncle, on his father's side. Who I learned today will be fighting me for custody of him." He scoffed.
She thought referring to it all as fighting was a bit extreme, but she decided not to push it.
Especially as she could feel her eyes getting heavier with sleep, by the second.
"Well, I'm sure you'll figure it out and do what's best for Zac in the end."
Everything was a mystery to her; him, his life, the situation that he was in.
So much that she found herself constantly fighting the urge to ask him endless questions about everything, so as to understand the puzzle and riddle that he was.
But at the same time, she knew that she had to keep everything at arm's length, because the timing didn't allow her to go dipping her toes where they didn't belong.
Her life in Singapore was over.
Therefore she saw no use getting herself involved in his life further than she already had.
"Yes, I will." He agreed, and downed the rest of his whisky.
"Just not tonight though. Come on."
He led them upstairs, where he showed her one of the guest bedrooms to sleep in.
"Before you go," she began, as a realization struck her.
"Who will wake up to Zac? Because he might not sleep throughout the entire night."
"Oh," he seemed taken back.
It was a very sensible question.
Babies who woke up in the night wouldn't usually be factored in to Alec Ramsey's agenda.
Little whimpers of distress wasn't necessarily the kind of thing to jerk a man like him from sleep.
She chuckled, failing to keep a lid on how silly she suddenly felt.
And for the first time ever she finally gazed at the man standing by the door of what would be her home tonight.
It could have been the whisky, but she felt warm all over-- as she shyly thought about how he had the type of physique that one saw very often on television and glossy magazines.
He was effortlessly and easily the most gorgeous man she had ever laid her eyes on.
The features that she had overlooked in the stuffy hospital reception when he helped him with the pushchair were all coming into focus, under her lazy and tipsy scrutiny.
His ink black hair was thick and glossy, a stray falling on his forehead adding to the attractive flair.
There was slight curiosity in his eyes as he studied her in return, which Lila wondered what it could be about.
He looked at her as if he knew all her deepest, darkest secrets. Which made her blush and avert her gaze.
She had by that time anyway decided that all his features were wonderful in their own right.
And put together, they resulted in the man who made her feel weak in the knees- despite them both barely knowing each other.
"You don't have to worry about him…" She finally said.
When he looked utterly confused and lost, she clarified.
"I mean Zac, if he awakens I'll handle it."
"Ohh." His full lips turned into a curve as he slightly smiled in gratitude.
"Have a goodnight," he shook his head, suppressed a smirk and turned to walk away.
"Goodnight," she offered, as an afterthought.
As she lay in the middle of the wide bed, she couldn't help but think about how his mouth softened the rest of his facial features.
The way it flexed when he spoke. And further drew one closer and held their attention too.
Her mind raced in different directions as she settled into the darkness of the bedroom, listening to Alec showering.
Thinking about how all the sounds were familiar and sort of soothing, despite the environment being strange.
And for the first time since she left the hospital this afternoon, she was able to draw breath.
To actually think about what she should do with her own situation.
Alec restlessly tossed and turned, in his bedroom.
Until his exhaustion resulted in a deep slumber shortly after midnight.
Only to be sucked into a nightmare in the early hours of the morning.
From which he was pulled out of by the shrill of screams that his nephew had decided to pierce the morning with.
'It was just a bad dream,' he muttered to himself as he sat up, gulping air as he awoke from the inky darkness that had been threatening to consume him.
The child's crying heightening made his horrible panic and dread to subside, as reality filtered in.
When Zac's crying quietened out of the blue; a shot of adrenaline propelled him out of bed in a panic.
And as he reached for the door, he realized that he had gone to bed in the nude and quickly grabbed a towel.
Upon wrapping it around his hips, he dashed to his nephew- all the while coming to terms with the fact that he wasn't just waking up from a nightmare, but living in one too.
In his rush to cross the hallway and get to Zac, he had completely forgotten about the guardian angel that he had begged to spend the night with them.
And upon seeing her in the master bedroom, soothing the child- he heaved a loud sigh of relief.
As he felt like he had just fallen off a cliff right into soft outstretched cushioned arms.
"He's okay!" Lila assured him, in a whisper.
She was slowly rocking Zac back to sleep.
"I thought…" he began to say but got cut off by her pressing her forefinger to her lips, signaling him to be quiet.
Alec couldn't help but notice that she had gone to bed in just a t-shirt.
One that she had worn during the day and happened to reach just below her butt too.
He quickly shook the sensual image out of his head, before she could catch on.
Zac's little night light caught the highlights in her dark brown hair, as she briefly looked up from the child she was soothing.
Her voice was calming and created an aura of safety. Not just for Zac, but for Alec too.
Suddenly, she was glad for the dim lighting in the room, because her face was one burning blush at the sight of Alec wearing nothing but a towel.
