Tempt Me Tonight (28 page)

Joe’s desire spread warm through his body—it
was
like they were sixteen again. The screened-in porch was a place where they’d escaped her parents’ watchful eyes to share lots of kisses in those days. Now they stepped onto it to see everything outside gleaming wetly—a soft drizzle turned the night green and lush as a light cadence pattered the porch’s tin roof. The woods edging the large backyard glistened beneath the pale moonlight fighting its way past rain clouds.

They settled on a cushioned wicker sofa, the same he recalled from all those years ago, and he wrapped a firm arm around her, drinking in her soft warmth.

“I’m glad I came tonight,” he told her as she cuddled against him.

“Me, too.” She lifted a tender kiss to his lips, tightening his groin. Then a suspicious glint lit her emerald eyes. “I’m guessing you don’t let a lot of people drive that car.”

“Nobody,” he confirmed simply. “Nobody but me. Ever.”

“Then why did you let my dad, of all people?”

He didn’t quite meet her gaze. “Guess I want the guy to like me,” he murmured, then glanced her way. “For you. To make your life easier.”

“While I’m here,” she clarified quickly.

A soft fist gently squeezed his heart. “Right. While you’re here. And I’m glad your dad won at Monopoly. The evening might have taken an ugly turn otherwise.”

She smiled, then lifted her head to peer accusingly into his eyes. “You didn’t
let
him win, did you?”

“No, cupcake—I don’t let anybody get the best of me if I can help it.” Their smiles faded, however, when their gazes caught and held. “But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t spend the whole damn game thinking how much I’d rather be kissing you.” And as a whole day’s worth of pent-up desire flowed hot through his veins, he couldn’t wait another minute. He lowered his mouth to hers, anxious for a sweet taste. Their tongues met, mingled, and he lifted his hands to her face.

The rain had cooled the late summer air, but the longer they kissed, the less Joe could think of anything cool. His body went taut as he leaned her back on the couch and slid his hand to her breast, listening to her breath turn ragged. “I want you so damn much,” he breathed warm in her ear, kneading her soft flesh. Her nipple jutted into his palm through her top and bra.

But she pulled back, sat halfway up, surprising him.

He drew back to meet her look—a silent
What’s wrong?

“You know we can’t do it
here
.”

Aw, hell. They were on her parents’ back porch—a detail he’d managed to forget the second he’d started kissing her. God, this whole night kept taking him back in time, and now he was stuck in an old, familiar fog of frustration, forced to remember all the
other
nights they’d gotten too heated up on this sofa, knowing her parents could walk out at any time.

“I bet they’re asleep,” he said with raised eyebrows, offering a wicked grin.

“Oh-h-ho no. No way,” she replied, giggling lightly.

“We could be quiet.”

“I highly doubt that.”

Actually, he did, too—she was the noisy type. But he said, “Come on, honey,” anyway. Half teasing. Also half serious. “Let’s play just a little dangerously.”

He raked his thumb slowly over the peak of her breast and leaned in close, letting his voice go thick, raspy. “Let me kiss you.
Here
.” He delicately pinched the taut nipple between thumb and forefinger, sending a visible shudder through her.

She sucked in her breath in reply and gave him a sexy look that he was pretty sure meant just one thing—she couldn’t resist.

His kisses were slow and hot—on her neck, then grazing downward until he was kissing her breasts through her top. He slid his hands under her shirt and up the incredibly silky skin of her midriff, just to hear her warn him. “Joe.”

“Just one kiss, cupcake. One perfect little taste.” His voice was a hot whisper as he took possession of both breasts, massaging their weight in his hands. Beneath him, she bit her lip, sighed her pleasure—and gave in.

He pushed her top up to reveal a simple white lace bra, then kissed the tender skin swelling provocatively above the fabric, listening as she let out the softest moan he’d ever heard.

He wanted to…say things. Make her promises. Promises he would keep this time.

But no. He was lucky just to be here edging his way back into her world. The sex part had turned out to be amazingly easy, something he never could have predicted with Trish. But the rest of it
wasn’t
as simple, so he pushed it from his mind and got back to the easy part.

