Funny You Should Ask(44)

The music felt like a thick steam, surrounding us, capturing us, isolating us.

The dance floor was dark—not that dark—but dark enough. I didn’t know where Ollie was. He could have been right behind me, he could have been across the room. I couldn’t focus on anything but Gabe’s face. On his eyes, staring, fixed, unblinking.

I’d practically memorized his face on-screen. Thought I knew it. But this was something new. Something different.

He still wasn’t quite real, even though I could feel him—all of him—against me. It felt like a fantasy. A really, really great fantasy, but a fantasy nonetheless.

There was a voice in the back of my head that kept trying to break through the surreal haze that had settled around me. Reminding me that I was a reporter and Gabe was my subject and there were a whole bunch of questionable power dynamics at play here.

I’d been so worried that he’d think I’d do anything to get a good story that I hadn’t stopped to consider that he might not have any reservations about doing it himself.

Then his hips pressed harder against mine. For a moment, I thought I might be falling, might be losing my balance, but then I realized he was moving in time with the music, his hips swaying forward, back, side to side.

He was a good dancer.

He wasn’t flashy or enthusiastic or even that demonstrative. He was subtle. I doubted that anyone but me could tell that he was even moving to the music. But he was. Perfectly. Seductively.

One hand moved to my hip, the other pressed in the curve of my spine, just above my ass. Keeping me close. Not that I was going anywhere. In fact, I just melted further into his arms, my own hands moving to his biceps. Shit, they were hard.

He was hard. So hard.

I didn’t want to think about all the ways this was professionally problematic. I didn’t want to think about how this might be Gabe’s way of buttering me up, making sure I’d write a good article about him. I didn’t want to think about how completely insane all of this was.

What I wanted was to be closer to him. To touch him.

The hand on my hip moved upward, stroking my side, my arm, and then coming to rest against my chest. Not my chest-chest, but my sternum. His thumb stroked my clavicle and I sighed. It wasn’t loud enough that he would have heard, but he definitely felt it.

I could tell, because he smiled.

A slow, wicked smile.

Then, with his other arm wrapped fully around my waist, he gave my chest a gentle push.

Somehow, I knew exactly what he was doing, and this time, I did swoon back. I let my body go limp and collapse over his arm.

He should have stumbled. Should have lost his balance.

But he was Gabe Parker and he knew exactly what he was doing.

His grip on me was ironclad, and before I knew it, I’d been swung back up into his arms.

What is this Dirty Dancing shit? I thought as I was pulled upright.

My mouth was hanging open. It felt like a scene out of a movie. The whole thing was bizarre and surreal and unbearably sexy.

Gabe was looking down at me, smiling a very smug smile. The competitive side of me couldn’t let that stand. I did a move of my own, circling my hips against his, arching my back so my breasts—as modest and inoffensive as they were—pressed up against his chest and his hand slid back to touch my ass.

The smugness vanished into surprise—as if he hadn’t been expecting that. Hadn’t been expecting any of it. Especially how he felt. Because I could feel exactly how he felt. And it felt good. Felt intoxicating. Felt powerful.

Here was one of the hottest guys on the planet—according to People magazine—and he was turned on and pressed up against me.

I licked my lips. He watched.

Something was going to happen.

Except, it didn’t.

Because at that exact moment, Ollie resurfaced, dancing right into us. We broke apart, Gabe adjusted his pants, and I did my best not to stare. I didn’t succeed much, and when Gabe caught me, he gave me the same naughty, wonderful grin as before. The kind of grin that told me that if I wanted to get out of there with him, very, very wicked things might be in my immediate future.

“Come on,” Ollie said, either not noticing what was happening between me and Gabe, or saving me from it.

He gave my hand a tug, and I heard a rip. I didn’t have to look to know that my dress had torn—I could feel the slight breeze against my side.

Ollie pulled me away, deeper into the throng of bodies on the dance floor. I caught a glimpse of Gabe standing there on the edge of it all. He lifted a hand and then he was gone.





Film Fans


     THE HILDEBRAND RARITY REVIEW



By Nicole Schatz


With every new Bond comes a chorus of disapproval. Consumers are fickle—they crave something new, but not that kind of new. They want to be challenged but comforted at the same time. They desire fresh takes, but only in a form that’s familiar to them.

That’s to say, audiences will accept something different as long as it feels the same.

No one wanted Gabe Parker to play Bond. The cards were stacked against him from the moment he was announced—especially when it was believed he was chosen over his Tommy Jacks co-star, Oliver Matthias.

At first it was an insult due to the fact that Matthias is British and Parker is decidedly not. Future audiences had already begun cringing at the thought of Parker, whose image was one of sweet, bro-y boyishness, acting suave while attempting to do a British accent.