Welcome to Temptation (38 page)

"That was good." Phin nodded. "You probably missed the part where Brittany 's mother complained to the head of the Temptation Athletic Association to have the coach removed."

"Oh," Sophie said. "Is the president reasonable?"

"That would be Stephen Garvey."

"Oh, jeez, is there anything we can do?"

"The coach is staying," Phin said. "Drink your wine."

"Fixed it, did you?" Sophie said, and drank her wine.

"Yep."

"Do you have any idea how sexy power used for good is?" Sophie said, looking over her wineglass into his eyes.

"Really?" He settled deeper into the pillows. "Did I ever tell you how I battled Stephen to get Temptation new streetlights?"

Sophie put her wineglass down. "Take me." He grinned at her, and then he put his wineglass down and leaned over and kissed her, slowly, and when they were naked under the quilt together, he still moved slowly, even though she'd said, "We'd better hurry if Wes is stopping by."

"The hell with Wes," he'd said. "Stay a while."

Then he touched her everywhere she loved to be touched and when her breathing slowed to match his, she touched him, too, and the afternoon dissolved into soft laughter and heat and bone-deep pleasure. And when he finally took her, he moved so deliberately that he stretched minutes into eternity, and she stayed with him, looking into his eyes and sliding against his body and living in his kiss until she was so flooded with heat, she glowed. Then, after eons, he whispered, "Now," in her ear and rolled to bear down on her, and the heat fused and broke and she clung to him as every nerve she had went incandescent.

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And when she stopped trembling, he was still holding on to her, shuddering and breathless and spent against her. She buried her face in his shoulder and thought about the day she'd had with him, and the laughter and the pleasure and the solid rightness of it all, and she felt so safe and satisfied and better that she held him tighter and when they were both calm again, she told him the truth: "I love you." His breath went out on a
whoosh
. After a very long time, he pulled away from her, and when he smiled down at her, he looked as if he were trying to sell her a used car.

"Uh, thank you," he said.

Thank you?"You're welcome," Sophie said, disappointment and annoyance breaking nicely through her satisfaction. "What's the matter with you?"

"Why are you in such a hurry? Three weeks and you're throwing commitment around."

"That wasn't commitment, that was emotion," she said flatly.

"That was commitment," Phin said, just as flatly. "You know I'm crazy about you, why—"

"Say the L word and I'll know."

"What happened to 'You Don't Have to Say You Love Me'?"

"I'm not a fan of Dusty's masochistic period," Sophie said. "You have to say it." Phin rolled out of bed. "You know, you were right, Wes is going to be here anytime. We should probably get dressed." He grabbed his boxers and headed for the hall and the bathroom.

"Was it something I said?" Sophie called after him, but he was already down the hall, and it took all her self-control to keep from throwing his alarm clock at the wall.

Okay, she'd been stupid. But she really did love him. The middle of great sex probably wasn't the best place to have that realization, since great sex did tend to cloud a woman's mind, but now that she knew it, she also knew it had been there for a while.

She got out of bed and picked up her bra; determined to think of a way to make him admit he loved her because, of course, he did, the dummy, she had no doubts about that. The fair way would be to confront him and make him talk about it, but she'd just tried that and look where it had gotten her. So, time to be a Dempsey. Time to throw away all her conscience and pride. Time to cheat and lie and get what she needed. She sat on the edge of the bed and thought about Phin's weak spots. He had so few. Sex. Shirts. Pool.

Pool.

She heard the shower go on in the bathroom and thought,
This boy is toast
. Then she got dressed, made one quick stop in the bathroom while he was still in the shower, and went downstairs to show him exactly what he was dealing with.

*

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When Phin came out of the bathroom, Sophie had gone, which made him feel relieved and guilty until he heard balls knocking together on the pool table. He put his khakis and his shirt back on and went downstairs with dread in his heart.

The last thing he wanted to do was explain why he didn't love her back although he
cared
about her, of course, more than any other woman he'd ever known, but not "I love you," not after only three weeks –

was she insane? They had such a great thing going here, and it could lead to commitment in a couple of years, maybe when Dillie wasn't so vulnerable and his mother got used to her, and until then they could keep things going if they were just careful, didn't expect too much, but no, she had to say it. Christ,
women
.

