by Cindi Madsen
Spoiler alert: it didn’t.
I sometimes felt like she had a hard time forgiving me for that.
I lifted the book higher and studied my parents. They looked so happy and in love. I’d seen Mom give plenty of guys the adoring, glassy-eyed look, but I’d never seen a guy return it quite that strongly before, like his every breath relied on her taking one, too.
Apparently, at one point, my father had returned her sentiment. There was even a cute photo strip of them kissing in a booth.
Just goes to show you that love never lasts, no matter how great it starts out. Thank goodness I knew better than to think it did.
For reasons I couldn’t explain, I glanced at the crumpled sheets I’d spent the night tangled up in. Was that my brain trying to warn me not to get carried away? Because I was totally in control. I’d been completely upfront with Jackson, and he made it clear he understood and was on board with simply enjoying it while it lasted.
Which would be a month at most, because then we’d be done with this project and our lives would take us in different directions. That was just enough time to have lots of fun without getting too very attached.
Hell, maybe we’d still occasionally hook up when our paths crossed. Like we could sneak away to his old bedroom next time the Gambles forced me to a family gathering. After all, we’d done it in my childhood bedroom.
I smiled at that thought. The activities surrounding Savannah’s wedding would give us ample opportunity.
Savannah. Crap. I’d done a good job of blocking out how mad she’d be if she found out I was sleeping with her brother for fun. My heart sank. I hated to disappoint her and do the very thing I told her I wouldn’t do, and it’d make me even more of a jerk if I did it around her wedding.
I could see the looming disaster now. The bride and the maid of honor barely on speaking terms; the entire Gamble family interrogating me about why I had to get in the way of their plans to match Jackson up with someone who’d be so much better for him. I’d just sit there and shrug and hem and haw because I wouldn’t have any counterpoints besides, “Well, I just really like having sex with him, and he’s super good at it.”
I doubted they’d sit around laughing, saying, “Classic Ivy,” or, “No worries. Caroline can wait on the sidelines until he’s done having his fun with you.”
Last night I’d just jumped without thinking because I was sick of fighting my overwhelming attraction to Jackson all day every day, and as Savannah pointed out, I was occasionally self-destructive.
It didn’t feel destructive, though; it felt restorative. More than a little addictive. Despite telling myself that what I should be doing was talking myself out of jumping into bed with him again, not indulging in fantasies of how much spontaneous sexy fun we could have as we spent the next month flipping this house, ideas and plans were stirring, the possibilities flooding my brain and giving me a residual high.
I was afraid that I was getting a little too close to breaking my seventh fail-safe, even if it was just hooking-up plans.
Way #7: No making plans. Plans lead to expectations, and expectations end in hurt feelings, and hurt feelings lead to broken hearts.
There was no reason to have to make a decision now, when I didn’t even know what tomorrow would bring. I’d just take things one day at a time. No set plans. No expectations or hurt feelings, and definitely no broken hearts.
Savannah would never agree with my methods, whether or not her brother was involved—she was a planner through and through, and being a dating guru on top of that, obviously she would only look at things from that angle. But I was the expert at avoiding messy relationships.
Apparently I wasn’t that great at convincing even myself, because guilt still tried to bubble up. I did my best to push it down and turned back to the scrapbook to distract me from my jumbled thoughts.
Of course then all I could think about was how I was holding a physical reminder of everything you lost when you let a guy get in the way of a friendship.
Would Savannah be okay if I told her that this thing with Jackson was a little more than sex? As in mostly sex with a pinch of caring? Like I’d be sad if I ever followed through on my threats to his person, and not just because I’d go to jail?
I flipped pages in the scrapbook until I found another one of Mom and a guy who didn’t even look vaguely familiar, which meant she was probably with him when I was too young to remember.
I wondered how many of Mom’s relationships Dixie had documented. Were there dozens of happy couple pictures that needed ripped in two?
