The Man Plan (11 page)

“Why not?” She bent forward and pressed her lips to his neck, zeroing in on a particularly sensitive spot just under his chin. “I’m not fifteen anymore.”

Blood beat in his temples, slowed and thickened in other places. “Even so, it—wouldn’t be right. We—the two of us—we shouldn’t be together, not like this.”

Her free hand stayed busy, roaming over him while her lips scattered kisses across his collarbone. “We were together downstairs,” she whispered. “I thought we fit together perfectly.”

“What happened downstairs was a mistake. I didn’t mean to kiss you. I—well—it all got out of hand.”

“Hmm, didn’t it, though?” She kissed his cheek, then sighed into his ear. “Let’s get out of hand again.”

He fought the red haze that rolled through his brain.

Show some restraint,
he thought.
Have enough willpower to do the right thing.

“Ivy, no.” He untangled himself from her and stepped away. “Stop. I mean it.”

She pinned him with a smoldering look, her eyes brilliantly blue. “I mean it too. You want me. Why deny what both of us want?”

“Because it’ll change our relationship. If we do this, nothing will ever be the same between us again.”

“It’ll never be the same no matter what we do tonight,” she said. “These feelings on both sides are in the open now and can’t be taken back.”

She was right.

Never again would he be able to look at her, think of her, in the way he used to.

She wouldn’t ever again be the child who’d once solemnly held out her shoes to him, laces dangling, to ask if he’d teach her how to tie a bow.

Or the shy adolescent who’d phoned him the first time she’d ever stayed home alone, then talked with him for more than two hours, until her parents came home, so she wouldn’t be afraid.

Or the teenage girl whose cheeks had bloomed with innocent delight when he’d placed a strand of cultured pearls around her neck as a gift on her fifteenth birthday.

As she’d reminded him, she wasn’t fifteen anymore. The girl she’d once been was gone, a memory of the past. She was a woman now and no longer an innocent; her bold actions tonight assured him of that. Still, that didn’t mean he had to take advantage of her.

He shook his head, denying himself as much as her. “All the old reasons against our being together still
apply. There’s too much history, too many years. I’m too old for you, Ivy.”

“Your mind only thinks you are.” Pointedly, she skimmed her eyes downward. “Your body doesn’t seem to agree.”

Dressed as he was, there was no disguising his erection. “What my body thinks doesn’t matter.”

She drew a breath, then reached for his hand. In silence, she carried it across the space between them and placed it over her breast. “Doesn’t it?”

His palm cupped the warm curve of her pliant flesh as though fashioned for that express purpose. He fought to yank his hand away. Instead, as if controlled by a will of its own, his thumb slid sideways, brushing across her nipple.

The sensitive tip peaked beneath his touch.

Her lips parted, eyelids growing heavy.

His thumb moved again.

And again.

A flush raised bright flags of color in her cheeks. She shivered once, then took his hand, slipped it inside the bodice of her dress, fitting his palm around the warm softness of her naked breast.

He held himself rigid as he fought one last battle, as he tried to gather the will to resist.

You can’t,
he ordered himself.

It would be a mistake,
he warned.

There will be regrets, pain, recriminations, and loss
.

But his aching body cared for none of those things.

He hungered for her in a way he couldn’t remember ever hungering before.

With a shudder, he buried his face in the sweetness of her hair and let himself be lost.

Ivy gasped when his hand moved, kneading her flesh with a skill that drove the breath from her lungs. He reached around and unfastened the buttons on the back of her dress. She closed her eyes and let the sensations wash over her, better than anything she’d ever imagined.

She didn’t know where her daring came from tonight. Seducing him, enticing him with the confidence of a woman far bolder, far more experienced than herself. Of course, nearly any woman was more experienced than she, Ivy thought wryly.

Hormones and adrenaline, she decided. That must be the source of her confidence. An explosive combination that had fueled her system with a strength of purpose she hadn’t known she possessed.

When he’d left her downstairs, she’d been a mass of seething emotions, desire flooding through her like a storm-swollen river. She’d been kissed before but never the way he’d just kissed her.

For a long while after, she’d stood, half dazed, her lips throbbing, her blood humming, and she’d known she couldn’t leave. So instead of letting herself out of the apartment and heading for her own, she’d followed him up the stairs.

Her limbs quivered as his hand slipped beneath her panties to caress the fleshy curves of her buttocks, the upper edges of her thighs. She whimpered and leaned against him, suddenly aware she was naked, her dress ringed in a colorful pool around her ankles.

