Barbie & The Beast (10 page)

Had he just suggested “doing it” under the table? Of course not! Pure Barbie imagination. Though he might just as well have
suggested it, for all the rippling and buzzing going on between her thighs.

“W-what’s a shame?” Barbie stammered, tongue twisting in her mouth with a desire to lick his soft white shirt. She stared
wide-eyed at the mutinous wine glass.

“A shame. . .that you can’t sample more of this food. We’ll box it up, shall we?” Darin said.

He had meant to say something else, Barbie knew. That unsaid thing lingered in the air, mingling with the already-present
heat. Darin had something on his mind. But what? They were so close, not even breathing space between their bodies.

“You’re sending me home?” she asked disbelievingly.

“I’m taking you home.”

“Calling the date off?”

“Keeping it on track.”

“You can’t do that!”

“I have to protect you.”

“Beast,” Barbie said.

“If you only knew,” Darin whispered.

The room twirled again as Barbie turned her head. Her chin bumped Darin’s chest, all six foot two of him and smelling better
than the lamb. Barbie lifted her gaze, slowly, and though the room temporarily ceased to dance, Darin’s eyes sure did. Those
eyes looked right through her, down deep inside of her, haunting, calling, challenging.

You with me, Barbie? he said.

But his lips hadn’t moved.

You enjoyed the feelings of wildness in the cemetery, the voice inside of her head prodded.

Nonsense, Barbie told herself. She was sloshed, that’s all. There was no voice inside of her head. Darin couldn’t get in there.
He was too darned big.

The abandon. The scent of damp grass in the night, the voice suggested.

Okay. Okay. His suggestions were correct. As incongruous as it might seem for a high school teacher with a normal life, she
had enjoyed all those things. She suddenly craved adventure, just as she craved the safety of Darin Russell’s arms.

Well, not safety, exactly, she amended. There was danger in Darin’s embrace, as well as the hint of comfort. There was danger
in investigating a magnetism like this between strangers who hadn’t even exchanged two hundred words, total.

“It’s a question of addition,” she said aloud, without realizing it.

“Adding up to what, Barbie?”

“Four letters.”

“What do those letters spell?”

“Lust.”

Of course, she wasn’t so tipsy that she didn’t recognize the word and the ramifications of her admission.

“Full-on lust,” she repeated. “Pure animal magnetism.
Woof.
”

Behind Darin’s expression lay a sense of urgency that caused the air in the room to electrify. The music became a distant
hum. The tables melted away.

“Come, my lovely Barbie doll,” he urged, his mouth brushing along her hairline in a way that made Barbie’s hips undulate.
“The food will be waiting by the time we get outside.”

“Food?” Lordy, Barbie wanted to
be
the food. She had made a joke about it earlier, and now might get her wish. They were going outside. They were leaving the
crowd, going someplace private.

Taboo!

She was weakening!

She was drunk!

Darin was still staring. Could he read her mind, her thoughts?
Really
read them? Wasn’t that a flaw? Extrasensory perception was a drawback, right? A huge advantage for him? Could this be fair?

“Then what?” Barbie asked, barely managing the question, since her nipples were straining against Darin’s jacket in a way
that made her gasp through partially parted lips: “What will we do when we get outside?”

“I thought we might start by breaking some rules,” Darin said.

Rule breakage! Although her legs were weak, Barbie nonetheless wanted to shout,
Bring it on!
Not Rebel Barbie. Not Seduction Barbie or Adventure Barbie, either. This was Ms. Barbie Bradley, teacher. This was what her
very soul wanted. It all seemed so shocking. So promising. Yes. She longed for this. She wanted to be his dessert.

Turning precariously, Barbie wobbled a first step. Darin had a firm hold of her elbow. Willing herself to keep it
together—and to maintain some distance between herself and this man, even if measured in millimeters, at least until they
were free of the restaurant—Barbie made for the door.

Yes, she had to retain some dignity here, even if she was about to become part of her date’s meal. Even if the Barbie Bradley
she had always known and liked was, just this once, taking a vacation from mental acuity.

Good thing Angie isn’t here, she thought as she passed between the other tables. Good thing no one knew about this potential
moral slippage. Good thing she was slightly sloshed.