Then he hit the bottom of the stairs and saw Sophie. She was bent over the table, racking balls and humming "Some of Your Lovin'," looking very hot in her pink dress, and the memory of where they'd just been and what they'd just done lessened his annoyance considerably.

"Hey, you," she said, and came around the table to kiss him, no hassles and no nagging, and when she broke the kiss and smiled lazily at him, he smiled back.

"How about a game?" she said. "We've got time for nine ball."

"You know nine ball?" he said, and she said, "Everybody knows nine ball, although I'm not in your league, of course. Do you want to play?"

"Yes," he said.

"Davy said you were really good," Sophie said. "Try not to beat me too bad."

"I'll go easy," he said, planning on blowing a few shots. It really wasn't fair to play her straight-on when she wasn't as good as he was.

She smiled at him again. "This is a magnificent table," she said, and the last of his tension eased away as he watched her stroke the rosewood rails. "But then, everything about you is magnificent." He felt a faint stir of alarm, but then she came to the end of the table with cue in hand. She took a stance that dynamite couldn't have shifted, gripped the cue firmly with her thumb and two fingers and bent to sight down it in perfect form. Phin tilted his head to see her better. Perfect form and the world's best butt in a short pink dress.

She looked up at him, still smiling. "You playing, here?"

"Yeah." He picked up his cue and bent to shoot for the lag, but she was close beside him in that pink dress, and she shook his concentration and took the break away from him.

"I'll be damned," he said. "Very nice."

"Rack 'em." She chalked her cue; and then, while he watched, her smile evaporated and she pocketed the seven on the break with a power stroke that banished "cute" from his vocabulary for her forever.

"I never told you this before," she said, after she'd chalked and taken aim on the one. "But I come from a long line of felons."

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"Really." Phin watched the ball fall into the pocket without hitting the back. Sophie stood and chalked. "My father's on the lam right now on a fraud charge." She bent and fell into perfect position again, and Phin stifled a sigh. "He's a recidivist. A big one." She pocketed the two with a follow shot that left her exactly where she needed to be, and stood to chalk again. "Then there's my brother."

"Davy." Phin watched her bend again.

"He makes his living defrauding people who defraud people." Sophie pocketed the three. "They're not really in a position to go after him, so he gets away with it, although there are a considerable number of people who don't like him."

"Can't imagine why," Phin said, and Sophie chalked again.

"Amy had a few small problems with the law, but in general she's pretty straight now."

"That's good."

"And then there's me," Sophie said.

She pocketed the four on a beautiful stop shot, and Phin said, "You."

"Yeah." Sophie nodded and chalked again. "I've been ducking my destiny, trying to go straight and be good. But you know—"

She bent to take her shot, aimed carefully, and followed through with such perfect form that Phin went a little dizzy for a moment.

"—that's not really me," she said as she straightened. "I was born to be bad." She smiled at him. "I learned that from you. Thank you so much."

Phin swallowed. "You're welcome."

Then Sophie put away the six, and he thought,
Hell, she could beat me
. It was a strangely arousing thought.

But there was a limit.

"Actually, I already knew about your family," he said. "Zane told me." She had chalked and bent to shoot again, but now she hesitated. "He did?" Phin nodded. "He seemed a little annoyed that I didn't care."

"Oh," Sophie said, and sighted down the cue to the eight. When she missed the shot, it was by such a tiny miscalculation, hitting the ball just a fraction too hard, that he was almost sorry. But not sorry enough not to put the eight and nine away. This was, after all, pool. He chalked his cue and looked at the eight. She'd left him a cut shot, not an easy one, but one he could make. He bent to
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shoot, and she said, "There's something else you should know."

"What?" he said, without raising his head.

"I'm not wearing any underpants." She sat down out of his sight line, and when he turned his head to look at her, she smiled at him innocently with her legs crossed, the slender, curving line of her thigh disappearing into her short, clinging pink dress. "Sort of like your fantasy." His cue wavered, and he straightened. "You really think I'm going to fall for that?" Sophie shrugged. "Check your back pocket."

