Page 95 of One Night

"I never will, homeowner or not."

"How about this?" I stop on Casablanca. "Do you like old movies?"

"If they're classics, I don't mind."

"I love old movies. I think they're romantic."

"Old-fashioned romance?" He smiles.

"Exactly. Back when people wrote letters. And men wore suits and hats and women wore dresses and gloves. There was just something romantic about those times. People weren't in such a rush. They took time to get to know each other. It wasn't all about sex."

He chuckles. "They weren't as innocent as you think they were."

"How do you know?"

"In one of my history classes, the professor was talking about it. He basically said people back then were almost as bad as they are now. They just weren't open about it."

"Then how would anyone know if that's true?"

"Historical documents on STD rates. Unplanned pregnancies. Journals people kept. Catalogs with sex toys. There's all kinds of evidence they weren't the prudish people we thought they were."

"They still had romance."

"Maybe, but they also had sex." He smiles. "Although getting through those corsets must've been a bitch for us guys."

I nudge his arm. "It prolonged the foreplay. That's a good thing."

"We've gotta stop talking about this. Foreplay? Sex? It's taking my mind places it shouldn't go. Talk about something else."

"Like what?"

"Anything. Just not sex."

I laugh it off, but the truth is, that short conversation got me aroused too. How did we even get on that topic? Are we trying to make this even harder on ourselves?

He stands up. "Let's go out in the hall."

I pull him back down. "You're funny."

"I'm serious. I have to kiss you. It's been like five minutes."

"You went all day without kissing me."

"Yeah and it sucked. Now come on. Let's go."

"I don't want to go out there. People might walk by and I don't want my neighbors watching us."

"All right." He sighs and leans back on the couch, his eyes on the movie.

My eyes are on him, taking in how hot he is with that strong jaw that compliments his pretty boy face, those deep brown eyes, that dark mussed up hair that looks like he just ran his hand through it. "I suppose if you uh..."

"If I what?" he asks, still watching the TV.

"If you wanted to give me a kiss—just a kiss, nothing more—it'd be okay."

He looks at me, at my lips, then my eyes. I prepare for him to kiss me, but then he says, "That's okay. Let's just watch the movie."

"Wait—what? You're turning me down?"

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