Tempt Me Tonight Review

Tempt Me Tonight By Toni Blake

14 years ago in Eden, Indiana, the night before 17 year old Trish Henderson was going away for the University Of Indiana, her and her high school boyfriend Joe Ramsey, who she was planning to marry after college, was suppose to have sex, but she couldn´t and Joe was very disapointed, and they suddenly got interrupted by a older girl named Beverly Rainey who was looking for Trish because she was an hour late, so Joe drove her home and gave her a gift: a chain with a pendant of a cat. To remind her of him and her kitten Pumpkin, who he gave to her. The next day a couple of hours before Trish was going her best friend Debbie came over and told her that Joe had sex with Beverly the night before after he left Trish, and that Kenny, Joe´s best friend and Debbie´s boyfriend has confirmed it because he has talked to Joe who is upset because he fucked up. Trish can´t believe it when she trusted him blindly and then she plans her escape and it is perfect because she is going in a couple of hours and she tells Debbie that if she sees Joe to tell him she never want to see him again.

Now Trish is 32 and lives in Indianapolis, but is home again for an unknown amount of time to help her family with some legal business, because her parents are going to sell their diner since she is an attorney. It is also the first time where she is there long enough to see people beside her parents and her BFF Debbie, her husband Kenny and their boys. It is friday night and her and Debbie is going to the bar: Last Chance, where Debbie, Kenny and some other high school friends hangs out friday night away from the kids and work. Debbie has promised her that Joe wouldn´t be there, but when she gets inside there he is at the bar. Trish first doesn´t know it is him and is kind of attractive to the guy with the tatoo of the Cobra on his arm until their eyes meet and she knows it is him and he is more gorgeous than back then. He walk over to her and they talk without Trish showing too much interest and he calls her Cupcake like he did back then. She goes to Debbie and the other by the pool table and says hi. Kenny ask her to play but she says no and then Joe comes over and Kenny and him starts to play. Trish pulls Debbie aside and ask her why she didn´t tell her about how more good looking Joe has become and Debbie tells her that she didn´t want to hurt her feelings by telling her he is "a gods gift to women2 and that women can´t keep their hands of him. Trish tells she is leaving, but Debbie tells her too stay to prove she can be in his company without running like a coward. So she stay and soon the crowd moves to a table and Trish ends up besides Joe and when the music starts all the others go up to dance leaving her and Joe. He tells her he is sorry, but she just tells him she is over it eventhough she is so not over it. He then takes her hand and tells her to dance with him and she doesn´t stop him. Soon they are very close on the dancefloor and they sway to a low song and Joe gives her a soft kiss and soon he ask her to come with him home, because he can show her what she has missed. But this is about pride for Trish so she say no. He then ask her how long she is in town and if he can see her again, but she says no. And Joe that the reason she says no doesn´t have anything to do with their attraction that is almost stronger than it was back then. She tells him that yes they still have the attraction, but that she didn´t came home to have sex with him and that she hears he has a lot of women so he can go to them. She then grabs her purse a plans to get out of there but Joe blocks her path telling her he wants her and tells her that it isn´t going away. She tells him it has gone away and gets out of there.

The next morning Joe gets to the Waffle House to get his breakfast like he does every day. Beverly is there working today like always as an waitress and he ask her if her 13 year old daughter Carrisa needs anything. The fact is that Joe isn´t her father because he took an DNA test but everybody think he is and he is looked bad at for not claiming to be the father. Still he has over the years taken care of Carissa and been a part of her life. Beverly is still flirting with Joe every day, but Joe keeps it short. When Beverly ask he also tells that Trish is back in town, but nothing more because it is none of her business. Then Carissa and her grandpa comes and they talk for a while until kenny comes and ask him what he is going to do about Trish because he hears Joe tells her that he and her wasn´t going to go away. He tells kenny that maybe he is going to apologize but nothing else. Because he knew he made a dumb mistake doing that to her when he had just apologize for 14 years ago, but there was just that damn attraction stronger than ever.