I’d bet money she didn’t keep any of the pictures from when my mom and Rhett were dating. Can you say aka-awkward?
Conflicted feelings I didn’t realize I still had drifted to the surface. Loyalty said Dixie shouldn’t have crossed that line with one of her best friend’s exes, but it seemed unfair to deny her happiness when she’d been the one who’d cultivated most of it through the ups and downs of Mom’s many, many relationships. Seven years later, and she and Rhett were still together, so they were obviously happy and working.
Or they’d settled for mediocrity, like most of the world did.
Pessimistic, I know, but it wasn’t like I’d ever believed in the sunshiny optimism my best friend did. What was important was she believed it, and she’d achieved it.
I believed that I was just fine on my own.
And I’d achieved it.
Mostly.
…
The next time I saw Jackson, I was elbow deep in paint, my music blaring through my earphones. Okay, so technically, it just felt like it, but I did have splatters clear up to my elbows. It’d only been two days since we’d slept together, but it felt like a lot longer, and before I could rein them in, butterflies erupted in my tummy.
“Hey,” I said, tugging out an earbud and drinking him in from head to toe. His snug, dark gray T-shirt highlighted his firm shoulders and pecs and made his eyes greener somehow, and his jeans were distressed by hours of manual labor. My designated work pants had come faded and pre-ripped, but they were getting plenty of battle scars, as were my arms and hands.
Jackson gave me a nod. “Mornin’.”
What was it about tool belts that made a guy that much hotter? In this instance, the guy had started out smokin’ hot, so the combination was doing funny things to my insides.
I waited to see if he’d tell me why he’d been MIA the past few days, but he simply set his giant toolbox on the floor and opened it up. Friday morning he’d texted to tell me he had to take care of some things and that it’d take up the rest of the weekend, but not what things, and I hated how badly I wanted to know.
That’s fine, I thought as I returned to my painting. I’ll just employ Number Five. I wouldn’t volunteer what I’d been up to (nothing except this and work, for the record) and I wouldn’t ask for his whereabouts or what was so important it took two days.
Keep it all separate—the job, the sex, the personal stuff. That’s how to ensure this doesn’t end badly.
Last time we’d let all parts of our lives bleed together, and things got messy fast. I was nothing if not good at applying the past to avoid repeating my mistakes.
When I turned to ask what he was working on today, he’d already disappeared. I debated putting my roller down to go check and at least say more than “hey,” but I heard the whir of the drill in the other room and decided if he wanted to just get to it, then fine.
Not like I’d been waiting for two whole days to talk to him or anything.
I channeled my frustration for good, focusing on my work like I was freaking Michelangelo painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Except for instead of a bunch of naked dudes I was rolling lines of a blue-gray color called Prelude. I wasn’t sure what it was a prelude to, but I thought it was calm and soothing and modern.
I noticed Jackson didn’t say anything about it. If he doesn’t like it, that just means I picked the right one.
I attacked the wall with r
enewed fervor.
An hour or so later, my arms burned so badly that I promised I’d never lift them over my head again if they’d just hold on long enough for me to take care of the last wall. Unfortunately, it was the tall one leading up to the staircase, and I couldn’t quite reach. I stretched for all I was worth…
And accidentally bumped the roller to the white ceiling, lost my balance, and barely got my hand out in time to catch myself against the wet wall.
The roller clattered to the floor, and it was a good thing the old floral carpet was going, because now there was a blue-gray blob on it. Nailed it!
Jackson poked his head around the corner of the kitchen. “Everything okay in here?”
I grinned extra wide. “Yep.”
Instead of going back to whatever he was doing—building and hanging the new kitchen cabinets was my guess—he took a few steps into the room and picked up the roller. “Need me to get the top part?”
“I mean, you can if you want to. I can do it. I just need to get a step stool or a ladder.” I was going to have to touch up the ceiling, too, damn it.
