“Come on,” I said. “Let’s get out of this dump.”
Malcolm shook his head quickly. “I really have to get back to what I was doing,” he objected. “It’s my day off, but—”
Before he could finish his sentence, I linked my elbow with his. Malcolm made a little yelping noise, but when I started for the front door, he shuffled along to keep up, following me out onto the street.
“Wait, where are you going?” he finally asked, pausing in front of the bar.
I hadn’t really thought about it. All I knew was that I wanted Malcolm to keep hanging out with me, to keep looking at me the way he was looking at me. He might have had a busy day of errands or whatever, but I just had a crappy, empty apartment waiting for me and a job I didn’t want to go to in the morning. Malcolm was a distraction from all of that—a very sexy distraction.
“To the park,” I said abruptly. “Just a few blocks away. What, you don’t want this date to end already, do you?”
“Date?”
“I bought you a drink, didn’t I? You telling me that’s not a date?”
He blushed a little and turned to look at the sidewalk. I was sure his life in the library didn’t give him many opportunities to run off with a guy like me. The more I stared at him, though, the more I needed him to come along.
I needed to see that look in his eyes, like he was scared to want me.
Like I was powerful.
Like I was a risk.
“Come on,” I said. “Or do I have to dare you again?”
