Welcome to Temptation (21 page)

"I have no idea," Sophie said. "By this time next week, I may loathe him." She thought about Phin, and fairness made her add, "Or not."

"He doesn't have any money, you know."

Sophie jerked around to look at her, all the anger she'd been repressing breaking through. "What?"

"He doesn't have any money." Liz stared out at the yard. "The Tuckers have never had money. The money comes from my family."

I'm not after his money, you ice cube. Sophie shook her head, willing herself to stay calm through her fury.

"You know, you're not thinking this through."

"Really, Miss Dempsey—"

"I realize your view is clouded on this because you're his mother, but he's gorgeous and smart and funny and kind and skilled. He's fixed half the stuff in this house. Do you know how attractive that is?"

"His father was like that," Liz said, taken aback a little.

"Then you know how attractive that is. But mostly, he's just sexy as hell." Liz flinched, and Sophie thought,
Good
. "Trust me, if Phin were standing on a street corner in a barrel, holding a cup with pencils in it, women would still be lying at his feet." Sophie stopped, caught by the image. "Okay, that's a little weirder than I meant it to be, but you get my drift. He doesn't need money to be attractive. In fact, he's a lot more attractive to me without it. Rich people are usually lousy human beings." Liz raised an eyebrow at her.

"Well, you haven't impressed me much so far," Sophie told her. "I still don't know why you're here. If I was after him for his money, what would you do? Buy me off? I'm warning you, I'm expensive." Liz smiled at Sophie and Sophie wished she hadn't. "I can offer you—"

"Forget it," Sophie said, cutting her off with pleasure. "You keep your money, I'm keeping him. As an
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investment."

Liz's eyes grew colder, if that was possible. "Don't underestimate me."

"Don't underestimate me, either," Sophie said, just as sharply. "I'm sure you're out here to protect your son, and I can sympathize. My family is important to me, too. But I'm tired of being insulted. So let's cut to the chase: I know he doesn't have any money, which is fine by me because it's not his money I want. We low-class women are like that. We just go for the cheap thrill. So the only thing you have that I want is your son. Sorry."

"Clearly I made a mistake by coming out here." Liz got to her feet. "I was hoping to make you see reason."

"No, you weren't," Sophie said. "You were hoping to intimidate me so I wouldn't try to get into your world. Well, you can relax. I wouldn't have your world as a gift."

"You don't get my world as a gift," Liz told her, her voice slicing through Sophie's bravado. "You earn the privilege of entering, so don't even try to get in on your back."

"That's it," Sophie said. "I'm tired of you. Go sell paranoid someplace else. We're all stocked up here."

"Good morning, Miss Dempsey." Liz drew herself up even straighter, if that were possible. "Have a pleasant trip back to Cincinnati . And don't even think about trying to trap my son. I'll see you in hell first."

When she'd gone, Amy came out onto the porch and said, "Wow."

Sophie nodded, trying not to shake. "Yeah. 'They'll see and they'll know and they'll say, "Why, she wouldn't even hurt a fly.'"

Amy nodded with her. "'We all go a little mad sometimes.'"

"Except Phin's not Norman."

"If that gave birth to him, he's not normal, either," Amy said. "Stay away from both of them."

"No, really. I think I might like her," Sophie said. "If I had some time to get to know her, bond, do the mother-daughter thing."

"Like, a thousand years," Amy said.

"Maybe not that quick." Sophie tried to relax. "God, she did everything but mention my good hag and cheap shoes."

"As long as she didn't invite you to the house for a nice Chianti and fava beans."

"She'd never let me in that house." Sophie shivered. "She'd fillet me on the front steps."

"Good thing we're leaving on Sunday."

Sophie thought of Liz Tucker and nodded, and then she thought of Phin, smiling at her with heat in his
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eyes, fixing everything she had that was broken and then making her laugh while he licked almond oil off her in bed.

"Yeah, good thing," she said.

