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“I told you to shtay where you are.”
“Let go of me.” Rusty wrested her arm free. She was as apprehensive now as she was angry. This wasn’t a silly drunk’s prank, or an argumentative drunk’s unreasonableness. She tried convincing herself that Cooper wouldn’t hurt her, but then she really didn’t know, did she? Maybe alcohol was the catalyst that released his controlled violence. “Leave me alone,” she said with affected courage.
“I don’t plan on touching you.”
“Then what?”
“Call this a masochistic kind of...self-fulfillment.” His eyelids drooped suggestively. “I’m sure you can substitute the correct name for it.”
Rusty went hot all over with embarrassment. “I know the correct name for you. Several, in fact.”
He laughed. “Save them. I’ve heard them all. Instead of thinking up dirty names to call me,” he said, after sipping from his mug, “let’s talk about you. Your hair, for instance.”
She crossed her arms over her middle and looked toward the ceiling, a living illustration of supreme boredom.
“You know what I thought about the first time I saw your hair?” He was undaunted by her uncooperative spirit and refusal to answer. Leaning forward from the waist, he whispered, “I thought about how good it would feel sweeping over my belly.”
Rusty jerked her eyes back to his. His were glazed, and not entirely from liquor. They didn’t have the vacuous look of the seasoned drunk. The dark centers of them were brilliant, fiery. His voice, too, was now clear. He wasn’t slurring his words. He made it impossible for her to misunderstand him—even to pretend to.
“You were standing in the sunshine out on the tarmac. You were talking to a man...your father. But then I didn’t know he was your father. I watched you hug him, kiss his cheek. I was thinking, ‘That lucky bastard knows what it’s like to play with her hair in bed.’”
“Don’t, Cooper.” Her fists were clenched at her sides. She was sitting as tall and straight as a rocket about to be launched.
“When you got on the plane, I wanted to reach out and touch your hair. I wanted to grab handfuls of it, use it to move your head down even with my thighs.”
“Stop this!”
Abruptly he ceased speaking and took another draught of whiskey. If anything, his eyes grew darker, more sinister. “You like hearing that, don’t you?”
“No.”
“You like knowing you’ve got that kind of power over men.”
“You’re wrong. Very wrong. I felt extremely self-conscious about being the only woman on that airplane.”
He muttered an obscenity and took another drink. “Like today?”
“Today? When?”
He set his cup aside without spilling a single drop. His coordination, like his reflexes, was still intact. He was a mean, nasty drunk, but he wasn’t a sloppy one. He leaned forward, beyond the edge of his chair, putting his face within inches of hers.
“When I came in and found you bundled up naked in that blanket.”
“That wasn’t calculated. It was an error in judgment. I had no way of knowing you would come back so soon. You never do. You’re usually away for hours at a time. That’s why I decided to take a sponge bath while you were gone.”
“I knew the minute I came through the door that you had bathed,” he said in a low, thrumming voice. “I could smell the soap on your skin.” His eyes moved down over her, as though seeing bare skin rather than her heavy, cable-knit sweater. “You favored me with a peek at your breast, didn’t you?”
“No!”
“Like hell.”
“I didn’t! When I realized the blanket had slipped I—”
“Too late. I saw it. Your nipple. Pink. Hard.”
Rusty drew in several uneven breaths. This bizarre discussion was having a strange effect on her. “Don’t say any more. We promised each other not to be abusive.”
“I’m not being abusive. Maybe to myself, but not to you.”
