The Ex Upstairs by Maureen Child

Eight

Amanda lay sprawled across him, their bodies still locked together, and heard her own breath whistling in and out of her lungs. The clawing need inside her had eased back, thank God, because she didn’t know if she could take another bout of sex with Henry at the moment. She felt, Amanda realized, alive with pleasure, loose and completely and thoroughly ravished. Life was good.

“You alive?” he mumbled.

“Yes, but I don’t think I can move.” She put in the effort to lift her head, brace her chin on his chest and look at him.

“Good.” A crooked smile curved his mouth. “If you were able to run up these stairs right now, that would make me look really bad.”

She laughed a little, then shook her head. “No worries, then.”

“Yeah?” He rubbed his hands up and down her back and over her butt until she squirmed a little. He looked into her eyes. “How would my masculinity stack up if I whimpered a little?”

“Trust me,” she assured him, “your masculinity is not in question.”

He groaned. “Good to know.” After a moment, he asked, “Not that I’m complaining, but why are you here, Amanda?”

She frowned thoughtfully. “I think that’s fairly obvious.”

“Yeah, but why?”

“I don’t really know.” Her fingers tapped against his chest as she tried to corral the thoughts that had brought her to his house tonight. “I was at the audition...”

“How’d it go?”

She rolled her eyes. “Nice woman. Tried to sing a Whitney Houston song. It didn’t go well.”

“Ouch.”

“Exactly.” She took a breath, looked at his chest and almost bent her head to lick that wide expanse of gorgeous flesh, but she restrained herself. “I was talking to my mom and—”

“Your mom sent you here?” Astonished, he laughed shortly. “I’m going to have to send her flowers.”

“Funny. No, she didn’t send me.” Amanda had to wonder, though. Her mom had made a point of pretty much telling her to move on. “She just made me do some thinking.”

“And?”

“And, I thought about what I wanted.” She shrugged. “Turns out I wanted you.”

“Consider me glad to hear it.”

Her lips twitched as she rolled off him to sit beside him on the stairs. Once again, they tugged their clothes back into place and when she was finished, Amanda looked into his eyes. “I’m not saying I’m good with everything. Or that I’ve forgotten what happened ten years ago—”

“Me, either,” he threw in and she nodded.

“And I still want to know who you’re getting your information from.”

“Naturally.”

“But, all that said,” she added with a shrug, “I guess I missed you.”

He reached out and tucked her hair behind her ear, then let his fingertips trail along her jaw and down the length of her throat. “I missed you, too.”

Amanda drew a deep breath, then sighed. “What does that make us, I wonder.”

“Crazy?” he asked.

She laughed under her breath. “I think I can live with that.”

“Looks like we’re going to have to.” On a groan, Henry pushed himself to his feet and held out one hand to her. She took it and he pulled her to her feet. “I still want to try horizontal,” he said and cupped her face, dropping a quick, light kiss on her mouth. “But I need food first. How about you?”

Amanda threaded her fingers through his. “Food. Great idea. Have any wine?”

He started slowly back down the stairs. “I think I’ve got you covered.”

Her hand in his, the two of them staggered down the long hall like survivors of a shipwreck. Just outside the kitchen, Amanda noticed something on the tile floor, glinting in the light. One of her buttons.

It had really gone a long way. But then, so had she.

They made sandwiches, grabbed a bag of chips out of the pantry and drank cold white wine the color of sunlight. Amanda was so hungry, their impromptu picnic on the kitchen floor—since the new table had not been delivered yet—tasted like a five-star meal in the Carey restaurant.

Going to Henry had been impulse—or so she’d thought at the time. But the truth was, she’d been headed toward him for what felt like most of her life. For years, she’d buried every thought of him because what was to be gained by remembering? Now, he was here, with her again, and it was as if those years apart were nothing.

“You’re thinking,” Henry said softly. “Having regrets?”

“No.” Shaking her head, Amanda took another sip of wine and admitted, “It would probably be easier to say yes. I regret it. This was all a mistake. But I can’t because I don’t feel that way.”

“Good,” he said. “Neither do I.”

“Which leaves us where?”

“Hell if I know.” He laughed, poured them each more wine and then spoke again. “One thing we should talk about, though.” He took a drink and looked at her over the rim of the glass. “Everything happened so fast... Well, I haven’t carried condoms in my wallet since I was kid, hoping to get lucky.”

She laughed because she remembered that night ten years ago, when the two of them were naked in the boathouse and things were intense when Henry had suddenly stopped. He’d rifled through his clothes, throwing them into the air until he’d found his wallet and pulled a condom out.

“This is funny?”

“No,” Amanda said. “I was just remembering...”

He paused and smiled. “Yeah. I remember, too.”

A shared moment over a past that had ended badly was now somehow...comforting. How very strange life could be.

“You don’t have to worry,” she said. “I take the shot every three months. And I’m healthy.”

“Me, too. Healthy, I mean.” He nodded slowly. Still looking at her, he asked, “So does this mean the war’s over?”

“That’s a bigger question,” she said and leaned back against the wall. Stretching out her legs, she crossed her feet at the ankles, and realized she’d lost her heels on the staircase. Looking down at the wine in her glass, she said, “You and Bennett will have to work things out on your own, but, yeah. I think our skirmish is mostly over.”

“Mostly.” He sat beside her, back against the wall. And Amanda wondered if that was some kind of twisted metaphor for what they were both feeling.

“Well,” Amanda mused, glancing at the detritus of their picnic, “there are still questions.”

“Yeah, I’ve got a few, too,” he admitted.

Her gaze shifted to him beside her. In the overhead kitchen light, his green eyes shone like emeralds. His dress shirt hung open, displaying that broad, muscled chest that begged to be stroked and petted. But Amanda fought down that urge and went with another.

