Ричард Деминг - She’ll Hate Me Tomorrow

Like the lazy flick of a whip, his gaze swept the room in one comprehensive glance. As before, the bedroom door was closed and the darkened kitchen door stood open.

“Supplies,” he said, hefting the sack and heading immediately for the kitchen.

He knew by the way she turned her back to him to shoot home the door bolt that nothing was going to happen immediately. Nevertheless he cradled the sack in his left arm in order to leave his right hand free when he entered the kitchen and flicked on the overhead light.

The kitchen was empty, unless someone was concealed in the pantry. As he opened the bottles and began to mix drinks, he kept one eye on the pantry door.

The woman had come to the kitchen doorway and stood watching him mix drinks. Under the bright overhead light her dark blue negligée became almost transparent and he could clearly see the whiteness of her body beneath it. The plump roundness of her bosom and the darker circles of her nipples beneath the filmy material would have heated his blood under normal circumstances, but as things were the sight of her near nakedness did nothing to him.

He had no intention of letting her suspect his coldness, however. When he finished making the drinks, he carried both glasses over, handed her one and deliberately ran his gaze up and down her body.

“That outfit becomes you,” he said admiringly.

“Thank you, sir.”

Taking his free hand, she led him over to the rustic sofa. When he seated himself next to her, she shifted closer to press her thigh intimately against his. She smiled at him over the top of her glass.

“Bumps,” she said.

He clinked his glass against hers and took a sip. Raising hers to her lips, she tilted it and let the liquid flow steadily down her throat until the glass was empty.

When she set it down on the cocktail table before them, he said, “My, you must have been thirsty.”

“Just shamelessly eager to get past the preliminaries,” she said, rubbing her shoulder against his and looking up at him invitingly.

He took another sip of his drink and set it down. Instantly her arms crept about his neck and her lips raised to his.

He knew it wasn’t a very romantic thing to do, but he didn’t close his eyes for the kiss. He kept one on the bedroom door and the other on the open door to the kitchen. But after a few moments, because he knew it would be expected of him, he began to let one hand roam. Slipping it into the opening of the negligée, he cupped a plump breast and gently massaged its tip with his thumb and forefinger.

“O-o-h,” she breathed against his lips. “If you only knew what that does to me.”

He doubted that, this time, it did anything, for her flesh remained cool to his touch and the nipple remained soft between his fingers. On his previous visit, with no gunmen lurking in the other room to distract her attention, he was sure her passion had been genuine even though at the time she was deliberately setting him up for a subsequent trap.

But tonight there was no convulsive pressing of her body against his, no squirming as though she couldn’t stand what he was doing to her. Even the long drawn out “O-o-h” had a theatrical ring to it.

Slipping from his arms, she stood up. “You’re too formally dressed, Clancy. Let me hang up your coat.”

Obediently he came to his feet, slipped off the coat and handed it to her.

“Get comfortable by taking off your tie, too,” she suggested.

Loosening the tie, he stripped it off, handed it to her and unbuttoned his collar.

“Be right back,” she said, carrying the garments into the bedroom and closing the door behind her.

When she came out again, he had lighted a cigarette. She frowned at the gun under his arm.

“You going to make love to me wearing that?” she asked.

“I guess I don’t need it here,” he said with a smile. Slipping out of the harness, he carried it over to the mantel.

Immediately she went over and picked it up. “I’ll hang it in the closet with your coat,” she said, and disappeared into the bedroom again.

When the bedroom door re-opened this time, Ross expected a man to appear with a gun in his hand. But to his surprise only the smiling woman emerged and pulled the door closed behind her. Returning to the couch, she patted the cushion next to her invitingly.

Tossing his cigarette into the fireplace, he resumed his seat next to her.

When she moved into his arms, he understood the reason for the delay in fireworks. Whitey Cord, or whichever of his minions had set this trap, believed in taking no chances whatever. Gluing her lips to his and writhing her body against him, her hands moved here and there over him in pretended caresses. Actually, he realized, she was making sure that he carried no additional concealed weapons.

Her busy hands paused momentarily when she felt the outline of the cartridges in his trouser pockets, but she must have decided that they were bunched keys, or at least weren’t any kind of weapon, for they quickly moved on. She touched every pocket, ran her hands over his legs and, by pretending to massage his back, checked the complete girth of his belt to make sure nothing in the way of a weapon was thrust into it.

Fortunately it didn’t occur to her to feel the inner sides of his forearms.

Deciding to act out his role of unsuspecting patsy all the way, he started to slip the negligée down over her shoulders. As it parted to bare her full breasts, she wriggled from his arms and jumped to her feet, pulling the filmy garment around her again.

He had been wondering what excuse she intended to make in order to leave him alone and get out of the line of fire when the proper moment came. Since last time he had lifted her bodily and carried her into the bedroom, it must have occurred to her that he might do it again, and she would hardly want to be cradled in his arms when the shooting started.

Her solution to the problem was ingenious but hardly romantic. He almost burst out laughing when she circumvented all possibility of being swept up and carried off to the bedroom by announcing, “I have to go to the bathroom.”

Abruptly she turned, ran to the bedroom door and disappeared inside, closing it behind her. Ross moved over near the fireplace and stood facing the bedroom door, one eye on the kitchen door.

Some moments passed before the bedroom door suddenly swung wide open: A pale, powerfully built man with graying hair emerged. In his hand he held a leveled thirty-eight which Ross recognized as his own. Behind him towered the tall, thin figure of George Mott. The bodyguard held a forty-five automatic, but the muzzle drooped downward.

Because the thirty-eight was pointed straight at him, Ross could see into the chambers of the cylinder. He was pleased to see that the pale man hadn’t checked the gun, for it was still empty.

Exposing teeth in a humorless grin, the pale man said, “Hello, sucker. You’ve caused me a lot of trouble.”

“You must be Whitey Cord,” the gambler said calmly. “I thought you might show up in person.” He turned his attention to George Mott. “Aren’t you pushing your luck, George? I told you that you were dead if you ever came back this way.”

Mott stared at the gambler, a little taken aback at his seeming total lack of fear.

The voices were a signal for the burly Bull Hatton to appear in the kitchen doorway. He, too, was armed with a forty-five automatic.

“If it isn’t Beanhead,” Ross said. “You’re pushing your luck, too.”

Hatton was starting to bring up his automatic when Cord said sharply, “I’ll handle this personally.”

The muzzle of the forty-five dropped toward the floor.

“Like you handled Carl Vegas personally?” Ross inquired.

Whitey Cord’s eyes glittered. “Like I handle everybody who gives me a hard time. You get it with your own gun, sucker.”