And just for the record,
Yo-frigging-ho.

Darin, Graveyard Guy, police department consultant. . .had a Porsche. A black Porsche tricked out with darkly tinted windows
and a Blaupunkt stereo system, though there was no sound at the moment. The Porsche’s dashboard appeared to have every single
gadget known to man, all of them shining in various hues of bright. The car’s interior was tan, pliant leather—with a surprising
couple of slasher-style rips on the passenger seat. Barbie was not too sloshed to notice this.

“What happened to the up. . .up. . .upholstery?” she asked, head lolling back as the Gypsy valet shut her door behind
her and Darin slid into the car.

He’d had to have had a lot of dinners at that restaurant. His Porsche had been kept in a special garage in the back alley.
A porte cochere led from the restaurant to the garage so that he wouldn’t get wet if it rained. Those were definite perks.

Also, Barbie noticed, moving her right foot around, there were no S-and-M shackles obvious in the Porsche. Noting this, she
relaxed a bit more as Darin eased the car into gear and maneuvered it onto the street. The vehicle purred like a tiger as
he stepped on the gas.

“The rips?” Barbie repeated, unable to hold her head upright while driving at Mach 2 and having ingested a bottle of wine.

“Dog,” Darin said, both hands curled tightly around the steering wheel.

“Shame,” Barbie said. This earned her an affectionate if fleeting smile from the hunk. Not merely pleased, but truly affectionate.

The drive took no time. Although Barbie had a bit of trouble emerging from the sporty, low-built car in her tight skirt without
flashing Darin royally, she managed. Still woozy and teetering slightly, she flinched when he again took hold of her arm.

Zing!
Another lightning bolt of lust struck her nether regions, and from nothing more than his helpful hold, as if elbows now were
directly connected to the body parts below. So, Barbie wondered, approaching her apartment building, what would happen if
Darin wanted a good-night kiss? If a touch to an upper extremity was this good, what might happen when their lips met? Who
knew how the gods of attraction might react? How did you one-up a
zing
?

Or, what if he didn’t try for a kiss? Well, she would fix that. Hormones were in motion. There was no stopping hormones.

Darin’s lusciously musky scent filled her nostrils as they entered her apartment building hallway. If he smelled this good,
Barbie just knew he’d taste even better.

They were beside her front door in no time, Darin’s exotic eyes shining like night-lights focused on her.
Zing!
And right on the tail end of the zing, as if surfing the afterburn, came a sudden and unwelcome remembrance of Rule One.

Rule One on the list of rules governing dating behavior stated firmly that first dates should be left at the door.
Outside
of it. As Barbie now recalled with a wince, this rule had
three exclamation points after it in every book she’d ever seen. The information this rule was trying to get across? Don’t
be easy. Translation, don’t act like a slut, even if you are or have ever desired to be one. Practice discipline.

But this rule, Barbie thought, grasping for straws of exemption, had obviously never encountered female hormones on the rampage.
This rule, Barbie decided, did not take into consideration the fact that things had changed in the last several de cades.
But darn it all if Rule One didn’t conjure up the fact that there must be a Rule Two.

Rule Two. Rule Two. Geez, what was Rule Two? How could she think, when Darin was looking at her that way? As if he’d devour
her when she said the word, and maybe even if she didn’t. Could it be the damned rules worked best in dousing the flames of
sexual desire through the mere act of trying to remember them?

Nibble away!
her hormones were shouting.
Go to it, Darin! Nibble away!

Rule Two. . .Oh, just make one up! Rule Two (creative, if not actual): if your date is a true gentleman, he will leave you
with the doggie bag.

There. Not so serious. Not involving hormone and testosterone levels, either. She’d sidestepped a land mine. Darin had suggested
breaking some rules, so let them get to that. Rule breakage, mouth to mouth. Or, oh God, Barbie thought now, unable to keep
her thoughts from evolving, maybe his plan to break rules meant that
he
would take the doggie bag? The rat!

Then again, maybe Darin’s promise of rule breakage actually meant what she’d first thought it might mean. Rule breakage as
in sharing other things. Sheets, for instance.

