Welcome to Temptation/Bet Me

by Jennifer Crusie

  “There you go,” he said, patting her back. “Now drink your wine. I’m going to get you drunk and then have my way with you under the table at the rehearsal dinner.”

  “Oh, if only,” Min said and sipped her wine.

  Half a glass of wine and several kisses later, Min was feeling much better, and Janet came back with a hanger full of something dark purple and slinky.

  “You’re kidding me,” Min said. “This is for me, remember?”

  “No, this one’s for me,” Cal said, looking at it on the hanger. “I’m taking you to this thing and I’m not going to look at a butt-ugly dress all night.”

  “Leave,” Min said. “I’m not undressing in front of you.” Yet. She thought of Nanette grabbing her arm and squeezing. Maybe never.

  “Well, a guy can hope,” Cal said, and took his wine out the door with him.

  When he was gone, Janet said, “That’s your boyfriend?”

  “Yes,” Min said, surprised to realize he was.

  “My God, he’s beautiful,” Janet said.

  “He’s nice, too,” Min said. “But about this dress—”

  “No, it’ll be good,” Janet said, shaking the dress out as she held it up. “Your boyfriend likes it. Does he know anything about women’s clothes?”

  “I think he’s removed a lot of them,” Min said, stripping off the penguin dress.

  “He could remove mine,” Janet said and then froze. “Sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  “Not a problem,” Min said, handing her the penguin dress. “I’m used to it. How does this one go on?”

  “You pull it over your head,” Janet said, giving her the purple dress. “It’s a draped surplice top.”

  “I don’t know.” Min held the dress up.

  “Try it on,” Janet said. “He likes it.”

  “And he brought me wine,” Min said. “Where’s my glass?” She tossed back the rest of her glass and then, with a sigh, pulled the dress over her head and looked in the mirror.

  There were many things right with the dress. The surplice neck made her look thinner and the way it draped over her breasts was downright sexy as long as she didn’t slump. And the drape made her hips look voluptuous instead of buslike. But still, this was the kind of dress that thin women wore, this was—

  “The handkerchief hem is genius,” Janet said. “He’s right, you do have good legs. They’re just . . . curvy.”

  “Thank you,” Min said. “The rest of me is curvy, too.”

  “You look really sexy in this,” Janet said. “I’ll go get him so he can see.”

  “I’ll have some more wine,” Min said, but the dresser was already gone, Cal-hunting. Min poured a second glass and sipped it while she stared into the mirror. The dress was a vast improvement over the penguin dress. Plus her mother would be annoyed, which served her right. Even better, she wouldn’t be able to say anything because Min could tell her that Cal liked it. “So, okay,” Min said, toasting her reflection, and knocked back the entire glass. The warmth of the wine spread through her, melding nicely with the warmth from Cal’s kisses, and she sighed.

  She was bending over the table to get a third glass of wine when Cal came back.

  “I hear you look—” he began and stopped.

  “What?” Min said, looking up from the wine.

  “Uh,” he said and she followed his eyes to her cleavage, most of which was displayed because the surplice was gaping. “You look good,” Cal said with enough tension in his voice to make it an understatement.

  “It’s not a fat dress,” Min said, turning back to the mirror. “It doesn’t hide anything.”

  “Haven’t we talked about this?” Cal said, coming to stand behind her.

  “Yes, but my mother has talked since then,” Min said. “Also, there’s this mirror which tells me I don’t have much of a waistline.”

  “You have a waistline.” Cal put his hands on her hips. “It’s right here.” He slid his hands across her stomach and she shivered, watching him touch her in the mirror. With Cal’s hands on her, she looked different, good, and when he pulled her back against his chest, she relaxed into him and let her head fall back on his shoulder. “Very sexy dress,” he whispered into her ear, and then kissed her neck. She drew in her breath and he whispered, “Very sexy woman,” and moved his hand up to her neckline, drawing his finger down the edge of the silky fabric, making her shudder as the heat spread and she began to feel liquid everywhere.

  “I have to stop drinking wine when I’m with you,” she whispered to him in the mirror. “I start believing all this garbage you tell me.”