The next morning Trish is in her parents diner looking over the papers and she now knows that she has to stay her longer at least to supervise what is going to happen, and that means more time near Joe. But Trish knows that if he is with her like that one more time she will give in, so she just have to avoid him. Debbie comes and ask her what happened and that it was obvious last night that she wanted Joe, but Trish tells her it was pure lust and that it would be to low to give into it, because then she would have lost. And Debbie tells her it is her lost, but then Trish comes up wit an idea. If she seduces him, then she isn´t losing as long as he ins´t seducing her. Debbie ask why she doens´t just stay away, but Trish tells her that if she comes in the persission again she is done, so she has to do it and when she is done having sex with him she leaves. Debbie tells her it just sounds like she just want to get revenge, but to Trish is about not being used and embarresed first. And she is going to have sex with him tonight. At night she dresses up like she never has before, because she never do this and drive to Joe´s place, she is very nervous, but rings on the door. He opens and is shocked, but she soon finds out that the seduction part is easy when we talk lust. They do it on the couc and soon Trish realise that it was a hugh mistake doing it, because it didn´t come out as just sex and she knows now that she is still in love with him and has never felt the way she feels with him before. She is planning on leaving when they finish, but can´t get herself to do it and suddenly they are lying in each others arm on the couch and he tells her that tommorow over pancakes she will tell him about her life. And she knows that by having sex wih him she hasn´t gotten it out of her system, she is now bound to get hurt, by the Joe she doesn´t know anymore. Trish wakes up a couple of hours later and decides to get out of there and she takes her clothe and drives to the hotel, but doesn´t feel the victory that she should have been feeling.

Later Joe wakes up and is completly dassled and frustrated to see her gone execept for her bra. For him it was the best sex ever, but he can´t get over how much he knew the Trish at the bar and how much he didn´t know her last night. And he cares that she has sneaked away at night because it is Trish and it is shitty to sneak away. And he can´t figure out what she was trying to prove, but one thing is sure, this is definenetly not over by a long shot. Later that day he is with Kenny eating lunch and kenny tells him he knew because of Debbie and he tells Koe it was about using him for sex as some kind of revenge thing, according to Debbie. When Joe ask were she is staying, kenny says according to the note on the fridge that she is staying at the motel in town room 117. Later Joe goes home and sees that the stray cat he took in 5 years ago has just had her kittens. Suddenly the doorbell rings and it is his sister Jana who lives in Ohio. She comes to return the car she has borrow and her boyfriend who own a club is out in the car and Joe has never even met him. When Joe ask her if she wants a kitten she says that she is not sure that Vinnie wants a cat and Joe gets even more tipped of. then Jana sees the bra on the lamp and ask him who it is and he tells her it is Trish´s and Jana is totally shocked and want to know details, but Joe doesn´t give any. After they go out to see the 4 kittens and Jana falls for the ones she calls the twins. After his sister leaves and Joe do some house work and later he sees the bra and knows that he is not gonna get some sleep if it isnt gone.

That night Trish is in her hotelroom checking her emails and then Debbie calls and Trish tells her they had sex, he fell afsleep and she left and Debbie is suprised that Trish went through with it and isn´t gushing over the details of what kind of pizza he was having. And she know that it is a little wrong to let Debbie think she doesn´t caré and not know all the details. Trish ask Debbie how she knows he had pizza and Debbie tells that Kenny talked to Joe and that Joe seems upset and angry about her leaving. And Trish gets mad about him being mad, because for him it was just to get laid so why is he mad. Suddenly someone is at the door and Trish think it is the pizza, but it turns out to be Joe with he bra, angry, wanting answers. But suddeenly they end up kissing, she says no and he draws back, but then she says yes and they have sex. Afterward they fall on the bed and Joe wants to know what last night was about and she tells him that she never got over what he did to her. And he tells her it was shitty to leave and she tells him that it was more shitty what he did to her and he tells her that it was a fucking mistake, but that he thought she would try to forgive him. Suddenly Trish blurts out that he should have follow her instead of not calling or doing anything like she told him. But Trish doesn´t tell him anything more about how it hurt her or that she still have the pain with her today etc. because she doesn´t want him to take her pride. He tells her that he wasn´t the only one suffering and ask her to just try to forgive him and ask if they can start over. But she tells him it doesn´t matter because she doesn´t live her and she will soon be gone and maybe never see him again. But he says it matters to him. She tells him that this shouldn´t happen again and that she is moving in with her parents tommorow. But he tells her that it wasn´t just sex and she admit it isn´t, but that it was a mistake and she tells him to leave. He goes to the bathroom and comes back to tell her he needs a goodbye kiss and then he kiss her and she kisses back after a while he ask her if he should leave and she says yes.