With a hand to the wall for support, Barbie faltered. She’d gotten mentally to sheets, and she didn’t know this guy at all.
She needed more information. For example, did he have
parents in the area? Siblings? Did he have an apartment, or live—again,
eww
—in Forest Lawn graveyard somewhere? Was his dog, the one that had ripped his leather seats, a Yorkie or a German Shepherd?

The thought of Darin with a Yorkie made her laugh out loud. This, in turn, got her another puzzled look and a brief grin from
her chiseled-featured fantasy date.
Zing!
Another lightning strike, straight as an arrow, caused panty moistness and obliteration of the rule-book pages now flipping
through Barbie’s head.

“You okay?” Darin asked.

“Sure. You?” Barbie replied. Okay, if she hadn’t ever jumped into bed with a stranger, there was always a first time, right?
No one could be in charge of their needs all the time, could they? She wanted this, didn’t she?

“Barbie?” Darin said, his voice wreaking havoc with her equilibrium. “Keys?”

Barbie handed him her purse, reminding herself that beauty wasn’t everything. Some people thought snakes were beautiful, but
look what damage a fang could do. Darin was downright beautiful, all right. And though his face seemed to swim in and out
of focus, she was almost completely sure there were no fangs.

As for her own darned self, everything seemed to be swimming and shaking, even Darin’s hand as he held up her key. He missed
the lock a couple of times before finding the slot, leaving Barbie to hope he’d be better at sticking things into small spaces
later.

Weeks later.

Her door opened. Darin waited for her to cross the threshold.
Trip
across the threshold, actually. He waited in the hallway until she grinned at him over her shoulder. Apparently assuming
it was a come-hither invitation, he followed her inside.

So it
had
been a come-hither invitation. What of it?

Fine. She had obliterated Rule One. So? There was little possibility the guy was a vampire or anything. It was no big deal
to have him in her apartment. Not necessarily.

A tinkling sound came from behind. Darin had dropped her keys onto the table by the door, as she herself always did. He went
into the kitchen and placed the doggie bag in the refrigerator, following her new Rule Two to the letter.

Circling back from the kitchen, Darin stopped Barbie when she went for the light switch. Catching her hand in his, he pulled
her gently to him. Not too close, not too many touching parts. No great cause for concern yet.

Hardly any light penetrated her closed window blinds, merely enough to see that they had plenty of clothes still between them.
All sheets remained in the bedroom. She was safe.

“The place has a fragrance,” Darin whispered, his mouth close to hers, his demeanor slightly antsy, it seemed to Barbie. Tense.
“A strangely sweet fragrance.”

“Oreo,” Barbie said.

“What?”

“Chocolate, sugar, cocoa.”

“The smell is strong.”

“The people who make Oreo cookies know how to hook everyone. Everyone with a chocolate fetish, anyway. Those little round
things are quite intoxicating once you get a sniff and a taste. Don’t tell me you’ve never had one?”

Darin’s mass of dark hair fell across his face when he shook his head, but not before it had feathered downward over Barbie’s
cheek. She was sure she would pass right out of this world if he continued with that.

“Are you going to kiss me?” she asked hopefully, lips already at the starting line, her motor revving.

“No kiss,” Darin replied.

Her engine sputtered. “Why not?”

“Rushing things a bit, don’t you think?”

“Right,” Barbie agreed reluctantly. “We have to get to know each other better before kissing.” But why was that, exactly?
she silently wanted to know.

Her date put a few more inches between them. Barbie didn’t need to touch him to feel the now-familiar sizzle radiating through
and around their bodies. It felt like the summer sun on wet pavement.

“We’ll have plenty of time for getting to know each other better,” Darin said.

“Yes, and after Rules One through Ten are broken, then what?” she murmured.

“Rules?” Darin queried.

“Some people live by them.”

“Ah.” Darin nodded. “In that case, after Ten we’ll progress to Eleven.”

Barbie felt her date’s body twitch and took this for a sign of shared sexual tension. She cuddled up closer to the studly
male, her mouth raised as if to find his. No more time-wasting, she was thinking. She wanted to find out what the kiss would
be like. She wanted to find out what it would be like
now
, to see if there would even be a future.

Darin obliged. Lips to lips. Mouth to mouth. Followed immediately by fireworks that blasted away at the inside of the apartment.
The darkness behind Barbie’s closed eyelids vanished. This small meeting of their bodies had all the subtlety of an atomic
blast. They both groaned at the same time.