  He grinned at her, his reflection warming her as much as his body against her back.

  She bit her lip. “It feels so good to be alone with you. And I can’t because we have to go to this rehearsal dinner, we have to make this rehearsal dinner, and then tomorrow I’ve got to go to this wedding in a ridiculous dress and I’m feeling fat again.”

  “That’s because you’re not paying attention,” Cal said in her ear. “Look at yourself.”

  “I am,” she said, and he said, “Not the way I look at you.” His hand moved up her side and he whispered, “Look at the beautiful curve of you, how full you are,” and as his voice in her ear made her dizzy, his hand moved up around her breast.

  She turned her head and said, “Hey!” and brought her hand up to move his, and he stopped her breath with his mouth, kissing her hard, catching her hand to press her open palm against the warm heaviness of her breast, and she thought, That feels so good, and let the heat wash over her.

  “Look how beautiful you are,” he whispered in her ear as he laced his fingers in her other hand. “There’s not a man alive who could see you like this and not want to touch you.” He rolled her other hand so her palm was against her stomach and slid it up to her breast. “You’re a fantasy, Min. You’re my fantasy.”

  He pressed both her palms against her breasts and she felt the fullness there and shuddered under his hands and believed him. She turned in his arms and kissed him with everything she had, pressing herself against him with no other thought than to get close, loving how hard his body felt against hers, the way her body yielded to him, the heat of his hands on her as they slid down and pulled her to him. She arched her hips against him, bit his lip and licked his mouth, felt him shaking as she whispered, “I want you,” and heard his breath shudder as he kissed her on the neck and then softly bit the place he’d kissed.

  “Whoops,” Janet said from behind them, and Min pulled back, dizzy and breathless.

  “We’ll take the dress,” Cal said, without looking around, his voice husky.

  “This is a very dangerous dress,” Min said, trying to catch her breath.

  “That’s why we’re taking it,” Cal said, and kissed her again before he let her go.

  When they got to the bed and breakfast, Diana had left the back door unlocked as promised. “It’s a decent kitchen,” Cal said when they’d unloaded the car. “We can work here.”

  “It’s a great kitchen,” Min said with envy. She turned to Cal and said, “I think—” and he kissed her while she smiled against his mouth and moved closer to him. “What was that for?”

  “Because I can,” Cal said and pulled her closer. Her cell phone rang, and he leaned back. “What did Greg forget now?”

  Min clicked her phone on. “Hi.”

  “Where are you? We’re at the B and B. Mom’s fussing over my dress,” Diana said, all in frantic whisper. “She wants to know where you are.”

  “We’re downstairs getting ready to cook,” Min said, as Cal kissed her on the neck. She stifled a giggle and said, “Stall her.”

  “She’s going to be mad at you,” Di said.

  “And this is news,” Min said. “She’d have been mad when she saw my dress anyway. Cal picked it out. I look like a ho.” She felt Cal laugh against her hair.

  “Really?” Di said. “What color is it?”

  “Di—”

  “I’ll st
all Mom,” Di said. “Thank you!”

  “You don’t look like a ho,” Cal said when Min clicked off her phone. “You look like an expensive call girl.” He slid his hand down to her rear end. “And I have money.”

  “Try to think of cooking as foreplay,” Min said, and Cal sighed and started to unpack the food.

  Fifteen minutes later, Min had the bottoms of four frying pans covered in hot olive oil, Cal had pounded sixteen chicken breasts flat as flounders and was washing mushrooms, and Diana had stuck her head in to say, “No butter. And thank you, thank you, thank you.”

  “Where am I, by the way?” Min said as she began to dredge the chicken breasts.

  “Cal’s car broke down and you’re somewhere on 275,” Di said.

  “My car did not break down,” Cal said, stopping in mid-mushroom. “I keep that car in—”

  “Thank you, that’ll work,” Min said, and Diana left. “I know, but can you park your male pride for the night?”

  “What’s in it for me?” Cal said.

  “My eternal gratitude,” Min said and leaned over the table and kissed him on the mouth, loving the way his mouth fit hers.

  “How much gratitude?” Cal said, leaning to follow her as she pulled away.

