Hot Pink

by Susan Johnson

  “Let me know when the ‘maybe’ changes to a ‘no.’ ” Twisting away, she moved toward the bed. If anyone should be questioning anyone’s sexual impatience, Rocco was hardly the poster child for the Just Say No abstinence club.

  She lifted her blue striped T-shirt over her head, dropped it on the floor, unzipped her white capris, slithered out of them and her bikini underwear, kicked off her blue straw mules and dropped onto the bed in a sprawl. “Should I turn on the TV? Are you leaving?”

  Not likely with her lying there naked. He reached for the buttons on his shirt.

  “I thought you might stay.” Soft sarcasm in her voice, assurance in her smile.

  He didn’t answer. He kept undressing with swift efficiency, shirt, slacks, boxers, shoes, all discarded in under ten seconds. “You make it hard to leave,” he murmured, easing his body over hers. “Real hard.”

  “I just love when you’re hard,” she purred, twining her arms around his neck, having him just where she wanted him, between her legs—umm . . . inside her—oh, God, all the way inside her . . . oh, God, just like that. “Don’t move, don’t move, don’t move . . .”

  “Just a little,” he whispered, pressing deeper. Her blissful sigh warmed his throat, her arms tightened and she started to come like she did, almost instantly. But driven by jealousy, he didn’t let her come, withdrawing enough to stop her from peaking, bringing her up again only to leave her hanging, deftly teasing and temporizing and teasing again until she said, fiercely, gazing at him from under the fringe of her lashes, “I’ll come with or without you in about a second. You decide what you want to do.”

  Something about the look in her eyes, the amusement beneath the smoldering heat, reminded him of the allure in mutual satisfaction, tempted him to recall the tantalizing pleasures they’d shared, effectively subdued his mindless jealousy. Suddenly smiling, he drove back in, held himself hard against her womb and softly counted, “One, one thousand, two, one thousand, three—”

  She was only off a second and a half.

  He was no more than a nanosecond behind.

  Afterward, they laughed and kissed, she giggled in delight and he smiled down on her as though he’d just won the lottery. No one mentioned jealousy after that, or Amy, or anything remotely disagreeable. He made love to her like a man who’d gone a week without sex. She returned his passion like a woman who had met the man she most wished to share her bed with.

  After the initial frenzy of their reconciliation was over, after they’d reached a level of orgasmic contentment, he leaned over the edge of the bed, reached for his slacks, extracted the perfume from his pocket and rolled back beside her. “Should we test its effectiveness? See exactly how hot Hot Pink can be?”

  “I think it’s working even from inside the bottle.”

  “A touch of lavender, cucumber and pumpkin’s been added to the formula. It’s supposed to increase blood flow to the penis by forty percent.”

  Chloe smiled. “That’s good news.” She glanced at his lovely undiminished erection, then at the clock. “Will that little bottle last long enough?”

  He grinned. “Greedy. I’ll get more tomorrow. How about a test run?” Taking the pink flower stopper from the bottle, he ran the stopper down her cleavage as she lay half reclining on a mass of pillows, then slowly circled the soft mounds of her breasts. Putting the stopper back in, he shook the bottle gently and, lifting the flower again, traced a path up the inside of her legs, drawing the cool glass over her upper thighs with deliberate concentration, stopping just short of her throbbing labia. “I don’t want this to sting you . . . the alcohol,” he murmured, sliding the forefinger of his left hand up her glistening slit as though testing her readiness.

  “It definitely has potential as an aphrodisiac,” she whispered, stretching luxuriously, the sultry scent enveloping her, the cool path left by the perfume on her skin tingling slightly, reminding her of what he’d done to her—of what more he could do . . . of the intense pleasure she felt when he was buried deep inside her.

  Her eyes half-shut, she felt his hands follow the perfume circuit, his palms warm, the scent rising in the air, sexual promise in his touch, in the fragrance filling the room.

  “I think it’s working. Look.” He came up on his knees so she could see his engorged penis standing hard against his stomach. “That study was on the mark.”

