Mike was still looking at Samantha, waiting for her to turn to him, but she didn’t. Instead, with all the ostentation, all the sexiness she could manage, she made a fist of her left hand, slowly licked the web of it, poured salt on the wet place, sensually licked the salt away, then lustily tossed back the tequila in one shot, after which she juicily bit into a lime wedge.
“Lord help us,” Nelson whispered, but Mike didn’t say a word, just kept looking at her profile.
Picking up a chip, she reached out to the bowl of salsa.
“Careful of that!” Nelson warned. “Paddy’s stuff is lava.”
Samantha scooped a lot of the salsa on the chip and ate it while Nelson watched in awe. “In Santa Fe we’d feed this to the babies,” she drawled as she drank some of the dark brown Mexican beer. “Let me give you some advice, Nelson. If someone in Santa Fe warns you that something is hot, be careful, but if a New Yorker says it’s hot, laugh.”
“That’s enough,” Mike said, grabbing her upper arm and pulling her out of the bench. Leading her onto the dance floor, he surrounded her in his arms and began a slow dance. “What are you trying to do? Out-macho the guys? If that’s your goal, you’ve done it.”
Rubbing her hips against his, a very serious look on her rather heavily made up face, Samantha said, “Do you think Nelson is the type of person who really cares about the South American rain forests?”
“What’s wrong with you? And who gave you that getup you have on?”
“Don’t you like it?”
“Not on you.”
“Want to take it off?”
Holding her at arm’s length, he looked into her eyes “How much have you had to drink?”
“Not much.” She put her head back down on his shoulder. “Mike, why have you been angry at me today?”
Her words made him soften, or maybe it was the feel of her in his arms, with her hips moving with his, her breasts rubbing against his chest, or maybe it was the sight of her in this outfit that wouldn’t have adequately covered a three-year-old, but he couldn’t remember why he’d been angry at her. “Ahhh, sweetheart.”
She seemed to melt into him further. “You haven’t called me anything but Samantha all day. No Sam-Sam or anything else.”
“You’re killing me, you know that? You’re driving me insane. I think we ought to talk about where we stand with each other.”
“Isn’t that what the female is supposed to say? Then you’re supposed to say that you don’t want to commit, then I say—”
“Why don’t you shut up?” He was becoming involved in the slow undulations of the dance now, his hands moving up and down her back, fingers edging down over her buttocks. For all that either of them were aware of the other people in the bar, they may as well have been alone.
“Do you have any idea how much I want you?”
“I feel some of it right now.”
“Don’t laugh at me, Samantha.”
“Oh, Mike, I’m sorry, it’s just that…”
“What?” he said rather sharply. “What is it? Tell me!”
Pulling away from him, she went back to the table, downed the last of her beer, and turned to leave. It had been a mistake dressing up like a tart and trying to entice Mike, because under the sexy clothes, she was still plain ol’ Samantha Elliot, not a femme fatale. She may have been able to turn herself into a chanteuse while wearing Maxie
’s clothes, but even Blair’s micromini couldn’t make her unafraid of sex, unafraid of ruining everything she had with Mike.
As she turned away from the table, Nelson shoved a piece of paper at her that contained a name and a telephone number. “Call Walden,” he said. “He can tell you lots about Maxie.”
Taking the paper, shoving it into her bra—where it itched—she nodded and turned away.
Mike caught her elbow. “You’re not going without me.” He didn’t say another word as he pulled her outside.
But Mike had other ways of communicating besides words. One minute they were standing on the curb waiting for a taxi and the next Mike had pulled her into the alley beside the bar, his arms going about her as he hungrily began kissing her neck. After the first moment of his passion, Samantha tried to move away from him. When Mike didn’t seem to understand that she didn’t want him to touch her, she had to use force to push away.
Mike, utterly and absolutely frustrated, as well as confused, leaned back against the brick of the building wall, his hands raised above his head, palms out, as though he were nailed to the wall. “Why?” he asked. “Why, Sam? What is it that you have against me? Was that husband of yours so great in bed that you want to enshrine him? You can’t think of another man besides him?”