When had that happened?

Coherent thought fled as he kissed her, ravaging her mouth, his scent and taste both dark and delicious. She looped her arms up over his shoulders, bare breasts rubbing against the silky hair covering his chest in a most tantalizing way. She ran her hands down the long supple warmth of his back, her fingertips tingling at the sensations.

His hand, the one that had been roving over her bottom and thighs, made a sudden downward turn. He parted her legs and cupped her intimately. Before she fully guessed his intent, he dipped his fingers into her, slow and easy. First one, then a pair, easing them up inside where she was most vulnerable, most female.

Her eyelids slid closed, breath panting from between her parted lips. She moaned and clung harder, her nails curving against his skin as he built the pleasure inside her, each stroke better than the last.

His thumb moved, finding and flicking a spot that made stars spin behind her eyes. She shuddered, helpless against the delight as he kept on.

When the climax hit, it rocketed through her with a force that shook her to her toes. She cried out, hanging limp and lax against him as she waited for a hint of sanity to return.

But she didn’t have a chance to recover before he was kissing her again, deep and demanding, his arousal pressing insistently against her stomach. He locked an arm around her waist, pulled her with him to the bed.

Her muscles were as wobbly as Jell-O and she nearly
stumbled on the way. But it didn’t matter, as they fell upon the mattress, entwined.

He stripped off his boxers, then covered her. His long, muscled body lay heavily against hers despite the weight he was careful to keep on his forearms and knees. Suspended above her, he captured her mouth in an intense mating of lips and tongues and teeth.

She was panting, low moans coming from her throat, when he slid downward to suckle her breasts. First one, then the other, using a delicious suction as he swirled his tongue around each tender tip until they were tight and aching. She arched, assailed by a rush of new sensations. Fresh desire gathered deep within, weeping anew between her legs.

She threaded her fingers into his hair, stroked his face and neck, then down his shoulders and back. He moaned as she touched his hips and buttocks, stroking his skin the way he’d stroked hers earlier.

He levered himself upward, centered himself between her thighs. Then, pushing them wider, he thrust forcefully inside.

She cried out, stiffening involuntarily against an intense stab of pain.

A single teardrop leaked from the corner of her eye as she forced herself not to fight the intrusion, the feeling of being stretched too tight, too full. She’d known it would hurt the first time, but not like this. Somehow, she’d always thought her height would compensate for such things.

He froze, meeting her eyes in the low lamplight. He clenched his teeth, muscles quivering. “Why didn’t
you tell me you were a virgin?” His breath fanned her cheek, hot with strain and suppressed need.

“You might have said no,” she whispered. “I couldn’t bear for you to say no.”

“Christ, Ivy.” He hung his head. “Jesus H. Christ.”

Trying not to move, she smoothed a comforting hand over his back. “Don’t be angry. Please. It had to be someone, sometime, and I wanted it to be you. I needed it to be you.”

“Shit.”

A second tear leaked from her eye.

“Shh. Don’t cry,” he pleaded, kissing her damp cheek. “I can’t bear to see you cry.” He touched his lips to her temple and stroked her hair. “It’ll be all right, sweetheart. I’ll stop.”

“No!” She locked her arms around his neck and raised her legs to hold him in place. Her breath caught as her movements pulled him deeper. “Don’t stop. It’s not so bad now.”

As soon as the words left her mouth, she realized they were true. The pain had diminished considerably, her body beginning to accommodate him.

He closed his eyes, sweat beading his forehead. “Still, I—”

“No.” She shifted her pelvis again, squeezing tighter. “Please, James.”

He groaned and muttered another curse under his breath. Taking her hips in his hands, he started to ease back.

She held on. “Don’t stop.”

His muscles bunched, and he gave a shaky laugh.
“With all that wiggling you’re doing, I don’t think I could stop now if I tried.” He kissed her again, tender and unbearably sweet. “Relax, and I’ll show you.”

Trusting him implicitly, she lessened her hold and allowed him to start moving inside her. He slid his hands under her hips to position her as he wanted, quickly establishing a rhythm that made her yearn and yield.

Her toes curled, her heart pounding at a wild clip as her pleasure increased, the last of her discomfort easing until she forgot there’d ever been any pain at all. Until there was only heat and motion and the most exquisite delight she’d ever known.

A new ache formed—an ache of want, of hunger so fierce she trembled beneath its force. The deeper and faster he plunged, the more she craved, until she didn’t think wanting more was possible.