  The sight of his towering penis always instantly connected Chloe’s vision to brain to libido to genitals and now was no exception. Lifting her arms to him, she opened her thighs, arched her hips upward and smiled. “Let’s measure. See if you’ll fit.”

  She was slick, gleaming wet, needy and he wasn’t sure it was the perfume, his ravenous desire or the thought of trying to fit that was making him so horny. But whatever it was, he was more than willing to test his and the perfume’s limits. “This could get out of hand.” His voice was deep and raspy as he lowered himself over her, an insatiable lust pounding at his brain.

  “I don’t care,” she said, her breathing erratic, clutching at his shoulders, trying to draw him in. “Hurry . . .”

  He entered her swiftly, a plunging, fierce downthrust.

  She cried out in rapture; he felt as though his heart had stopped for a moment and they both understood that no matter how much they might disagree, on this one matter they were in sync.

  The sex that time was more perfect than the previous perfection.

  Hotter, purer, delightfully aromatic.

  It was the honey-sweet prize for a weekend from hell.

  It was the candy house at the end of Candy Land Lane.

  And they lay in each other’s arms afterward as though they’d both discovered the true path to paradise, contentment melting through their bones.

  THIRTY-TWO

  WHETHER IT WAS THE SHRILL SCREAMS, THE pounding on the door, the ringing doorbell or the neighborhood dogs barking that woke them, they both opened their eyes at the same time.

  “Rocco! Rocco! Rocco! Open the door!”

  It was the screams.

  It was Amy.

  The voice was clearly recognizable.

  Rocco glanced at the bedside clock and softly swore. He was dead tired after the sleepless last few days. Eleven-thirty at night. Fuck. “I’ll take care of this,” he muttered, dredging up the necessary energy, easing Chloe’s head off his shoulder. “Stay here,” he said, rolling away.

  “I’ll take care of her. If she doesn’t shut up, Mrs. Gregorich will call the cops.” Shaking herself awake, Chloe rose from the bed. But nothing wanted to function after only twenty minutes of sleep, and she stood, eyes shut, willing herself to move.

  “Rocco, I know you’re in there with that slut!”

  That did it. Eyes wide open, Chloe snatched up her robe from the chair by the bed.

  “You shouldn’t go down there.” Rocco was almost dressed, his pants on, his shirt half-buttoned. “I’ll see that she goes home.”

  Chloe knotted the tie of her robe with a jerk. “You know what—I’m kinda in the mood to send her on her way myself.”

  Oh, fuck. “Just don’t get too close to her. She’s unpredictable.” He’d seen Amy throw rocks or anything she could get her hands on at Steve so many times over the years, he knew she didn’t aim for legs.

  “I think I’m pretty well primed for her unpredictability,” Chloe snapped, moving toward the door.

  “All the same, stay behind me,” Rocco said, beating her to the bedroom door.

  He ran down the hallway and leaped down the stairs, three at a time, hoping to defuse the situation as much as he could before Chloe arrived. But she was fast and damned adept at leaping down stairs herself. When he jerked open the door at the bottom of the stairs, stepped outside and growled, “Would you stop your damned screaming,” Chloe was only a second behind.

  “How can you be sleeping with her, when I’m going to have your baby?” Amy cried, her screams having shifted dramatically to a pitiful wail.

  Oh, God, oh, God, oh, G
od, the voice inside Chloe’s head started shrieking before Amy had even finished speaking. OH, GOD, NOOOOOOO!

  At a sharp gasp and a murmured, “Mother of God,” Chloe swiveled around to see Mrs. Gregorich in her robe standing on the sidewalk between their houses.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Rocco snarled, advancing on Amy as though he were about to do her bodily harm.

  “I just found out.” She smiled and held up a pregnancy kit box.

  He stopped dead in his tracks.

  “Are you coming with me, Daddy Dearest?”

  “You’d better go,” Chloe muttered.

  Rocco turned to Chloe. “It’s not true.”

  “Of course it’s true, darling,” Amy replied silkily, lifting the box with a little wavy motion, looking smug and triumphant, looking way overdressed in a white silk pantsuit and aquamarine shell jewelry.

