Bet Me (47 page)

"And you wonder why I wouldn't sleep with you," Min said. "It was because I sensed the sadist in you." She shifted to get more comfortable and watched his jaw tense.
Hello
, she thought, and shifted again.

"I haven't see Elvis for a while," he said, watching her. "He must have gone out the window again. What are the statistics on outdoor cats?"

"You know," Min said, trying a new strategy. "This is scaring me. There's a strange man in my apartment, and I'm tied to my couch. I'm
terrified
." She tried to put some fear into her voice, but it was hard since it was soaked with lust.

"Funny, you just look pissed off." Cal picked up the remote. "TV?"

Min gritted her teeth. "Men get arrested for this."

"Only if they get caught. I usually check CNN about this time." Cal looked down at her. "Of course, I usually don't have something better to look at. You have a great body."

"Oh, please," Min said. "I know you want to get laid but—"

"Guys buy magazines to look at breasts like yours," Cal said, "and here I am with a pair tied to a couch." He tossed the remote back on the coffee table. "CNN has lost its appeal."

"If I ever get off this couch," Min said through her teeth, "you're never seeing these breasts again. Now untie me."

"You didn't think that through," Cal said. "Try again."

"
Calvin—
"

"Do you have any idea," he said conversationally, "how hard it is for me to keep my hands off you?"

"So untie me and let's go," Min said, starting to feel cheerful again.

"Forty-five minutes," Cal said. "What do you want to talk about?"

Okay,
Min told herself.
You're not thinking. You have the upper hand here, aside front being tied to the couch. He wants you. He can have you. He just needs jump-started.
"I've wanted you, too," she said, relaxing back against the pillows.

"Right," Cal said, picking up another doughnut. "That's why you kept walking away."

"That was the bet," Min said. "Remember that picnic in the park? I wanted to knock you down and rip off your shirt and bite into you."

Cal stopped with the doughnut halfway to his mouth.

"I used to close my eyes and imagine you naked against me, all the things you'd do to me." He drew back a little and she said, "Especially my breasts. I have really sensitive breasts, did I mention that? I could almost come just imagining your mouth on my—"

"You don't play fair," Cal said.

"
I
don't?" Min said, trying to rise up. "I'm
tied to the couch
. How is that fair?"

"It's not," Cal said. "One of the many reasons I like it."

She exhaled in frustration, and he watched her, and then he got up and moved around the table to sit beside her. He scooped some chocolate icing off the doughnut with his finger. "Do you know how many fantasies I've had about your body?" He drew his finger around the slope of her breast, smearing the chocolate under the lace, and Min sucked in her breath. "This wasn't one of them," he said, marking her other breast the same way. "But it should have been."

"Sticky," Min said, complete sentences escaping her for the moment.

"Not a problem," Cal said, bending over her. "It's coming right off."

"Pervert," Min said, closing her eyes as she felt his tongue on her.

"Yep," he said, moving the lace lower. "But you like it."

"Ha," Min said.

Cal straightened enough to look into her eyes. "Want me to stop?" he said, and Min felt his hand under her breast, felt his thumb move across the heat there to the edge of the lace.

"I want everything you've got," Min said and watched his eyes darken as his hand tightened on her. "Untie me."

"Nope," Cal said.

Min arched against him and he pushed her back, his breath coming faster, and bent down to her again, and this time he pulled down the lace, and when she felt his mouth on her, she arched as every nerve she had flared in relief.

He pulled back as she jerked and looked down at her, breathing hard, and just as she realized he was staring at her naked breast, he stripped the rest of the nightgown down so she was naked to the waist. "Hey," she said and moved instinctively to cover herself and remembered she was tied.

"God, you're beautiful," he said, still staring at her breasts.

Min tugged at the belt, torn between embarrassment and lust, and then he slid his hands up to cup her breasts, and lust won. She closed her eyes and felt the heat of his mouth on her again, felt herself tighten and shudder, and pressed against him, praying he wouldn't stop.

The Morriseys weren't in the book, so David called Cynthie. "I need the number for Cal's parents."

"Why?" Cynthie said flatly.

"It doesn't matter why," David said. "What matters is that Cal would be furious if he found out that you told me how to start that fight on Sunday. Give me the number or I tell him."

There was a long silence, and then Cynthie put down the phone. When she came back, she gave him the number.

"T
hank
you," David said, and hung up and dialed the number. When the ringing stopped, he said, "You should know this," only to be overridden by the Morriseys' answering machine. "This is ridiculous," he said, but when the beep sounded, he said, "You should know this. Your son is seducing a woman right now to win a bet. Her name is Min

Dobbs and she is litigious and vindictive." Then he gave her apartment address and hung up.

"Not bad," he told himself and picked up the phone again, feeling pretty good about himself in general.

Because he was going to win.

Fifteen minutes later, Cal picked up the rest of the third doughnut, and Min tried to remember her name.

"What are you
doing
?" she said.

"Pacing myself," Cal said, sounding ragged. He bit into the doughnut. "I figure," he said after he'd swallowed, "that as long as I have this in my mouth, I won't put you there." He looked at the clock. "We've got half an hour. I don't think you bought enough doughnuts."

"Could you at least pull my nightgown up?" Min said, feeling a blush start as the heat receded.

"Nope." Cal finished the doughnut. "I'm thinking you should always go topless."

"That'll perk things up at work," Min said, and then remembered that there was nothing perky about her. "I meant—"

"Not in public, dummy," Cal said. "Just at home. We'll put it in the wedding vows. You can promise to love, honor, cherish, and be naked from the waist up every night."