Her head rolled back and forth across the comforter, her hands grasping his wide shoulders as he pistoned in and out. She forgot everything but him, utterly lost, utterly without control, her breath coming in ragged, needy gasps.

Suddenly she crested, calling out his name as bliss spread through her.

He found his own satisfaction moments later, giving a hoarse shout as he followed her across to the other side. He buried his face against her neck, damp with perspiration, lungs pumping as if he’d just run a race.

She held him, awash with happiness and love.

Sometime after, he rolled them over so that he lay on his back. Smiling, she snuggled against his chest and drifted to sleep.

J
ames leaned back against the sparklingly clean kitchen countertop made of black-and-white-flecked granite and waited for the coffee to finish brewing. God knew he needed a cup, even if it was two o’clock in the afternoon—well past any conventional breakfast hour. Hungry, he considered fixing himself some eggs and toast, then decided he’d wait for Ivy.

He’d left her sleeping, curled snug as a kitten beneath the covers. Not even the dull roar of his shower had penetrated her slumber. While he dressed in a pair of navy slacks and a button-down white cotton shirt, he’d studied her. The way her hair spread across his pillows like long rays of golden sunshine. How her cheeks glowed, dusty pink with warmth. The faint smile that curved her sweet lips.

Young,
he’d thought, as he’d fastened on a wristwatch he’d owned for more years than she’d been alive.
She is so young. Much too young for me.

A shroud of guilt settled over him.

Until last night, she’d been innocent. No matter what she’d said she wanted, he’d taken that away from her. By making love to her, he’d crossed an invisible line. No longer her friend and protector but the man who’d corrupted her.

And who wanted to go on corrupting her.

The coffeemaker gurgled, hissing pungent steam as it finished filling the glass pot. He poured himself a cup and had just taken a first sip when the door chime rang. Mildly irritated by the interruption, he set down his cup and left the kitchen.

He discovered the last person he would ever have expected to see waiting on the other side of his front door.

Madelyn.

With hair the color of a fiery sunset, eyes deep and blue as a sunlit sea, Madelyn Grayson was more beautiful than ever.

Madelyn
Douglas
, he corrected himself, remembering she was married now—to the man she’d jilted him for more than five years before.

She’d added an extra pound or two at the hips and bust, he saw—no doubt weight from the babies she’d given birth to. But the extra inches only made her lovelier, adding a lush maturity to curves no man could possibly find lacking. She’d shortened her hair, coppery curls bouncing around her expressive face in a sassy chin-length bob. She looked the part of a married suburban professional with an extra day off for the long weekend.

She was dressed in butter-colored chinos, leather loafers, and a peach T-shirt. He noticed a smear of something that looked suspiciously like strawberry jam on her sleeve.

She met his eyes with a cautious smile. “James, hi.”

“Madelyn.”

She rubbed a hand down the side of one thigh as if her palm were perspiring. “Sorry to drop by with no notice. I wasn’t sure if you’d be home. I . . . uh . . . decided to try my old elevator passkey. Imagine my surprise when it still worked. ”

Many years ago, she’d been one of the first people he’d added to his small list of visitors granted unlimited access to his floor. He’d meant to remove her name and decode her key. Somehow he’d just never gotten around to it.

Abruptly remembering his manners, he stepped back. “Would you like to come in?”

Awkwardness hung between them, heavy as a thick pane of glass. Sad, considering the staunch friendship they’d once shared.

“All right,” she agreed, “but only for a minute.”

She followed him inside, looking around as they went. She paused for a quick sniff at the bouquet of fresh flowers Estella kept arranged in a Meissen vase on a stand in the hall outside the dining room. This weekend’s arrangement contained red and white roses mixed with blue hydrangeas, their perfume dewy sweet.

“You haven’t changed anything, I see,” she remarked.

“No. It’s all exactly as I like.”

She shot him a look.

He continued on into the living room. “I’d offer you coffee, but I know you don’t like the stuff. Something else perhaps? Tea? Juice? A cocktail?”

“No, no, that’s all right.” She twisted her fingers together in a nervous gesture. “I can’t stay long. I wouldn’t have stopped by at all except . . . Well, I wanted to ask you . . .”

He frowned at her distress. “Ask me what? Is something wrong?”