Darin’s mouth was lush, expert. No huge surprise there. The kiss was rich, mind-numbing, state altering, and better than chocolate.
His kiss was adroit, sublime, like a flash of insight
—
a green flash, outlined in auburn and studded with stars. Hundreds of stars. Millions of stars. So many stars that
Barbie was pretty sure they must have gotten to Rule Eleven already.

Soaring through these sensations, fueled by the wine she had ingested, Barbie was helpless to resist the ministrations of
Darin’s lips. She didn’t even pretend to be offended by the deep, drowning feeling that overcame her in his arms. She didn’t
try to pull away. Dessert had been served. She was enjoying being devoured.

Her mouth moved with his, countered his, accepted his, even as she wondered fleetingly what kind of a man would never have
tried an Oreo. Her body shuddered continually. More moistness gathered between her thighs. Chills crashed over her with the
intensity of a tsunami, except that this tsunami wasn’t water, but wind. She not only saw stars, she felt the wind on her
face and in her hair. She smelled the greenery of the cemetery, tasted it in her mouth, and felt the abandon of running shoeless,
damp grass beneath her feet.

Weird. Exquisite. Absolutely wonderful.

So wonderful, in fact, that Barbie was sure part of her was separating at the seams. Concentration seemed a thing of the past.
She wanted to shout as Darin’s fingers moved up through the hair at the nape of her neck.
Zing! Clang! Omigosh!
Yet those sounds and inner cries no longer did justice to the moment. Darin’s closeness called to attention every inch of
Barbie’s body, every single cell. His touch electrified all.

Their essences clashed. Steam billowed. Absurd, but true, Barbie realized in a second of perfect clarity: this was the first
real kiss she’d ever had.

The realization fled. Darin’s embrace tightened. The kiss she and Darin shared intensified. Yes, even perfection had room
for improvement, it seemed, as Rules Eleven though Fourteen passed before Barbie’s closed eyes
—
the ones about clothes in heaps on the floor, naked limbs entangled, and
taking this guy home to meet her parents. Then there were the ones regarding breakfast in bed on Sundays, dual soaks in the
tub, with bubbles, and long walks, hand in hand, through the. . .graveyard?

This was her final thought before Darin took his mouth back in a separation so untimely that Barbie uttered a whimper of protest.
However, her date did not flee. Oh, no. His arms slipped beneath her and, reminiscent of a hero in a nineteenth-century novel,
he lifted her high off the ground, off her feet. Not like a sack of potatoes this time, yet definitely uncivilized. A whole
lot of insinuation was packed into this move, punctuated by the sound of her shoes hitting the hardwood floor.

“No sack-of-potatoes thing?” Barbie asked breathlessly, eyes locked to Darin’s in the semidark, her arms closing around his
perfectly defined shoulders. Shoulders that were actually
rippling
.

“I’ve never thought of doing to a sack of potatoes what I’m thinking of doing to you,” Darin replied.

Heartthrob! Stud King!

“What are you thinking of doing with me?” It was a silly question, Barbie realized, though the answer was of the utmost importance.

“Bending all those rules in half,” Darin growled.

“How?”

“By taking you to bed.”

“My bed?”

“Assuming you have one.”

Barbie could hardly draw breath. “Then what?”

“Then I’ll tuck you
—
”

“What?”

“Then I’ll tuck you in.”

“With a
T
?” Barbie laughed, giddiness morphing into euphoria. Surely what Darin meant was that the tucking
would come after all the rule bending. After they did the thing that
rhymed
with tucking. She had no doubts that Darin, so adept at kissing, would know a thing or two about the finer art of. . .tucking.

“Not to night,” Darin whispered as though he could read her mind.

“Not. . .?”

“To night.”

“I have no idea what you mean, Darin.”

“I think you do.”

“No. . .untucking?” she asked quietly.

“No taking this all the way.”

All the way? Had he said “all the way”? Barbie hadn’t heard that particular phrase since the old seventies TV shows. She hadn’t
actually known what it meant until college, but now that the major question facing them was in the open, Barbie wondered why.
Why no untucking or tucking? Why wouldn’t they go all the way?