Welcome to Temptation (20 page)

Liz looked as if she wanted to argue, but Phin opened the door wider and pointed to the porch, patiently staring his mother down until she gave up and went out the door, giving Sophie one last, cool look before she went.

"Boy," Sophie said when she was gone.

"She wasn't always like that," Phin said. "My dad's death hit her hard. She has a good heart." Sophie wanted to say,
How can you tell?
But it was his mother, after all. "I'm sure she does."

"No, you're not." Phin came closer. "But I don't care. I was about to be in the middle of you. Pick a place, anyplace, and be down."

Sophie caught her breath and took a step back. Anyplace. Something that would be good in a movie.

"The pool table." That could make up for the bad rep pool tables had gotten in
The Accused.
Phin stopped in his tracks. "Are you insane? Do you know what that would do to the felt?" As a matter of fact, Sophie did, but she was surprised he'd think of it now. "So much for adventure," she said to him, and he said, "Any adventure you want, as long as it doesn't screw up my pool table. Let me show you the upstairs. You can pick out a letter sweater and take off your clothes." The bedroom at the top of the stairs was sloppily comfortable, and the bed was wide and rumpled. "Is this where you live?" Sophie said, looking around, and Phin said, "Not anymore," and kissed her, taking her down into heat.

"I want something exciting," she said breathlessly, as she came up for air. "I want something exciting and different and depraved."

He laughed as he stroked his hands down her back. "Talk's cheap. Give me details." He kissed her neck, finding that good place, and she felt dizzy.
Concentrate
. "I can't think of anything." Sophie said, which was true; her mind was going south again.

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"Handcuffs."

"I don't think so."

"Just as well, I can't find them anyway." Phin tugged her toward the bed and tipped her onto the quilt.

"Ice cubes. Feathers. Whipped cream."

"What?" Sophie scooted over on the bed, her heart pounding as he took off his shirt. "Never mind. No."

"I could call Wes over for a threesome." He stripped off his pants and rolled onto the bed beside her.

"No, you could not," Sophie said, and shivered as he put his arms around her.

"He wouldn't do it anyway," Phin said against her hair, as his fingers moved down her blouse. "Private kind of guy, Wes is. Why are you still dressed?"

"What?" Sophie said, "Oh." She sat up and realized she was unbuttoned again. "I was thinking of something more—" She shivered as he pulled her blouse off her shoulders and the air-conditioned air hit her.

"More what?" he said, sliding her zipper down, and she tried to organize her thoughts and said, "You know. Erotic but not embarrassing."

He stopped at that. "Let me get this straight. You want something exciting but not weird, different but not kinky, and depraved but not embarrassing."

"Yes," Sophie said, trying not to notice that he was naked. God, he was beautiful. He sighed. "Can't we just have sex? It's not as if we've known each other long enough to get bored."

"No," Sophie said. "I'm learning a lot from you. This is like college."
Touch me.

"College?" Phin said.

"I never got to go," Sophie said. "And I always wanted a degree. So I'm getting it from you."
Give it to
me.

"In sex," Phin said.

"Well, you're a master at it, aren't you?" Sophie said, batting her eyelashes at him as she shoved off her shorts.
Take me
.

"Don't even try to charm me," Phin said, but he sounded distracted. Sophie put her arms around him and pulled him close. "Teach me something new," she said, and he bent her back onto the bed and she shivered as his body slid against hers.

"Okay," Phin said. "But pay attention, Julie Ann, there'll be a quiz."

*

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Sophie woke up alone. She stretched, sliding across almond oil-soaked sheets, which was disgusting, but she felt terrific, so what the heck. She squinted at the clock beside Phin's bed and realized that she'd been asleep for over an hour. Those quizzes took a lot out of a woman.

She wrapped herself in the slippery top sheet and tiptoed down the hall until she found the bathroom, and then she showered until she was sure all the oil was gone. The stuff was everywhere, so it took her a while.

Then she went back to Phin's bedroom and dressed, and, because she couldn't stand the mess, she stripped the oil-stained bottom sheet and mattress pad from the bed. Something clanked as she pulled them off, and she stooped to look under the bed to see what had fallen.

