All You Can Handle (Moments In Maplesville Book 5) (8 page)

Kimmie hadn’t specifically mentioned that she wanted a party, but ever since one of her classmates had the “party to end all parties” at the skating rink, she’d been dropping subtle hints. Ian pretended he was only casually listening the fifty or so times she’d brought it up.

There was just one problem. He didn’t know jack shit about party planning, especially a party for two dozen teens and preteens.

He and Michelle Foster, who’d treated Kimmie like a third daughter ever since Kimmie and Anesha became friends in kindergarten, discussed hosting a sleepover at her house. Ian figured that most parents wouldn’t be comfortable with their young daughters attending a slumber party in the house of a single, twenty-six-year-old bachelor. He sure as hell wouldn’t allow Kimmie to do so.

He’d assumed the sleepover was the end of it, until Michelle told him that once kids hit a certain age—thirteenish—it was an unwritten rule that they
must
have a coed party so that all of their classmates could attend. Ian balked at the idea at first, but then he remembered back when he was Kimmie’s age. Anyone who didn’t have a boy/girl party was teased. He didn’t want his baby sister getting teased. But
damn
! He absolutely
hated
the thought of this coed thing. Ian knew if he spotted one of those little punks even glancing at Kimmie the wrong way he was going for blood.

In the past Kimmie had been satisfied with cake, ice cream, and having a few of her girlfriends over for Disney movies. But his little sister had grown past the Disney movie stage. It was time for grown up parties. With boys.

“Shit,” he whispered.

Ian set his elbows on the computer desk and cradled his head in his hands. He wasn’t ready for this. Kimmie had only been nine-years-old when his mother left and he became his sister’s legal guardian. Ian hadn’t considered what was in store for him just a few years down the road. He hadn’t anticipated the cute little girl with a lopsided pigtail—lopsided because he sucked at combing hair—would grow up so quickly.

But she
was
growing up. And he’d soon have to deal with other things he didn’t want to think about, like boys asking her out on dates.

Ian’s hands balled into fists just at the thought.

A knock at the kitchen door wrestled his attention away from committing bodily harm on horny pre-teen boys.

He pushed away from the computer, his movements more energetic than they had a right to be as he headed for the kitchen. He already knew who it was. There was only one person who used that kitchen door.

He couldn’t help but to be excited at the thought of seeing Sonny, even if it meant torturing himself. It didn’t matter that he’d spent the past week trying to avoid her at all costs. Or that he had to constantly fight the urge to creep out to his garage, tiptoe up those steps, and join her in that tiny twin bed.

He really wanted to try out that twin bed with her. With its small size it guaranteed that one of them would have to be on top. He didn’t care which one.

Scratch that. He wanted
her
to be on top. For the past week his nightly fantasies centered on her riding him the way she had in her car. He wanted her completely naked this time, her skin slick with sweat, that tattoo he’d peaked at fully exposed.

A shudder tore through his body.

Managing to grab hold of his libido and find some semblance of control, Ian opened the door to find Sonny burdened by a massive mixing bowl, a rolling pin, and a canvas bag bulging with items he couldn’t identify.

“I hate to ask you this,” she said, getting a better grip on the bowl. “But I have to get this cake done and there’s not enough counter space up there. Can I please use your kitchen?”

“Uh, sure.” Ian backed out of the doorway and motioned for her to come inside.

“I was going to just stay late at Kiera’s, but the building is undergoing its annual fumigation, so it’s off limits. I know this isn’t a part of the deal, and I’m willing to pay a little more to rent the space in your kitchen, but I just have to—”

“Sonny, it’s cool. This kitchen is mostly used for heating up frozen pizzas and the occasional pot roast. I don’t have a problem with you using it.”

“Thank you,” she said, relief sparkling in her eyes. She deposited the supplies on the kitchen island, then held up a finger. “Be right back,” she said, before jogging out of the door. Several minutes later she returned with two round cake pans. “The baby shower I’m baking the cake for isn’t until tomorrow, but it’s in New Orleans and the mother-to-be is going out there a day early.”

“Take as long as you need,” Ian said. Then he added, “Just as long as I can get a taste when you’re done.”

