Tempt Me Tonight (29 page)

As Butch finally stopped kissing and reached for a condom, she realized how sidetracked she’d become, that she was almost bored. She wished this felt more like usual, even like it had five minutes ago. She shouldn’t have thought about Charley. He’d had slower hands, firmer lips. He’d kissed her in a way that had made her know he wanted her to feel as good as he did. He’d told her he was joining the Marines and that meeting her was a mighty nice send-off.

She considered telling Butch she’d like more with him than just sex in his truck—she considered asking him if anything more would ever come of it, of them.

But she couldn’t bring herself to do it.

If nothing else, Butch was a nice way to distract herself from her troubles. And if she didn’t have that, hell, what
would
she have to bring her any pleasure? Carissa, of course, but that was a different kind of pleasure.

Of course, Butch wasn’t the only trucker to grace the counter of the Waffle House, and Beverly knew more than one of them would be perfectly happy to fool around with her. But the truth was, she liked Butch. Better than the rest anyway.

If this was as good as it got, then she supposed it was better than nothing.

When Joe heard a car in the driveway Sunday evening, he yelled around the house from where he knelt in the backyard near the shed, an old slab of plywood in his grasp. “I’m around back, cupcake.”

A moment later, he glanced up to see Trish looking summertime pretty in capri pants and a flowy, flowery top sporting only tiny straps on her shoulders. It was the same outfit she’d worn the first time he’d seen her, at the Last Chance. Damn, they’d come a long way. “Hey,” he said with a small smile.

She drew closer, then said, “Kittens!” just the same as the girl he’d once known.

Their eyes were open now, and their mewing was about to drive Joe crazy. Sunshine lay in her usual hollowed-out spot under the shed, where two kittens nursed and another lay discovering he could bat at his sibling’s pointed tail with his paw. The little gray one took tentative steps through the grass that came up to its shoulders.

“Oh my God, Joe, they’re totally adorable.” She held out her hand to hold one. “Can I? It’s been forever since I’ve held a baby kitty.”

Balancing the plywood against his shoulder, he reached for the gray, passing the cat to her.

“Boy or girl?” she asked.

He shrugged, noncommittal, remembering their first discussion at the bar—about Pumpkin. With kittens, you just couldn’t tell for a while.

He watched Trish preen and coo over the cat, stroking its thick fur, until she said, “I have the perfect name for him or her. Pepper.”

He refocused on his task with the plywood. “I’ll pass that along to whoever adopts it.”

She gasped, pulling back. “You’re getting rid of this one?”

Clearly the gray was already her favorite, even though she hadn’t yet checked out the others. She’d always been like that with kittens or puppies—she got attached to the first one she got a look at.

“Well, I’m not gonna toss him out on the street or anything, but yeah, I’ll be looking to find him another home.” He explained about Debbie’s introduction to the Brownie troop last time. “You know what happens when you keep a lot of cats around, cupcake. They multiply.”

Kneeling next to him in the grass, Trish pursed her lips. “You should at least keep
one,
” she argued, still holding the gray, although his paws moved now, as if trying to walk on air. “Don’t separate the mama from
all
her children. And this should be the one.”

He lowered his chin, amused. “Why’s that?”

She looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. “Because he’s incredibly cute, of course!”

He nodded indulgently. “Of course.”

That’s when she started in with baby talk to the kitten. “
Yes you are. Say ‘I’m the cutest little kitten ever.’”
She held him up in front of her face, lifting one of his tiny paws to wave it at Joe.
“‘Please don’t give me away, Joe. I like it here. I promise I’ll catch lots of mice. And…I’ll turn out to be a boy, so I won’t go out and get pregnant like my mom did.’”

Joe couldn’t help laughing, and finally concluded with, “We’ll see.” Then thought—
We’ll see?
Like she was going to be in his life by the time the kittens were weaned? He shook his head clear of the thought, then took “Pepper” from Trish and lowered the cat back to the cubbyhole as he balanced one edge of the plywood against the shed, having slid the other firmly between the branches of the forsythia.

“What are you doing, making them a little pen?”

