People underestimate the sex appeal of a bare shoulder and an open back. Any woman can flash her chest. It’s blatant and can instantly make a man stand to attention, but there is a certain sophistication and femininity to an exposed back that is a promise, but not a preview; a hint. It was this distinction that made a man know that he was dealing with a sensual woman who knew what she was doing and would keep him entranced. Not that Laura knew this of course. She just thought the color red made her eyes look brighter and that the cut flattered her figure, which it did.
By the time it was quarter to eight, the pasta dish was almost ready, the wine was in the fridge, and Laura was dressed in her red top with her make-up carefully applied to subtly enhance the allure of her dark eyes and the shape of her soft lips. When the doorbell rang at precisely eight, Laura took a deep breath and opened the door.
Daniel looked different in trousers and a dark blue shirt, but no less handsome. The soot was gone from his skin, which was now shown to have a healthy tan. His shirt fit in such a way as to cling to the contour of the firm, rounded muscles of his arms, but only skim across that incredible six-pack stomach that drove Laura mad. A promise, not a preview.
Laura stepped back to let him in and he stepped past her closer than he needed to, before handing her a bottle of red wine he had brought with him. Laura didn't know a lot about wine, but this one had a cork instead of a screw-cap, so it was probably the expensive kind. Daniel began to look around her kitchen as she put it in the fridge alongside her own bottle.
“It's a nice place you have here,” he told her.
“It's tiny,” Laura replied modestly.
“Still pretty large for just one,” Daniel replied pointedly. “Do you live alone?”
Laura smiled at the real question of whether or not she was taken.
“I broke up with my ex six months ago. I've been living alone ever since,” she told him honestly. She leaned on her elbows on the counter and looked up at him from beneath her thick lashes. “Do you live alone?”
“I'm barely home these days,” Daniel replied. “I'm on call so often at the station. I usually sleep there.”
“I guess that comes with being the captain,” Laura smiled.
She turned suddenly at a hissing sound behind her and panicked when she saw that her pasta was boiling over and rushed to turn down the heat on the stove. Daniel stepped past her with a light chuckle and adjusted the lid to let some of the steam escape until the bubbling died down.
“You don't cook very often?” he guessed.
“Oh, I cook all the time,” Laura replied. “But I'm still really bad at it.”
Daniel laughed. “What are we having?”
Laura looked down at her sticky recipe book to remind herself and tried to pronounce the Italian name of the dish.
“Lingwini amatrisheeyana,” she declared boldly.
The captain took a look over her shoulder and laughed.
“Linguine Amatriciana,” he corrected. “Sounds good. I love Italian.”
“Well, I can't promise it will taste like the original, but I can promise that it comes with enough wine that you won't notice,” she told him.
Daniel smiled. “I love girls who cook,” he said. “But I think I like girls who try to cook even more. Did you want to impress me that much?”
“It's the least I could do,” Laura said, taking a bottle of wine out of the fridge and trying to uncork it with a bottle opener.
The captain watched her for a moment with amusement in his eyes, before opening her kitchen drawer and locating a corkscrew. Laura blushed at her own air-headedness. She watched him with mild admiration as he twisted the cork into the screw and pulled it out with a sharp pop and then poured both of them a glass.
“Are you a connoisseur?” she asked him.
“No,” he laughed. “But as you're pretending that you can cook, I thought I'd pretend that I know about wine.”
Laura laughed and took a sip. Whether he knew anything about wine or not, the slightly bitter and fruity red wine tasted good to her—even better with his eyes watching her drink it.
“You look incredible in that top,” he told her with a crooked smile. “Did you wear that just for me?”
She flicked him another alluring gaze and a sexy smile, saying nothing, before bending down to check on the rest of the meal in the oven. She could feel his eyes on her as she opened the oven door and so she lingered there a moment longer than she needed to before straightening up and turning to the chopping board to dice the herbs.