"Married?" Min said, trying to sit up.

"Well, of course, married," Cal said, watching her with interest. "You think I'd tie up somebody I wasn't serious about?"

"You haven't
asked
," Min said, yanking on the belt.

"Will you marry me?" Cal said, still watching her breasts.

"No," Min said, torn between love and murder.

"Right," Cal said. "Because years from now when Harry asks how I proposed, you don't want to say, 'Well, he tied me to the couch and ripped off my nightgown and ate doughnuts off my breasts and then he asked me.'" He bit into the doughnut again.

"All I want is to make love so we can put this dumb bet behind us and start a real relationship, although maybe not after this." She yanked on the belt again. "This could set us back some."

"Nope," Cal said, insufferably calm. "We agreed that nothing could hurt this relationship now. It's a little bent, but I like that about us."

"You're a little bent," Min said. "I am completely normal. Now untie me and fuck my brains out."

Cal caught his breath for a minute, and Min thought,
Take me
, and then he bit into the doughnut again, and she exhaled through her teeth in frustration.

"Maybe I'm filling the wrong mouth," he said, and tore off a piece of the doughnut. "Open up."

"Look, I don't—" Min said, and Cal slipped the pastry into her mouth, and the sugar flooded everywhere. "Oh," she said and let the chocolate melt into her senses.

"My goal in life is to put that look on your face without chocolate," Cal said.

Min swallowed. "You do. You're just never looking at me when it's on there."

"Really." Cal cupped her breast and began to stroke her with his thumb, and Min felt herself tighten under him again, but this time, when she opened her eyes, he was staring at her, watching her, and she blushed, from embarrassment and from heat and from wanting him. "Damn, you're right," he said and bent to kiss her, and Min forgot to be embarrassed and rose to taste him as he caressed her, sighing against his mouth.

"Untie me," she whispered, and he looked over her head.

"Nope, we still have half an hour to kill." He slid his hand down her calf. "I think I'll start with the toes this time. It's never been toes for me before, so this will be new."

"You're going to suck my toes for half an hour?" Min said in disbelief.

"I'm going to start at your toes," Cal said. "And work up."

"Up?" Min said.

"And in about fifteen minutes, you're going lose the rest of this nightgown."

"With the lights on?" Min said, outraged, and he laughed and bent to her toes.

David dialed Diana's cell phone on the theory that after what had happened to her on Sunday, Diana would be ripe to maim any man in her path, especially one hurting her sister. When the ringing stopped, he said, "You should know this," only to be overridden by Diana's voice mail. "Don't any of you people stay home on Wednesdays?" he snapped, but when the beep sounded, he said, "You should know this. Calvin Morrisey is seducing your sister right now to win a bet." Then he hung up and thought about the last call he had to make. The scary one.

It's anonymous
, he told himself.
She'll never know
.

He went back up to his apartment to have a drink first anyway.

At quarter after nine, having been touched everywhere she could imagine and a couple of places she hadn't thought of, Min felt Cal untie her.

She sat up and slugged him on the arm. "Don't
ever
do that again."

"Ouch?" Cal said, and she pushed him back and climbed onto his lap and kissed him hard, wrapping herself around him as tightly as she could.

When she came up for air, she slapped him on the shoulder again. "I
mean it,
never again," she said, and then went for his mouth again, hungry for it. A minute later she broke the kiss, breathing heavily, slugged him again, and said,
"Never
ever again."

"Really?" he said, as breathless as she was, and she looked back at the arm of the couch, the belt still tangled around it, and shivered.

"Well, not in the living room," she said. "And not for so long, and not with all these lights—"

He dumped her back on the couch, pressing her against the pillows. "When we do it again," he told her, his hands hot on her, "it'll be where I want, when I want, with spotlights if I want."

"I don't think so," she said and he kissed her again and she thought,
Oh, hell, whatever you want
, and kissed him back.

"Whatever I want," he whispered in her ear.

"Okay," she whispered back. "But can I have you now?"

"Almost," Cal said into her neck. "Fifteen—"

"You know what my favorite fantasy is?" she whispered in his ear, and he groaned. "It's you, sliding hard inside me." His hand tightened on her, and she said, "I love that part of sex, the first part, the way it feels, and it's going to be the best with you because everything else with you has been the best I've ever had, the way I feel when you touch me, the way you kiss me, that's why I know the way you—"

He kissed her hard, pushing her back on the pillows, taking her voice and her breath away, and when he stopped, he said, "Shut up, we've got fifteen minutes yet," and began to lick his way down her body.

"Uh," Min said, as he set every nerve she had alight again. "What are you going to do for fifteen minutes?" and he bit into her thigh as he moved her legs apart with his hand.

"Oh,
God
," Min said, as he licked inside her. "
I'm going to lose ten dollars
."

Liza's cell phone rang in the kitchen at Emilio's, and Tony got it out of her purse and handed it to her, never dropping the fork he had buried in his spaghetti.

"You sure we're not seeing each other?" Liza said as she took the phone. "Because you sure show up here at lot."

"I eat here," Tony said, twirling more spaghetti on his fork. "I predate you."

"Right," Liza said, clicked her phone on. "Hello?"

"Liza?" a man's voice said. "You should know this. Cal Morrisey is tricking Min into winning that bet."

"What?" Liza said. "Who is this?"

"The bet's over at midnight," the voice said, sounding smugly familiar. "And he wants to win."

"David?" Liza said.

The phone clicked off and Liza was left with a dial tone.