Tempt Me Tonight (30 page)

But he shook his head. “You didn’t drag. I carried. And I’m the one who started this, so you’re off the hook.”

She sat up, taking a closer look at the tray, which he held down to show her. “Maybe we could…dig down underneath the burned part?”

“No, I’m not feeding you burned food,” he said on a sigh. Then he disappeared, returning a moment later sans mitts and tray. “How would you feel about pizza? There’s a place in town that delivers.”

“Pizza would be great. Except for one thing. One of us would have to go to the door to get it. And I’d like to stay naked with you.”

His gaze swept over her in a way she felt from head to toe. “Here’s the plan. I’ll put on pants to get the door. Then I’ll take them back off. Then we’ll eat. Then I’ll make you scream. All. Night. Long.”

Trish swallowed at the promise and eked out, “Good plan.”

They’d stripped the quilt from the bed to lounge across tousled beige sheets, naked, with an open pizza box between them. Given that Trish didn’t lay around openly naked a lot, even with guys she’d had sex with, it felt amazingly…easy. And right. “I’ve never eaten pizza in bed before,” she mused.

He cocked a playful grin. “Hang with me, baby, and I’ll give you all
sorts
of new experiences.”

Yep, she couldn’t deny
that.
Like sex on a dresser. And in the rain.

But Joe’s amusement quickly faded to something more inquisitive. “I bet you probably eat in fancy restaurants all the time—huh, cupcake?”

She shrugged. “Sometimes.”

“And so
I
take you to the Burger Barn and order pizza.”

He didn’t sound self-deprecating—but as if the contrast had just hit him. And somehow, it gave her the urge to reach across the pizza box and touch his face, rake her fingertips over the stubble on his jaw. “That doesn’t matter. The time you and I have spent together—eating, or talking, or…touching—it’s been…”
Amazing. Phenomenal. Perfect.
“It’s been
good,
Joe.
Really
good.”

Those other words would have held too much drama, too much of the
caring
she didn’t want to open up between them. Even if her eyes probably said it all anyway, at least “good” wasn’t a terribly incriminating way to describe sex—or time spent together.

“Well, in that case…I can serve dessert.”

She let a smile unfurl across her face, thinking him adorably cute for a guy who could be so rough and masculine most of the time. “Dessert, huh?”

“Nothing fancy,” he warned, getting to his feet and clearing the pizza box from the bed. “But at least I didn’t burn it.”

Trish watched him stroll to the kitchen, so clearly comfortable with his body, his nudity, that she began to feel tingly again. She wanted his dessert, but she also wanted an entirely
different
kind of dessert when they were done.

He returned with a large plastic container, lowering it to the bed next to her. Loosening one corner, he drew back the lid to reveal…cupcakes. Simple, chocolate icing from a can, and if she remembered Joe’s taste, they would be from a yellow cake mix. But nothing could have delighted her more.

“Like I said, nothing fancy.”

She smiled up at him as he joined her back on the bed. “Joe, you have no idea how long it’s been since I’ve had a cupcake.”

He flashed a devilish grin. “Myself, I had one just about an hour ago, right here.” He motioned to the sheets they lay on.

“You’re bad,” she teased, her blood sizzling.

“Says the woman who showed up here a little over a week ago looking like she was going to break out whips and chains.”

She lowered her chin, feeling a bit sheepish. That hadn’t really been her, and she supposed they both knew it. “It was the most expedient way to accomplish my plan.”

“The ‘have sex and move on’ plan,” he clarified.

She nodded softly. “I realize now it wasn’t…very well thought out.”

He tipped his head back. “Maybe not—but it worked out okay in the end.” Then he pointed toward the container. “Have a cupcake, cupcake.”

Peeling down one side of a pastel paper cup to take a big bite of yellow cake, Trish sighed. “Mmm, yum.” It took her back to her youth—just like everything else in this town.

She didn’t know why Joe’s eyes had gone dark or why he was leaning swiftly in toward her—until he licked a glob of icing from the corner of her mouth. “Mmm, yum,” he repeated, and the juncture of her thighs rippled.

