He looked at her with a curiously blank face. 'Why's that?'
'Why, so you can have the money, of course.'
He shrugged. 'As long as the Riviera's running smooth, I don't care too much about money, Francie.'
'That's ridiculous. Everybody cares about money.'
'I don't.' He went out the door and then almost immediately reappeared. 'Why's there a hamburger wrapper out here, Francie? You haven't been feeding that ugly cat, have you?'
'Don't be ridiculous. I detest cats.'
'Now, that's the first sensible thing you've said since I met you.' He gave her a small, approving nod and shut the door. She kicked the desk chair with the toe of her sandal and once again began counting the cinder blocks.
'Pearl is a
Skeet set Dallie's clubs in the corner. 'You've got to get up pretty early in the morning to put one over on Miss Fran-chess-ka. You shouldn't have left your old magazines lying around, Dallie.'
Dallie shrugged and rubbed a sore muscle in his left arm. 'Who figured she could read?'
Skeet chuckled and left the room. A stab of hurt shot through her at Dallie's comment. Uncomfortable memories of some of the unkind remarks she'd made returned to nag at her, remarks that had seemed clever at the time, but now seemed merely cruel. 'You think I'm awfully funny, don't you?' she said quietly. 'You enjoy telling jokes I don't understand and making references that go right past me. You don't even have the courtesy to mock me behind my back; you make fun of me right to my face.'
Dallie unbuttoned his shirt. 'Jeez, Francie, don't make such a big deal out of it.'
She slumped down on the edge of the bed. He hadn't looked at her-not once since he'd walked into the room had he looked at her, not even when he was talking to her. She'd become invisible to him-sexless and invisible. Her fears that he would expect her to sleep with him in return for sharing the room now seemed ridiculous. He wasn't attracted to her at all. He didn't even like her. As he stripped off his shirt, she stared at his chest, lightly covered with hair and well muscled. The cloud of depression that had been following her for days settled lower.
He pulled off his shirt and tossed it on the bed. 'Listen, Francie, you wouldn't like the kind of place Skeet and I patronize. There aren't any tablecloths, and all the food is deep-fried.'
She thought of the Blue Choctaw and knew he was probably right. Then she looked toward the lighted television screen where something called 'I Dream of Jeannie' was coming on for the second time that day. 'I don't care, Dallie. I love fried food, and tablecloths are passe anyway. Just last year Mother gave a party for Nureyev and she used placemats.'
'I'll bet they didn't have a map of Louisiana printed on them.'
'I don't think Porthault does maps.'
He sighed and scratched his chest. Why wouldn't he look at her? She stood. 'That was a joke, Dallie. I can make jokes, too.'
'No offense, Francie, but your jokes aren't too funny.'
'They are to me. They are to my friends.'
'Yeah? Well, that's another thing. We have different taste in friends, and I know you wouldn't like my drinking buddies. A few of them are golfers, some of them are locals, most of them say things like
'I seen' a lot. They're not your kind of people.'
'To be totally honest,' she said, glancing toward the television screen, 'anyone who doesn't sleep in a bottle is my kind of person.'
Dallie smiled at that and disappeared into the bathroom to take his shower. Ten minutes later, the door flew open and he exploded into the bedroom with a towel knotted around his hips and his face red beneath his tan. 'Why is my toothbrush wet?' he roared, shaking the offending object in her face.
Her wish had come true. He was looking at her now, staring right through her-and she didn't like it one bit. She took a step back and tucked her bottom lip between her teeth in an expression she hoped looked charmingly guilty. 'I'm afraid I had to borrow it.'
'Borrow it! That's the most disgusting thing I've ever heard.'
'Yes, well you see I seemed to have lost mine, and I-'
'Borrow it!' She backed farther away as she saw that he was building up steam. 'We're not talking about a cup of sugar here, sister! We're talking about a frigging toothbrush, the most personal possession a person can own!'
'I've been sanitizing it,' she explained.
'You've been sanitizing it,' he repeated ominously. ''Been' implies that this wasn't a one-shot occurrence. 'Been' implies that we have a whole history of extended use.'
'Not extended, actually. I mean, we've only known each other a few days.'
He threw the toothbrush at her, hitting her in the arm. 'Take it! Take the fucking thing! I've ignored the fact that you've gotten into my clothes, that you've screwed up my razor, that you haven't put the cap back on my deodorant! I've ignored the mess you make around this place, but I goddamn well am not going to ignore this.'
She realized then that he was truly angry with her, and that, unwittingly, she had stepped over some invisible line. For a reason she couldn't comprehend, this business about the toothbrush was important enough that he'd decided to make an issue of it. She felt a wave of undiluted panic sweep through her. She had pushed him too far, and he was going to kick her out. In the next few seconds, he would lift his hand, point his finger toward that door, and tell her to get out of his life forever and ever.
She hurried across the room. 'Dallie, I'm sorry. Really I am.' He gave her a stony glare. She lifted her hands and pressed them lightly to his chest, her fingers splayed, the short, unpolished nails slightly yellowed from years of being hidden by carmine varnish. Tilting her head up, she gazed directly into his eyes. 'Don't be angry with me.' She shifted her weight closer so that her legs were pressing against his, and then she tucked her head into his chest and rested her cheek against his bare skin. No man could resist her. Not really. Not when she put her mind to it. She just hadn't put her mind to it, that was all. Hadn't Chloe raised her from birth to enchant men?
'What are you doing?' he asked.
She didn't reply; she just leaned against him, soft and compliant as a sleepy kitten. He smelled clean, like soap, and she inhaled the scent. He wasn't going to kick her out. She wouldn't let him. If he kicked her out, she wouldn't have anything or anyone left. She would vanish. Right now Dallie Beaudine was all she had left in the world, and she would do anything to keep him. Her hands crept up over his chest. She stood on tiptoe and circled his neck with her arms, then slid her lips along the line of his jaw and pressed her breasts into his chest. She could feel him growing hard beneath the towel, and she felt a renewed sense of her own power.
'Exactly what do you have in mind with all this?' he asked quietly. 'A little tag team wrestling under the sheets?'
'It's inevitable, isn't it?' She forced herself to sound offhand. 'Not that you haven't been a perfect gentleman about it, but we are sharing the same room.'
'I've got to tell you, Francie, that I don't think it's a good idea.'
'Why not?' She let her eyelashes perform as best they could wearing only dime-store mascara, and moved her hips clqser to his body, the perfect coquette, a woman created only for the pleasure of men.
'It's pretty obvious, isn't it?' His hand slid up to encircle her waist and his fingers gently kneaded her skin. 'We don't like each other. Do you want to have sex with a man who doesn't like you, Francie? Who won't respect you in the morning? Because that's the way it's going to end up if you keep on moving against me like that.'
'I don't believe you anymore.' Her old confidence returned in a pleasant rush. 'I think you like me more than you want to admit. I think that's why you've been doing such a good job of avoiding me this past week, why you won't look at me.'
'This doesn't have anything to do with liking,' Dallie said, his other hand caressing her hip, his voice growing low and husky. 'It has to do with physical proximity.'
His head dipped, and she could feel him getting ready to kiss her. She slipped out of his arms and smiled seductively. 'Just give me a few minutes.' Stepping away from him, she headed toward the bathroom.
