Susan Phillips - Ain’t She Sweet?

“Take this dirty plate. I’m done with it.”

As soon as she’d returned from one errand, the Seawillows sent her off on another. And she let them do it. She didn’t rush, but she didn’t tell them to bugger off, either.

“Get me a damp towel. I’ve got something sticky on my hands.”

“See if you can find the pepper mill. I’m sure there’s one somewhere.”

Even Amy couldn’t resist finding her own way to join in, and he heard her whisper, “Jesus can wash away anybody’s sins, Sugar Beth, even yours. Throw yourself on his mercy.”

Colin pushed aside his plate, intending to put a stop to the nonsense, but Sugar Beth detected the movement and shot him a look that challenged not only his manhood but also his very right to exist on the planet. With a sense of resignation, he sank back down and braced himself.

“I do not think,” said Lord Bromford, having considered the matter gravely, “that one should sacrifice one’s principles to gratify a female’s whim.”

GEORGETTE HEYER, The Grand Sophy

Winnie offered Ryan a taste of her kiwi tart right before she made her move. As Sugar Beth began to pick up the empty plates, Winnie raised her voice, ever so slightly. “Oh, dear, I accidentally kicked my fork under the table. Let me move out of the way, Sugar Beth, so you can get it for me.” She rose from the table and took one small step to the side.

Colin understood at once. Winnie had chosen something small, unimportant, something almost insignificant that symbolized everything. To retrieve the fork, Sugar Beth would have to drop to her knees at Winnie’s feet.

He had no idea whether Sugar Beth would do it, didn’t wait to see. Instead, he shot off his stool only to realize that Winnie’s husband had beaten him to it.

“Let me,” Ryan said quickly.

The edges of Winnie’s mouth collapsed, and for the first time that evening, she seemed more vulnerable than Sugar Beth. Sugar Beth met Ryan’s eyes for a fraction of a second before she took a small step back. Slowly, he dropped to one knee at his wife’s feet, reached under the table, and withdrew the fork that Winnie had undoubtedly kicked there.

Colin gazed from one woman to the other. He’d always been fascinated by literary archetypes, but if someone had asked him, right at that moment, which of these women was plucky Cinderella and which the wicked stepsister, he’d have been hard-pressed to come up with an answer.

The evening ground on. He might be miserable, but his guests seemed to be enjoying themselves, and it was past eleven before they finally began to trickle away.

Winnie’s hands weren’t quite steady as she slipped into her skimpy black lace teddy. It was one of several she owned in various colors. Ryan came into the bedroom without his sport coat. He’d undoubtedly tossed it over a chair downstairs. It would still be there when they got back from church tomorrow. He didn’t expect her to pick up after him. He just failed to notice how many of his things he left lying around.

“Look at this.” He held out a rumpled wall poster showing a bare-chested hunk sporting a pair of nipple rings while a woman’s hand reached through his legs to cup his crotch. “She had this hanging on the back of her door when I went in to check on her.”

“She knows how much we hate her posters. That’s why she keeps putting them up.”

“If she’s this rebellious now, what’s going to happen when she’s sixteen?”

Winnie didn’t voice her deepest fear, that genetics would somehow play out, and Gigi would end up like Sugar Beth: self-centered, spiteful, and sexually active at too young an age.

Ryan tossed the poster in their trash basket and headed for the closet. He didn’t remark on her imported black teddy, but why should he? She had a vast collection of sexy sleepwear, and he saw her in or out of one of the pieces nearly every night. Sometimes she wanted to throw them all away and head to Wal-Mart for a set of comfy cotton pj’s.

As he went about his bedtime routine, she slid under the covers and opened the book she’d left on the table, but she didn’t even pretend to read it. Instead, she gnawed over the ugly memory of Ryan kneeling at Sugar Beth’s feet. What a terrible miscalculation she’d made. She’d forced her husband to choose sides, and he’d chosen the wrong one.

She was sick of her jealousy. All evening he’d watched Sugar Beth. He’d been discreet about it, but you couldn’t live with a man for so long and not know what he was thinking. Tonight Winnie had to make love with him until he was so mindless he forgot about Sugar Beth. Give it to me, babee … Just like a third-rate porn star. But the thought of the gyrations, the moaning, the mess, made her feel exhausted and resentful.

Ryan finished in the bathroom and slid naked into bed. He turned on his side so he was facing her. She only had to brush against him and he’d be hard. He reached out and stroked her hair, then ran his finger under the strap of her teddy to graze her nipple.

Give it to me, babee … She owed him everything, but she put her book on the nightstand as an excuse to turn away. Then she said the most extraordinary thing.

“I’m not feeling well. I think I’ll sleep in the guest room tonight.”

His golden brown eyes filled with concern. “What’s wrong?”

“A little stomach upset.” She pushed back the covers and dropped her legs over the side of the bed. “I don’t want to wake you if I have to get up.”

He reached out to rub the small of her back. “I don’t mind.”

“We’ll both sleep better this way.”

She slid out of bed without giving him a good-night kiss. She was appalled with herself. Tonight, of all nights, when she most needed to be seductive, she couldn’t bring herself to kiss him. She was sick of him. Sick of his good looks, his flawless manners, his endless solicitude. She was sick of always feeling second-rate. And most of all, she was sick of pretending to like him when she didn’t. Love him, yes. She loved him with all her heart. That would never go away. But right now she couldn’t stand the sight of him.

She gathered her robe from the foot of the bed. “Gigi’s going to raise a stink in the morning about going to Sunday school. I’ll let you deal with her.”

He’d propped himself on his elbow, gazing at her quizzically. “All right.”

