her now was more paternal than professional, but it still cut her to the quick.
Knowing he cared enough about her to be disappointed, she felt twice as ashamed of herself for letting him down.
“How long have you been here?” he asked.
She couldn’t help but flush. “A few hours.”
He squinted down at her, taking in her messy hair and casual attire. “Go make yourself presentable,” he said. “I need you to work a crime scene.”
Her stomach tightened. “Another victim? Who is it?”
“A local fisherman. Some guy named Arlen Matthews.”
Carly wanted to pay for the movie, but James wouldn’t let her. She had also suggested they skip the movie and go somewhere they could be alone together.
Honor demanded he refuse.
James took his promises very seriously, and he didn’t want to screw up the unspoken truce he and her dad had called over turkey-and-avocado sandwiches the night before. Ben had given James permission to take Carly to the theater, not anywhere else.
She sulked, but in a denim mini-skirt and black sheepskin boots, she looked damned good doing it. Her stretchy plum-colored knit sweater covered up what the top underneath didn’t. This morning, she’d been taunting him with flashes of silky midriff.
James didn’t argue with her choice of movie, even though it was an artsy flick, because he figured that on a date, ladies picked and gentlemen paid. He didn’t get a chance to go to the theater very often, and when he did, he preferred mindless action over thought-provoking drama.
So did everyone else, from the looks of it. Due to either the early-bird show time or the heavy subject matter, the theater was empty.
It dawned on him that she’d chosen wisely. “You have great taste in movies,” he said with a grin.
“Thanks,” she replied glibly, finding a secluded corner in the back row.
The multiplex was the new kind, with comfortable bucket seats and adjustable armrests. He pushed the one between them all the way up.
“Wait,” she said as he reached for her.
He looked around the empty theater. “Why?”
“The lights are still on. Someone might come in.”
James settled back in his seat, watching concession advertisements float across the screen. “Want some popcorn?”
She shook her head.
“Coke?”
“No thanks.”
The lights began to dim. Thank God.
“What do you want?” he whispered, putting his lips against the sweet curve of her neck.
“You,” she said in his ear, making him shiver. Then she pushed him away. “But let’s wait until the movie starts. Lots of people come in during the trailers.”
He groaned and sat back in his seat, counting the moments until he could kiss her. There would be four or five previews, at four or five minutes each. A freaking eternity.
Long before that time was up, he noticed her fidgeting in her seat beside him. In the dark, he couldn’t see what she was doing, but when she pressed a wadded-up ball of fabric in the palm of his hand and said, “Hold these for me,” he figured it out.
His heart started pounding in his chest, blood rushed from his head to his groin, and he swallowed convulsively. Getting rid of the evidence, he shoved her panties into his pocket, afraid someone would shine a spotlight on him and arrest them both for lewd conduct. He’d been painfully eager to kiss her, to make out with her, maybe even feel her up a little bit, but she’d just taken his innocent fantasy right into porno territory. What was a man to do?
Without turning toward her, he placed his palm on her bare thigh, picturing in intense detail what she was wearing. And not wearing.
She took his hand away and put it on his knee, giving him a reassuring pat. “Wait until the movie starts,” she repeated, and continued watching the previews with an incomprehensible serenity.
Sweat broke out on his forehead as he imagined pushing her back against the seat and climbing between her long, slender thighs. “I can’t fuck you in the theater,” he blurted out, loud enough for the first row to hear, if anyone had been sitting there.
Laughing, she covered his mouth with her hand. “Shh! Who asked you to?”
Her panties were burning a hole in his front pocket, and she was wondering where he got the idea?
“We don’t have to do anything,” she said, annoyed by his reticence. “Give me back my panties, and we’ll just watch the movie.”
He shifted in his chair. “No way. I’m keeping them.”
She wasn’t getting her way, and she didn’t like it, so she pouted for a few minutes. Then she said, “I’m going to get popcorn.”
He held her arm. “No you aren’t.”
She shrugged, digging a twenty out of her pocket. “You go, then. I want a small popcorn, a large Coke, and some Red Hots.”
“I can’t,” he grated.
“Why not?”
He brought her hand to his lap and let her feel why not.
“Oh,” she said, giggling. “That would be noticeable at the concession stand.”
In the end, she went herself, because even though he was too stubborn to return her panties, she was too proud to let him order her around. He seethed the whole time she was gone, imagining her flirting with the popcorn boy, whose tongue had already been hanging out when he’d watched her walk by on the way in.
If he only knew.
She got back, set the popcorn tub between her legs, and invited him to grab a handful. He declined.
James tried to pay attention to the movie, but it was a lost cause. Instead, he concentrated on stifling his overactive imagination.
Halfway through the movie, she asked, “What are you going to do with my panties?”
He turned to look at her beautiful face. In the flickering light, her hair was as black and shiny as a raven’s wing. “What do you think I’m going to do with them?”
“Try them on?” she guessed.
He couldn’t help but laugh. Then consider. “No,” he decided. “At least, not the way you mean.”
She crinkled up her cute little nose, not following his train of thought. “You’re not going to smell them, are you?”
He smiled at her ignorance. It was the least he was going to do. “You should have thought of that before you gave them to me.”
She bit into her lower lip, concerned. “What if they smell like…”
“Like what?” he teased, looking down at her lap. “Popcorn?”
“No.” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Like me.”
“I hope they do,” he replied honestly.
Her breath caught in her throat. “Give them back,” she whispered.
“No,” he said, standing firm. Or sitting firm anyway.
Unleashing the fury of a thousand warrior ancestors, Carly leapt on him and raided his pockets. Popcorn spilled all over the floor. She didn’t find her underwear. What she did encounter gave her pause. “You’ve been hard this whole time?”
He wrestled with his conscience, gave up, and pulled her into his lap, sent over the edge by her touchy-feely version of the Spanish Inquisition. Shoving his hand between her pretty legs, he did what he’d been desperate to do since she’d taken off her panties. “You’ve been wet this whole time?”
She gasped. Then moaned, tilting her hips forward.
He froze, appalled by his own behavior. Turned on by hers.