Handcuffs.

She held them up, and they glinted back at her, and she thought grim thoughts about what Phin had been using them for and who he'd been using them with.

It wasn't that she was jealous at all, she told herself.

It was just that he was a perv.

"Would these be yours?" she asked Phin when she got downstairs.

He turned from the register, looking sleepy and satisfied in the late afternoon light, and said, "Oh, good, I've been looking for those."

Sophie held the cuffs higher, hoping to instill some sense of shame, if not in him, then at least in herself. One look at him and she wanted him again. "I found them in the bed."

"That makes sense," Phin said. "That's where I lost them."

"I'd ask what you were doing with them," Sophie said, trying not to sound bitchy, "but I probably don't want to know, do I?"

"Sure you do. It was exciting and different and depraved." Phin nodded toward the stairs. "Go put them someplace we can find them, and I'll show you later. How do you feel?"

"Unsure," Sophie said, looking at the cuffs with growing curiosity.

"Not about them, dummy," Phin said. "This is the part where you get frosty and turn on me."

"What part?" Sophie said.

"The part after we have sex," Phin said. "When you remember that I'm a pervert, and you're not this kind of woman, and it's all my fault." He sounded pretty cheerful about it. Sophie looked back at the cuffs, now definitely intrigued in spite of herself. There was no point in being disgusted with him; she'd loved everything he'd done to her. And if she was going to be honest, she was open to discussion about the cuffs. "I think we can skip the frosty part from now on. So exactly what do you—"

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The front door opened, and Sophie tried to hide the cuffs, too late.

Wes looked more startled than she did. When he recovered, he said, "Those are mine, thank you." He took the cuffs from her and put them in his back pocket. "Why does it smell like salad in here?"

"I had plans for those," Phin said, at the same time Sophie said brightly, "Well, I've got to go." She tried to sidle out the door, but Phin blocked her. "Wes was just going back to the pool table," he said, and Wes said, "Right. I'll just go back to the pool table." When he was gone, Phin said, "So we can skip that part from now on."

"What part?" Sophie said, and he bent and kissed her, gently this time, and she leaned into him and felt her breath go, just because he was so close and so gentle and so hot.

"We can skip the frosty part," he murmured against her mouth. "And go straight to the good stuff."

"Right," she breathed. "Absolutely." She slid her arms around his waist and pulled him closer, falling into his kiss again, and when he came up for air, he said, "You know, I don't have to play pool right now."

"Oh. Sure you do." Sophie stepped away from him. "I have to get back. I have ... work to do."

"Work." He let his breath out. "Okay. So I'll see you tomorrow."

"Yeah," Sophie said, drifting toward the door. "Tomorrow's good." She closed the door behind her and stood on the porch looking dazedly out at Temptation'sMain Streetbaking in the late-afternoon sun. Nice little town, she thought.
Pretty
.

The door rattled behind her and Phin came out, holding a white sweater. "Forgot to give this to you." He handed it to her just as a car went past.

It slowed down, and Phin waved.

"Anybody we know?" Sophie said, shaking the sweater out. It had a large red T with a red-and-white basketball in the middle of it.

"I know them. You don't," Phin said, and Sophie thought,
Story of my life, town boy.

"We'll be very careful with the sweater," she told him, and he said, "Don't bother, I have more."

"Of
course
you do," Sophie said, and started down the steps.

"Frosty," Phin said, and went back inside. "Satisfied," Sophie said to nobody, and went back to the farm.

*

"I suppose you had to," Wes said when Phin went back to join him at the table.
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"Pretty much. She seduced me."

"Yeah, right," Wes said. "She said, 'Please fix the kitchen drain,' and you interpreted that—"

"She said, 'Fuck me.'" Phin put two balls on the table and picked up his cue. "I interpreted that to mean she wanted sex."

"Oh." Wes picked up his cue. "That would have been my call, too." He squinted at the table. "Why would she have said that?"

"On a guess? Because she wanted sex." Phin bent to shoot, and Wes did the same. They stroked the balls to the opposite cushion and then watched them roll back. Both balls hit the second cushion, but Wes's stayed an inch behind Phin's.