And she was absolutely aware of his presence as he stood beside her.
But that wasn't the problem and she knew it.
Hell, she'd caught Woody, her employer- Madelyn's husband, outside the bathroom in nothing but a pair of boxers a number of times.
And it had done nothing to her, not even cross her mind long enough for it to be a thought.
After settling Zac back into his cot, she walked behind Alec as they exited the bedroom.
Seeing the taut definition of his muscled back, the silky olive skin, inhaling the soapy masculine scent of him, well, it planted more than just a thought in her mind.
Her body was an even worse story.
"Sleep well, again."
He turned to face her, his hair all rumpled from falling asleep with it wet, still unshaven, his incredibly beautiful eyes dark wells of anguish as he hesitated to go.
Her hand instinctively reached out for his arm, touching him as she would anyone in so much pain.
Only the contact, the feeling of his skin beneath her fingers, the hairs on his arm, the satin of his skin against her palm, the touch that had been offered as comfort, shifted to something else entirely as her eyes jerked to his.
At any point she could have reclaimed her hand.
At any point she could have told him to sleep well too and gone back to her bedroom.
Only she didn't. She couldn't.
The air thrummed with the thick scent of arousal --- grief and shock a strange propellant, one that forced a million emotions into the air in one very direct hit, accelerating feelings and blurring boundaries.
The day that had left them both reeling, forced them to go through the motions, to run on sheer adrenaline, had come to an end.
And now they paused--paused long enough to draw breath before the impossible race started again in a few hours. A race neither wanted to resume.
In an instant it seemed far easier, to ignore the pain for the moment. To stand and instead of facing the future, face each other.
Alec stared into her eyes as he tried to picture the last few hours without her in it.
He always had a solution--another plan to initiate if things didn't go his way.
There was nothing that truly intimidated him.
But walking out of that hospital, holding his nephew in his arms, he had felt the weight of responsibility overwhelm him.
Gripped with fear, not for himself but for Zac, he had no glimmer of a plan, no thought process to follow, had just clung on his nephew as he'd clung to him.
And then she had come along--an angel descending when he'd needed it most. Almost the same way he needed her in that moment.
He needed her now just as much, if not more, than then.
His breath was getting faster.
So, he drew comfort in the only way he knew how.
He lowered his mouth and claimed hers. He found the bliss of contact fulfilling to his craving. The feel of her in his arms like a safety net.
For a second she resisted, fought the urge to kiss him back.
The speed of it all, the inappropriateness, flitted into her mind, then flitted out--because maybe she craved oblivion too.
As his tongue parted her lips and his skilled mouth searched hers, Lila thought thought that maybe it was because she'd never been kissed like that before.
All her fears and helplessness were abating as with his mouth, he soothed and excited.
The heady, blinding kiss was almost frenzied.
Like an anaesthetic, dousing pain, dimming thought.
His hands knotted in her hair hair as he drank from her mouth, his mouth so hot on hers there was a delicious bruising.
Deep lusty kisses both claimed and bestowed, and each breath she took was his, each breath she gave he gulped in.
It was a dangerous kiss that could only lead to more.
Yet somehow he made her feel safe, his strong arms holding her, his hands clutching her to him, his lips grazing her neck, the scratch of his chin on her sensitive skin making her weak.
She had never wanted a man like that before. Or even been wanted by with such furious passion.
The heady rush fizzed in her veins, racing around her body--stroking her pelvic floor like an inner caress.
And it had to stop, because if it didn't then they wouldn't.
Pulling back her head, though his arms still circled her body, she called a reluctant halt.
Both were staring, both breathing as if they had run a mile. The delicious shock doused her, her own body's response astonished her---every encounter in her life laid end to end didn't come close to matching this.
"Don't…" He husked his response to her unvoiced statement---disparity evident as her body thrummed in his arms.
"I have to."
She could hardly speak, her whole body so drenched with arousal, so utterly opposed to her mind, that it took every ounce of effort she possessed to walk from his room, to lie on her bed….to walk away from his.
It was just a kiss. She told herself.
A kiss because…?
Only she couldn't answer that one.
Lila's fingers moved to her mouth, feeling it swollen where his lips had been.
She could still feel the tender flesh of her neck where his chin had just made her raw.
It wasn't just a kiss---kisses had never left her that weak, kisses had never left her lost. Which she had been, completely lost in the moment with him.
She tried to put it out of her mind, to focus on her problems instead of letting her imagination wander, to tell herself to let it go.
But her body said otherwise.
And the slightly open bedroom doors channelized their want as they both lay alone in the oppressive silence.
Her body twitching with desire and thick greedy need; she lay there rigid, almost in desperation for the escape they had briefly found.
Willing herself to relax, to get some sleep.
Trying to ignore the man who lay just meters away, who was, after one kiss, the only man who had utterly moved her.