Read Online The Man Plan by Tracy Anne Warren - Free Book Online

curl wound around the tip.
    Her lips parted on a rapt sigh.
    Soft yet wiry, the hair clung with a tensile strength. Heat rose from his skin, luring her nearer. How easy it would be to rest her palm on that broad plain of flesh, to thread her fingers into the short curls and stroke the skin beneath. How simple to touch her lips to the spot. How much better to touch them to his mouth, parted invitingly in sleep.
    She flushed at the thought, desire making her pulse points throb. She curled her hand into a fist against her chest.
    Do I dare?
    She studied him, time slowing to the texture of winter molasses.
    He was a heavy sleeper, hard to rouse once he became tangled in the world of dreams. Everyone in the family knew it. Hadn’t they all laughed on countless occasions, recounting tales of the summer he’d vacationed with them in Maine? How her father had finally resorted one morning to using a foghorn to blast James awake.
    If she kissed him, chances were good he’d never know. And oh, how she longed to kiss him.
    But what if he woke to find her there . . . ? Hmm, what if he did?
    Half-hoped-for imaginings swirled in her brain, and she couldn’t resist her mind’s urgings. Lowering her lips to his, she rested them there, delicately balanced, scarcely touching. Firm, smooth, the shape of his mouth matched hers exactly, as if it had been designed for that express purpose.
    He didn’t awaken.
    Emboldened, she let her eyes softly close as she increased the pressure, turning the barely there touch into a real kiss. She savored the sensation, the feeling of skin to skin, heat to heat. He tasted like honey, or some exotic variety of fruit, lush and forbidden. She softly drew a breath, her senses swimming as the scent of him flooded through her. His essence swam inside her head, on her mouth, in her nose, down her throat, better than anything she’d ever tasted.
    Suddenly he shifted, his head rolling against the pillow. A groan soughed from deep in his throat.
    She broke the kiss and began to sit up, but before she could move away, he clamped a hand around the back of her head and crushed her lips to his.
    She squeaked as he took possession of her mouth. His turn now, he kissed her the way a man would, hungry and demanding, feeding upon her with a kind of dark intensity that permitted no resistance, expected only surrender.
    Heat washed through her like a roaring blast furnace. Blood raged like a river through her veins, clouding her brain, shredding every inch of her control. She whimpered and gave herself to him completely. Let him ravage her mouth, drink in her unknowing cries, tangle his tongue with hers in a slick, velvety duel. Draped over him, she shuddered, lost in a sea of bliss.
    Abruptly, he broke their kiss, his chest rising and falling in a sharp inhale, exhale. His hand fell away, body growing slack, eyes tightly closed.
    Stunned, Ivy slumped onto her haunches.
    Is he asleep?
Had he been asleep the entire time? Impossible, and yet there he lay, slumbering on as if the entire episode had never occurred. She might doubt it herself except for the evidence, her lips bruised and swollen, well kissed. She touched a pair of trembling fingers to them.
    Shell-shocked, she stumbled to her feet and nearly tripped over the coffee table. Body aching with unanswered desire, she wondered who it was he’d imagined he was kissing. Dear Lord, if he’d truly been asleep, it could have been any woman. Appalled by the possibilities, she turned and fled to her bedroom.
    *   *   *
    James woke groggy and disoriented, the light from a single lamp shining in his face. He squinted against theglare and sat up, taking a moment to realize where he was.
    On Ivy’s couch. In Ivy’s apartment.
    He blinked and scrubbed a hand over his face.
Whew,
he’d really dropped off. The last thing he remembered was watching Cary Grant kiss Grace Kelly while fireworks exploded behind them. Then he’d been, as the saying went, out for the