Temptation's Kiss (6 page)

“Oh, my God, I forgot about that,” Nina cried. Patrice smiled. Nina sounded as though her card in the T. K. McKenna Fan Club was going to be revoked because she'd forgotten an important event in his life.

“Yes, well,” Patrice continued, “he's vulnerable right now. I think he'd appreciate a friend more than a lover.”

Nina was all seriousness. “You're right.” She smiled at Patrice. “Forget everything I said.” She took a deep breath. “I'd better go get dressed. It's almost seven.”

Just as Nina finished her sentence, the doorbell rang. T.K. was early. Nina squealed and shot out the door, making a beeline for the guest room. Patrick, who had long ago showered and dressed, met her in the hallway. Patrice stepped into the hallway. “Patrick, would you
mind getting the door? I'm not quite finished getting ready.” She still had to put on her sandals and comb her hair.

“No problem,” Patrick said and headed for the front door.

After he had rung the bell, T.K. stood on the tiny porch with a wine bottle in each hand. The door swung open, and he knew disappointment must have briefly registered on his face because he had expected Patrice to answer it. Instead, a young man about his size held the door open and took a step back so he could enter. “Hey, man,” he said in a deep voice. T.K. handed him one of the wine bottles so he'd have one free hand with which to shake his hand. They shook hands and grinned at each other.

“You must be Patrice's brother,” T.K. said as he stepped inside.

“Patrick,” Patrick said. “Good to meet you, Mr. McKenna.”

T.K. peered at him. He was young, maybe twenty-five or less. He probably referred to all of his elders in the manner in which he'd addressed him. God, he felt old.

He laughed shortly. “T.K.'ll do,” he told him.

Patrick closed the door and faced him. “Patrice and Nina are still getting dressed.”

T.K. handed him the other bottle of wine. “I'm a little early.”

He was five minutes early. The drive had been so pleasant that he'd lost track of time. After he had dispelled
sad thoughts, his mind had been busy wondering if his memory of Patrice was accurate. How would he feel when he saw her again? That's why he'd been somewhat disappointed when Patrick had answered the door.

“You're not early,” Patrick said. “You're on time. But you know women have to keep you waiting, no matter what time you arrive.” He led him back to the kitchen where he put the wine in the refrigerator.

T.K. admired the way Patrice had decorated the place. It was plain to see she loved her home and took pride in it. It was a very welcoming space, warm and inviting, kind of like her—assuming, of course, his first impression of her had been correct.

The aromas in the air were mouthwatering, and the table had been set for four. Patrick said, “Would you like something to drink? I think there's beer in fridge.”

“If you're having one, I'll take one,” T.K. said.

Patrick got a Corona for each of them from the refrigerator and popped the lids off the bottles with an opener that was stuck on the fridge door by a magnet.

He handed a bottle to T.K. “They shouldn't be too much longer.”

Patrick felt ill-equipped to entertain a movie star. He wished his sister had been dressed so that she could have answered the door. What was he supposed to do while they waited for the women to put in an appearance?

They stood awkwardly next to the refrigerator for a couple minutes. Then Patrick said, “There must be
something on ESPN. Wanna check it out while we wait?”

T.K. said that he would, and they went to the living room where Patrick turned on the TV and they sat on the sofa and watched soccer. That's where Patrice and Nina found them a few minutes later when they joined them.

“Good evening, T.K.,” Patrice said, smiling warmly. Behind her, Nina stifled a squeal of delight.

T.K. rose. “Hello, Patrice.” Their eyes met, and he was instantly reminded of the expectant, wholly unsettling feeling he'd had the last time he was alone with her. Her beautiful wide-spaced brown eyes were lit with humor, and as his eyes lowered to her mouth, she moistened her lips and he sighed involuntarily. Thank God Patrick had the TV volume up. No one could have heard him.

She placed her sister-in-law in front of her. “This is Nina, Patrick's wife.”

T.K. offered Nina his hand. “It's good to meet you, Nina.”

“Hello,” Nina said shyly with downcast eyes. Her voice was barely audible.

T.K. bent down. She was a tiny girl. Her husband must have been an entire foot taller than she was. “So, how long have you and Patrick been married? You both look so young. You can't have been married long.”

Nina smiled, revealing dimples in both cheeks. She finally met his eyes. “Nine months,” she said softly, eyes sparkling with happiness.