“It’s Ivy,” she blurted. “I called her late last night and several times again today, but she isn’t answering her cell. She’s not at her apartment either. I just came from down there. Zack and the girls dropped me off up here, then went back down to her place in hopes that she’ll show up. I’m probably worrying for nothing. I was wondering if you have any idea where she might be. James, have you seen Ivy?”

Her words hit him with the stinging crack of a whip.

My God. Ivy!

He’d forgotten all about her.

Disloyalty crept over him at the realization. After last night, how could he have forgotten Ivy, even for an instant? Apparently, finding her older sister—his ex-lover—on his doorstep had retarded more than a few of his higher brain functions.

Did he know where she was?

Hell yeah, he knew. Upstairs, asleep in his bed, where he prayed she’d remain.

I can’t let Madelyn find Ivy here.

Lord, what had he been thinking, inviting Madelyn in?

She had to leave, and leave now.

“Ivy went to a party with some friends last night, I think,” he said hastily. “Maybe she decided to stay over with them.”

Madelyn wrinkled her forehead, considering. “I suppose, though it doesn’t seem like something she’d do. Ivy’s not much for impromptu sleepovers.”

Madelyn obviously had a lot to learn. Ivy’s sleepover with him last night had been about as impromptu as they came.

“Even if she did stay overnight with friends, she ought to have checked her phone and at least texted me back.” She glanced at her watch. “It’s almost two thirty in the afternoon. Surely she should be back home by now.”

“Oh, I don’t know. It was the Fourth last night, so she probably slept late and decided to stay for lunch. Or maybe she’s out sketching. You know how preoccupied she can get when she’s working on her art. You two’ve probably just missed each other. I’m sure she’s fine.”

“You think so?”

“I’m positive. And you know how bad she can be about answering her phone, especially when she’s painting. She probably put it on mute and forgot to turn the ringer back on.”

“That’s true. She does tend to ignore calls when she’s in the zone, as she calls it,” Madelyn said.

“Exactly. So why don’t you join”—he broke off,
finding the casual use of Zack Douglas’s name distasteful even now—“your family down at Ivy’s place. She’s bound to turn up soon.” With a gentle hand on Madelyn’s elbow, he began to steer her toward the door.

She took a couple steps, then stopped. “I suppose you’re right. Trouble is, we don’t have a key to Ivy’s apartment. I can’t leave the girls sitting out in the hallway for hours.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll call the guard’s desk, explain the situation, and ask them to come up and let you in.”

“Okay. If you’re sure you don’t mind?”

“I don’t mind at all.” He stretched out an arm to herd her in the right direction. “Why don’t you go ahead in case she’s already there, while I make the call?”

“All right. I—”

The door chime rang.

Holy Mother of God,
James silently cursed.
Who is it now?

Before he took a step, Madelyn headed for the door.

Moments later a child’s high-pitched squeal rang out, followed by the drumming of tiny feet.

A toddler raced around the corner, then stopped dead the instant she saw him. She tipped her head back as far as it would go, her hair a mass of silky black ringlets silhouetted around her cherubic face. She met his eyes, her own a brilliant shade of green. They widened to the size of moons as she stared.

He’d never seen one of Madelyn’s children before. Not much resemblance to her, he decided, the small girl’s beautiful features a feminine version of her father.
Except for the stubborn chin. That he recognized as pure Grayson.

Yet aside from the child’s dark coloring and another man’s features, he couldn’t help but think,
She should have been mine
.

If life had worked out right, she would have been mine.

Forcing away such useless thoughts, he smiled at Madelyn’s daughter.

The girl turned and ran straight to her father, who’d just walked into the room. Seeking his protection, she wrapped her pudgy arms around his sturdy leg. Safe again, the child darted a shy peek up at James, checking to see if he was still watching.

He smiled at her again, then lifted his eyes to meet his former rival’s shrewd green gaze. He gave a curt nod. “Douglas.”

Zack returned the gesture with an equal lack of enthusiasm. “Jordan.”

“I see you’ve met Hannah,” Madelyn remarked, coming up next to her husband.

Another child—identical to the first—clung to Madelyn, her tiny little arms locked around her mother’s neck. The girl rested her cheek against Madelyn’s shoulder and watched him out of a second pair of startlingly clear green eyes.

An uncomfortable wave of melancholia hit him. “They’re beautiful, Meg,” he said, unconsciously using his old nickname for Madelyn. “You should be proud.”

Madelyn smiled, obviously touched by his words. “I am.” She bounced the girl she held in her arms. “This is Holly.”