  “More than I can express in a single night,” Min said. “Slice some of those, will you? We need some for the salad.” She held the first chicken piece over the hot oil and stopped.

  “Problem?” Cal said.

  “No,” Min said and put down the chicken. She rummaged in one of the bags and pulled out a pound of butter. “You know,” she said as she opened the box, “you really can’t cook without a little butter.”

  “Yep,” Cal said and grinned at her.

  Min dropped a healthy pat into each of the four pans and inhaled the sweet smell. Then she smiled and dropped the chicken breasts in.

  “They’ll never know anyway,” Cal said.

  “My mother can smell butter on me three days after I’ve eaten it,” Min said. “She’ll know. I just don’t care. Tear up the romaine next, will you? I’ve got to steam beans.”

  Half an hour later, Tony and Roger showed up in white shirts and black bow ties with Bonnie behind them.

  “What?” Min said, trying not to laugh at the ties.

  “Yeah, you snicker now, but you’re going to be impressed later,” Tony said, and did water goblets faster than she could have imagined, as Roger slung fourteen plates in a row and squirted raspberry sauce on them in a pattern and then plated salads that looked like they’d come from the Ritz.

  “I’m impressed,” Min said.

  “So am I,” Bonnie said from her stool at the end of the table where she was cutting scallions into strips, and Roger beamed at her as Tony carried the glasses out.

  When Tony came back, he said, “They’re all out in the parlor, being polite. Di looks bored. Well, she did until she saw me in this tie.”

  “Must be hell,” Min said over the steaming pan of beans. “I’d much rather be in here with you guys. From now on, I’m catering all my mother’s dinners.”

  “Not once she tastes the butter,” Cal said, and helped Tony lay out another fourteen plates for the entrée.

  Ten minutes later, the plates were ready for the chicken, the chicken looked like heaven simmering in its dark wine sauce, the green beans were tossed with the almonds and tied into bundles with the scallion strips, and Min was talking to herself.

  “Salad, done,” she said to herself. “Meat, beans, done. Emilio’s corn relish, ready to plate. Rolls out of oven and in baskets. What have I missed? Oh, damn. Dessert.”

  “I got dessert.” Cal picked up the last bag and pulled out two boxes that said KRISPY KREME.

  “Doughnuts” Min said, appalled.

  “Get me a cake plate,” Cal said, and Bonnie rummaged in the cupboard and found one. Then while they watched, he made a ring of seven chocolate-iced cake doughnuts with one in the middle topped by a ring of five chocolate cake doughnuts, topped by a ring of three vanilla-iced glazed, topped by one beautiful chocolate-iced Kreme on top, all stuck together with the white glaze icing that Bonnie had dribbled between the layers.

  Min’s mouth began to water.

  “I read about this,” Bonnie said, standing back. “It was in People magazine. People do this all the time.”

  Cal picked up a box he’d set to one side, ripped it open, and dumped out a very small bride and groom under a plastic arch. It looked like hell until he shoved it into the top doughnut, and then it looked funky.

  “This is the cake I want at my wedding,” Min said. “Of course, my mother is going to go into cardiac arrest.”

  Cal grinned at her, and she laughed as she took off her apron. “You’re a genius, Calvin. I need one moment in the closet to put on my dress, and then it’s showtime.”

  She changed as fast as she could, and when she came back she heard Tony say to Cal, “Okay, we got it. You can go—” He stopped when he saw her, and then Roger turned to follow his eyes and stopped, too, and Bonnie peered out from behind Roger.

  “Oh, Min,” she said. “You look wonderful.”

  “Very hot,” Tony said, staring at her, and Cal clipped him on the back of the head. “I’m just saying,” Tony said.

  Cal handed the cake to Roger. “You guys can handle everything now?”

  “Piece of cake,” Tony said, and Min stopped, startled. “What?” he said.

  “Nothing.” Min shook her head and then checked her face in the mirror by the door to make sure she wasn’t wearing flour as foundation. The heat from the kitchen had flushed her skin and kinked her hair and she looked . . .