*

After lunch, an irate Zane went back to Cincinnati and the news, and Amy took Rachel and Clea off to film the driving-into-Temptation footage, and Sophie went out to the kitchen with the dog to work. But once she was alone, all she could think of was Phin. She was pathetic, that's what she was. He certainly wasn't mooning over her. When she'd told him that night in the kitchen that she was staying another week, he hadn't even said, "Good." You'd have thought he could have at least given her a "Good." Well, that was men for you. She glared at the cherries across from her. Took what they wanted and then—

It occurred to her that this thought wasn't getting her anywhere. It was the same thought she'd been having for fifteen years without any insight or growth, it was the thought that had led her into two years of mind-numbing security with Brandon , it was the thought that had kept her from having the kind of wickedly abandoned sex she'd been having since she'd met Phin. It was, in short, nonproductive. Worse than that, it was boring.

"I'm through with you," she said to the cherries. "It's a brand-new day."

*

When Phin showed up at five-thirty, he found her teetering on an old ladder, wrapped in apple wallpaper, sticky from the paste and sweaty from the heat and frustrated because the old paper kept tearing.

"You've never looked better," he said as she shoved a paste-matted curl out of her eye. "What are you doing?"

"Hanging wallpaper," Sophie said waspishly.

He reached up and peeled a torn strip off her sleeve. "It's supposed to go on the wall."

"You know that 'frosty' part you were talking about yesterday?"

"Get off the ladder, Julie Ann," Phin said. "I'm good at this, too."

"Of course you are, you do everything well," Sophie said, feeling surly as she climbed down.

"My mother has a house with fourteen rooms," Phin said. "And one summer she decided to paper twelve of them. My dad called it the Summer from Hell. You know, I don't mean to be critical—"

"Then don't be."

"—but that is ugly paper."

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"You can go now."

He smiled at her and her pulse kicked up even though she didn't want it to.

"I can't go." He picked up the paper. "You want to wallpaper, we'll wallpaper. Then we'll do what I want to do."

Sophie tried to ignore the heat his voice flared in her. "You have to be kidding. I'm hot and sweaty and sticky and I look like hell and—"

"I know," Phin said. "I don't care. Get out of the way so I can hang this wallpaper." Sophie put her hands on her hips. "Listen, if you think I'm—"

She stopped because he'd put the wallpaper down and was trapping her against the wall, one hand on each side of her head, his face close to hers. He started to say something and then he closed his eyes and laughed.

"What's so funny?" Sophie said, but she already knew. She looked awful and he was laughing at her, and she didn't need this from him, she didn't need it from anybody but certainly not from—

"Me," he said. "Christ. I met you six days ago and you've got me so crazy, I'll hang wallpaper so I can touch you."

Sophie blinked. "What?"

"What do you want, Sophie?" he asked, smiling down at her. "Fuses, books, wallpaper, flowers, candy, diamonds – whatever it is, you get it, just as long as I get you."

She was pretty sure he was kidding, but not completely, not with that look in his eye and that heat in his voice.

"Six days," he said and shook his head. "Hell, one day. One minute. One look at that mouth. The devil's candy." He bent his head to kiss her and she ducked under his arm and away from him as she began to realize he was serious.

"Let me get this straight," she said, as she put the corner of the table between them. "You want me?"

"In every way possible," Phin said, moving around the table to get to her, and she moved just as he did, beginning to smile as he came after her.

"You can't resist me," Sophie said.

"Not since I saw that mouth," Phin said, following her. "Come here."

"I had you at 'hello,'" Sophie said, still moving back, and Phin stopped and said, "What?"

"I love this," Sophie said, beaming at him. "I look like hell and you're chasing me around the kitchen. This is great."

"I am not chasing," Phin said.

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Sophie undid the top button on her blouse. "I'm chasing," Phin said, and moved faster than she'd planned on. She'd made a dash for the stairs but he lunged for her, grabbing her around the waist and lifting her off her feet to drag her back against him. She lost her breath because he'd knocked it out of her, and then he turned and trapped her against the table and pushed against her with his hips and she knew exactly how much he wanted her. "We'll do the wallpaper later," he said in her ear as his hands moved to her breasts. She tried to squirm away and he whispered, "Oh, Christ, Sophie," and slid his hand under her shirt, pulsing against her from behind, and she closed her eyes because he felt so good.

"We should go upstairs," she said breathlessly, as he buried his face in her neck, making the nerve there go wild.