The next day, monday, Joe is using at work in his mechanic shop and Carissa comes by and tells Joe she is going for a dance and he gives her some money for a dress and she says she wants to work for it so he let her work on something easy. He then starts thinking about Trish and wonders if he should leave her alone because that is what his common sense tells him, but it isn´t like he hasn´t not followed it before.
Things doesn´t go so good for Trish eighter because the buyer of the diner just have backed out after Trish tried to change the deal, but her parents doesn´t seem so upset about it like she is. Later she drives to her parents diner, but first drive by Joe´s autoshop to see what he has made of himself and he really has done something, she knows that he doesn´t know which car she drives so she is safe. When she get to the diner she starts to clean it and hours after she is done and considers doing something different with the place so it can be easier to sell. Then suddenly Marjorie from the flower shop next door comes by and they talk and she ask when Trish is getting married and she tells her problably not in the near future. Marjorie also ask for her advice because her dog got attacked by her neighboors dog a couple of months ago and the bill is really high, so she went to a small court but the judge only said that the neighbor should pay 50 dollars, so she could get a new dog. Trish thinks about the diner and her plans to paint it and Trish then tells her that she will represent her in small court ao Marjorie can get her money and that this one is on Trish.

That night when Joe is washing up he thinks about Trish and the fact that she doesn´t know that Debbie a while ago mention which car Trish drives, so when he saw her drive by his shop looking today, he knows that she wants him as much as he wants her, now he just have to come up with a plan. Then Jana calls and tells him that she is getting married to Vinnie next week and Joe is definently not happy about that. By wednesday Trish has gotton Marjorie and her a court day the next thursday and she has gotton a fun day out of finding things for the diner. When she gets home she finds her dad with back pain and telling her a hurricane is going to come soon and Trish knows that the hay on the farm need to get away before the storm or it will rotten, so she tells her dad that she is going to do it or at least try to get it all in tommorow. Later before she is suppose to go over to Debbie and Kenny her mom tells her that Debbie called about her coming over earlier and that she also asked what happened after the other night and if she has seen Joe. Trish swears to herself that one day she is going to kill Debbie and her big mouth. Trish´s dad has never really liked Joe and esspecially not since what happend between them, so Trish tells that she bumb into him friday. Then Trish goes to Debbie´s where she tells her they had sex on the dresser and that she ended things after and then Debbie mention the whole thing with her driven by the garage and Debbie tells her that Joe saw her. The next day Trish wakes up early just having a dream about Joe, when she comes downstairs she can hear her parents having a conversation about her a Joe and she has just sat down, when the doorbell rings and there is Joe telling her that he has come to help with the hay, and what traitors Debbie and Kenny are. She lets him come inside where she tells his dad that Joe will help with the hay, since it is not easy doing alone and goes upstairs to get some clothe on. When Joe is left alone with her dad, her dad tells joe not to hurt Trish and he says he wont. That day when they are out driving the truck Trish thinks of how nice it actually is to be home again and feel like a girl again. At lunch Trish tells him that she is proud of what he has made of himself and Joe tells her how he got the original Cobra car from the previous owner they know at the autoshop and how the previous owner got the car. And he tell Trish that the car is worth about a half million dollars. Mr Shermer the previous owner bought a farm and found it on it, and he gave the car to Joe when he found out he was dying from cancer.

Later they just get finished before the rain hits and the run for the pickup truck but the door wont open so suddenly Joe is all over her pressing her, trying to open the door together in the purring rain. The lust is to high and they end up doing it outside in the rain up against the truck. When they are done they get inside the truck and Trish is on his lap when she ask him to tell her what happened that night. He tells her that he was scared that she would leave him, because he knew she wanted more than Eden and he didn´t. And she tells him yes she wanted to see new places, but that college where her time to do that, but in the end she actually didn´t really want to go. He then tells her he was bumbeb the night and he was on his way home when a car blinked his light to him and he thought it was Kenny, but it was Beverly. And they talked about her and she gave him some beers and that Beverly told him that if they were going out she wouldn´t have left. He started feeling sorry for himself and glad that someone wanted him and that he was good enough. At some point he got into her car and eventhough he knew it was wrong he didn´t car and they just did it. But Trish wants to know more and he tells her that he was on top and that there weren´t much foreplay and that after he felt empty because he knew it should have been trish and that the sex satisfide his curiosity. He then tells her that he isn´t Carissa´s father, but that he thought it until she was born were his mother gave him the idea to get a DNA test and that he wasn´t the father, but that he knew that Carissa had no one else so he became a sort of father figure. At the same time his mother died when her car drove into a tree and his father left him and Jana who was 12 years old and because of that he stayed for Carissa. He tells that he doesn´t know if Carissa thinks he is her dad or not, but that he doesn´t know how he could possibly tell her if she thinks he is. He tells her that it is prettyy messed up part of it his fault and part of it Beverly and that he thinks that Beverly has never told Carissa the truth because she thought that Joe one day would create a family with them eventhough there has never been anything between them except that night. And Trish tell him that she thinks he is actually kind of amazing for the things he has done. And she ask about all the women and he tells her that yes he has slept with women, but that he has only ever been inlove with her. He then ask her and she tells him that she has slept with 6 counting him. And he tells her that she was the best and that he is sorry, because he never wanted to hurt her. They drive back to the house and he ask her to see her again eventhough he knows he will get a no, but she say okay.