“Let me help,” he insisted. He picked up a second knife and began to dice handfuls of fresh oregano. “The others at the Academy used to tease me for cooking,” he told her. “They'd bring in their sandwiches and hot dogs and I'd be there with a homemade risotto.”
“So you're a food aficionado?” Laura asked him with a teasing smile.
“I appreciate fine food,” he told her. He looked up at her with an acknowledging smile. “I appreciate fine things in general.”
“Did you find out what started the fire?” Laura asked. She was beginning to feel herself flushing under his gaze and she didn't want to lose her appearance of being calm and sophisticated just yet.
“Hair straighteners,” Daniel told her. “It was hair straighteners.”
“How many fires do you fight every day?” Laura asked him.
“Well, that depends,” Daniel replied. “It's worse in the summer with all the forest fires, but then again, people set more things on fire in the winter just for heat and warmth. We frequently get called out when there's no fire at all. Road accidents and things like that.”
“What about cats in trees?” Laura asked with a playful smile. “Or does that never happen?”
“I've had a dog under the porch and a parakeet in the ceiling fan,” he told her. “No cats in trees yet, but I'm sure it's just a matter of time. What do you do?”
“I own a card shop,” she told him. “You know, birthdays and anniversaries. It sounds boring, but I like the idea that everyone who comes in is thinking of someone else.”
“Are you the emotional type then?” he asked her.
Laura flashed him a devilish glance. “Not tonight.”
He grinned back, finished chopping his oregano with a flourish and finished his glass of wine. Laura realized that she had almost finished hers and poured them both another. She pulled out plates, cutlery, and table settings from the cupboards and Daniel rushed to help her set the places at the small kitchen table on the other side of the counter. He looked up at the photos pinned to the wall behind it.
“Who is this with you?” he asked, pointing to a photo of Laura and Sophie hugging with big grins on their faces.
“That's Sophie,” Laura replied. “She's been my best friend since forever.”
“It looks like you spend a lot of time together,” he commented.
“Well, I don't have a sister,” Laura told him. “So I'm glad to have Sophie around. Do you have any brother or sisters?”
“A younger sister,” he nodded. “Do you have any brothers?”
“One older.”
“So what's your older brother doing, letting you invite strange men into your house for bad Italian food?” he teased her.
“I don't think I'm going to be telling my brother about tonight,” Laura laughed lightly.
“Why not?”
“Ooh, I'm not sure he'd approve of my behavior.”
“I'll hold you to that,” Daniel grinned.
Laura served the bad Italian, which turned out to actually be pretty good, especially accompanied by another glass of wine and his good company. The two began to talk about everything and anything, but it wasn't the words that were making Laura's body tingle.
No, it was the deliberate, teasing body language which played between them. The way she slowly closed her lips over her fork and slowly pulled it out from her mouth. The way he kept his eyes fixed on her over the top of his wine glass as he drank, looking at her
in a way which told her that he was only thirsty for her.
At one point she even felt his leg brushing against hers beneath the table and she didn't move hers away, but simply smiled another teasing smile so that he would know she had noticed and that she liked it.
After dinner, Laura began to gather the dishes and Daniel helped her once again. She didn't know if he was truly that much of a gentleman, or whether, like her, he just wanted to live in the excitement of standing close to one another. The electricity between them was tangible.
It hung in the air, heavy and anticipating, building a desire, minute by minute which rested in the shrinking space between them, as Daniel moved closer to her to take the dishes from her hands and reached up over her head to hang the wine glasses from their posts.
The young woman enjoyed every minute of the wait. It wasn’t like her to prolong the inevitable, but this man oozed experience and charm and she didn't want to seem tactless by rushing it. What's more, she could feel him growing more desirous as the night went on. Moment by moment, his gaze grew longer, resting on her movements as she washed the dishes and settling on the bare skin of her back when she was turned to the sink.
