Free Honey by Jenna Jameson

joked, taking the opportunity to study her profile, only her small smile was about as telling as the Mona Lisa’s.
    She turned back. “I’m afraid I’m serious.”
    Shit, she was serious. Sobered, he asked, “Why is that?” Was he so wishful and rusty that he’d misread her playful flirting as “signals”?
    She toyed with the teaspoon. Eyes lowered, she answered, “You know the answer as well as I. I’m … with someone.”
    Right, the prince who hit her—God forbid she should break whatever commitment she’d made to that sick son of a bitch. Rather than say so and risk driving her away, he set aside his sarcasm and said, “And yet you’re here with me now.”
    He’d only pointed out the obvious, but the dagger look she shot him demonstrated she didn’t at all appreciate being brought to the mat on a topic that likely wasn’t only sensitive but painful. “I was here with you. Now I’m leaving.” She pushed away from the table and started up, the back of her chair ramming the empty table behind her.
    â€œWait.” Half-rising, he shot out an arm, catching her gloved wrist.
    She stared down at his hand covering hers and then back over at him. Her darkening eyes dared him to hold on, to prove himself as bad a brute as the man he meant to try talking her into leaving.
    â€œSorry,” he said, withdrawing immediately and slipping his offending hand out of sight beneath the table. Resuming his seat, he added, “It’s just that having a whole day off is kind of a big deal to me. I hate for the afternoon to end.” Heart hammering, he waited.
    She sat back down. Dark doe-like eyes met his. A smile trembled over her freshly painted lips. Out of the blue, Marc found himself fighting the urge to lean across the table, this time to cover that crazy sexy upside-down mouth with his.
    Lightly penciled brows lifted. “What do you usually do when you have a whole day off?”
    Was she only casually curious or was the question as leading, as flirtatious, as it sounded? There was only one way to find out. Trouble was, he had no idea where or what to suggest. He was really that rusty. Whatever “game” he’d once laid claim to had gone by the wayside, a casualty of medical school and then internship and now residency. Other than out for a meal, which they’d already had, where did you take a woman on a daytime “date”? A walk was casual and noncommittal, plus it would give him more time to get to know her. They could continue their quirky and fascinating if not exactly illuminating lunchtime conversation. Washington Square, Union Square, Sheridan Square and several other public parks were all nearby. Only it was fucking freezing outside and he’d bet her fancy cashmere coat didn’t come with much of a liner. He paused, willing his brain to work. Going with the flow was all well and good, but it couldn’t begin to trump old fashioned skullduggery. Honey Gladwell had managed to be a delightful lunch companion without revealing so much as an iota more about herself beyond her Hepburn obsession. He was no closer to breaching that barricade than he’d been weeks ago.
    Maybe casting their meet-up as something more, as a date, was putting too much pressure on him? If, say, they were just hanging out, what would he suggest? Better yet, where would he want to go? As a kid he’d spent every spare coin and moment he could scrape up on one pastime: the movies.
    â€œThe IFC Theater isn’t far from here,” he heard someone, himself, say. “You seem like someone who might be into foreign films.” Marc wasn’t into foreign films, not in the least, but he suddenly felt supremely grateful to Gina, the thirty-something trauma nurse with the nasally voice who was always going on about some highbrow flick she’d seen there.
    She nibbled her lower lip, which did all kinds of