Hottest Mess (SIN 2)

I swallow. "Why not?"

"Because I want what we've never had. I want you at my side out in the world, even if I can only go so far as to open the door for you or chastely press my hand against your back to guide you through a room. I want normal."

I shake my head, just a little. "We can't have it. Not that kind of normal. Not now. Not ever." I want to kick myself for saying it, because I am relishing this moment. The power of his desire for me is intoxicating, and I want to lose myself in it.

"I know," he says. "But right now, I want the fantasy."

My heart twists, and I nod. "All right," I whisper.

"Then come with me."

I hesitate only long enough to put the flowers in water, and then let him lead me out of the house to where a chauffeur holds open the door to a limo. I turn to him and raise a brow. We both have access to limos, of course, but we rarely use them, opting to drive our own cars or use one of the company's Town Cars.

"I like to impress my dates," he says with a small shrug.

"Consider me impressed, Mr. Sykes."

I have to laugh when we pull up at the Film Forum on West Houston. "Bringing Up Baby," I say, reading the marquee. I turn back to him and realize that he's just a little blurry because I'm looking at him through sentimental tears.

"Good?" he asks.

I manage a nod and a watery smile. "Oh, yeah," I say, my voice a little hoarse. "It's great."

Bringing Up Baby is not only one of my favorite classic films, but it's the last movie that Dallas and I saw together. We were fourteen, and it was the week before Dallas was sent off to London for boarding school. We'd snuck out of the house, just wanting to be together, and had ended up at a Katharine Hepburn film festival.

Nothing had happened, but there'd been so much tension buzzing between us that if I hadn't already seen the movie a half dozen times with my mom, I never would have figured out what was going on. And to this day, I remember the way my entire body hummed when our fingers brushed in the popcorn tub. And how very, very aware I was of the way his knee bumped into mine and our elbows touched on the shared armrest.

That afternoon counts as one of the most sensual times in my life, and yet we didn't do a single thing. Nothing, that is, except want each other.

Now, almost two decades later, I still want him.

Inside, we stop at the concession stand for a bucket of popcorn and two sodas, then head into the dimly lit theater where classic cartoons are playing on the pre-show screen in lieu of modern commercials and trailers.

I expect Dallas to sit dead-center in the theater as he always did when we were kids. But instead he takes my arm as we head to the very back row.

I lift a brow in question and he shrugs. "I want to take you out in public," he says. "But that doesn't mean I don't still value our privacy."

"Oh." I think about that, my body tingling from all the delicious implications as I step into the row and walk carefully to the center seats.

Dallas sits beside me, his hand holding mine, and I realize I'm actually feeling a little bit shy. Like this is a real first date and not a game that we're playing. At least, I think it's a game.

I hope it's a game.

I'd like to say that my mind is more on the movie this time than it was so many years ago, but that would be a lie. I keep my eyes on the screen, true. But nothing seems to stick in my head. I'm too aware of the man beside me. The way his hand feels against mine. The sensual caress of his thumb against my skin.

And then, just when I start to fear that he really did bring me here only to hold hands and watch the movie, he releases my hand and moves his to my thigh. The thigh exposed by the very high slit of my skirt.

He is touching me only above the knee, and the contact is entirely innocent. Doesn't matter. It still burns through me, as fiery as cheap whiskey and at least as intoxicating.

"I love this part," Dallas says, leaning over to whisper in my ear. And I don't know if he means the part of the film where the dog steals the dinosaur bone or the part of the evening where he skims his fingers up my thigh.

I can't ask him, though, because I'm having trouble wrapping my mind around words. We've done so much more, and yet I am so wildly aroused by the simple progression of his fingers up my leg that I'm thanking the fashion gods that my skirt is black, because I'm quite certain it's soaked.

When his fingertip is almost to the juncture of my thigh and pelvis, I place my hand over his. "What exactly are you doing, Mr. Sykes?" I whisper.

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He leans closer so that his breath teases my ear when he replies. "That's up to you. I can be a man who's bold and takes what he wants, or I can be a gentleman. Your call."