* * *
Seven and a half hours later, Penny sat behind the black limousine's tinted windows, feeling like someone else. Which stood to reason, since she'd paused before the mirror in her foyer not long ago trying to figure out who she saw there. With hair volumized by electric rollers that hadn't seen the light of day since high school, makeup that somehow changed the entire appearance of her face, and especially with the little black dress and strappy heels she wore, it was no wonder she couldn't recognize herself.
She'd instructed the driver to stop the limo at the corner of Fourth and Walnut at precisely ten o'clock where a gentleman would be joining her. Only now, as she rode in unnerving silence, did she begin to wonder if the stoic thirty-something driver suspected what was about to happen back here. She pressed the button that raised a dark panel between them.
Eyeing the bottle of champagne in the ice bucket, Penny reached for it. She'd intended to save it for Martin and his seduction, but she needed it now. Hopefully it would calm her down. Filling one of the long, fluted glasses provided, she drained it by half, then paused as the bubbly, tingling sensation skittered through her.
Drinking another quick glass and a half as they neared downtown, she thought she was almost relaxed. But then, maybe relaxed was the wrong word. As it had earlier in Martin's office, fear was beginning to give way to anticipation.
Her fantasy was to make wild love to a man in a moving limousine. It was fairly simple as fantasies went, she supposed, but that made it attainable, too, and something about it just sounded so glamorous and urgent. Although she'd never experienced it, she'd always been fascinated by the idea of two people so truly impassioned that they couldn't even wait to get home.
The limo tooled around the downtown streets, moving past Fountain Square, turning right onto Walnut, soon passing the awning-covered entrance to the Two Sisters Pub, still open for business on a Friday night. But Penny's thoughts had nothing to do with work. Instead, she pondered the black push-up bra and thong panties beneath her dress. No one who knew her would believe she even owned such things, let alone wore them. Oh, she'd always liked pretty lingerie, but the stuff she had on tonight, underneath and on top, fell into a different category. Even she could scarcely believe that good girl Penny Halloran could be this utterly wild! She bit her lip and silently thanked God for inventing champagne. Yet as she gazed out the tinted windows as they circled the block, she suffered a startling thought. What if somehow the windows weren't really tinted well enough? What if somehow people on the street or in other cars could actually see in? She knew it was a crazy thought, but the idea of being seen was almost enough to squelch the delicious bit of naughtiness that had begun to bite pleasantly into her spine. She wanted to be wild, she wanted to give herself over to complete abandon, she wanted to be everything for the man she was about to seduce, but she also wanted to shut out the rest of the world, make sure they both knew they were the only two people involved.
So Penny reached up and drew the tiny shade over the window next to her, snapping it shut at the bottom, then moved about the whole interior of the limo, darkening every window the same way.
When she was done, the inside of the car was as black as a cave. Martin wouldn't be able to see her-her voluminous hair, her crimson lips, her sexy, clinging dress. But at least he would be able to feel that part, then peel it off her, so maybe that was all that mattered. Their hands, their bodies-all exploring and connecting. And of course, if she really did want Martin to see her, she could easily flip on the overhead light … But maybe, she decided, this whole thing would be easier to accomplish in the dark.
With that in mind, Penny reached up to the car's ceiling and located the switch that controlled the interior light. Shifting it until the overhead bulb came on, she studied the settings: On, Off and Door. She didn't even want Martin to see her when he stepped inside the car, so she moved the switch to Off, immersing herself in a darkness that wouldn't be interrupted when the door opened.
The truth was, an old nemesis had begun to return over the last few minutes. Fear, nervousness. She'd never done anything so completely contrary to her normal self, and at the moment-champagne or no champagne-she was beginning to grow uncertain if she could pull this off without feeling like an idiot. What on earth would Martin think? What if he didn't like it? What if he thought she was easy, sleazy? What had she been thinking to rent a limousine just for the purpose of having sex in it?
Penny was a heartbeat away from forgetting the whole idea of seduction, and instead trying to convince Martin she'd intended nothing more than a fun evening of champagne and barhopping on
Main Street
, when the limo pulled to the curb, gliding to a slow stop.
They were at Fourth and Walnut; Penny could feel it. And somehow, just arriving there, just knowing she stood on the very brink of either embracing her desires or running from them, girded her strength in a way she'd never imagined.
Penny swallowed hard, determined to take this bold leap into sexual abandon without looking back. This was it, the beginning of something wild.
* * *
As Ryan pushed through the revolving brass doors that led out to
Walnut Street
, the sultry summer air hit him like a brick. He thought to reach up and loosen his tie, but instead tightened it a little instead, wanting to look good for his date, or at least as good as a guy could look after working fourteen hours straight. It had seemed silly to drive home, then come back to meet Penny, when there was plenty he could do at the office. He intended to make a good impression on Martin and go places in this company, and he figured there was no time to start like the present.
The glow of streetlamps lit the city night, but when he glanced at the corner she'd indicated on her note, no one was there.
Well, no one but whoever sat in that shiny black limo. A matching black-clad driver stood at the car's door.
Ryan shifted his gaze to the green awning bearing the familiar Two Sisters logo-a cartoonish line drawing of two women, one holding up a hamburger, the other a mug of beer-and wondered if Penny might be inside. But no, she'd said the corner, so he'd wait there for a few minutes before looking elsewhere.
When he checked his watch at five after ten, he glanced up to see that the limo still lingered. And only then did it dawn on him. Could she possibly be inside it?
Nah, surely not. Not Penny the Sandwich Girl.
Yet for some reason he kept staring at the limo, and the longer he stared, the more he began to think, maybe. After all, the damn thing had been sitting at the corner since he'd walked out at ten on the dot. It seemed an elaborate first date, but the idea that she was inside began to press on him.
Even as he took a few tentative steps toward the big, black car, he actually debated forgetting this whole thing. He had the odd sense now that perhaps this "uncomplicated girl" was a little more complicated than she'd seemed. Yet something, call it curiosity, a simple Alice-in-Wonderland need to see what lay down the rabbit hole, drew him toward the car.
His heartbeat increased as he got nearer, wondering what awaited him. And even as his better judgment told him to turn around and walk away, to go get a drink somewhere by himself and then go home, curiosity bloomed into a pinch of excitement in his chest.
"I'm supposed to meet a woman here named Penny," he said to the driver.
The man responded by opening the car's door.
Ryan stepped into the cool air of the limousine with total confidence. Only when he sat down and the door shut behind him did he realize he'd been immersed in total darkness.
"Are you surprised?"
Ryan tried to formulate an answer, at least relieved to hear that the voice did belong to Penny.
"Wait, don't answer that," she said as the limo pulled away from the curb. "In fact, don't say anything at all. Let me do all the talking. I'm sure you find this pretty unconventional, but I just had to do it. I just wanted to do … something special, something crazy, something wild. For once in my life, I just wanted to lose all my inhibitions, so … " she paused to swallow audibly, nervously " … I hope you won't think this is awful of me. I hope it's a part of me you'll be able to … fully appreciate, since, in all honesty, it's a side of myself I just discovered and I want to get-" her voice dropped to a provocative tone now "-really intimate. So just sit back, relax, and let me make you feel good."