“Newlyweds,” said T.K. enthusiastically. “Congratulations on your marriage.”

“Thank you,” Nina said. Patrick got up and stood behind Nina and wrapped his arms around her. “She's a keeper,” he said fondly.

Nina beamed her pleasure.

Patrice was happy that Nina had been able to avoid embarrassment when she met T.K.
She
had felt like squealing with excitement upon seeing him herself. Years of training at Juilliard had come in handy.

Her whole body was tingling. She wanted to grab him, kiss him and run her hands all over his bald head. What was wrong with her? Each time she saw him, her body went crazy, and she had to rein in her girlish tendencies toward throwing herself in his arms and pressing her body against his. Was it pheromones? Whatever it was he had, it was so strong she was barely able to resist. How was she going to get through dinner, let alone months of filming in Wyoming?

She could admit it: her attraction to him was growing. Her initial attraction, the day of the interview in Mark Greenberg's office, had been strong, but this was bordering on overpowering.

“Well,” she said breathlessly, after a brief silence during which they all stood around and smiled at one another, “dinner's ready!”

“C
areful,” Patrice cautioned T.K. as he was about to put a forkful of the main dish in his mouth. “I made it with several kinds of hot peppers. It could be an acquired taste for you.”

T.K. thought it was sweet of her to be concerned, but he considered himself somewhat of an
aficionado
of foods of a spicy nature. He munched on raw jalapeno peppers just to add flavor to the experience whenever he ate steamed crabs, one of his favorite foods. Wasabi didn't faze him. He put the food in his mouth and withdrew the fork. He let it remain on his tongue a second so that he could discern the various flavors. It was delicious, peppery and definitely a tomato-based sauce, with a hint of sweetness. That was the top note. He chewed. The chicken was tender, the corn tortilla wrapping a delight.
As for hotness, it was moderate at best. He smiled at Patrice. “It's the best chicken enchilada I've ever had.”

Patrice blushed. “It's my mom's recipe.”

He continued to eat. Across the table, Nina and Patrick were watching him as though they expected him to expectorate any second now and dash to the sink to stick his mouth beneath the faucet and gulp mouthfuls of cold water.

He laughed. “I'm all right, really,” he assured them.

They laughed too and tucked into their meals. “It's just that we're used to hot peppers,” Nina said. “My momma puts them in everything—breakfast, lunch and dinner. She even makes pepper jelly to eat with her collard greens when she cooks them.”

“I had that once when I was in New Orleans,” T.K. said. “It's sweet but very spicy. Good stuff.” He made short work of the chicken enchiladas on his plate and didn't once reach for his glass of wine or the glass of water in front of him.

“Would you like more?” Patrice asked, rising.

“Yes, please,” he said, holding his plate while she placed another serving onto it from the baking dish on the table.

“What do you two do?” he asked Patrick and Nina, as he started in on his second helping.

“I teach English at the University of New Mexico,” said Patrick after swallowing.

“And I'm a law student,” said Nina.

“You teach at the university level?” T.K. asked, surprised. “Excuse me, but how old
are
you?”

“I'll be twenty-five next month,” said Patrick. T.K. thought he sounded like someone who'd been asked that question a lot. He hadn't meant to offend him.

“He's the youngest instructor at the university with a doctorate degree,” said Patrice proudly, smiling at her brother.

“I envy you,” said T.K. sincerely.

Patrick's brows rose in surprise. “You envy
me?
”

“You're only twenty-five, and you know exactly what you want to do with your life,” T.K. explained. “I'm thirty-six, and I still don't know.”

Patrick laughed. “You seem to be doing pretty well to me.”

“I'm in the business of make-believe,” T.K. said with a smile. “If I do my job right, for two hours, I'm able to make the audience believe I'm whomever I'm portraying at that given moment. Then I'm on to the next project. If I'm good at what I do, I'm paid well and that's a bonus, but I wouldn't refer to this as a calling. You, on the other hand, probably feel as though teaching English is what you were born to do.”

Patrick was nodding with a contemplative expression on his face. “I love it,” he said.

Nina gasped. “You don't love acting?” she asked.

“Love it?” asked T.K., frowning. “It's something I'm good at, and right now I'm in demand. It's a business. I wouldn't say I'm passionate about it.”

