Impulse by Lass Small Page B

brain of yours? Don’t you do anything without telling me. Do you hear me?”
    “I need to put on my makeup. Will that be all right?”
    “Don’t be sassy. Sassy girls get what’s coming.” He crowded her with his body.
    She tilted up her nose in the sassiest way she could, being new at that, too. She replied, “You don’t scare me. Not for another hour, anyway!”
    “I travel light and this is the only other tux shirt I have with me. But don’t let that make you reckless, woman.” His eyes were squinted, his jaw was forward and his eyes danced with his laughing threats.
    She tilted her own jaw up sideways and looked at him from under long lashes. “Please, please, Mr. Wolf, don’t eat me up.” Her voice lacked any real conviction.
    He deepened his voice awesomely and replied, “All right, Little Red Riding Hood, but your old grandmother was only skin and bones, and I’m still hungry.”
    “Pooh,” she said as she picked up her makeup kit and deliberately swished her hips as she passed him. She looked back, and he was watching her with a smug smile.
    He looked up to her watching eyes, and he took a long step and swatted her bottom. “That’s what happens to sassy women.”
    “Oh!” she said elaborately surprised. “I was afraid of something else entirely!”
    His green eyes glinted. “That, too.”
    * * *
    She was bending over the lavatory with her face next to the mirror as she put on her mascara when, dressed, he came to lean in the doorway to watch her. She ignored him and continued her makeup.
    Finished, she turned toward him, and he was simply gorgeous in his formal clothing. He said, “You were already perfect.”
    “Will you do this?” She handed him the chain with its lovely pearl.
    “You’re going to wear it?” He was inordinately pleased. “My thrift-shop pearl with that lovely gown?”
    “I think the dress will hide it.”
    “Not that dress.” He clasped the lock and deliberately leaned around her shoulder to watch the pearl slowly slide down into place.
    She tsked her tongue once as if in irritation and complained, “The neck’s too low. The pearl shows. Darn.”
    He dipped his fingers into the neckline, nudging the rounds that met there. “If the chain was a little bit longer, these would keep the pearl polished and glowing.”
    She held the pearl, looking at it. Then she looked up at him and told him, “It’s a beautiful pearl.”
    “So are you.”
    She tilted her head back and considered him. “You’re an awesome man. I wish I’d already had my fill of other men.”
    He almost smiled as he told her confidently, “You have. You just haven’t realized it, yet.”
    “How could I have my fill when you’re my first?”
    He spread his hand openly. “You don’t need any other men. I’m all you need.”
    “Nonsense.”
    “Can I kiss you?”
    “Carefully.”
    * * *
    The cocktail party was a noisy, laughing, sluggishly moving maelstrom. “So this is the...new ‘cousin.’” The betraying quotes were obvious even in speech.
    Quite boldly Amy said to Chas, “They don’t believe I’m a cousin.” She told him that just to see what he would reply.
    Since he was honest, would he tell the truth and agree with his relatives? She watched his lips as they said, “In good time, they’ll get used to the idea.”
    A tactful nothing reply.
    * * *
    Kenneth came along through the crowd to say, “Hello, Cousin Amy, I’m sure you missed me terribly, especially with this hunk blundering around and embarrassing you with his domineering edicts? You need a calmer man who will allow you some breathin— ”
    It was Chas who interrupted, “That’s enough, Ken, don’t push me. Did you see what’s-his-name?”
    Kenneth said in an aside to Amy, “An excellent example of exactly what I was saying.” He then raised his eyebrows and looked down his nose at Chas. “Yes. I saw Martin Durwood. He is exactly what Amy warned. I was discreet. I left things vague until we can discuss how