He didn’t glance up. “Something like that. Never know when a mean dog or tomcat’s gonna come along.” Not that he really
cared
about the cats, but he figured his sister—and now Trish—would kill him if something happened to them. “And now that that’s done, I need to check on dinner.”

She looked slightly stunned as he helped her to her feet. “You cooked?”

“Damn straight.” Not that he’d had a clue what he was doing. He’d called Debbie for a lasagna recipe, then spent most of the afternoon constructing the damned thing.

So it was gratifying to reach the house, smell the spicy Italian scents wafting from the oven, and have Trish say, “Yum, that smells great,” as he held the door for her.

“So I guess you probably cook all the time, huh?” he asked.

It surprised him when she shook her head. “Occasionally, a little. But I never got in the habit—too busy. Being at home, eating my mom’s meals, has been pretty wonderful.”

Checking his bubbling masterpiece of sauce, meat, cheese, and noodles, Joe thought it looked like it had a while to go. Trish agreed, but they went about getting out plates, putting a loaf of frozen garlic bread on a tray to bake—and then Trish reached in an overhead cabinet for two glasses.

And—damn. Joe caught sight of her tummy—just a smooth, silky little hint of it when she lifted her arm—and started getting hard, just from that. And hell if he could resist moving in behind her, wrapping his arms around her, and lowering a kiss to her neck.

“Mmm,” she purred coquettishly. “Is that a loaf of garlic bread in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?”

He threw his head back in a laugh, then leaned near her ear and spoke throatily. “I’m
definitely
happy to see you, baby.” After which he turned her in his arms and lifted her ass onto the kitchen counter in one smooth move. Sliding splayed hands up her thighs, he listened to her sigh, then met her pretty green gaze. “I was gonna wait until after we ate to lay a finger on you—but there’s a problem with that.”

Her look was sexy as hell as her arms looped around his neck. “What’s that?”

“I’m about to self-combust. I’ve been suffering since last night—remember?”

She bit her lip, appearing at once sympathetic and seductive. “I promise I’ll make it all better.”

He practically growled in response, his cock stiffening further as he bent in to lower an open-mouthed kiss to the center of her lush cleavage. She shuddered, then let out a breathy sigh. Mmm, God, yeah. He wanted more, and he knew his cupcake did, too.

His next gentle kiss skimmed the inner curve of one sumptuous breast and made her legs curl around his body, drawing his growing erection to the soft crux of her thighs. Heat enveloped him as he sank his next kiss over the fabric concealing her chest, over the beautifully hard little bud now poking through. Pressing against her below, he began to feel lost to her, to the moment.

That’s when her voice came in his ear, breathless. “Wait. Not here.”

He looked up. “No?”

She bracketed his face with her hands, her eyes hot and needful. “The bed, Joe, I need the bed. Now.”

Venue:
the geographic area in which a court has jurisdiction;
or
the scene or locale of any action or event.

Trish wasn’t usually so demanding when it came to sex. But something about Joe made it so that she
could
be.

Maybe it was that first night, the way she’d taken charge.

Or maybe it was just
Joe
. The heat in his eyes. The innate sense that he was wild about her,
all
of her, and that she could be whoever or whatever she wanted to be with him.

“Wrap around me,” he said, so she locked her legs more firmly around his hips and her arms tight around his neck. He picked her up, hands planted on her rear, and carried her to the bedroom.

They fell across the bed together in steamy kisses that ran through her like lightning on a hot summer night. As his hands roamed her curves, she took in bits of the room—sage green walls, pale curtains, and the quilt beneath her. She remembered the blanket—done in soft browns and greens and made by his grandmother, it had covered Joe’s bed as a boy. But that was all she could grasp of the space before her focus turned solely on him. His mouth, taking possession of hers. His skilled hands massaging her breasts, then reaching downward, for her zipper.

She yanked her gauzy cami off over her head, then pushed his T-shirt up his chest. “I never get to see you naked,” she heard herself breathe. “I want you naked.”

“Aw, baby,” he growled, tearing the T-shirt off and flinging it away. “You want me naked, you’ll
have
me naked.”

