Dreaming In Technicolor A Phoebe Grant Novel

Chapter One ; One Kiss Is Worth a Thousand Words ;The time had come, and we both knew it. We were ready. I looked into his Clark Gable eyes as he drew me close and saw the tender love in them, the deep fire of restrained passion. ;I watched his lips--those beautiful, expressive lips--as they slowly drew near. ;I closed my eyes, felt his warm breath, knew the soft touch of his lips on mine. ;Time melted away in the eternity of that kiss. Our first kiss, long awaited. I could almost hear music soar. ;It was Bogie and Bacall, Scarlett and Rhett, Rick and Ilsa, Wesley and Buttercup, Belle and her Beast. Of all the wonderful kisses since the beginning of time, it was one of the best. It was not to be forgotten. ;It was . . . it was definitely not happening. ;I pulled back from my reverie and gazed across the table at my date. And sighed. ;Those lips. Those eyes. That mouth. Those gorgeous Gregory Peck Roman Holiday lips--now closing in on an industrial-sized cinnamon roll. ;I sighed again. I know that old song says a kiss is still a kiss. But when you're not being kissed at all, who cares what Sam the piano player says? ;". . . thought we could hit Macy's first." Alex Spencer put down his roll and blew on his cappuccino with those wonderful, full lips before taking a sip and giving me a questioning look across the cafe table. ;"Sounds good." I gulped my mocha, noticing as I did a trace of foam on his adorable mouth. Is this man ever going to kiss me? ;Alex and I had been dating for three weeks now. Twenty-two days, actually, but who's counting? And things were going well. Quite well, in fact, considering our love-hate, mistaken-motives history. And the fact Alex was my new boss. And the whole kissing issue, of course--not that I'm obsessing about it or anything. ;But they were going so well that in just a few minutes we were going to cross an important dating threshold: Alex was taking me shopping. In San Francisco. And since we'd never shopped together, I was a trifle nervous. ;What if Alex turned out to be like most men, who loathe women's favorite sport? ;That's why I'd already had a long talk with my shopping self and stressed that she behave with decorum and restraint. And she'd agreed to be on her best behavior. Unless we went into a shoe store. Then all bets were off. ;Something you should probably know about me. I've had a love affair with shoes ever since I bought my first pair of Candies in high school. And although I'd had a spiritual epiphany of sorts a couple of months ago about scaling back and keeping things simple, that epiphany hadn't reached all the way down to my feet yet. ;Or to my mouth. Or to my kiss-obsessed brain. ;I was trying, though. I knew that the minute my lips locked with Alex's, there would be no scaling back. Also that my drooling might stain his leather bomber jacket, which, I might add, fit him extremely well and gave him a rakish, Brandoesque charm. So in an attempt to keep my smitten self in check, I resumed our favorite sport. ;"Okay, Filmguy, what's the first Technicolor movie to win an Oscar?" ;He shot me a smug grin as he set down his gooey cinnamon roll. " Gone With the Wind , in 1939. The same year of The Wizard of Oz, where they also made use of that innovative color change. But Gone with the Wind swept the Oscars, and the Wizard[read more]