"Here," he said, and she felt his hand slide down her stomach to her zipper. "Right here, against the table, I'm going to fuck your brains out."

She shivered and said, "Don't talk dirty," and he laughed low and said, "I could feel you get hotter when I said it. You are so bent, Sophie."

He slid down her zipper and she said, "No, I am not," and tilted her hips into his hand, and then as his fingers went into her shorts and between her thighs, she put her hands on the table and pushed back against him, taking the sharp intake of his breath for the tribute that it was. Then she lifted her head to tell him how good he felt and looked through the screen door into Stephen Garvey's eyes.

"
No!
" she said, and tried to get away from Phin, but he said, "Yes," into her neck and pushed back, sliding his fingers lower, and when she twisted to get away, he held her tighter which would have been erotic as hell if Stephen hadn't just put ice water in her veins. "Stephen!" she said, and Phin said, "What?" and stopped long enough for Sophie to gasp, "Back door," as she tried to turn away and pull her blouse back together.

Through it all, Stephen stood there with his mouth open.

Phin didn't let go, although he did take his hand out of her shorts and swing them both around so she was shielded behind him. "Stephen, we're busy here," he said over his shoulder. "What the hell do you want?"

Stephen straightened, still looking confused. "I came to see Rachel, and I certainly didn't expect—"

"Well, we didn't expect you, either," Phin said. Sophie tried to move away again, and he tightened his grip on her. "Rachel's not here. Go away."

"I was wrong. This is exactly what I would have expected from you," Stephen said, and left.

"I think that was an insult." Phin slid his hand into her shorts again. "Although this is what I would have expected from me, too."

"Oh, no," Sophie said, and twisted away, and Phin said, "Oh, yes," and caught her again.

"Trust me, Stephen just killed any interest I have in discovery fantasies," Sophie said. "There's a shower upstairs. With a showerhead that Amy says is illegal in most Southern states." Phin stopped fighting her
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and she pulled him toward the stairs. "Imagine the possibilities."

"I want you to know," he said as he followed her, "that once I get laid, I'll be back in control here."

"Think so?" Sophie turned and kissed him, licking into his mouth and making him shudder under her hands.

"For at least fifteen minutes," he said against her mouth. "Then I'll need to fuck you again." She shivered, and he laughed and said, "You are so easy."

"So are you," she said, and he said, "And there's our problem right there. We're both crazed until this wears off."

Sophie straightened. "Wears off?"

"This stuff never lasts." Phin pushed her toward the stairs. "We'll be sane again someday, so let's enjoy it while we've got it."

"Been here before, have you?" Sophie said, feeling cranky because she hadn't.

"Actually, no," Phin said. "Not like this. Get a move on, will you?"

"You have to say that," Sophie said, starting up the stairs. "'No, Sophie, nobody else has ever been like you.'" She picked up speed because she was mad and because she still wanted him, and he hooked his fingers in the back of her shorts and pulled her down a step against him.

"Not like you," he said in her ear. "Which is why you scare me. But I keep coming after you anyway." She leaned back against him and said, "I would like to be memorable, if that's possible."

"Try 'unforgettable,'" Phin said. "And no, I did not have to say that. Now, can I please have you?"

"Yes," Sophie said. "You can have anything you want."

*

Two hours later, Phin kissed Sophie good-bye in front of Amy, who was frowning at the kitchen wall, newly papered in apples.

"I've got to go," he told Sophie. "I'm late to meet another woman."

"That's a joke, right?" she said, and he said, "Nope."

"'You men are all alike,'" she told him, deciding to believe it was a joke. "'Seven or eight quick ones and you're off with the boys.'"

"What are you talking about?" he said, and Amy said, "Movie quote. You must know that one."

"I don't watch movies," Phin said. "I'm an intellectual." He kissed Sophie again and said, "Calm down. Stop quoting." Then he left before she could think of something cutting to say, like,
You remind me of
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your mother
.

"So exactly what were you doing in the bathroom?" Amy said.

"Exactly what you thought we were doing," Sophie said, still trying to assure herself the other woman was a joke. "Remind me to thank Wes for that showerhead. Oh, and Phin swears the mildew on the shower curtain was watching us and we should get a new one."