Phin racked the balls for him and stepped away from the table. "She's not as uptight as she looks. She wants to be a straight arrow, but she's bent as hell."

Wes slammed the cue ball into the rack and the balls scattered, two finding pockets. "So you're helping her find the real Sophie."

"I'm pretty much doing whatever she tells me to," Phin said. "That's working out well for me. She called the therapist last night and broke it off, so you can forget giving me grief on that account." Wes made the next ball and walked around to the other side of the table. "So thanks to you, her relationship is over."

"Is this going to be a long conversation?" Phin said.

"I just want to know why she's giving up a solid relationship for seven more days of sex with you." Wes stopped to chalk.

"I have no idea," Phin said. "I'm just grateful."

"You said that first day she was up to something." Wes pocketed the second ball. "I think you were right. And Stephen is very hot to find out what and link you to it, and Zane Black thinks he knows." Wes chalked again as Phin said, "Zane Black?"

Wes nodded. "He came in today. Tracked me down on a Sunday to say I should look into Amy's background. He said I should close down the movie because he was pretty sure it was something we wouldn't like, and once I got a look at Amy's history, I'd know it for sure." Phin felt his old unease about the movie come sneaking back. "Did you check?" Wes nodded again. "She's clean. But I'm still worried about Stephen." He bent to shoot again, adding,

"Especially since you appear to lose your mind every time you get near Sophie."

"So, you getting anywhere with Amy?" Phin said, and Wes miscued.

"You want to play pool or talk?" Wes said.

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"I want to play pool," Phin said, and began to run the table, trying not to think about what kind of trouble Sophie could be getting into out at the farm with that damn movie. He'd just have to watch her more closely, he decided.

His civic duty.

*

The next morning, Sophie handed Amy the almond-oil scene.

"This is good," Amy said when she'd finished reading. "Almond oil, huh?"

"It wasn't so much the oil," Sophie said, "as what he did with it. I think he reads a lot." She paused and then added, "I met his mother, too."

"That bad?"

"Angela Lansbury in
The Manchurian Candidate
. I kept waiting for her to say, 'Why don't you pass the time by playing a little solitaire?' and then the last thing I'd see would be Phin's eyes glazing over."

"That would explain a lot about Phin," Amy said. "There's a considerable chill factor there."

"That would be because his mother is a Frigidaire," Sophie said.

"One of the Hill Frigidaires?" Amy said. "These old families sure know how to repel outsiders."

"Yeah," Sophie said, feeling a little depressed. "They sure do." They heard a car come down the lane, and Amy went to look. "Who do we know that drives a blue BMW?" she said, and Sophie said, "Us? Nobody," but when the car stopped and a champagne blonde got out, she said, "Oh, no."

Amy squinted out across the yard. "Who is that?"

"Phin's mother," Sophie said, and pushed past her to go out onto the porch.

*

"My son is an important man in this town," Liz said carefully, when they were sitting on the swing alone, Amy and the dog having taken one look at Liz and retreated into the house. Sophie was melting in the heat – she could feel the sweat trickling between her breasts – but Liz wasn't even flushed, even in her silk suit. "The Tuckers have always been important here."

Sophie nodded. The woman had to be an alien.

"I'm sure that seems amusing to you, coming as you do from the city—"

"No," Sophie said. "I'm not amused at all. He told me about the New Bridge . I understand how important it is."

Liz nodded. "Thank you. That makes what I have to say much easier." She pressed her lips together. "I
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realize that you and my son are involved in a liaison, and that is none of my business. But the political well-being of this town is my business, has always been the business of the Tuckers, and it's my duty to make sure that it is not threatened. Your association with him is unfortunate from apolitical perspective. When are you leaving Temptation?"

Sophie drew back, stung in spite of herself. Well, what had she expected?
Welcome to the family?

"Next Sunday," Sophie said, holding her temper.

"Will you be seeing him in Cincinnati ?"

Sophie took a deep breath. "We haven't talked about it."

"I see." Liz stared out across the barren yard, her face like stone. "But if he decided to pursue the relationship once you went back to Cincinnati , you would agree?"