“How do you know I’m not?” At her stunned expression, he laughed. “Relax. I’m not that subtle. Nor that masochistic. If I’m interested in a woman, I want to do more than peep at her from the bushes. I want to touch.”
He picked up her plastic bottle of suntan oil and poured a drop into his palm. He sniffed it. “Smells like a drink from Trader Vic’s bar.”
“That’s why I bought it.”
“I’m not surprised. Several times last night I saw you smelling the flowers.”
He was rubbing the oil between his palms. The slow, rotating motion of his large hands was getting to Sunny. She blinked rapidly to stave off the trance she felt stealing over her like a fog. “I like perfume.” She noticed suddenly that she was very thirsty. Her tongue was sticking to the roof of her mouth. “I love anything perfumed. Flowers, suntan oil, anything.”
“Have you ever been into that perfumery in New Orleans?”
“The one on Royal?”
“I forget exactly. Somewhere in the French Quarter.” He was rubbing his thumbs along the tips of his fingers, coating them with the slick oil. “I spent an entertaining hour in there once, selecting perfume.”
“For whom?” She’d been watching the movement of his fingers too long. Their wanton enjoyment of the suntan oil had made her drowsy. The question popped out before she realized she’d spoken it. When she did, she snapped back to attention.
“My mother.”
“I should have guessed.”
His smile was lazy. “I didn’t realize until then that fragrance is a science.”
“The formulas are carefully guarded.”
“I don’t mean how it’s made.” He sat up straight and leaned close. “I was talking about the science of applying it.”
Sunny wished he would take off his glasses. It was disconcerting to talk to her own image in their mirrored lenses. But now, when he granted her unspoken wish and removed them, she wanted him to replace them immediately. His eyes were much more unsettling than the opaque sunglasses.
“I always thought it was correct for a woman to dab perfume behind her ears and on her wrists.”
“It is,” Sunny said gruffly.
“Yes, but it evaporates more quickly there. Perfume should either be applied with cotton or sprayed on. I didn’t know until I visited the shop that putting it on with a finger taints what is left in the bottle.”
“It has something to do with one’s own body acid, I believe.”
“And this lady explained to me that to get the maximum benefit of any fragrance, where it blends with a woman’s body heat and emanates the scent every time she moves, she should apply it to—”
“I’ve really got to go in.”
“—her hair...her breasts...her stomach...her... thighs.”
His eyes touched each spot as he spoke the particular word. On the last word, his eyes stayed in the vicinity of Sunny’s lap. “Tell me, Sunny, being the sensuous woman you are, have you ever applied perfume to your”—his gaze moved up with agonizing slowness— “hair?”
For a moment she could say nothing. A bead of sweat rivered down between her breasts. A matching one rolled down Ty’s throat. The insects buzzed lullingly. The faint breeze whispered through the feathery branches of the cypresses, but everything else was still, especially the stare that Sunny shared with Ty Beaumont.
“I think I’d really better go in now,” she said at last. “I might get burned.” She didn’t mean it as a double entendre and hoped he didn’t take it that way. It was difficult to tell exactly what his half smile meant.
“George told me quite a story about you.”
She hated him for bringing her past into their conversation. At the same time she thanked him. It served to yank her out of the muzzy state his deep voice had induced while talking about perfume and its application. Was she nuts? Why hadn’t she gotten up and gone in? Maybe she had been in the sun too long.
“Was it true, Sunny?”
“That depends on what he told you, doesn’t it?” she demanded sharply.
“He said you were one of the prettiest girls in school.”