The Romance and Passion of Fireworks

Fireworks: Grace Kelly and Cary Grant in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1955 "To Catch a Thief"

This bloggie is late? Why? Technical difficulties beyond my control. The USB ports on my computer turned into bad boys and not the kind you want to love. As I said in my personal blog at Kougar Kisses, I’m blaming this on Retrograde Uranus in Aries.

Because of the Fourth of July, as it’s popularly known, or the real name: Independence Day, I recalled the *firework’s kiss scene* in the 1955 Cary Grant movie, To Catch a Thief.

Originally, I saw the movie on late-night TV when I was an older teenager. The film made such a huge impact on me I’ve never forgotten it, lo these many intervening years. In a way, everything about that movie ~ the actors, the passionate romance, the action/suspense plot, the way it was shot/edited, the jewel-intense color, and the fabulous witty dialogue ~ has acted as a romance-story archetype for me ~ one of many. If you’ve never seen this highly sensual and suspenseful silver-screen movie, check it out!

Since the ‘fireworks’ in romance are never over, and for fun... oh, and to simply indulge myself, here’s my writerly take-off on the firework’s kiss scene.

To Capture a Cat Burglar

The instant Sherissy entered the hotel’s sky lounge, Dolan set his drink down. Surreptitiously, he raked his gaze over the gorgeous woman who had him captured, lock, stock and hard-as-a-rock. The dark ironic joke on him, though, he was supposed to capture her. That is, if he wanted to collect the insanely large private bounty on her.

The big catch, it was only collectible if he could prove Sherissy, aka the Wildcat, had stolen the socialite’s rare gem collection.

From a booth near the back wall, he watched her move toward him, her saunter a unique combination of grace and athleticism. The style of her evening gown enhanced her sleek shape, yet displayed her sensual curves, especially her thighs.

With the utter confidence of a pantheress, she eyed him as he stood to meet her. The smoke-black taffeta of her evening gown subtly glistened in the soft illumination, a perfect foil for the bronze-red shade of her hair and the golden ivory coloring of her skin.

Resisting the urge to finger the blue diamond tucked deep inside his jacket pocket, he didn’t resist lingering his gaze on her face. Intentionally, he let the Wildcat know he found the angular beauty of her feline features utterly enchanting.

“Dolan.” Her throaty voice teased him without mercy. He liked it that way.

Sweeping her palm beneath his lips, he pressed a long kiss in the center, and felt her slight shudder. With his own ardor rising like a tropical heat wave, he straightened, then released her hand. “Sherissy, my stunning beauty.”

“Mmmm... the fireworks have already begun. Good.” Her smoldering gaze traveled the length of his body. Damn, but her thorough perusal had him standing ‘at attention’.

“There are certainly sparklers in your eyes, darling. Is it the view?” Dolan offered his arm as his wildcat burglar arched her brows.

“Did I notice... a bulge?” She smiled, slow and seductive. “In your jacket pocket?”

The lissome turn of her hips and the swish of her gown as she moved beside him, then took his arm, was a siren song that played him just right. “I need your opinion on a rare gem. My expertise cannot match yours.”

“Why do you say that? As you can see, Dolan.” With a feline’s light step, she twirled before him. “I have worn no jewelry.”

Her fingers, with their sharp, golden-sparkling nails, traced the bare swells of her bosom. He stared at the enticement she offered, then blinked as she pivoted beside him, once again.

Regaining a portion of his rational mind, he led her toward the lounge’s exit. “Admit it, darling. I know you advised Countess Ralinskova recently on the purchase of a tiara.”

“Did I?”

Smooth and cool as an ice cube, her voice, while the brush of her thigh against his, despite her gown and his trousers, had him blazing with the need to capture her against him and find her mouth with his.

“I have it from the Countess’s own lips.”

He escorted her within the private elevator that would take them to the suite he’d reserved. Once he pressed the panel button, they faced each another. For an instant, their gazes locked. Her jade green eyes flared reminding him of cat’s eyes in the dark.

“Interesting, indeed, Dolan.” Her hand smoothed up his tie. “I am excited by the very thought of watching fireworks with you tonight. The white-hot explosions. The savage passion of colorful fire against the black velvet night.”

“The celebration of bombs bursting in air. Sound and fury all around us.” Trapping her slim hand, Dolan lifted it to his lips. He grazed her fingertips, and the claw-like tips of her nails, over his lips until the elevator halted.

She spun from him, lithe as a puma he’d once observed in the wild. The alluring sway of her hips had him gawking like a youth on his first date. Still, he pursued his quarry. “The tiara was once stolen by the cat burglar known as the Wildcat.”

“Is that so? I had heard she retired from her law-breaking ways.” Twisting at the waist, she smiled in a manner that beguiled him. “Has this Wildcat returned to her nefarious profession?”

“Let’s find out.” Dolan moved toward her, the woman he wanted to capture beneath him. The woman he wanted exclusively for himself. To hell with the damn bounty. Still, he had to know the truth.

“How do we find out?” She lifted her shoulder, her posture a taunt.

“Aren’t you burning to touch it? To hold it?”

“Am I burning... to hold it?”

Her whisper scorched him. He stood so close to her their bodies nearly touched. Their breaths rushed and joined and danced like wind-carried mist.

“Tell me the truth, Sherissy.” Taking hold of her hand, he flattened it over the blue diamond. “Don’t you want to see it gleam and sparkle in your palm?”

With an ache that threatened to blow him apart as if he were a fireworks factory struck by lightning, he waited.

“Show me. Show me, Dolan.” Stepping back from him, she held out her small hand.

The bitterness of disappointment almost drowned him. In the following instant, as he drew the blue diamond out his jacket pocket, he didn’t care. The truth for him. All he cared about was her. His Wildcat woman. Only she wasn’t his. Not yet.

Dolan dropped the gem in her palm, where it glittered like a piece of summer sky. As she held it up, closely examining the blue diamond’s interior, the fireworks display lit up the lavishly furnished room. Spectacular flashes of color added to the sheen of her upswept hair and reflected from the gem’s faceted surface.

“Magical.” Drawn to her as if she’d cast a gypsy love spell on him, Dolan closed the short distance between them.

“No, it’s not magical. Your blue diamond is flawed. Almost worthless.” She pressed it into his palm. “Is that what you wanted to know, Dolan?”

He let the gem fall to the carpet, disturbed because he couldn’t read her emotions. Her eyes shone, flawless and enigmatic, on him. “That was only a test, darling.”

“Am I only a test?” Her low sultry tone bewitched him. “Or, more properly spoken, Dolan, am I only one more conquest?”

He seized her against him, his mysterious cat woman. Swooping toward her lips, Dolan possessed her mouth with a long punishing kiss, born from the primal fires she ignited in him. Like a rosebud about to burst into bloom, Sherissy opened to his desire for her. Surrendering her soft svelte body against him, she looped her arms around his neck, and offered the impassioned fierceness of her kisses.
~~~~~~

May your summer romance reading dreams come true...

Savanna

Savanna Kougar ~ Run on the Wild Side of Romance ~