Patrice was astonished by this revelation. With every T. K. McKenna film she'd seen, she had been convinced that the actor on the screen was totally into his craft—that he lived and breathed acting. He was a chameleon. How could someone fake that?

“Did you lose the passion, or you've never really felt it?” asked Patrice.

T.K. put down his fork. He didn't want to disillusion Patrice because it was quite obvious to him that she did feel passionate about acting. They were different in that regard, however, and he thought he should be honest with her.

Looking into her eyes, he said, “You have to understand that where I grew up it was all about the hustle. Yes, my parents were teachers. They tried their best to keep me out of trouble, but the guys I associated with were not the sort they thought I should be hanging with. My parents wanted me to go to college. I had the grades. But the people I identified with were the kind who found a hustle, worked it and brought in big bucks by doing that, and often what they were doing wasn't exactly legal. I got into acting by accident. They were shooting a DeNiro film in the neighborhood, and they were looking for extras. I happened to meet DeNiro, and he liked the look of me. He had the writers give me a couple lines. After that, I was hooked. Here was a hustle I thought I could work. So, at eighteen I took off for L.A.”

“That's not what I read about you,” Patrice said, puzzled. “According to your background, you went to a
performing arts high school in New York. You always knew you wanted to be an actor.”

“Manufactured by my first agent,” T.K. told her. “She thought it sounded better.”

“She was right!” Nina said, and they all laughed.

T.K. continued to meet Patrice's gaze. “Are you disappointed?”

She smiled at him. “I'm even more impressed with you than I was before.”

This warmed T.K.'s heart. His eyes were watering. He blinked. His
eyes
were watering! And his tongue was on fire. He reached for his glass of water and drank deeply.

Patrice smiled innocently. “Those peppers have a cumulative effect, I'm afraid. They sneak up on you.”

Nina and Patrick laughed. Patrice rose and went to the refrigerator to get some ice for T.K.'s glass of water. It seemed to help when those particular peppers kicked in.

She put some ice into his glass, and T.K. gratefully drank some of it, allowing pieces of ice to remain on his tongue. He felt some relief, but his tongue was still burning.

“I think I'll serve dessert,” Patrice said helpfully. Dessert was vanilla bean ice cream with caramel sauce. The milk in the ice cream effectively put out the fire in the peppers. Ice cream was a common dessert in their household when hot peppers were served with dinner.

“What's wrong with you people?” T.K. asked, looking
at each of them in turn. “Have hot peppers burned off your taste buds? Why aren't you burning?”

Nina smiled sweetly. “Like I said, we eat peppers for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Actually, they're good for you, excellent for keeping your sinuses clear.”

“I'm amazed you still have sinuses,” T.K. exclaimed.

Momentarily, Patrice served each of them a bowl of ice cream. She sat beside T.K., spooned some of his and held it out for him to eat. “I'm so sorry. I'm a terrible hostess. I should have known you weren't ready for Albuquerque hotness.”

T.K.'s eyes met hers. He accepted the spoonful of ice cream from her and took the spoon. Burning tongue or not, he wanted to kiss her until her eyes rolled back in her head. “Thank you,” he said after swallowing the delicious dessert. The effect of the ice cream on his tongue was instantaneous. The burning subsided. He smiled.

She smiled back at him, her lovely eyes lowering seductively. His heart thudded. His groin tightened, and he was glad he was sitting down. “Forgive me?” she asked softly.

“Just about anything,” he returned, equally softly.

Across from them, Nina was grinning. She grasped her husband's hand. “I knew there was something there,” she whispered.

But a brother is never happy to see a man look at his sister the way T. K. McKenna was looking at her. He
knew exactly what was on the actor's mind, and it wasn't anything as noble as marriage.

 

After conversation over coffee, T.K. insisted on helping Patrice with the dishes. Nina played the “I'm exhausted” card in spite of the earlier threat from Patrice. As she and Patrick were leaving the kitchen, Patrice thought he looked reluctant to leave. She was miffed with Nina, but what could she do about it now? She vowed to get revenge later.

Like most cooks in her family, Patrice cleaned as she cooked, so there were no pots and pans to wash following the meal—only the plates, dishes and silverware they had used. These she put into a sink of hot soapy water and began washing while T.K. rinsed them and set them on the draining board to air dry.

“Those chicken enchiladas were delicious even if they did make my eyes water,” he said as they worked companionably side by side.