Her head popped up. “A taste of what?”

Their eyes caught and held, and the temperature in the kitchen skyrocketed. Ian backed up against the counter and gripped the edge. He knew he was playing with fire, but he couldn’t help it. Just one look at her and all those reasons for not pursuing something with her flew out of his head. He wanted her, dammit.

“Of whatever you’re offering,” he answered.

Her gaze dropped to his chest, which jutted out because of the way he stood. Her eyes slowly trekked up to his face where they remained for several long moments before she finally tore them away.

She wiped down the counter and then laid a silicon mat over it. “So, where’s Kimmie?” she asked as she emptied the contents of the bowl onto the mat.

He decided not to call her on the deflection. After all, they’d both agreed to this hands-off pact. It wasn’t Sonny’s fault that he was having a harder time sticking to it than she apparently was.

“Kimmie just left for a friend’s. She’s having dinner there.” He paused for a beat, knowing that he shouldn’t continue, but unable to stop himself. “She won’t be back until after seven tonight.”

There was no need to point out that they would be alone in the house for hours, was there? That they were free to reenact that first encounter they had in the parking lot of The Corral in every single room if they chose to do so? It had to be as obvious to her as it was to him, right?

You said “hands-off.”

And he hadn’t given Sonny any indication that he wanted them to reconsider the arrangement they’d settled on. Maybe he
did
have to explicitly spell it out.

“We already decided it wouldn’t be a good idea,” Sonny said, as if she’d been reading his mind the entire time.

Ian wondered if she realized just how much that dagger she’d just stabbed straight to his heart pained him?

She stopped rolling out the fondant icing and looked up at him. “It would just complicate things, and neither of us need complications. Right?” She added, as if she wasn’t sure. He sure as hell had started to question that decision they’d made last week.

Ian wanted to argue that
technically
it wouldn’t be a complication since Kimmie wasn’t there, and thus
technically
, wouldn’t be influenced one way or another by any wild monkey sex they may have within the next hour. But that was his other head talking, and he wouldn’t allow himself to be controlled by that part of his anatomy.

“You’re right,” Ian said. He ran a palm along the back of his head, trying to rub some sense into what had become a one-track brain. “It kills me that you’re right, but…damn…you are.”

Ian pushed away from the counter and gestured to her cake. “I’ll leave you to your baking.”

Their eyes connected again, and the mixture of wanting and regret staring back at him nearly did him in.

“Thanks again for letting me use the kitchen,” she said.

He lifted his shoulders in a hapless shrug. “Like I said, anything you need, all you have to do is ask.”

~ ~ ~

Sonny slipped the muffin tin into the oven, then returned to the cake she’d been working on. With painstaking gentleness she carefully lifted the sheet of cotton candy pink fondant from the mat and draped it over the buttercream-frosted four-layer round cake. She gently glided the smoothing tool over the fondant, pressing away excess wrinkles. Spinning the cake around on the base, she did the same with the sides, until it looked flawless.

Then she paused for a moment to take a deep breath.

She’d had to do that off and on for the past twenty minutes, because just thinking about Ian in the next room, along with this big empty house they currently had to themselves, literally made her breathless.

Why did this have to be so difficult?

Those complications they’d discussed seemed so insignificant now. So what if it would make things awkward between them? If ever someone had proven that they were worth a little awkwardness, it was Ian. Their encounter in her car was never far from her mind, and when he was sitting just a few yards away from her with a bed or a sofa or, hell, even the floor at their disposal?

Sonny shut her eyes and searched for her center of control.

She had a job to do. This was only the second cake job she’d scored since she arrived in Maplesville, but it was a start. She needed it to be as close to perfect as she could make it.

She was snipping away the excess fondant hanging from the bottom of the cake when she heard, “Hey, Sonny, can I bother you for a minute?”

She looked up to find Ian just inside the kitchen entryway, his shoulder leaning against the trim. She was
not
going to focus on the way his dark blue t-shirt stretched across his chest. She refused to even let her mind go there.

Of course, her mind had an agenda of its own, namely soaking in as much eye-candy as possible.

