“There’s plenty I want from you. Should I give you an itemized list?”
“I’m hanging up now. Good—”
“I’ll be there at seven.”
“Where?”
“There. To pick you up.”
“What for?”
“Charles Bronson.”
“Pardon?”
“The drive-in. There’s a Charles Bronson double feature tonight.”
“No thanks, I don’t like violence.”
“I wouldn’t think of getting violent. Not on our first date.”
“On the screen,” she ground out.
“Who goes to the drive-in to look at the screen?”
“Precisely. That’s why I don’t want to go with you.”
“How come? Afraid I’ll win my bet two days early?”
His audacity appalled her into speechlessness. She was left holding a buzzing receiver after he said, “Seven,” and hung up before she could get out a word in reply.
Sunny wasn’t sure why she was dressed, ready, and waiting for Ty at a few minutes before seven. Probably because she couldn’t resist his dare and, too, because she hadn’t liked his remark about the “Sunny Chandler brush-off.”
He’d been listening to gossip, and, while she wanted to pretend that it didn’t bother her, she had to admit that it did. She had no idea why she cared what he thought of her. But it seemed important that Ty Beaumont not consider her the fickle, heartless, femme fatale that the rest of the people in this town did.
She heard his car drive up and peeped through the shutters. Surprisingly, it wasn’t the patrol car, but a silver Datsun 280Z. Fran’s talk about healthy fantasies came rushing back to Sunny’s mind when he pulled his tall frame from the low-slung sports car and walked toward her door. She was grateful for the opportunity to look at him without his knowing it. That way she was prepared for the snug fit of his jeans and the thin cotton shirt through which his chest hair was a beguiling, fan-shaped shadow.
She had a sound argument against fantasies being harmless, though. Even prepared as she was, her palms grew moist with tension as she pulled open the door and bravely confronted those blue eyes and white teeth.
“Hi. Ready?”
“Almost. Come in.”
As soon as she closed the door behind him, he pulled her into his arms. She was so taken by surprise that she offered no resistance. His kiss was long and thorough, his tongue searching. He lifted her arms up around his neck and patted them into place there. He pressed his thumbs into her vulnerable underarms, then slid his open hands all the way down to her waist.
Slanting his mouth over hers at a more advantageous angle, he drew her body closer. On the
move again, his hands paused at the sides of her breasts. The heels of his palms applied a light pressure to the fullness while his tongue had carnal knowledge of her mouth.
When he released her, she drew drafts of air into her collapsing lungs as she stared up at him. To lambaste him for taking such outrageous liberties would be tantamount to admitting that the embrace had disturbed her.
Instead she murmured, “I’ll be right back.” Somehow she found her way into her bedroom, though she was moving in a daze. The disheveled image reflected in her mirror snapped her out of the trance. Her eyes were fever-bright. They looked back at her with the dilated vacancy of a woman thoroughly aroused. Her lips were red and swollen and moist. She touched them. They still throbbed.
And her hair!
She had spent half an hour arranging it into that “casual” topknot. It was now hanging loose around her shoulders. He had taken it down without her even knowing it!
Irritated with herself, she hastily reapplied her lip gloss and picked up a perfume atomizer. On second thought, she slammed it back down on the dresser. Then, averring that it made no difference if she doused herself in perfume, absolutely nothing was going to happen in that Datsun at the drive-in, she used the fragrance liberally, even defiantly misting it between her breasts.