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.
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.”
I lick some of the popcorn butter off my lips, trying to decide. “I guess that depends on your definition of a gentleman,” I finally say. “Isn’t a gentleman the kind of man who takes care of his woman?”
The corner of his mouth curves up. “Oh, yes,” he says, as his finger continues the slow, inexorable path to my core.
I tilt my head back as I draw in a shuddering breath. “Be a gentleman,” I demand as his fingers slide over my slick, wet clit and I spread my legs, wanting more, trying to stay silent, and desperately thankful that he brought us to the back row. “Please,” I beg. “Fuck me like a gentleman.”
“Whatever the lady wants,” he says as he enters me and I pivot my hips, rocking against his hand, getting fucked in a movie theater in front of Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant as my orgasm crashes over me, fast and hard and wonderful.
After making me explode during the Golden Age of Hollywood, Dallas sweeps me away to another era. We’re at the Balcony for dinner and cocktails while we listen to the Glenn Miller-esque sounds of a big band and watch at least half a dozen dancers on the floor in front of us.
It’s wonderful and lovely and sweet and classy.
It’s also frustrating as hell because he hasn’t touched me once since we left the theater. On the contrary, we wasted a forty-five minute drive in the limo sitting politely next to each other while he talked about Hepburn and Cary Grant and Howard Hawks, the director.
I can’t tell if he’s pulling some sort of mind fuck on me or if he regrets the way he’d stroked and filled me during the movie, and almost made me scream louder than the damn soundtrack.
Something’s up, though, and it’s driving me batshit crazy.
“Do you want to dance?” he asks as I take a sip of my martini.
“No,” I say, more sharply than I intended. “I really don’t.”