Mmm, Joe naked. Could life get any better?
Sucking in her breath, she decided to help him, working at his belt and zipper even as she lifted to let him pull off her pants and undies. She shoved his jeans past his hips and watched his sturdy erection burst free, sighing at the sight of it.

Lifting her gaze, she caught his wicked grin. Which fueled her even more. In response, she bit her lip, cast her best come-hither look, then wrapped her hand around him below, relishing the hard heat that filled her fist. “In me,” she said.

Without ever taking those piercing blue eyes from hers, he reached down both hands to part her legs wide. And then—oh God—the rough, hot entry, the beautifully filling intrusion. She cried out, then reached for his hips, digging her fingernails in, pulling him tighter, deeper, and listened with joy to his moan. “You fill me,” she said.

“I’m gonna give you all you can handle, baby.”

After that, thoughts faded—only heat and hard thrusts and core-deep pleasure overflowed her senses. She heard her cries of mindless ecstasy, seeming to echo through the small house—at some point she reached over her head to grip two of the wooden dowels on his headboard. His hands closed rough over her breasts through the strapless bra they hadn’t gotten around to taking off, until finally he shoved it down and molded his palms warm over her achy flesh, tenderly pinching the nipples between his fingers with each rhythmic caress.

And then Joe was groaning, hot words slipping out between, as his thrusts grew deeper, harder, more punishing. “Aw, God, baby, God. I’m gonna come in you, Trishy, I’m gonna come
now.
”

She braced herself against the headboard and drank in each stroke as he plunged his orgasm into her, each powerful drive spreading through her body like an earthquake, echoing out from the epicenter between her legs. She absorbed each thrust, cherishing the heat, all because it came from him.

As he collapsed gently atop her, he whispered against her bare shoulder. “Aw, damn.”

“What?”

He turned his eyes on hers, their faces close. “I didn’t make you come.”

She hid her smile. “I don’t care, Joe. It’s not always about that.”

He narrowed his gaze on her. “What’s it about then?”

Crap
. That had almost been like saying it was about…caring, about much more than she wanted to let him believe she felt. She’d managed to stop with the mindless
I love you
s inside her lately, and she’d thought maybe she was really succeeding in her have-a-wild-affair quest, but this was definitely a bad sign.

So she made up an easier answer. “It’s about just…feeling how big you are inside me.”

Yeah, that was good. He liked that—she could tell by the flash of masculine arrogance darkening his expression. And it wasn’t a lie—she
loved
how big he was inside her.

But she couldn’t deny—at least not to herself—that she also
cared
. She couldn’t deny there were also still some very deep, complicated emotions swirling around inside her. And maybe that
I love you
had been closer than she’d thought, because now, as she lay looking into his eyes, sprawled on the bed with him naked, she couldn’t deny the warmth in her belly, stretching even deeper, maybe all the way to her soul. It was much more than just physical. Oh God—she
wanted
to love him,
wanted
to trust him. But…she just didn’t know if she could.

She knew he was a different person in ways now—a man, not a boy.

And yet…hell,
this
was why it was so much easier to think of it as just an affair. Because turning off the emotions meant turning off the memory of that old pain, too. And being with him these last few days, without that pain in the mix, had been pretty darn nice.

Time to turn off the emotions again.
Make it for good this time, Trish. Get back to the fun stuff, the sex, the way he makes your body feel.

“Aw,
damn,
” he said again, this time looking truly alarmed.

“What now?”

“I think my damn lasagna is burning.”

She gasped, because that’s when she smelled it, too, the acrid scent of something that had been in the oven too long. Joe jumped to his feet and rushed from the room, giving her the first real view of his butt she’d ever seen—and
mmm,
it was just as nice and round and tight as she’d suspected from viewing it through jeans.

A moment later, after some muttered curses from the kitchen, he appeared in the doorway, wearing nothing but two oven mitts and holding a tray of slightly charred lasagna. “Look at this,” he said, clearly incensed that all his hard work had been for nothing. “It’s ruined.”

She held back her smile, since he was upset—but she couldn’t help thinking it was about the cutest sight she’d ever beheld. Or maybe—actually—the sexiest. Since he was still fairly erect. “I’m sorry, Joe. I shouldn’t have dragged you into the bedroom.”