“Hello, Holly.”

The baby stuck her thumb in her mouth and turned her face into her mother’s neck.

Hannah, not to be upstaged, swung around to face him but kept a fistful of her father’s jeans held tight in one little hand.

“Hello, Hannah,” James said, trying again.

She giggled.

“They refused to stay downstairs,” Zack informed Madelyn. “Insisted I find Mommy. What could I do? I was outnumbered. Lucky for all of us, you gave me the passkey so we could come to get you.”

James promised himself to make updating the passkey list a priority.

Somehow he doubted the idea to find Madelyn had originated with the children. James hadn’t exchanged more than a few words, and some choice sneers, with Zack Douglas over the years. And James was an astute enough judge of people to know that letting Madelyn come up to his penthouse alone must have been driving the other man insane.

She adjusted Holly on her hip. “James thinks Ivy may have stayed over with friends last night and is having a late lunch with them. Or that she went out with her sketch pad to do some drawings. I have to admit it sounds like something she might do. Both of you are probably right, and I shouldn’t be so worried.”

“Not yet anyway.” Zack reached down for Hannah, who’d decided she wanted to be held like her sister. “Maybe we should have a late lunch ourselves.
I
didn’t get to eat peanut butter and jelly crackers and apple
slices in the car like these two.” He lifted his daughter’s hand, pretending to bite it. Delighted, she screeched and then laughed. “We’ll stop back afterward. Ivy’ll probably be home by then.”

“Oh, well, I suppose we could, but James was just about to call down and have one of the guards let us into Ivy’s apartment.”

“Really?” Zack shot him a look. “Guess there’re a few perks to owning the building, such as bypassing security protocols.”

James stared back, refusing to take the bait.

After a minute, Zack broke off the staring match and turned to his wife. “All right. We’ll go to Ivy’s instead, since I know it’ll make you feel better. We’ll raid her fridge. If it’s bare, I’m calling for takeout.”

Relieved they were finally leaving, James did his best to shepherd them toward the door.

“He’s right,” James prompted. “You all go on and I’ll make the call. The guard will be there in less than five minutes.”

Madelyn paused. “Maybe I should phone her one more time. With luck, she’ll pick up this time and you won’t need to bother the guards.”

A sudden image of Madelyn calling her sister and Ivy’s phone ringing from inside Ivy’s purse here in the penthouse popped into his mind.

“No!” he said quickly. “No need to do that. It’s no bother, none at all. It’ll give the guards something interesting to do on a lazy Sunday afternoon. Now, go on. Won’t be but a minute.”

Madelyn frowned, confused. “Well, all right. If you’re sure—”

“Hell-o,”
called a cheery, singsong voice. “James? It’s me.” High heels clicked on the entry hall’s polished cherry floors.

Parker.

Fuck me. Not her too!
he thought.

She rounded the corner, halted abruptly when she saw he had company.

“Oh, hello.” She nodded a greeting at the Douglases and then looked at James. “Did you know your door’s open, darling? Is everything all right?”

“Everything’s fine. Actually, we were on our way out.” He took Parker’s elbow and tried to turn her, stretching his other arm wide behind Madelyn and Zack and their little girls as if he could force them onward.

Madelyn stood her ground, tossed him another puzzled look. “But you were going to call.”

“Yes, yes, of course I was. I am. I mean . . . I just . . . That is, when I said
we
, I meant all of you. And then me, since I thought I’d come downstairs . . . after I call, you know, to make sure everything’s okay. Okay?”

Madelyn frowned. “Is something the matter, James? You’re acting weird.”

“Maybe he’s been drinking,” Zack quipped in a caustic aside.

“He’s sick.” Parker pulled out of James’s grip and reached up a hand to check his forehead for fever. “Poor baby came home quite ill last night. Are you still nauseous?”

Actually, he was beginning to feel a little sick.

Madelyn reached out, set the back of her hand against his cheek.

Zack shot her a black scowl.

She ignored it. “You should have said something if you aren’t feeling well,” she told James.

“Actually, I’m feeling much better today. Really. Now, why don’t we all go on downstairs?”

Madelyn shook her head. “Even so, if you’ve been ill, you shouldn’t push yourself.”

“Exactly,” Parker agreed. She lifted up a small brown paper sack. “I brought chicken soup from the kosher deli, if you’re up to it.”

“I am not hungry,” James stated, the volume of his voice increasing with each word. “And I am not sick. Now, let’s go on before—”