  “You look beautiful,” Cal said, and Min turned and saw Roger and Tony with him, and realized that a month before, she hadn’t known any of these guys, and now they’d all come together to bail her sister out of trouble.

  “This is so great of you,” she said to them. “This is so above and beyond the call of friendship.”

  “Anything for you, babe,” Tony said. He bent down and kissed her cheek, and Min blushed, and Cal said, “Enough with the flirting with other men, Minerva,” and took her hand, and Roger patted her shoulder as Cal pulled her out the back door.

  “Those are the best people,” she said to him, as they hit the gravel path around to the front of the house.

  “Yes,” Cal said. “And now we get to have dinner with your family.”

  “Oh, hell,” Min said.

  Looking back on the rehearsal dinner later, Min was hard put to choose the low point of the evening.

  There was the moment when Nanette spotted them coming through the door and was so caught off guard by Min’s purple dress that she stopped after “You’re late . . .” and just glared while Min braced herself.

  But then Cal patted her on the back and Greg’s best man said, “Whoa,” and nodded at her.

  “Thank you,” Min said.

  “I told you so,” Cal said in her ear. “Stay away from him.”

  Or there was the moment when Min saw Greg, who had decided to have his hair cut in a Caesar cut the day before his wedding, and looked, if possible, dumber than ever.

  “Don’t ever do that,” Min whispered to Cal and Cal said, “No, I don’t think so.”

  Or the moment when Roger and Tony were serving the salads, and Di grinned and said, “Gee, such cute waiters,” and Roger almost dropped Greg’s salad in his lap.

  “Watch it,” Greg said sharply, and Di lost her smile.

  “Very cute,” Min said, and frowned at Greg, who blinked back at her.

  Or the moment when Greg’s mother said, “This chicken is delicious. Who did you say catered this?” and all eyes turned to Greg. Min let him flounder for a couple of seconds and then said, “Emilio’s, wasn’t it?”, throwing him a rope that he grabbed on to so gratefully she almost felt sorry for him.

  That was followed by the moment when Nanette said, “There’s butter in this.”

  “Yep,” Min said and kept eating while C
al patted her back.

  But the low point probably came toward the end of the meal when Min’s cell phone rang. She looked over at Diana, startled, since Diana was the only one who would be calling her, and then remembered the trio in the kitchen. “I’ll be right back,” she said, and slipped outside to answer it. “Hello?”

  “Min,” David said. “I’ve been trying to get you all day.”

  “Why?” Min said. “Never mind, I don’t care. This is my sister’s rehearsal dinner, David. Go away.”

  “It’s about Cal,” David said, and Min grew still. “I still care for you, Min, and you need to know something about Cal Morrisey.”

  “Do I,” Min said flatly.

  “That night he picked you up?” David said. “He did it because he made a bet that he could get you into bed in a month.”

  “He did,” Min said, thinking, What a waste you are.

  “The bet’s up next Wednesday, Min,” David said, sincerity oozing through the phone. “And Cal Morrisey does not lose. He’ll do anything to win that bet. I thought you should know. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  “Gee, thanks,” Min said.

  “You don’t sound upset,” David said.

  “Boys will be boys,” Min said.

  “I thought you’d be shocked,” David said, sounding shocked himself.

  “David, I knew,” Min said. “I overheard you. Which is why I also know that Cal didn’t make the bet, you did. It was your idea, which makes you the chief slimeball in this.”

  “No,” David said hastily, “no, I was upset because we’d broken up—”

  “David, you dumped me,” Min said. “What the hell were you upset about?”

  “—I’ve regretted that bet a thousand times since, but Cal won’t call it off.”

  “Asked him to, have you?” Min said, not believing him.

  “Over and over,” David said.

  “David?” Min said.

  “Yes?” David said.

  “Rot in hell,” Min said, and clicked off the phone.

  She stood on the porch of the bed and breakfast and looked out over the river beyond. It was very pretty. “Damn,” she said. She believed in Cal, she really did, but that bet . . .

  I’ll ask him after the wedding, she told herself. When she was out of that awful corset, when they were alone, when they could talk it out without Diana tugging on her arm for help, she’d ask him then.