The next day Trish works on the diner where she is painting the wall, the new chairs and tables she has bought and the booths and she thinks about Joe and babies and how she really do love him. Then Becky shows up and they talk about her and Joe the day before at the farm. Debbie tells her that she is making things too complicated and that she should just have fun and stop worrying and see where it gets her. 2 hours later Joe calls and ask her if she wnats to go for a ride in his Cobra at night, she tells him yes and he is suprised by the answer, but she tells him that doesn´t want to fight and they plan to meet at 7. That night Trish makes herself redy and her mom knows she is going out with Joe, and she tells her dad just before she gets out the door. Joe and her run into Debbie and Kenny when they go for Burger Barn´s drive in and Kenny says she must be special, because no one is allowed to eat and that car. After Joe takes her to Crescent Lake where they have sex in his beloved car and Trish tells him that next time they need a bed. When Joe gets home that night he seriouly start to think that maybe they have a future, because he knows that something between them has changed. But he knows that she is going back and that she may never forgive him.
The next day Trish is driving to the diner, when she drives to Joe´s auto shop instead and ask him to come to her home tonight and eat and play monopoly with hér family. He isn´t so happy about it, because of her father but he says yes. That night Trish tells her mother that her and Joe are sort of seing each other until she leaves and she ask her mom how her dad took it that Joe was comin and her mom tells her that he doesn´t know because he haven´t been there all day. So just as her dad comes through the back door, the front door bell rings and her mom goes to open while Trish explains to her dad that it is Joe and that he should play nice and that her and Joe are seing each other while she is here. Joe then comes inside witt flower for her a among them is a roza tulip the flower Marjorie say she imagined for Trish´s wedding. Things is tense until Trish bring up that Joe is working on a Lamborghini and her father and Joe tense up and talk and it all goes well and Joe even shows her dad his Cobra. And Trish realise that it might become much harder to leave the town.

Through the night Joe actually want Trish´s dad to change his mind about him because he wants to be a part of her life. Later about midnight her parent go to bed and they go outside of the couch on the porch and do some things and Joe ask her to come to his place tommorow night, because he has a bed where they can do more things. The next sunday night Trish goes to Joe´s and see his kitten´s and she instantly falls for the grey and want Joe to keep it. After they go inside to check on the dinner Joe has made, the recipe from Debbie. But they quickly end up having sex in his bed a burning the lasagna so they have to order pizza and they eat it in bed. They eat dessert cupcakes and they have sex for a long time. Joe then ask if she still doesn´t trust himand she tells him that she haven´t been thinking about it. She then tells him the thing that she wasn´t going to tell him that she for 2 years cried herself to sleep each day experiencing the pain all over again and thought she would never get over it and he says im sorry again. She tells him that she did get over it, but that she can never go back down that road again. Joe is sad, but he then ask her to go to his sister´s wedding with him the on saturday and she says okay.

