Welcome to Temptation/Bet Me

by Jennifer Crusie

  “Oh.” Min reached up for him, and he remembered the bet and sat up, hating to let her go.

  “Starting at nine-thirty.” He looked at the clock. “Which is in seventy minutes. What do you want to do for seventy minutes, Minnie? Got a Scrabble board?”

  “I’ll use dirty words,” Min said.

  “Yeah, like ‘spread,’ ” Cal said, and laughed.

  Min looked at the ceiling. “See, this is one of those things that doesn’t matter, I love you anyway.”

  “I love that part,” Cal said. “So what’s new with you?”

  “That would be saying ‘Yes, you can have me any way you want me’ to you.” She sat up and pulled him to her again, and he shifted on the couch to make room for her and felt something dig into his hip. Min kissed his neck, and he shivered as he reached behind him and pulled out her coat belt, buckle first. Then she bit him, and he said, “Ouch,” and she leaned back and smiled at him.

  “You’re going to win the bet with David and lose the bet to me, hotshot,” she said. “Think of it as breaking even.”

  He looked at her and thought, She’s right, and then looked at the belt in his hand. “Just for the record, no matter what I do, you’ll love me?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Good.” He tipped her back onto the couch and stretched her wrists over her head. “I like being in control, Minnie.”

  “I know.” Min smiled up at him. “I can work with that.”

  He kissed her again, and while she was distracted, he wrapped the belt around her wrists.

  “Hey,” she said, breaking the kiss, but he’d already wrapped the ends of the belt around the arm of the couch.

  She stretched up to see her wrists as he tied the knot. “This is a little kinky, Calvin.”

  “Not really,” Cal said, getting up. “You know, I had a dozen doughnuts to bring over here, and then you cried wolf, and now we don’t have them. But I forgive you because that’s the kind of relationship we have.” He moved to the kitchen alcove. “So what do you want to talk about for . . .” He stretched to see the clock. “. . . sixty-seven minutes?”

  “Cal,” Min said.

  There was a familiar green and white sack on the kitchen counter. “Krispy Kremes,” he said. “Great minds think alike.” He brought the sack back into the living room. “You know, Minnie, you tortured me for a month, looking so good I lost my mind every time I saw you. I wanted you so much I was insane from it.” He looked down at her, tied to the couch. “Still am, evidently.”

  “Okay, I’m sorry about that,” Min said, tugging on the belt.

  “So now it’s your turn.” He sat down across from her. “Now I’m going to torture you.”

  Min stopped tugging. “This could be good. What are you going to do?”

  He took a Krispy Kreme out of the bag.

  “I’m going to eat this in front of you,” Cal said, and bit into the doughnut.

  David went down to the street to the pay phone on the corner because damn near everybody had caller ID these days. He dialed Min’s parents’ number, and when the phone stopped ringing, he said, “You should know this,” only to be overrun by their answering machine. Well, that was all right, they never stayed out longer than nine anyway. Plenty of time. When he heard the beep, he said, “You should know this. Calvin Morrisey is seducing your daughter to win a bet. They’re at her apartment right now.” Then he hung up and considered what he had just done. As far as he could see, it was flawless.

  Feeling pretty good about himself, he began to look through the directory wired to the pay phone for the Morriseys’ number.

  Min scowled at Cal, but all the bastard did was grin back, looking desirable as all hell while he finished his second doughnut. Slowly.

  “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 seen 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 from 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.

  “Thank 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 a 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.

  “David?” Tony said, looking up from his spaghetti.

  “Hey, Emilio?” Liza yelled over the kitchen noise. “I’m taking a break.”

  “Oh, no,” Tony said.

  “Eat your pasta,” Liza said, moving toward the door.

  “Oh, hell,” Tony said and dropped his fork to follow her.

  Chapter Sixteen

  When Min was wound so tight, she was shaking, Cal laced his fingers in her hair and turned her head to show her the mantel clock. “It’s nine-thirty-five,” he said, his voice husky. “I lost the bet to David. It’s over.”

  “We wasted five minutes?” Min said wildly.

  “You weren’t complaining,” Cal said, resting his head on her stomach.

  “Take me to bed or do me on this couch,” Min said, breathing hard. “I want you now.”

  “I’m definitely marrying you,” Cal said, and pulled her up off the couch and toward the bedroom.

  She tripped behind him and then gasped as he toppled her onto her satin comforter, her body sizzling against the cool fabric as he stripped and found a condom, and then he was beside her, pressed hotly against her, and she closed her eyes to savor him, bone and muscle hard against her. “Don’t wait,” she said, and felt his hands on her again, sliding over her, making every nerve she had scream, and when his fingers slipped inside her again, she opened to him, shaking under him, and when she felt his body between her thighs, she arched to meet him, desperate to feel him hard inside her. His eyes were hot on her and she stared back, caught, crazy for him, and then he kissed her and slipped his tongue in her mouth as he slid into her, slick and hot, and she gasped and clutched at him as the shock of him went everywhere.