He refilled the paint and nudged me aside. “I got it, shorty.”
I started to roll my eyes, but then he tested the limits of his impressive height, stretching himself as tall as possible. His pants hung low on his hips, and after going months without, I should be okay with going a couple of days, but all I could think about was the way his body pressed against mine the other night and how I’d like him to do it again.
“There,” he said, extending the roller to me.
Our eyes met, and his pupils darkened, like he could read my very dirty thoughts. Before I got completely swept up in his orbit and things got carried away, I gripped the handle of the paint roller and took a large step back. My plan had been to take things one day at a time, but now I realized it just meant I hadn’t decided anything yet, and I wasn’t sure if we should follow our minds into the gutter or not. “I…I’ve been thinking…”
Jackson took a step toward me, closing the space I’d put between us. He swept the hair off my face and trailed his finger down and across my jaw. “I thought we took care of that thinking problem the other night.”
“Jackson.” Man, he was making it so hard to hold on to anything resembling resolve.
He leaned closer, his lips a mere breath away. “Ivy.”
My heart thumped harder and harder in my chest. Am I really going to do this? Say something that might stop our sexytimes fun in its tracks before I get my fill?
Yes, damn it, it looks like I am. I really should’ve come up with a more solid plan so I’d know exactly what to say.
“While the other night was fun, I know that you’re looking for something”—my throat tightened, and I had to force the words out—“more long term.”
“You’ve obviously been talking to my meddling family—my money is on Savannah.”
I shrugged. “It doesn’t make it less true, does it?”
“I told you the other night that I knew we were only having fun, and I meant it.”
“But you’re dating someone.” Guilt flooded me as I said it. I’d been so focused on how upset Savannah would be that I’d managed to forget that I had even more to feel guilty for.
“I’ve been on a few dates recently, yes, but I’m not in a committed relationship, or I never would’ve carried you to bed. You really think I’d do that?”
Now that I thought about it, no, but I still wondered if Caroline thought they were more serious. His family certainly hoped it would go in that direction. “I don’t want to get in the way.”
Jackson’s intense gaze bored into me, making my heart skip a few beats altogether. “You’ve been in the way since the moment I walked through the door of this house—hell, maybe even since the engagement party. I tried wanting what’s good for me, but wanting you is stronger.”
Every ounce of air whooshed out of my lungs at once. “Then maybe we need to rethink our business arrangement. I can hire someone else to help me fin—”
“No.”
There was the familiar irritation, leaking in and spiking my blood pressure. I tossed the roller down in the vicinity of the tray. “Okay, let’s at least talk about it, because if—”
“No. We made a deal, and I plan on seeing it through. I’m also a grown man, and I’m perfectly capable of making my own decisions. I understand that this thing between us is temporary, and I don’t care.” He hauled me to him, his arm coming around my waist to secure me against him. “I’m not quite done having my way with you yet.”
He crashed his mouth down on mine, and all my pent-up energy surged forward at once, common sense taking the backseat as lust took the wheel. I parted my lips, diving headlong into the kiss. I ran my hands up his firm arms, not realizing my left hand was still wet with paint from catching myself until I’d dragged it most the way up.
Jackson glanced at the smear of blue covering his biceps and the sleeve of his T-shirt, arched an eyebrow, and then backed me up against the wet wall, his hips bumping into mine.
I moaned as he ground against me. He felt so good I didn’t even care about the paint or the fact that I’d need to redo the wall. I just wanted more of him on more of me.
I arched against him, satisfaction heating my veins at the rough groan that ripped from his throat. Groping each other became the best kind of competition, each of us seeing how riled up we could get the other.
His tongue stroked mine as he tugged at my shirt, and not one to be outdone, I did some tugging of my own. One by one our clothes fell into a discarded pile on the floor. Jackson looped his thumb through the tiny string of my underwear, and a trail of color streaked down my thigh as he yanked them off me.