He dropped warm, little kisses over her breasts through her bra, finally biting tenderly through the lace to capture one beaded nipple between his teeth. She whimpered, trembled. He hoped like hell she wouldn’t notice he was trembling now, too.

Reaching under her top to her shoulder, he gently lowered one bra strap enough that he could run his fingertips all the way down into the cup, freeing her breast. “Aw, Trish,” he whispered.

He raked his tongue over the sweet, hard pink tip, watching her eyes close in ecstasy. Then he did it again, and again, until she was panting, and until he was suckling her, and the sensation was spreading like wildfire through his body, and her breath was coming faster and faster and his hand went between her legs, under her skirt, rubbing her through her panties. Her breath took on the rhythm of a slow-moving train, yet gaining speed, and all that mattered right now was touching her, taking her to heaven.

But more—he needed to give her more. So he shifted, sinking his fingers under the cotton between her thighs. She gasped when his fingertips found wetness, and he kissed her neck, cheek, lips. He took the peak of her perfect round breast into his mouth again, suckling in the same rhythm she’d found moving against his hand, stopping only to whisper, “I want to make you come, baby. I want to make you come
so
hard.”

And then she did. He felt it in the wild contractions around his fingers. He saw it in the tense quivering of her lips. He heard it in the low, sudden sob that escaped her as she drew his body tight against hers. And he absorbed it in the frantic beating of her heart near where his cheek rested. He simply lay there absorbing the joy of having taken her there, smiling at how powerful it felt to give her such pleasure.

When she relaxed in his arms, he raised to peer into her eyes—and her expression was easy enough to read.
I’ve come back down to earth now and I can’t believe I let you get me to do this on my back porch.

“Mad at me?” he asked.

She let out a breath. “Well, it would be hard to be mad. But…”

He gave his head a playfully scolding tilt. “Come on now. You wouldn’t have liked it if I stopped in the middle, would you?”

She slapped playfully at his chest and didn’t reply, but he knew the answer.

“I have just one question, though,” he said. “What happened to ‘Next time, a bed’?”

She laughed softly, pulling her bra back into place, her top back down. “This isn’t quite next time. And besides, this reminds me of…you know, back then. Kissing out here.”

He liked knowing she was being whisked back in time, too. So he sank his mouth back to hers, kissing slow, deep—but soon realized that wasn’t going to take care of the hard-on currently torturing him.

“Kissing you out here
is
really nice, cupcake,” he whispered, “but…you want to come over to my place tomorrow night?” Then he winked. “I have a bed.”

While most of the residents of God’s country were at church praying, Trish was painting. And thinking about Joe’s bed.

And his tulips, too, oddly enough. Why had they struck her so dramatically? Other men had given her flowers before, after all. But…well, Joe had never been a flower guy back in high school. And from the way Debbie talked about his love life, she suspected he wasn’t really a flower guy now, either. Except he had been for
her,
last night.

Letting out a sigh, she dipped her roller in a tray of lilac-shaded paint and began rolling it onto the wall in the “W method” she’d seen on
HGTV
. Not that she watched a lot of
HGTV
. She was just thankful she’d somehow caught that helpful hint.

She’d already finished most of the tables and chairs and had now moved on to tackling the walls before she advanced to the potentially disastrous painting of the booths. And while there were moments when she began to fear she’d used too many colors in too many places, the more she worked, the more she actually began to think she might just be a genius at interior design—at least in diners.

She didn’t know if anyone else would agree, but each time she stood back and looked around, she couldn’t help thinking it was all coming together beautifully. It felt strange—like a whole new place, yet also still the same restaurant where she’d practically grown up.

She’d never thought she had any sentimental attachment to the diner, but as she poured more and more of herself into the place, she was forced to realize that maybe she did—that maybe even leaving
it
behind was going to be difficult when the time came. And it
would
come. Soon. Another week, tops.

When the bell above the door jingled, she looked up to find Marjorie—and in her arms, the most adorable little brown dog Trish had ever seen. Her heart nearly melted on the spot.

“Oh my goodness, this must be our little plaintiff,” she cooed, setting down her roller to greet them.

But Marjorie seemed more interested in the diner at the moment. “Glory be, Trish—this is…something.”