Against his better judgment, he did, and felt the slippery slide of nylon and lace. He pulled it out and held it up in front of him, Definitely Sophie's pink lace drawers. He shrugged. "Big deal." He stuffed them back in his pocket and bent to take his shot, and then he thought about her bending over the table, making draw and follow shots with such elegance, hitting that one stop shot that had been so simply beautiful that he'd felt dizzy just looking at her. All without underpants.

Steady, he told himself.

Then he thought about the incredible things she'd just done to him in bed, and for the first time in his life, he thought seriously about having sex on his pool table. The hell with the felt. Great-grandpa would understand.

"You going to take that shot anytime soon?" Sophie asked, and he lined up the shot, thought of Sophie's naked butt, and miscued, just a fraction of a fraction of an inch, but a miscue just the same.

"So close," Sophie said as she stood up. "But then pool, like love, is not a forgiving sport." She went to the table, and he watched her make the cut shot with perfect draw and then pocket the nine with that stop shot that made his heart clutch.

"God almighty," Wes said from the doorway, and Phin looked up and said, "I know. It's a beautiful thing."

"Thank you." Sophie put her cue carefully back in the rack, and Phin followed the line of her back as she did, lingering on her naked-under-that-dress butt.

He had to do something to get some blood back to his brain. "I need to see you upstairs."

"I don't think so." She reached for his back pocket and pulled her underwear out as she walked past.

"Turn around, Wes."

Wes raised his eyebrows at the underpants and then turned his back, and Sophie stepped into her drawers and pulled them up over her firm, round butt.

Phin said, "No, really.
Upstairs
."

"No, really, I
can't
. If I go up there, I'll just lose my head and ask for commitment. So later for you." Sophie drifted past Wes, a vision of skill and sex, and Phin let his breath out as she went.

"I missed something, didn't I?" Wes said when she was gone.

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Phin leaned on his cue, staring at the doorway where he'd seen her last, her pink dress imprinted on his retina. "I knew it. I knew it the first minute I saw her. The devil's candy."

"What?"

"She just fucked me six ways to Sunday."

"She beat you at pool, too," Wes said, looking at the table.

"That's what I mean," Phin said. "It's going to take me years to recover from this."

"It's just pool," Wes said. "She's leaving after the premiere on Tuesday. Get a grip. I need to talk to you."

Phin ignored him to replay Sophie's stop shot in his mind. Then he replayed her body in his bed. Then he remembered the way he needed to talk to her every night, and the way she'd stood up for Dillie at the game, and the way she laughed and made his heart pound harder every time she met his eyes, and he knew it wasn't just sex.

It wasn't even pool.

"Phin?" Wes said.

"I think I'm going to have to marry her," Phin said. "Dillie likes her. I could teach her to read. This could work."

Wes shook his head. "Your mind is clouded by pool. You've only known her three weeks. Wait until the game wears off and rethink this."

"Okay," Phin said, and thought about Sophie's stop shot again.

For that alone, he had to love her.

*

" Cleagot to Rob," Wes told Phin, when they were sitting on the bookstore porch. "She's been telling him that the only thing standing in their way was Zane. She's got him convinced she's in love with him."

"Just like Dad," Phin said. "Helluva tradition, those Lutz boys."

"She gave him her cell phone and sent him out after Zane that night with instructions to call if Zane got into any trouble. She told Rob he was drunk and if he fell in the river, he'd drown."

"And Rob didn't get the hint?"

"No, thank God. He followed him to the back of Garvey's, and then Zane stopped and waited there, so Rob called Rachel on the cell phone to come out and meet him."

Phin frowned, incredulous. "Why—"

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"He thought Zane would make a pass and Rachel would scream and Stephen would come out and it would be all over. This is Rob, remember. No execution. For which we should all be grateful. So Rachel Maced him and shoved him in the river, and then Rob took her out to the Tavern and Zane climbed back to the path and met somebody with a gun. Wes sighed. "With the stuff I dragged out of Amy about the body, I've got a better time of death. Zane went into the water alive and unshot about nine forty-five. Amy came back from the Tavern and went upstairs a little after ten, but you and Sophie were ... loud, so she went out to the dock to cool off and found Zane. Her best guess is ten-thirty."