By thursday Trish goes to court and wins, while Joe work and goes to the waffle house in late afternoon to see Carissa´s drees. He is concerned about the dress, so he tells Carissa they can go shopping for a new one the day after. Then Joe and Trish spends the night together, and the next day Joe finds a dress with Carissa.¨
Joe has had a feeling all along that something weird was going on with his sister and Vinnie, but after sitting and waiting for the wedding to start he is pretty sure that her sister is a stripper and that the guest is her stripper friends and he tells Trish and she thinks so too. When their father doesn´t show up Joe has to walk Jana down the isle and he finally meets Vinnie, and Trish tells him that maybe Vinnie will be good for Jana and their friends seem happy for them. When it is time to have the cake Joe and Trish drives home and when they are sitting on her parents porch he starts to tell her about how his mother died. He tells her that his parents were drunk very often and that on that saturdays night they both were and that they were fighting like alway. Joe´s mom screamed she was leaving but Joe came down and took her car keys, then when Joe called her and alcoholic she hit Joe, something that she has never done before. And he told her fine she could go of and kill herself, and that was what happened she accidentally drove into a tree. And his father told him after that if he had just stayed out of it, his dad would never have given her the keys. After they go out in the woods and have sex and Joe tells her he loves her and for her to forgive him. She forgives him and he ask her to stay with him here and not go back to the city. She tells him she will think about it and latter when she is laying in bed she thinks about the fact that she could stay and make the diner, her baby, to a cafe and how she could do small law jobs in her free time and be closer to home. And she thinks about how her law job right now isn´t part of her soul, but something to seperate her mind and brain. The next day she goes with her parents to church and prays to god for a sign of what to do. After she show her parents the cafe and after a while they seem okay. Around the afternoon flowers are delivered from Marjorie pink tulips and Trish takes it as a sign - she is staying. That night Joe goes to eat at Debbie and Kenny´s and he telld them that he ask Trish to stay. Later when he is home the doorbell rings and it turn out to be Beverly who takes her top up and tells Joe that she wants to make a family with him, and Joe turn her down and tries to get her to leave. At the same time Trish is coming over in the sexy clothe she bought the first time to seduce Joe and she sees him and Beverly and runs to her car and drives away. Then the next day she finds out that her client at a case back home, really has been lying saying he is innocent when he is not, because they have just gotten the evidence with DNA back. And she becomes mad and now no one can be trusted.

The next day Joe is worried, he knew the car outside his house yestersay when Beverly was there was Trish, so he used a lot of time last night looking for her wondering what she saw and is not crazy that she still doesn´t completly trust him. He is planning on finding her when he is done working, when Debbie suddenly comes by and tells him that Trish made partner in her firm and is gone. Debbie gives him a letter from Trish explaining that the last 2 weeks has been amazing, that she knows it wasn´t his fault last night, but that she can´t live like that. Joe gets mad and turns to his work as Debbie goes. Later beverly comes by his house telling him that Carissa real dad is in town, he walk into the waffle hpuse and when Beverly recongnize him and him with her, he found out that she had a dauther and saw that they looked like each other. She tells him they are meeting tonight, because he wants to be a part of Carissa´s life. Joe ask if he can still see Carissa and Beverly says that the worst thing she could ever do was to cut him out of her life. By wednesday Carissa comes by the autoshop and tells Jow about her meeting her new dad and that her new dad Charley is moving to town. And she ask him who Joe really is if he knew he wasn´t her dad. And he tells her that he thought he was, but wasn´t and just hung around and she tells him that that was nice. The next day at night Jana and Vinnie comes by to tell him the want the have 2 kittens: The twins. She also tells him that she hasn´t been completly honest about her working in Vinnie´s club and he tells her he knows. And she then tells him she is pregnant, possible twins. And that they are going to make a change so Vinnie is putting his strip bar up for sale and want to get another bar.

It is friday night and Trish is having a party to celebrate her making partner, when suddenly the doorbell rings and there is Joe with pink tulips and her gray kitten. She takes him to her room, while all her friends a collegeas look stunned. Then suddenly she tells him just to take her right there and they have sex, with the guest in the other room. When they are done Ken, a guy she sort of is going to start seeing nocks on her door asking if she is okay and she tell him she will be out in a minute. Joe then tells her that he called the real estate agent today and put his garage on sale so he can come here and live with her, but she tells him that he can´t do that because she knows that garage is his life. He becomes mad that she is turning her down when he came after her, he then takes Pepper the kitten and walks out. Trish is stunned that he just walks out because she didn´t reject him like he obviosly think she did, and she realise that her life here mean nothing really. So she gets up and leaves to find Joe and in the car she realise how much she hates her job. So she calls her work and leaves a message that she wants of the case she is working on. When she gets to Eden she drives by the Last Chance and sees Joe´s car there. She goes inside and tells him to dance with her and he doesn, but there seem to be a wall between. But she tells him that he misunderstood tonight and he ask her how he can know that she wont just change her mind tommorow and she tells him to trust ger and forgive her. Everybody at the bar is staring at them but she doesn´t care, she kisses him and he notice the flower and she tells him that that is the kind of flowers she will have when they get married. And he ask her if it is a proposal and she says yes. he then drags her out to his car and he kisses her and says yes.

This was a really good book, believable and fun at times when needed, that i enjoyed even with my age. I like the whole feeling being in a small town and everybody knowning their story as high school sweethearts and then people problaby roting for them to get back together. I also thought it was quit fun how Kenny and Debbie are their friends and they knew a lot of what was going on because Debbie was Trish BFF and Kenny, Joe´s.
I would have liked that the ending was a little different like letting their friends and the town know they were back together and getting married.


Grade: 10