"Christ, mister." The guard eyed them warily as they stepped into the study. "You drop three large on a painting of wet fuckin� grass, and you can�t afford to take your wife somewhere nice?"

"Maybe for our next date." Dorian slipped his arm around the woman�s waist, guiding her out of the study and into the hallway.

The guard followed. "A hotel? There�s lots of �em in this city. Real fancy ones too."

"Good call," he said.

"Maybe a cruise? Ladies love that shit."

"Thank you for your input."

"Anytime," the guard said. They�d reached the foyer, and he punched the button to call up the elevator, then turned to them with a threatening smile. "Now get the fuck outta here. And have a lovely evening."

Reeling. That was the only word for it.

Charley�s head was as hot and floaty as a helium balloon, the rest of her body still vibrating from all the things he�d done to her with that sexy, filthy mouth.

Good lord, that man had a gift.

She was weak, she was wet, but even as the elevator doors closed, cutting them off from the guard�s punishing glare, Charley couldn�t stop laughing.

"Did that just happen?" she asked. "Did we seriously get kicked out of a private auction like a couple of kids caught stealing booze?"

"Fughettaboutit, lady. This ain�t a hotel." Her man scowled, doing a terrible job impersonating the security guard�s Brooklyn accent, sending Charley into another laughing fit.

They cracked up the entire ride to the ground level, all the way through the lobby, and out onto the sidewalk, where they nearly collided with a hot-dog cart.

"Could this night get any more perfect?" The man spread his hands like he was receiving a blessing, some divine intervention raining down upon them from the cart�s red-and-yellow umbrellas. "Tell me you�re hungry, and tell me you like hot dogs."

Charley hesitated, but the auction wasn�t set to end for another hour at least; she still had some breathing room before Rudy returned to pick her up.

With a wide smile, she said, "Starving, and I love them, obviously."

"Then allow me to buy you dinner."

"Dinner? Sounds an awful lot like a real date."

"Surely the security guard would approve."

"Well, it�s not a cruise by any stretch, but I do love a good hot dog."

"Somehow, I knew that about you." The man turned to the vendor and ordered sodas and two jumbo dogs, hold the onions, just how Charley liked them.

Dinner in hand, they crossed Central Park West and headed into the park, leaving the incessant hum of traffic for the calming whispers of stately trees and the murmurs of pedestrian traffic buzzing through the park. At the Strawberry Fields memorial, they found a bench across from a young musician working on a Led Zeppelin cover.

"Tell me," she said to her companion as he wolfed down his hot dog, "how does a proper English fellow like yourself go from dropping three million dollars on a painting of wet fuckin� grass to eating a dirty-water dog on a bird-shit covered bench with me?"

"Charmed life, I guess." He blotted his mouth with a napkin, then flashed his panty-melting grin. "But you left out the whole middle part of your story, love." JrNovels.com