She told herself not to say another word, to go to the guest room and shut the door before she did any more damage. “I’m going to buy some pajamas.”

“I don’t wear pajamas.”

“For me.”

He gave her his patented sexy smile. “I like what you have on right now.”

“That makes one of us.”

His smile faded. “You’re tired.”

Sick and tired. And he knew why. But he wouldn’t say it. He would ignore the ghost that had hovered over them for fourteen years, just as she would, because their marriage was fragile as an eggshell, and neither of them wanted to risk cracking it.

“Tired. Yes.” She managed a shaky smile. “I’ll make you pancakes in the morning.” As if a stack of pancakes would fix what was wrong between them.

She turned off the light and walked to the door.

“Do you want me to rub your back?” he said.

“No. No, I don’t want that at all.” She let herself out of the room.

Colin came into the kitchen and saw Sugar Beth standing on a stool, putting away a tray in the cupboard over the cooktop. It was one in the morning, the caterer had left, and she was clearly exhausted, but she still hadn’t finished proving that she could take anything Colin threw at her. What kind of man tried to snuff out a spirit like this? “You’re dead on your feet. Go home.”

She gazed at her dog. “What’s Gordon doing here?”

“I went over to the carriage house to let him out, and he followed me back. He chewed up one of your shower thongs.”

“He hates me.”

“Dogs don’t hate their masters. It defies the natural order of the universe.”

“Says you.” She climbed off the stool, and as she picked it up to tuck it away, he saw shadows like bruises under her eyes.

“Put that bloody thing down. I can take care of whatever’s left tomorrow.”

She cocked the stool against her hip and eyed him with open mockery. “Look at you. Guilt oozing from every pore. You’re not going to start crying, are you? Because, frankly, that’s more than I could stomach.”

“I’ll attempt to keep my tears in check. Now, go to bed. I’ll write you a check in the morning.”

“Darn right you will. And you’re paying me double for overtime. But then two times zip is zip, right? God, you’re cheap. Maybe if you didn’t spend so much money on fancy perfume and Barbra Streisand records, you could pay me what I’m worth.”

“My dear, even I don’t have that much money.”

That stopped her cold. He had the satisfaction of seeing her blink, then frown, as she searched for the hidden insult. He pressed his advantage. “I know this will disappoint you, but tonight was the end of it. We’re even. I’ve officially been avenged for your teenage treachery.”

She rolled her eyes, back in the game. “Are you telling me that little bit of guilt is all it takes to make you tuck your tail between your legs? And you call yourself a man.”

He’d been reading too much Victorian erotica because he wanted to bend her over a chair and… do something quite nasty.

She settled on a stool at the counter and hooked a stockinged heel over the rung. “I guess I never told you about this.” She leaned her chin on the back of her hand in a parody of dreamy reminiscence. “The night I made up my lie about you… I cried real tears.”

“You don’t say.” She was hurting herself-he could feel it-but he didn’t know how to stop her. Besides, his days of attempting to rescue wounded women were behind him.

“See, I’d had an accident with my Camaro that day-stop signs still bring out the rebel in me-and I was afraid Daddy would take my car keys. So it wasn’t only the fact I hated your guts that made me lie.”

“It’s late, Sugar Beth, and you’re tired.”

“It was funnier than hell. The minute I told Diddie that you tried to feel me up, she forgot all about the dent in the side of that car, and so did Daddy. They didn’t even dock my allowance for the repairs. I still laugh thinkin’ about it.”

She didn’t look like laughing. She looked soul weary and worn out. He walked toward her. “You were a kid, and you’d been spoiled rotten. Stop being so hard on yourself.”

He should have known empathy would be a mistake because she came up off the stool hissing. “Aren’t you just all Christian charity? Compassion and forgiveness pourin’ out of you. Well, I don’t need your pity, Mr. Byrne. I don’t need-”

“That’s enough!” In one swift motion, he scooped her off her feet and carried her from the kitchen. He was done fighting with himself. All night it had been building up to this, and now he was taking her upstairs, dumping her in his bed, and making love with her until neither of them could think straight.

“Well, well, well…” She gazed up at him, all tired eyes and provocative drawl. “This is more like it, big guy.”

That stopped him cold.

“What’s the matter, your lordship? Having second thoughts?” She mocked him with her weary coquette’s pout. “Maybe you’re afraid you can’t get it up for a girl.”

Sex and sass were the only weapons she had left. He understood that, just as he understood his solicitude must feel like slow poison to those proud veins, and this was the only way she had left to pay him back.

He was a cynical man aroused beyond bearing, but he’d once had the spirit of a romantic, and somehow he found the willpower to ease her to her feet. Then, because he deserved something for his restraint, he kissed her deeply and thoroughly.

She responded like a temptress-full tongue, breathy moans, hips rubbing against his, all of it phony, designed to let him know what he could do with his pity. Even so, blood throbbed in his groin, and his body demanded more. He needed all of his self-control not to lose patience with her, but he kept his lips soft and coaxing, giving her time to work out her anger. Gradually, the writhing stopped, and her tongue retreated into her mouth. She curled soft and warm against him. He sipped at her lips. They tasted like velvet.

Sugar Beth felt the gentle pull of Colin’s mouth and knew he’d disarmed her, but she was too exhausted to struggle any longer. He was fully aroused, and it startled her to realize she was, too. Beneath her bone-deep weariness, her body had come to life.

He tasted of health and vigor, of the kind of male potency she’d nearly forgotten existed. His kiss deepened. She felt the ropey muscles, the tensile strength of his body. Her lips parted, and he slipped his tongue into her mouth. She let her arms drift around his neck. He dallied and stroked. She heard herself sigh as he abandoned her mouth to pick her up again.