On impulse, she held out her cupcake for him to take a bite, which left remnants of chocolate on his upper lip, so now
she
licked
him
clean. He sighed, and this time when she said, “Mmm, yum,” it came out throatier than intended.

Without hesitation, Joe swiped his finger through the top of what remained of her cupcake, then dabbed the icing on her nipple.
“Oh,”
she said on a light gasp. Their gazes met, and her whole body heated as she set the cupcake in the container and leaned back on a pile of pillows.

Pushing the plastic aside, Joe eased his way up her body, barely grazing her flesh with his—although the flesh between his legs, growing rapidly, did a little more than graze. Dipping sensually toward her breast, he licked at the blob of icing, suckling her clean, the ministrations reaching deep enough to make the small of her back tingle.

“Mmm,”
he moaned, lifting his hands to caress her breasts, tweak both nipples. “Yummy, baby.”

After that, there were no more cupcakes—there was only being tangled up in one another. Joe sank hot kisses between her parted legs, then used his tongue, proving he was good with more than just his hands. Trish got lost in it all, aware of nothing but heat and light and her fingers clawing at the sheet at both sides of her.
I love you. I love you.

Ah, damn, the
I love you
s were back.

Stop it. Just feel this. His mouth on you. Nothing else.

Feel this.

Feel this.

And fortunately, Joe made that part pretty darn easy.

When it was long after dark, moonlight spilling through the window above Joe’s bed, they were still kissing, their hands gliding, touching each other everywhere. Trish had lost track of time, and of how long they’d been having sex—she only knew Joe had incredible staying power when he tried. She only knew he was making good on his promise of all night long and that she’d been right about the bed and lying down with him and stretching out beside him.

Now she kissed her way across the snake on his arm, then down his chest to the taut muscles of his stomach, and then further, further, until she was taking him into her mouth. She’d never been such a big fan of this particular activity…until now. Him.

And then he was back inside her again—deep, hard, filling. And there were no thoughts, because she’d banished the
I love you
s hours ago, relegated herself to pushing all the emotion aside, at least as much as possible—yet she clung to him tight and needful.

More time passed, more touching, more feeling, until she found herself atop him, the full moon casting a bright glow over their bodies. She rode him, and he thrust up inside her until they both came together, moaning and writhing like animals, finally collapsing together on the bed.

She lay on her back next to him, recovering, lost in the afterglow, when his voice broke through the silence, low, quieter than he usually spoke. “Want another cupcake?”

Despite utter exhaustion, she cast a half smile. “Do you mean a
real
cupcake? Or were you talking about sex?” Ever since he’d used the icing as foreplay a few hours earlier, it had become confusing.

She glanced over to catch his soft grin. “I meant a cupcake. But I guess this can be our new code. If we’re around other people and I want you, I’ll just ask if you want a cupcake?”

“And I’ll say, ‘Maybe later, I’m not hungry right now.’”

“No, you’ll say, ‘Oh yeah, baby, let’s go eat some sweet, tasty cupcakes.’”

They laughed softly and Trish turned on her side, letting her arm rest atop his, her hand curving over his shoulder. They smiled at each other with their eyes.

Yet then his expression went serious, along with his voice. “Can I ask you a question?”

Say no.
Because this seriousness couldn’t be a good direction for a girl who was trying to keep things light and sexy here. “Okay.”

He never broke their gaze. “Do you still not trust me, Trish? Do you still not forgive me?”

The words stole her breath as she lay next to him, numb, scrambling for an answer. “I…don’t know. I haven’t been thinking about trust. I’ve just been thinking about…
this
.” She motioned vaguely to them, the bed. Then she rolled to her back, planting her gaze someplace safe—the ceiling. “It doesn’t really matter, though. It would only matter if this was…a long-term situation. And I’ll be leaving soon.”

His voice came uncharacteristically tender. “I’ll be sorry to see you go.”

Maybe I will, too.
But despite the feelings she still harbored for him, leaving Eden, and Joe,
soon,
was vital to her well-being.

