Human Hieroglyphix - Dex & Leila (11 page)

I'd been to The Roses but only when something major happened at the University.  It wasn't the first place you'd think of for a casual date because it was expensive.  Don't get me wrong, the food is to die for, especially their steaks, and the service is top-notch.  But it's just a wee bit swanky.  Not the trying too hard kind of swank where the women are in cocktail dresses and the men in suits because a restaurant like that wouldn't last here in Grantham.  But The Roses was quite a step up from even Henry's.

We tried to play the old game of who do you know that I might know?  But the only one that we kind of knew together was Crystal.  Dex knew Jake, Caitlin's fiancé, but had only met her at a party she and Jake had a couple of weeks ago.

Every time our eyes caught or collided, I felt my heart speed up and felt the goose-bumps begin to skitter and sing across my skin.

'Stop with the boy band crush already'
, I admonished myself for about the fiftieth time as we left The Roses. 

It was coming up on the time of year when you'd be able to see how the restaurant got its name but here in the Rockies spring could be right around the corner or it could hold off until late May or early June.

"Ready for the next stop, Elle?" Dex asked as he handed the valet the parking ticket.

I looked behind me to see who he was talking to.

"Am talkin' to you, Lovely," Dex said leaning in and bumping me with his body.

"How'd you Elle out of my name?" I asked.  No one had ever called me anything but Leila until I a full professor and suddenly became Dr. McCarthy.

"Lovely Leila.  Double 'L'.  Equals, Elle." He explained catching my hand in his as he moved it up to his elbow as he stared down into my eyes.

Oh, shit.

Okay, a few goose-bumps I could handle. 

But these full body rushes I was completely unprepared for. 

They were so deep that I could feel my nipples hardening inside my brand spanking new Victoria's Secret bra and other pink things rubbing themselves against the tightness of my new matching panties and pair numero dos of my new jeans.

"Ready for our next stop?" Dex asked as we pulled away from the restaurant.

"Ah, okay."

"You don't sound sure, babe." I felt, more than saw, his glance towards me.

"I am.  Well, kind of, anyway," I answered spreading my hands out in front of me, across my knees in a dimwitted effort to keep from clenching my fists.

"Don't date much?" he asked flicking his indicator as we waited to turn.

"No, not much," I admitted to the passenger window of his Jeep.

"You're kidding, right?" He said completing his turn.

"No," I said softly, still steadfastly turned to the passenger window.

"Starlight Room okay with you?" I heard him ask.

I nodded, not wanting him to see that I didn't have a clue what he meant.

Dex was quiet as we spun our way up the ramp of one of the town's parking garages.  As I mentioned before, most of the stores in our town of approximately 35,000 were contained in eight square blocks.  Without the three different garages, parking would be impossible.

The Starlight Room.  Oh, the
Starlight
Room.  I got it.

'Sorry, Dr. McCarthy, but the Starlight was having a two-fer special last night…'

'Was too blasted to make it to class 'cause me and the buds were shakin' it at the Starlight…'

Yeah, I'd heard a lot about it but never been there myself.

It really was just a non-descript building just off one of the main drags south of town and on Friday and Saturday nights, the place was jumping with lines to get in going around the block.  I had heard that they had 'theme nights' where they might be only playing Country or Hip Hop or Jazz, each type of music having its own devotees.

Dex opened the heavy, wooden outside door to the club allowing me to go in first.  We were in a carpeted hallway of sorts and Dex stopped us before a little room where a girl was standing behind the counter.

"Wanna stow it or hold it?" Dex asked, leaning down towards my ear.

I looked up at him. While I recognized he was speaking English, and I knew it was a question, I had absolutely no clue what he meant.

"Okay, can see this is my decision," he mumbled as he reached for my jacket which came off my shoulders along with my purse as he handed them both off along with his jacket to the girl behind the coat claim.

Oh!  Stow It or Hold It.  I got it.  But I could feel my cheeks heating in embarrassment even though Dex didn't seem too perturbed with my serious lack of knowledge.

We wound our way through the numerous tables that all seem to surround a dance floor that was flanked on two sides by old-fashioned wood bars.

I looked around and saw that while the club obviously held two-hundred or so, there were only about twenty patrons there, including me and Dex.

He sat me at a table asking what I wanted to drink before looking me dead in the eye with a smile and asking what kind of
soda
I wanted.

Cute.

After he brought our drinks back to the table, we started the Twenty Questions portion of our evening which was kind of expected.  But the answers for both of us were a bit of a surprise.

"What?!  You mean that you never met an accountant that bailed out of the corporate lifestyle?"  Dex asked me with a laugh.  "You calling Bullshit again, babe?"

"Well, you don't look like an accountant," I replied smiling.

"I am, though.  Only now I spend my time marking people's skin with their choices of design.  Kind of why the shop is named what it is."  I watched Dex make overlapping rings on the tabletop from the condensation of his beer.

It was quiet as we again let our voices circle around us before leaving our table and get sucked away in the cavernous echoes of the club.

"Shit, I love this song," Dex said as he stood up abruptly and reached for my hand.  "Dance?"

Okay, deer in the headlight time, I thought staring at his hand, now twisted palm up.  I swallowed and raised my eyes to his. 

"I don't know how," I mumbled.

"No worries, Elle.  I do," he said tugging on the hand that he had grabbed when I didn't move to take his.

He led me to the dance floor and guided my hands around his neck before settling his hands on my hipbones.  I tried to mirror my steps to his which seemed to be a side step kind of thing with a slight knee-bend on the fourth count.

