He peeled it over his head and then began tugging at her underpants.
"Dallie…"
"It's all right, darlin'. It's all right." Her underpants disappeared and her bottom settled on cold metal dusted with road grit. "Francie, that package of birth control pills I spotted in your case wasn't just there for decoration, now, was it?"
She shook her head, unwilling to break the mood by offering any lengthy explanations. When her periods had unaccountably stopped a few months ago, her physician had told her to quit taking her birth control pills until they resumed. He had assured her that she couldn't get pregnant until then, and at the moment that was all that mattered.
Dallie's hand closed over the inside of one of her thighs. He moved it slightly away from the other and began stroking her skin lightly, each time coming closer to the one part of her that she didn't find all that beautiful, the one part of her that she would just as soon have kept hidden away, except that it felt so warm and quivery and strange. "What if somebody comes?" she cried as he brushed against her.
"I'm hoping somebody will," he replied huskily. And then he stopped brushing, stopped teasing, and touched her… really touched her. Inside.
"Dallie…" Her voice was half moan, half cry.
"Feel good?" he muttered, his fingers sliding gently in and out.
"Yes. Yes."
While he played with her, she closed her eyes against the slice of Louisiana moon above her head so that nothing would distract her from the wonderful feelings that were rushing through her body. She turned her cheek and didn't even feel the dirt from the trunk rub against her skin. His hands grew less patient. They spread her legs farther apart and pulled her hips closer to the edge. Her feet were balanced precariously on the bumper, separated by a Texas license plate and some dusty chrome. He fumbled with the front of his jeans and she heard the zipper give. He lifted her hips.
When she felt him push inside her, she gave a small gasp. He bent over her, his feet still on the ground, but drew back slightly. "Am I hurting you?"
"Oh, no. It-it feels so good."
"It's supposed to, honey."
She wanted him to believe she was a wonderful lover-to do everything right-but the whole world seemed to be sliding away from her, making everything dizzy, wavery, and mushy with warmth. How could she concentrate when he was touching her that way, moving like that? She suddenly wanted to feel more of him. Lifting her foot from the bumper, she wrapped one knee around his hips, the other around his leg, pushing against him until she had absorbed as much of him as she could.
"Easy, honey," he said. "Take your time." He began moving inside her slowly, kissing her, and making her feel as good as she'd ever felt in her life. "You with me, darlin'?" he murmured softly in her ear, the sound slightly hoarse.
"Oh, yes… yes. Dallie… my wonderful Dallie… my lovely Dallie…" A cacophony of sound seemed to explode in her head as she came and came and came.
He heaved hard, and something halfway between a moan and groan escaped him. The sound gave her a feeling of power, touched fire to her excitement, and she came again. He quivered over her for a wonderfully interminable length of time and then grew heavy.
She turned her cheek so that it pressed against his hair, felt him dear and beautiful and real against her, inside her. She noticed that their skin was stuck together and that his back felt moist beneath her hands. She felt a small drop of perspiration fall from him onto her bare arm and realized she didn't care. Was this what it meant to be in love? she wondered dreamily. Her eyelids drifted open. She was in love. Of course. Why hadn't she realized it long before this? That was what was wrong with her. That was why she'd been feeling so unhappy. She was in love.
"Francie?" he murmured.
"Yes?"
"You all right?"
"Oh, yes."
He eased himself up on one arm and smiled down at her. "Then how 'bout we head for the motel and try it again on top of those sheets you were so set on?"
On the drive back, she sat in the middle of the front seat and leaned her cheek against his shoulder while she chewed a piece of Double Bubble and daydreamed about their future.
Chapter 13
Naomi Jaffe Tanaka let herself into her apartment, a Mark Cross briefcase in one hand and a bag from Zabar's perched on her opposite hip. Inside the bag was a container of golden figs, a sweet Gorgonzola, and a crusty loaf of French bread, all she needed for a perfect working night dinner. She set down her briefcase and placed the sack on the black granite counter in her kitchen, leaning it against the wall, which had been painted with a hard burgundy enamel. The apartment was expensive and stylish, exactly the sort of place where the vice-president of a major advertising agency should live.
Naomi frowned as she pulled out the Gorgonzola and set it on a pink glazed porcelain plate. Only one small stumbling block lay between her and the vice-presidency she craved-finding the Sassy Girl. Just that morning, Harry Rodenbaugh had sent her a stinging memo threatening to turn the account over to one of the agency's "more aggressive men" if she couldn't produce her Sassy Girl in the next few weeks.
She kicked off her gray suede pumps and nudged them out of the way with a stockinged toe while she removed the rest of her purchases from the sack. How could it be so difficult to find one person? Over the past few days, she and her secretary had made dozens of phone calls, but not one of them had run
the girl to ground. She was out there, Naomi knew, but where? She rubbed her temples, but the pressure did nothing to relieve the headache that had been plaguing her all day.
After depositing the figs in the refrigerator, she picked up her pumps and headed wearily out of the kitchen. She would take a shower, put on her oldest bathrobe, and pour herself a glass of wine before she started on the work she'd brought home. With one hand, she began unfastening the pearl buttons at the front of her dress, while with the elbow of her other arm, she flicked on the living room light switch.
"What's doin', sis?"
Naomi shrieked and spun toward her brother's voice, her heart jumping in her chest. "My God!"
Gerry Jaffe lounged on the couch, his shabby jeans and faded blue work shirt out of place against the silky rose upholstery. He still wore his black hair in an Afro. He had a small scar on his left cheekbone and tired brackets around those full lips that had once driven all of her female friends wild with lust. His nose was the same-as big and bold as an eagle's. And his eyes were deep black nuggets that still burned with the fire of the zealot.
"How did you get in here?" she demanded, her heart pounding. She felt both angry and vulnerable. The last thing she needed in her life right now was another problem, and Gerry's reappearance could only mean trouble. She also hated the feeling of inadequacy she always experienced when Gerry was around-a little sister who once again didn't measure up to her brother's standards.
"No kiss for your big brother?"
"I don't want you here."
She received a brief impression of an enormous weariness hanging over him, but it vanished almost immediately. Gerry had always been a good actor. "Why didn't you call first?" she snapped. And then she remembered that Gerry had been photographed by the newspapers a few weeks before outside the naval base in Bangor, Maine, leading a demonstration against stationing the Trident nuclear submarine there. "You've been arrested again, haven't you?" she accused him.
"Hey, what's another arrest in the Land of the Free, the Home of the Brave?" Uncoiling himself from
the sofa, he held out his arms to her and gave her his most charming Pied Piper grin. "Come on, sweetie. How 'bout a little kiss?"
He looked so much like the big brother who used to buy her candy bars when she had asthma attacks
that she nearly smiled. But her temporary softening was a mistake. With a monstrous growl, he vaulted over her glass and marble coffee table and came for her.