And maybe he couldn’t understand why, because she’d held so much back from him, worked so hard to hide her feelings whenever she could. So in the heat of the moment, she made a rash decision—to tell him what she’d
never
planned to tell him, ever. Because even as it might expose her vulnerabilities, it would finally make it clear why this could go no further.

“Joe, I need to tell you something.” She turned back on her side, toward him, and he faced her now, too.

“I’m listening.” Clearly, he knew something big was coming.

She took a deep breath. “I need to tell you that when I went away to college, I…cried myself to sleep every night for two whole years.” She shook her head at the intensity of the memory, at how mourning their love had become as big a part of her life for awhile as their love itself had once been. And already, it was hard to keep going, hard to admit how deeply his betrayal had gouged into her, but she knew she had to.

“I…couldn’t stop feeling it. I wanted to, believe me. But somehow I just couldn’t quit being devastated by what you’d done. I just kept experiencing the hurt over and over again, every day. It was strange—as if I would think through it all somehow expecting a different outcome at the end of the story, but the outcome was always the same. And it never quit feeling fresh, new. It was like falling down and skinning the same knee time and again.

“I learned to hide my feelings around other people—I focused on my classes, I made friends, I went on with everyday life. I even started dating again. But at night I cried and just kept asking
why, why, why
. There were times I feared I’d
never
get over you, that what you’d done would haunt me forever.

“I know that sounds pathetic—maybe it
was
pathetic—but I was young, and it was first love, and I’d thought it was going to be
forever
love, so it ran deep.” She stopped then, stuck for how to finish, shocked at the breadth of her own honesty. “So, there it is—now you know.”

Somehow her gaze had drifted from his face to his snake, to the fine details she’d never studied before—the small horizontal ridges inside the cobra’s open hood, the intricate pattern on its body. When she gathered the courage to raise her gaze back to Joe’s, she found his eyes glassy, his expression wrenched with sadness.

He lifted a warm hand to her cheek. “I’m so damn sorry, honey. If there was any way I could have taken it back, I would have, I promise.” He stopped, let out a heavy breath. “I
hate
what I did to you, I
hate
that I hurt you.”

Her throat clogged at the strain in his voice—she’d never heard him sound so full of pain. She lingered about an inch away from weepiness herself—and God knew she didn’t want to go
there
. So she sat up in bed, just to distance herself from him a bit. His face had loomed so near, the musky scent of him permeating her senses. She’d told him the yucky truth about the long-lasting effects of their breakup—and now it was time to toughen back up into the sturdier woman she’d become.

Without examining why, she pulled the sheet up to cover herself and said, “But I did get over it, Joe, eventually. And that’s why…why I needed to leave the night I came to seduce you. And it’s why, even though we’ve been having a good time together, I don’t think I can ever let myself go there with you again, to that deeper place. Can you understand that?”

Only then did she turn to look down at where he still lay.

Slowly, he nodded against the pillow. “Yeah, I can understand.” She hated how sad he still sounded—so she was pleased when his voice lightened then, just a bit. “Come back down here with me. I need to ask you something else.”

Oh boy. What now? And of course she didn’t
have
to lie back down with him—but she did anyway.

Which brought their faces close again, made their arms touch.

“My sister’s getting married on Saturday. Will you go with me?”

Whoa—she hadn’t seen
that
coming.

Before she could even respond, however, he went on. “Thing is, this guy she’s marrying seems pretty shady. He owns the bar where she works, which is a whole
other
worry I won’t even get into—but the point is, this wedding is gonna be about as much fun as a funeral. And…I could use a friend there.”

She tilted her head against the pillow. “You could take Kenny.”

He blinked, drew in his breath. “I could really use…
you
there.”

Trish swallowed. Going to a family wedding seemed like a bad idea. It was the kind of thing a “girlfriend” did. And he’d just told her he
needed
her there.
Her
—not anyone else.

So she was just going to say no. Plain and simple.

Of course, she’d say
more
than that one little word—she’d explain, she’d be nice about it.
Joe, I’m sorry, but I think it’s a bad idea. Ask Kenny. It’ll be better that way.

Which was when she heard herself utter a light, airy-sounding, “Okay.”