I never said I didn't have any rhythm, I just said I didn't know how to slow dance.

But my heart was just about ready to come out of my chest.  My chest that was capped by nipples hard enough to cut glass.

 I found myself swallowing thickly as I breathed in Dex's light cologne and the underlying scent of him, the same scent I enjoyed when he was inking my tattoo.

And it must be said, that scent was driving me crazy.

When I felt steady enough, I lifted my eyes and asked, "So, what's this song?"

Dex leaned down until his mouth was at my ear.

Full body rush again, just feeling his breath against the skin of my neck and ear.

"Cowboy Junkies, 'Sweet Jane'," he breathed. "Like it?"

"Yeah, I do," I said a bit shakily as I felt him press himself closer to me which allowed me to capture more of his shoulders in my arms.

The next song came on and again it was just me and Dex on the dance floor only now our eyes were glued to each other.

And I recognized that my panties were very, very wet.

"Isn't this one of the songs that you played when you were tattooing me?" I asked softly.

"Yeah,"  Dex breathed.  "DMB's 'Crash'."

"Like it, Dex," I admitted staring straight up into his eyes.

"Like that you like it, Elle," he whispered back and he slid his nose against mine in emphasis.

After the song ended, we made our way back to our tiny table that had been refurbished with fresh drinks.  "Thanks, Stella," Dex yelled and raised his beer towards the gal behind the bar.  Not to be left out, I raised my soda and smiled.  And Stella raised a hand in acknowledgement.

"So, Lovely," Dex started.  "Tell me about yourself."

I just looked at him.  I had no clue what he wanted to know and I was not, repeat not, going to just spill my life story out to this gorgeous man.  There were just too many painful pieces that were a part of my heart's landscape to just whip out in front of a stranger. 

Even one as gorgeous as Dex.

"Okay, then," he breathed on a smile.  "Seems like we are at an impasse here.  So, here's what I suggest.  We each get to offer up a question that must be answered by each one of us in turn.  Sound fair?"

I thought it through.  Okay, yep.  Seemed totally fair.

"Okay.  But can I go first?" I asked thinking that by snapping up first question meant that I wouldn't be giving away the most.

"Sure.  Hit me," Dex said settling back into his chair and propping his boots up on a chair that he moved from the table next to ours.  I saw that he had even made himself more comfortable by crossing his arms on his chest.

Okay, then.  I picked up his now empty beer bottle and held it under my mouth, acting like it was a microphone.

"Dex, what's your favorite state?" I asked assuming the seriousness of a newscaster.

"Seriously?  That's what you're gonna lead with?" Dex was chuckling as he seemed to study the ceiling.  He shook his head and then leaned in a bit so his words could be directed to our beer bottle microphone.

"Horny.  Horny is my favorite state," he said watching my eyebrows move towards my hairline before catching on what I was sure was my blush his answer had caused.

"Your turn, Elle," he said with a smirk.

"Florida," I said without thinking.

"The microphone didn't quite hear you.  Say again?"

"Florida," I said and my breath caught on the hole of the beer bottle causing what I could only describe a moose-in-rut sound.

We both started laughing at the noise.

"My turn, right?"

I nodded as I felt my heart again start booming in my chest.

"What do you do for a living and why are you doing it now?" Dex asked with a grin that had some seriousness to it if the look in his eye was any indication.

"I'm a professor of English Lit at the University of Colorado, Grantham because the only thing I've ever wanted to do was something to do with words or teaching," I admitted.

"Shit," Dex breathed, his eyes luminous in the dark of the sparsely populated club.

"What?  Didn't I answer it right?" I asked unnerved by his exclamation.

There's silence and then there's
silence
.

Unfortunately for our table, the quiet there was of the second variety.

"Isn't it your turn?" I asked shakily.

Dex nodded but I could swear that he hadn't blinked in the time, that quiet few moments that followed my answer.

"I'm a tattoo artist that has his degree in accounting.  The degree is because that's what my folks wanted, strike that, was a foregone conclusion that I would have so I could step into the family business one day.  I'm a tattoo artist because I find beauty in what other people choose to, need to. capture in the ink they want permanently inscribed on their bodies.  Whether it's a portrait of their child that died young or the cliffs that they mustered the courage to dive from in Maui, if it's important to them, it becomes important to me."

"Like my butterfly," I whispered.

"Like your butterfly, babe," he whispered back.  "Why the butterfly?"

"I, ah, I'm not…" I know I didn't make a bit of sense but I didn't know Dex enough to trust him with my secrets though I hoped I'd get a chance to.

"It's okay, babe," Dex said reaching for my hand.  "Think we're both a little too new to each other to play this game anymore."

I nodded gratefully.

It was kind of a quiet ride back to what I assumed was my place.  But Dex wasn't headed for the exit of the parking garage.  Instead he went up to the next level. 

"Thought I'd take you to get your car," Dex said when I happened to notice that we were not on course for my house.

"Oh, yeah," I replied after totally forgetting about my car.  Probably trying to forget last night, too.

"Had a great time tonight, Dex," I murmured as my hand moved to the door handle of the Jeep.

"Hold on," Dex said placing his hand on my arm that had a death grip on my purse.  I turned back towards him.

"C'mere, Leila." I heard him say softly.

I moved my hips back into the seat and glanced at him.  Even under the fluorescent lights of the parking garage, Dex still was gorgeous.  His overgrown hair was mussed every which way and his scruff of facial hair just seemed model-like perfect on him.  He leaned deeper towards me.

"No, honey, c'mere," he said, bringing his hand to the back of my neck and pulling me towards him.