  “In my day, people waited until they were married for these kinds of shenanigans,” Mrs. Gregorich said with a couple of tsk, tsks and a lowering frown. “You could do much better, Chloe.”

  “Who are you?” Rocco grumbled, glaring at the elderly woman.

  “Someone whose sleep was disturbed by your . . .” Mrs. Gregorich paused, momentarily at a loss for the proper word.

  “Well, go back to sleep,” Rocco muttered. “The party’s over.”

  “Rocco,” Chloe hissed, not sure he should talk to an old lady like that, although Mrs. Gregorich was a damned nuisance, monitoring everyone’s activities in the neighborhood with the vigilance of a KGB operative.

  “Don’t start.” Rocco glared at Chloe like she was the enemy.

  “It will serve you right if they throw you in jail,” Mrs. Gregorich said sharply, scowling at Rocco. “Men like you.”

  As if on cue, a police car turned the corner, sans siren at that time of night or maybe sans siren because Mrs. Gregorich made a habit of calling the police and they weren’t about to wake up the neighbors for her latest complaint.

  Silence descended on the small group outside Chloe’s door as the police car pulled up and two policemen got out.

  Shit, Chloe thought. This is going to be embarrassing. Maybe Mrs. Gregorich should try sleeping pills at night. Not that she wasn’t pissed as hell at Rocco, but the police really weren’t required for this problem. A priest or minister maybe. Someone to let out the seams on Amy’s wedding gown for sure.

  “What’s going on here, folks?” The tallest of the policemen spoke.

  “It’s a misunderstanding.” Chloe smiled what she hoped was a bland, this-is-all-a-mistake smile.

  “What kind of misunderstanding? We had a complaint.”

  “This woman woke me up in the middle of the night with her screaming,” Mrs. Gregorich said, pointing at Amy. “A person has the right to a quiet night’s sleep. It’s not proper to wake up the whole neighborhood.”

  The officers glanced down the darkened street. No house lights were visible.

  “She was just about to leave, officers,” Rocco interposed. “Weren’t you?” he added, giving Amy a threatening look.

  “Yes—yes, I was.” Amy slipped the pregnancy kit box farther behind her back. “I shouldn’t have come over to visit so late.”

  “Visit, my foot,” Mrs. Gregorich snorted. “This here man”—she nodded at Rocco—“has a lot to answer for.”

  The policemen scanned the group. “Anyone care to make a formal complaint about anything?” They knew Mrs. Gregorich never did.

  Her father would be displeased if he had to come and get her from jail, Amy understood. Her mother would be shocked. “It was my fault, officers, and I apologize. I shouldn’t have come over at this time of night.”

  “You okay with this, Mrs. Gregorich? Everything quiet enough for you to sleep now?”

  Mrs. Gregorich curled up her nose and sniffed. “It was disgraceful—the noise and shouting, not to mention other even more disgraceful things. I don’t know what the world’s coming to when young people—”

  “I think the shouting is over, Mrs. Gregorich,” the tall policeman who seemed to be the spokesman interrupted. He surveyed the group. “Everyone agreed on that?”

  A multitude of nods and affirmatives acknowledged his question, although Mrs. Gregorich was still muttering under her breath.

  “All right then.” The policeman nodded. “Everyone go home and let’s not make a habit of this.”

  His last phrase was intended to be a warning to Mrs. Gregorich, but she looked him right in the eye and didn’t blink. “I have my rights too,” she said, the tight curls of her perm quivering with her indignation. “I’m a taxpaying, law-abiding citizen.”

  The policeman shrugged and turned away, his silent colleague, who’d looked the entire time as though he’d rather be somewhere else, following in his wake.

  Giving Rocco the evil eye, Mrs. Gregorich said, “You should come to church, Chloe, and you’d meet the right kind of men—proper men who treat women with respect.”

  How did one respond? Chloe was in shock for a number of reasons, not the least of which was Mrs. Gregorich’s last comment. As if, she thought. The last time she looked, the men in Greek Orthodox congregation Mrs. Gregorich was referring to were over sixty, probably more like over seventy. “I’m going to bed,” she said, in lieu of discussing her dating philosophy apropos of men over seventy. Turning

  away, she walked to her door. Mrs. Gregorich could stand on the sidewalk all night as far as she was concerned. Nosy old coot.

