“What is it about Hamlin that women like so much?” Charles demanded angrily.
Cassandra smiled sweetly. “Do you want the answer in inches or feet?”
“He’s a fucking carpenter for God’s sake!” spluttered Charles.
“So was Jesus, darling. Don’t be bitter. Anyway, it’s his father who’s the carpenter. Billy just sticks to fucking. And boy does he know what he’s doing.”
As gratifying as it was to hear Cassandra Drayton sing his praises, the truth was that for all her flirting, Toni Gilletti had yet to allow Billy to seduce her a second time. The longer she held out, the more Billy wanted her.
Toni was like no other girl Billy had ever met. Not only was she a wildcat in bed, she was funny and smart, not to mention a brilliant mimic and natural performer. Her impression of Mrs Kramer, Camp Williams’ elderly proprietress, had her fellow counselors crying with laughter. Toni had balls. Way bigger balls than he did, for all Cassandra’s kind compliments about his attributes. To Charles Braemar Murphy, Toni Gilletti was a trophy, a toy to be enjoyed over the summer. To Billy Hamlin, she was everything. Though he’d admitted it to no one, Billy was head over heels in love. He was determined not just to seduce Toni again, but to marry her.
Toni watched as Billy dived into the water. Just look at that physique. She loved the way the muscles rippled across Billy’s broad swimmer’s back, and the way his powerful arms cut effortlessly through the water like twin scimitars slicing through silk. Charles Braemar Murphy was good looking in a preppy, chiseled sort of way. But he had none of Billy’s raw sensuality, none of that animal magnetism, that predatory, erotic hunger that oozed out of Billy’s pores like sweat.
What Charles did have was a trust fund the size of Canada. With each passing day Toni Gilletti found it harder to decide which she wanted more: Adonis the Love God? Or Camp Williams’s answer to Croesus?
Last night she’d fantasized about screwing Billy again while Charles was making love to her. Lying back on a cashmere blanket, with Charles diligently pumping away on top of her to a soundtrack of Todd Rundgren’s Hello, it’s me – terrible song, but Charles had insisted on bringing along his portable eight track to ‘set the mood’ – Toni remembered what it felt like to be pinned beneath Billy ’s powerful, masculine thighs. If he kept pursuing her like this she was bound to give in eventually. Toni Gilletti could no more stay faithful to an unsatisfying lover like Charles than a lioness could become vegetarian. Billy had been a wonderful lay. She needed fresh meat.
“C’mon Toni! You’re suppothed to be pothum. Try and catch the ball!”
Graydon Hammond looked up at her plaintively. He had his arm around Nicholas Handemeyer, another adorably geeky seven year old and the heir to a vast estate in Vermont. Dark haired Graydon and the angelically blond Nicholas were probably Toni Gilletti’s favorite boys at Camp Williams. For all her carefully cultivated bad-girl ways, Toni was a popular camp counselor and naturally maternal. Her own mother was so interested in shopping and vacations and spending her dad’s money, she’d have been hard-pressed to pick Toni out of a three kid line-up. But in spite of this poor parental example, Toni warmed towards small children and found them a blast to be around: funny, energetic, loving. Best of all they didn’t judge you. Toni loved them for that more than anything.
Today, however, hungover and in serious need of a line of coke, she could have done without the noise, and the questions, and the endless sweaty little hands pawing at her.
“I’m trying, Graydon, OK?” She sounded grumpier than she meant to. “Throw it again.”
“Let me help.”
Billy Hamlin had materialized beside her, his sleek blond head emerging out of the crystal clear water like an otter. Scooping a giggling Graydon and Nicholas up under each arm he dropped them in the shallows, dividing the other boys up into teams and getting the game started. After a few minutes Toni swam over, allowing her bare arm to brush against Billy’s as she retrieved the ball. Just that small hint of physical contract was electric.