“Sure, what do you need?” she asked.

He huffed out an awkward laugh. “That’s a loaded question.”

“Ian—”

He held both hands up. “I know, I know. We’re avoiding complications. This is for something different,” he said. “I need some party planning advice. Kimmie’s birthday is in a few weeks and I want to throw her a surprise party.”

Totally not what she was expecting. Her heart may have melted just a bit.

“That’s so sweet.”

The way he shifted from one foot to the other, showing clear discomfort at her praise, melted Sonny’s heart the rest of the way.

“It’s nothing big,” Ian said. “I’m planning to just throw her something here at the house. She’s also going to have a slumber party at her friend’s, but I was warned that it would be a mistake not to have a party where boys were allowed.”

“How old will she be?”

“Thirteen.”

“Thirteen?” Sonny nodded vehemently. “You
must
have a boy/girl party if she’s turning thirteen. And you can forget about it being ‘nothing big.’ She’s becoming a teenager. You have to give her a party that’s fit to commemorate such an exciting event.”

His dour expression wrenched a laugh out of her.

“Why do you look as if you’re ready to lose your breakfast?” Sonny asked.

“Have you ever planned a party for a thirteen-year-old before?”

“No.”

“Then you wouldn’t understand.”

She managed to swallow her laugh. “No more frowning,” she said. “This is going to be fun. And it’s perfect timing. I just slipped my third layer in the oven and my safety pins need to harden a bit more.”

Pushing the tray of pink, yellow and white safety pins she’d fashioned out of gumpaste to the side, Sonny wiped her hands on the front of her apron as she rounded the kitchen island. Then she took the apron off and folded it over the back of a kitchen stool.

When she looked over at Ian, he was staring at her with an odd expression.

“What?” Sonny asked.

He nodded toward her hands. “I just noticed all your rings are gone. Your hands look strange without them.”

She splayed her fingers. “Yeah, well they’re not very conducive to baking.”

“It’s a shame. Those rings are a part of what makes you…well…you. They’re a part of your style.”

Sonny reached in the front pocket of her jeans and came out with a fist full of rings. “They’re never too far.” She smiled as she slipped the rings on her fingers.

“That’s better.” Ian’s answering grin had just enough of that flirtatious sexiness she’d already come to anticipate. And those eyes. Goodness, but she loved the way his eyes crinkled at the corners when he grinned.

She wondered just how long Kimmie would be at her friends’.

Oh, no you don’t!

“So, what party plans have you made so far?” Sonny asked, shoving away those tempting thoughts.

“None,” Ian answered.

Sonny’s mouth dropped open. “Her birthday is just weeks away and you haven’t even started planning yet?”

He hunched his shoulders. “That’s why I came to you for help. I’m desperate.”

“Oh, Ian, Ian, Ian. You have much to learn. Come on.”

She grabbed him by the hand and tugged him toward the computer station. Once he was seated, Sonny stood behind him, clamped her hands on his shoulders, and crouched forward, peering at the screen.

She felt Ian stiffen. He looked up at her over his shoulder. “If you want to avoid complications you may want to stop touching me,” he said.

Sonny jerked her hands away as if his skin was on fire. “Sorry,” she said.

“It’s for the best. That’s what we decided, right?”

“Right,” she said. She swallowed hard.

Ian’s fist clenched. He released a deep breath before speaking, “It’s a lot harder than you thought it would be, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Sonny admitted. “But I still think it’s the smart decision. For both of us.”

He looked up at her over his shoulder. “You sound so sure about that.”

“I am, Ian. Despite what happened last Monday, I don’t make a habit of sleeping with someone I’m not in a relationship with, and starting a relationship is not a part of my plans right now. You were supposed to be that one night.”

“Your little indiscretion,” he said, his smile lacking the playfulness it usually exhibited.

“More like an indulgence.” She said. “The fact is, I spent so much of my life doing what others wanted me to do, that yielding to my own wishes doesn’t come easy for me. I’m still learning how to put my wants first. And when I saw you, I wanted you. Allowing myself to do what we did last Monday night was huge. But taking it any further just wouldn’t…” She shook her head. “It’s just not a good idea.”