“One thing I have to know. Was Bennett right? Were you using me?” she asked. “Back in the day, were you using me to get close to my family?”

He just stared at her and she could see the disbelief in his eyes. “You don’t really believe that. That’s Bennett talking.”

“Yeah, it is. He hammered me with it for months after you left Italy. And me.” The old hurt rose up to take a nibble of her heart and there was nothing she could do to stop it. “You haven’t answered me...”

“Fine. You want me to say it? No. I wasn’t using you. I was nuts about you.”

She watched him and read what she thought was truth in his eyes. Amanda wanted to believe, because if she did, then that meant she hadn’t been wrong about him. But if that were true, then it also meant that she’d spent ten years of her life in a simmering, useless fury.

“What about you?” he asked.

“What about me?”

“Did you tell Bennett what we were going to be up to in the boathouse?”

A short, sharp bark of laughter shot from her throat. “Why would I do that?”

“How the hell would I know?” he countered.

“Well think about it,” she demanded. “Would I really want my big brother to see me naked, for God’s sake?” Just the memory of that was enough to make her cringe. Not to mention the fistfight between Bennett and Henry that followed. Oh, sure, every woman wanted her first foray into sex to end with fights and accusations.

“Then how did he know?”

“What makes you think he did?” Shaking her head, Amanda took another sip of wine. “I’ve thought about that over the years, and if you didn’t tell him, then I think I know why he was there.” Her gaze fixed on his. “We fell asleep, remember? After sex, we both conked out and didn’t wake up until Bennett came in and started yelling.”

“Yeah.” He took a long drink of wine. “The memory’s clear, trust me.”

Trust him.That was at the heart of this and she just didn’t know if she could. Looking at him now, she felt the embers of what had been love stirring inside her and she knew that though those flames had been quiet for too long, they had never really died out. That was more than a little disconcerting.

Though those long years without him seemed unimportant right now, how could she simply put aside the last ten years? The animosity that had torn at her family because of what she and Henry had done. The war that Bennett had raged over for years. How could she forget all of that and admit even to herself that she still loved him?

And how could she not?

Amanda shook her head, focused on right now and said, “Well, Bennett used to take the boat out early when he wanted time to think. If we hadn’t fallen asleep, we would have been long gone before Bennett showed up.”

“So you think we were just unlucky?” He snorted at the idea.

“If you didn’t tell him and I didn’t, then yeah,” she said. “Probably.”

“That’s a hell of a thing,” he muttered, and drew one knee up, resting his forearm on top of it.

“It really is,” she agreed. Amanda couldn’t stop looking at him. She’d missed him. A lot. And being with him now was the answer to all the erotic dreams she’d had over the years.

“But nothing’s changed, has it?” she said, more to herself than him.

He looked at her and she could see that he was thinking the same convoluted thoughts she was.

When he spoke, his voice was low in the quiet. “I’d say this confuses things even more.”

“Who would have thought that was possible?”

“Yeah.” His gaze locked on hers. “So tell me. If you didn’t tip Bennett off—”

“I didn’t.”

“—why didn’t you reach out to me?” His eyes were hard now, accusatory, and though she was insulted, she couldn’t really blame him. “Ten years. And nothing. Why?”

“Why would I?” she demanded and pushed off the floor. Barefoot now, she walked across the kitchen, then whirled around to look at him. “Bennett convinced me you were using me as a way to wedge yourself into the Carey Corporation.”

“You shouldn’t have believed that, Amanda.”

“You were gone—”

“Because good old Ben chased me out of Italy—”

“—and you never contacted me,” she finished as if he hadn’t spoken. The hurt of that rose up inside her to strangle her air. “Not once, Henry. You never called. You never came to see me.” She threw his own words back at him. “Ten years. Nothing. Not even a damn postcard.”

He stood and faced her. His dress shirt hung open, his jeans hung low on his hips and everything in her wanted to touch him. Heck, lick every square inch of him. But she held perfectly still and waited.

“Seriously? I thought you were in on it.”

“Well, I wasn’t.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“You could’ve asked me,” she countered.

“You could’ve told me without being asked,” he shot back.

“And so it goes,” she muttered, “the circle of pain just keeps spinning.” Amanda turned away from him, curling her fingers over the cold edge of the smoke-gray granite counter. That icy feel seeped into her bones and she wondered if cold would always smother the heat.

“It’s not easy, is it?” he asked quietly and she heard the soft footsteps coming up behind her.

She didn’t look at him. “No.”

“Just like before,” he said, laying both hands on her shoulders and turning her around to face him. “Sex just makes things more difficult.”

She tipped her head back to look up at him and she could see that he was as torn as she was. When he lifted one hand to smooth his fingers across her cheek, she felt the tenderness down to her soul and it almost broke her.

She’d loved him so much once, and those feelings, in spite of her attempts to hide them or lose them, were still there, inside her. She could continue to ignore what her heart still craved, or she could take this moment, this time, and use it to ease old pains and strengthen her heart against future pain.

She’d been broken once. Amanda couldn’t let that happen again. But she couldn’t walk away from what she was feeling, either. Not this time.

She reached up to hook her arms around his neck and sighed when she felt him wrap his arms around her middle.

“Complicated, yes,” she said, looking into eyes that had haunted her for so long. “But done right...so worth it.”

“We’re pretty good at it already,” Henry said, a half smile curving his mouth. “But maybe we should stop talking and put in a little more practice. Make sure we get it right.”

“Practice is good.” Maybe they didn’t have to solve everything tonight. Maybe they could just be together right now. For tonight, anyway, they didn’t have to be enemies. She was smiling when he took her mouth in a gentle caress that poured heat through her body, chasing away the cold—for now.