  And Rocco had his hands full. Really. A baby. Wasn’t that just about the cutest thing one could hear in the middle of the night after a proposal of marriage from the proud papa? She put the security chain in place. Let him try the fucking code now.

  As she walked up the stairs, she called herself every kind of stupid for not having sense enough to send Rocco packing when she’d first see him walking toward her earlier that evening. Lord, she was gullible—stupid and gullible and ready to believe anything he said because she wanted him. Even when she knew better. Even when she knew he could talk any woman into bed. Even when she’d promised herself to stay away from him.

  So much for rational thought in close proximity to Rocco Vinelli.

  Had he ever been turned down in his life?

  She pretty well knew the answer to that, she thought, fuming with rage.

  This perfume is for you, he said.

  I named it for you, he said.

  If her name happened to be Hot Pink, maybe he had, damn his lying heart.

  Walking into the bathroom, she turned on the shower and stood under the steaming water, washing off every last residue and scent of Rocco and his lying-ass perfume.

  Then she turned on the television, wanting to know he’d been lying about the ads too and found to her consternation that they were being aired—teaser ads promoting the introduction of Hot Pink next month. Not that it made anything any better or different or true. He could run that ad for ten thousand women he’d pretended to name the perfume for.

  Jesus God, she was witless.

  She’d fallen into bed with him in all of fifteen minutes after she’d seriously promised herself that she was turning over a new leaf. That she was on a search for meaning in her life and relationships. That hot sex was no longer enough—or even necessary . . . well, maybe she’d not gone that far. After all, sex was a normal healthy function, essential to well-being and contentment and mental feng shui. But certainly, she’d promised herself to be a tad more discriminating.

  And she’d believed all that crap about the nonengagement and Amy’s mental stability—although she couldn’t take issue with his assessment of Amy’s mental health after her few meetings with her.

  Amy was either a very good actress or off her rocker, and Chloe was betting on the second, supplemented with a good dose of spoiled-child syndrome. Apparently she’d been used to ordering the world to her golden-girl wishes since the cradle. Damn psycho bitch.

  THIRTY-THREE

  ROCCO HAD HEARD THE
SECURITY CHAIN slide into place—not that it mattered. He had to take care of business first anyway. “Give me your car keys,” he ordered, putting out his hand.

  Amy gave him a small considering look before deciding his growl meant business. But as she handed over the keys, she said, pettishly, “She’s not your type.”

  “Shut the fuck up and get in your car.” Without waiting for an answer he walked to the driver’s door, opened it, slid inside and started the car.

  No one spoke until they were through downtown and out on 394.

  Rocco was trying to keep from choking her.

  Amy was watching the tick in Rocco’s cheek and sensibly waiting for his temper to cool.

  “I’m taking you home and talking to both your parents,” he said, as they moved toward the beltway. “You’re not going to keep doing this to me.”

  “They won’t like to hear that I’m pregnant and it’s your child.”

  “They won’t like to hear that you’re lying.”

  “They’ll believe me over you.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t think so. I talked to your father. He knows I haven’t dated you for a year.”

  “I’ll tell him you have . . . although I don’t suppose it has to be an actual date to get pregnant,” she murmured coyly.

  “Tell him anything you damned well please. I’m done with this crap from you.” He punched the accelerator.

  Amy had spent a lifetime manipulating her parents, but the talk she’d had with her father on Friday had made her squirm. He’d kept asking her questions she didn’t like—about when Rocco had asked her to marry him, about the engagement, about their dating. He’d never been so blunt with her. He’d also never taken someone else’s side against her. And now Rocco was going to confront her parents with what she’d said about a baby.

  She quickly weighed her possible losses—Rocco against her parent’s adoration—and found herself opting for the luxury of her life. On the bright side—she might have done enough damage to Rocco’s relationship with that woman so it was beyond salvage anyway. Perhaps he’d be available after all. Time enough to pursue that path after she made sure to placate her parents. “I apologize for what I said. I’m not pregnant with your child.”