Hmm. Trish pursed her lips. “Would that be a good something or a bad something?”

Marjorie looked around. “A good something,” she finally declared.

“Are you sure?” It had taken a while for her to answer.

In reply, Marjorie gave a slow yet emphatic nod. “Yes, absolutely. Now, it’s a lot to get used to when a person is accustomed to it being a little old diner, but it definitely looks like…the future of Eden.”

Trish smiled, thinking she liked that. “That’s my hope. That it’s modern, but still quaint enough to fit here.”

Marjorie continued scanning the room—and nodding some more. “Yes, yes—I think you’ve nailed that exactly.” Then she smiled and Trish decided to believe her.

“So this is the famous Jeremiah,” Trish said, reaching up both hands to scratch the little dog behind his ears. “He’s adorable, Marjorie.”

And when Trish thought of some big, mean, nasty dog hurting him, and of a judge who thought he was replaceable, her blood began to boil all over again. She shook his paw and heard herself speak in a silly cartoon voice she probably hadn’t summoned since the
last
time she’d talked to a cat or dog—about half her lifetime ago.
“We’re going to get you justice, Jeremiah, do you hear me? Yes, we are—we’re going to make that mean man and his mean dog pay through the nose.”

Then she looked up at Marjorie, slightly embarrassed. “Don’t worry—I’ll talk like a grown-up when we’re actually in court.”

“Do you have a wife, Butch?”

There, she’d said it—just come right out with it.

Beverly lay in Butch’s extended cab with him on Sunday afternoon—he’d waited ’til her shift ended. Gretchen Wilson’s “Redneck Woman” blared from the radio up front while the AC drifted back to keep them cool as Butch unbuttoned the top of her uniform blouse and popped the front clasp on her bra.

He rolled toward her, their clothes in a tangle, to kiss her neck, murmuring, “Why you have to go all serious on me, Bev? Since when do you like to talk when we’re doing it?”

“Maybe since now. And I want to know. Are you married?”

He ignored her, skimming his free hand up under her black work skirt.

“Are you?” But shit—the words came out too soft this time. Because his hands felt good. She lifted to let him pull her underwear down.

“Why does it matter?” He sounded annoyed with her even as he settled between her parted legs.

And hell, maybe it didn’t. She wasn’t sure it would stop her. And she supposed his refusal to answer
was
an answer, even if she didn’t want to hear it. He still gave her what she needed, a man’s touch, the knowledge of being desired, the excitement of sex right here in the middle of the day.

Still, even as he kissed her some more, her thoughts drifted to the best sex she’d ever had—with Carissa’s father, Charley. Which was all she knew about him—his first name and how to spell it. He’d said, “Charley with an e-y, not an i-e,” when she’d asked his name. Sex with Joe had been a close second, but there had just been something
about
Charley—something almost magical.

She’d been working at the Dairy Queen which still stood across the road from them right now, serving up cones and banana splits. He’d ordered a sundae and asked for extra whipped cream.

“That’ll cost ya,” she’d said, flirting instantaneously, because he was so cute, in a tall, lean, clean-cut sort of way. Older, she’d thought. Twenty-one, at least. She’d been nineteen, but back then, two years was enough difference to seem older.

“What’ll it cost?” he’d asked.

She’d smiled her best smile and said, “How about you share it with me when I take my break in five minutes.”

He’d grinned. “Better hurry or it’ll melt.”

Well, that wasn’t the only thing that had melted—he’d melted her Dairy Queen uniform right off her, late that night, in the backseat of her father’s Impala. She’d known it was crazy to have sex with a stranger, someone she’d never see again, but that had been the beauty of it, too. People all over town had been mad at her for breaking up Joe and Trish—and with Charley…well, no one would ever know. And she’d never seen what was so awful about a girl letting a guy make her feel good.

She’d never dreamed she’d get pregnant. The fact was, she’d been embarrassingly stupid about birth control in those days. She’d had sex with plenty of boys already, letting lots of them do it without a rubber, and nothing had happened. She’d never had regular periods and had thought that meant she couldn’t get in trouble.

Not that she could regret it exactly. She could never regret Carissa.