“Well, now if the director wants you to cry on cue, you know exactly what to eat to get those results,” she joked.

T.K. wondered if this was a snide remark about his apparent regard for acting not as an art form but simply a job that paid the bills. For some reason the thought of her holding him in contempt because he wasn't as passionate about acting as she was pained him.

“Was that said to elicit a laugh, or do you really think
less of me because I don't believe acting is the be all and end all of my existence?”

Patrice washed and handed him the last plate. “I don't think acting is everything either,” she told him, looking him straight in the eyes. “What? You think I think less of you because I went to Juilliard and you didn't?”

T.K. rinsed the plate and stacked it on the rack atop the draining board with the other dishes. Then he dried his hands on the dish towel and handed the towel to her. He gave her his full attention. “No, I don't.” He frowned. “I don't know, maybe I do. Women are always making assumptions about me based on what they see in movie theaters. I'm an honest kind of guy. I don't like pretense. I've met so many people who told me one thing and meant another. I don't have time for that anymore, Patrice. I don't care if you hurt my feelings. Be honest with me. Are you disappointed because I'm not what you thought I was?”

Patrice grasped him by the arm and moved close to him. “T.K., I don't know you well enough to have formed an opinion of you. What you told me about your lack of passion for acting was surprising, but it didn't make me any less attracted to you as a person. I was raised to be tolerant of differences in people. That applies to race, sexual orientation and, yes, the amount of passion someone has for his work.” She laughed suddenly. If he only knew how she really felt about him at this moment, he wouldn't worry at all about her regard for him.

He smiled down at her. “What was that laugh for?”

His back was to the sink. Patrice pressed the length of her body against his. His arms went around her waist and he held her, just held her. Patrice placed her ear against his chest and listened to his heartbeat. It was strong and steady. It's how she felt about him at this instance. “I like you so much. I wish I weren't about to do a film with you,” she told him.

“Why is that?” he asked quietly.

“Because I'm hopelessly drawn to you. I actually ache to be close to you. But I don't get involved with men I work with.” She raised her eyes to his. “Is that honest enough for you?”

T.K. bent and gently touched his mouth to hers. Her sweet breath mingled with his, and she pressed back. This he took as an invitation and gave her the full assault.

She tasted wonderful, like warmth personified. He felt that kiss all the way down to his feet and back up again. It made his body feel more alive than it had felt in months, and for that reason alone, he could have stood there kissing her for quite some time. But the effect was also arousing, and he could not press his body against hers for much longer without her detecting that he wanted more from her than a mere kiss. When they parted, Patrice slowly opened her eyes and sighed. T.K. smiled at her.

“Technically, we're not working together yet,” he said. “But I'm a patient man, and I'm willing to honor your wishes. When you say you don't get involved, what do you mean? Explain yourself, and be specific.”

He was looking at her so intensely that Patrice knew he was serious and not simply humoring her on this subject. “I can't kiss you?” he asked. His eyes lowered to her mouth. “Because I would die if I couldn't kiss you again.”

What was Patrice supposed to say to that? The fact was she had avoided getting involved with her leading men in any way, shape or form. When she had worked on the sitcom, the lead actor was married, but that didn't stop his having affairs with his costars. It was rumored that it was his goal to sleep with every female in the cast. She and another actress were the only two out of six women who hadn't been seduced by him. When some casts of sitcoms claimed to be like one big happy family when they accepted awards on award shows, they weren't kidding. As for the two leading men she'd played opposite in her two theatrical releases, one was faithful to his wife and the other was not. She had to avoid being alone with him because he had a habit of grabbing her and saying, “You want me. You're just playing hard to get.” Impossible to get was closer to the truth. She had been relieved when that film had wrapped.

She decided to tell T.K. the truth. “In the past, I've never even kissed a costar. In some ways, I look at working the way you do. I just want to do my job and go home. I have not wanted an on-set romance that can get messy when one of you doesn't feel as strongly about the other. I've witnessed a few of those.”

“Comes with the territory,” T.K. agreed. He winced
when Edina's image came to mind. “I started my last relationship on location. That didn't end well.” He met her eyes again. “That doesn't mean I believe the same thing would happen to us, if you decided to relax your rules in my favor.”

“Are you asking me to?” Patrice ventured.

“Are you asking me to ask you to?” he cautiously countered.