We came back together, a blur of lips and tongues and sweat-slickened skin. With all those pesky layers out of the way, it didn’t take long before both of us were gasping for air and tumbling over the edge together.
Chapter Fourteen
Since she didn’t have any client meetings, Savannah came over to help me paint Tuesday morning, something she’d done several times at my condo, even though we’d never gotten more than halfway finished before I decided I hated the color and needed to pick a different one.
Funny to think of that now, especially since I was so sure which colors I wanted in this house, even if Jackson didn’t always agree on my vision. Although yesterday he had admitted to liking the blue-gray. He’d said it as he lifted strands of my coated, sex-rumpled hair, so I’m sure that had something to do with it.
I reached up and ran my fingers over the slightly crunchy strands the paint hadn’t quite washed out of and bit back a smile.
“Who’s the guy?” Savannah asked.
I quickly snapped out of it and returned to the paint tray to refill my roller. “No guy. I just like renovating. I think I found my calling.”
When I turned around, Savannah had the hand not holding her roller on her hip and a serious expression on her face. “One, I’m a dating coach who makes her living off reading body language, and two, I’m your best friend. That’s not an I-enjoy-painting smile. That’s an I-got-laid-and-it-was-amazing smile.”
In spite of my best efforts to force my lips to remain in a neutral position, I made the mistake of thinking of the sex against the wet wall, and a smile broke free, accompanied by a swirl of heat. Yeah, I was busted—I really needed to up my poker-face game. “Okay. I did, and it was amazing, but I don’t want to talk about it.”
Savannah stared at me with a perplexed expression, like I was a familiar puzzle she’d forgotten how to solve. “Since when? Are you, or are you not, the same girl who told me that ‘absence makes the vagina grow fonder’?”
I laughed and set my roller to the wall. “You’re welcome for my little gems of wisdom. If I recall, I told you that as a cautionary tale, one to warn you to keep your distance from Linc if you didn’t want to slip. How’d that work out for you?”
“I tried it. It wasn’t for me.” She gave
her own I-got-laid-and-it-was-amazing smile, and the overwhelming urge to tell her all about it nearly overpowered me. I wanted to talk about the guy’s amazing body and the many equally amazing things he did with it. Wanted to tell her that he kissed like he’d been born to kiss and that he and I had this addictive, crazy-strong chemistry that laid waste to every other experience I’d ever had.
But she’d only be happy for me until she found who it was with, and I felt bad enough about that, especially since I knew she’d always worried he and I would hook up and it would be a disaster.
After all, we did, and it had been. Luckily, she’d been out of town that week, far enough away that she couldn’t read my emotions so easily. This time around was different, though. We’d learned what worked for us and what didn’t.
And man was it working for me.
“Earth to Ivy,” Savannah said, right by my ear, and I jumped, my roller globbing the paint on so thick it dripped down in streaks. She laughed. “I’ve never seen you stare off into space all dreamy like that.”
Shit, looking at her was the wrong thing to do; I realized it as soon as her eyes widened to the size of a cartoon dog who’d just seen a raw steak. “You like him!” She shoved my shoulder. “Don’t even try to give me that I-just-love-flipping-this-house bullshit. I need details on the guy who’s managed to take my pessimistic, doesn’t-believe-in-love best friend and turn her into a smiley, twitterpated girl who stares off into space as she thinks about him.”
“I’m not twitterpated.”
“I’m reserving judgment until I hear details.”
I did a fish-struggling-for-air impression for several seconds. Even though she’d be upset, I still wanted to come clean and just get it out there so we could try to deal with it, but throwing family and judgment into the mix would tip the disaster scales, and I wasn’t willing to risk having to end things with Jackson earlier than I absolutely had to. I was sure he’d agree, and he deserved a say, considering it would mean his family getting even more involved in his love life than they already were. “It’s…complicated. I’m not saying I don’t like him—I like something about every guy I sleep with.”