Hank stopped on the dark stairs, then pinned her against the wall. “If you and I were engaged or were really dating, I’d think that was a jealous remark. Are you jealous, Amanda?”
“Certainly not. How can I be jealous of you if I am in love with another man?”
“Who would you rather see kissing the pretty shop owner? Taylor or me?”
“I am most used to seeing you kiss any number of women. It’s a wonder you don’t put that as a requirement to join the union: All pretty women must kiss Dr. Montgomery before being allowed to join.”
He laughed at that and moved so she could continue down the stairs. Inside the shop, Amanda forgot about men altogether. She hadn’t been inside a dress shop since she was fourteen and Taylor had arrived. She had been so busy since then trying to keep up with her studies that she hadn’t given much thought to clothes Taylor had chosen sturdy, simple clothes that covered most of her exposed skin. But here were dresses of fragile fabrics, with laces and beading, beautiful transparent silk georgettes, satins, crepe de chines.
She turned to look at Hank.
“Go,” he commanded, laughing at her expression. “Try on everything. Buy whatever you want.”
“Send the bill to my father,” Amanda said before touching a sumptuous blue satin dress.
“I’ll pay for everything,” Hank said quietly to the store owner. He very much liked the idea of having purchased what touched Amanda’s skin. “And put a couple of those in with the dresses,” he said, pointing to pink silk crepe underwear sets that were trimmed with satin.
Amanda tried on the dresses and modeled each one for Hank. She couldn’t describe the way he made her feel, as if she were the most beautiful woman in the world. She chose five dresses and wore the one she’d first seen in the window. They walked together to his car, Hank carrying her packages.
“Do I look all right?” she asked. It was very dark, especially dark where his car was parked. “I mean, if you were a man and I were a woman, an unattached woman, that is, would you be interested…I mean, would you think I looked all right?”
Hank dumped the boxes in the passenger seat of his auto, then took Amanda’s hand and pulled her under the deep darkness of three palm trees. “Amanda,” he said softly, “if you were m
ine right now, I would be so overcome with your beauty that I’d…” He lifted her hand to his mouth and bit the soft, inside fingertip of her longest finger. It wasn’t a kiss, it was more as if he were on the verge of devouring her skin. He began gnawing down her finger into her palm, biting the cup of her palm, sucking at it. His teeth and lips moved to the inside of her wrist, then up and up, pausing for a second at the inside of her elbow, then up again, kissing the most delicate, most sensitive parts of her arm.
Amanda had her head back, her eyes closed as his mouth moved over the lace on her shoulders then across her collarbone, over her right shoulder and down her right arm. He sucked at the palm of her hand then bit at her fingertips.
“Amanda,” he said. He had two of her fingertips in his mouth and she could feel his tongue, his teeth, the hot wetness of the interior of his mouth.
“Yes,” she said, and she meant yes to anything he asked of her.
“If you were mine, that’s what I’d do to you,” he said.
Amanda looked at him, and even in the darkness she could see the hooded look of his eyes, the slight flare of his nostrils. In fascination, as a cobra watches a flute, she watched him move her fingers about in the interior of his mouth. Her body was beginning to weaken, and just as she was ready to fling herself at him, he dropped her hand.
“Let’s get something to eat,” he said and walked to the car to help her in.
She got in, balancing the packages on her lap.
Hank didn’t say much on the way to the restaurant. He knew he was playing with a deadly substance, but he was like an addict and couldn’t help himself. He could take her away from Driscoll; he knew that. But it wouldn’t be fair to either of them. Under Amanda’s beautiful exterior was still the prim little lady he’d first met. She wasn’t the woman for him, no matter how sweet she tasted.
Amanda was thinking nearly the same thing. He was a poor rabble-rouser and he wasn’t the man for her. When he wasn’t touching her she could see him as he was. He was the sort of man a woman had a fling with, but he wasn’t a man a woman should love. The woman who loved him would have a painful future.
She tried to keep that in mind as she watched him driving, his profile outlined in the moonlight and the headlamps. But she kept watching his strong hands on the steering wheel, the way he gripped the shift lever. She saw the muscles in his thighs working as he moved from pedal to pedal.
Hank glanced at her, saw the hungry look in her eyes and forgot about common sense. He put his right hand on her knee and touched silk. “Do you ever wear anything except black silk stockings?”
“Taylor says black is the most refined, the most ladylike color.”
Hank laughed. “He’s either a fool or a connoisseur.”
“I don’t know which either,” Amanda said into the wind.
The quiet little restaurant lay on the outskirts of town, and when Hank stopped the car he paused a moment to look at her.
When he started to say something, Amanda put her fingers to his lips. He looked as if he were about to say something serious. “Let it last while it can,” she said softly. She removed her hand. “How would a fiancé help his intended from the car?”
He smiled at her. It seemed that she knew the rules, that it was a game they were playing and nothing more. “First he might kiss her.”