Every time that Laura thought her libido had peaked, Daniel would brush by her again and another tingle of sexual desire would shoot through her, building the need within her to have him. Never had doing the dishes been so pleasurable.
When the dishes were done and put away, Laura invited Daniel into the living room. Even though she could feel his desire for her mounting, she was still somewhat surprised when he followed her to her sofa. The insecure girl inside of her still couldn't quite believe that this incredible, handsome man would be interested in shy little Laura.
Then again, Laura wasn’t herself tonight. No, she was like that girl in the magazine—beautiful, erotic, and aware of the effects of her slow deliberate movements and lingering glances. In fact, both of them knew the effect they were having on the other, which made the unspoken dialogue between them grow ever clearer and the wait grow shorter and more intense as the minutes ticked by.
Laura sat at the end of the sofa. Daniel could so easily have sat on the other end, but he didn't. Instead he sat right by her side so that her thigh was touching his and he rested his arm on the back of the sofa behind her head so that she could feel the heat of his body emanating against her own skin. He poured more wine into her glass.
She was beginning to grow a little heady from the alcohol, but in the most delicious way. Where alcohol usually diminished her senses, with Daniel beside her, it seemed that the effect was the opposite. She was ultra-aware of every breath coming from his strong, muscular chest and the way that the hand behind her head would playfully stroke at her hair now and then. She became less hesitant and turned her body into his as they continued to drink their wine and talk into the night.
“You're a very beautiful woman, Laura,” he told her softly, whispering the words into her ear as if it was a secret. Laura felt like it had been a secret or at least something she hadn't understood until now. She was not a little girl searching for a stable man to fit neatly into her life, but a woman—a beautiful woman—with needs and desires and no one to answer to but herself.
When Daniel leaned in to press his mouth against hers, she didn't pull away, but melted into his kiss. That stubble was rough against her lips and the effect was immediate. The wait was almost over and her body knew it. She was so aware of how fast her heart was beating in expectation and how warm his skin was, and her body was so ready to receive him now.
This pressure had been building since her back had been against that fire truck, and she had been imagining his hands all over her.
Now his hands were on her body. They were in her hair and running over that exposed skin on her back. When he slipped one of those spaghetti straps from her shoulder, she became breathless with desire and leaned into another of his kisses.
His mouth moved over hers with force and passion like he was releasing something intense that he had been saving just for her. Laura accepted his lips with an equal appetite and it only served to build a stronger heat between the two of them.
Daniel's mouth moved across her cheek to the sensitive hollow beneath her earlobe and he whispered again, “I don't know what it is about you, but from the moment you walked out into the street today, with your tray of ice water, I feel like there's a magnet pulling me to you; something I just can't say no to or ignore.”
His words were like lava that started flowing through her veins. She knew just what he was talking about because she had felt exactly the same. She hadn’t been able to think of anything but him and this moment when his fingers would be moving over her skin and his mouth would be on her body.
She kissed his cheek, her full dark lips moving down his neck to his collarbone as she nibbled and bit at his skin, her arms slipped around him and her fingers closed tightly over his shoulders.
Daniel's fingers twisted in her hair and he tugged slightly as his mouth moved over her shoulder, leaving a trail of heat and need behind him, and making Laura breathless as his hands slid beneath the thin material of her top.
His fingers were thick and strong and as he squeezed them on her, it felt as if he were setting fire to every place they touched. Laura let her fingers move to the front of his shirt, pulling the buttons on it open and bit by bit revealing the rock-solid wall of muscle hidden underneath it.
She got it fully undone and stopped kissing him long enough to look at him in wonder. She didn't understand how this was happening, but she knew she wanted it to happen more than she ever had with any man. She was sure that there would be no regrets for her in the morning.
He paused in his kissing and looked at her as she gazed at his chest. He smiled a little and chuckled at her, placing his finger beneath her chin. He raised his eyebrows and winked at her, “Turnabout is fair play; now it's my turn.” he spoke huskily as he moved his hand further beneath her shirt and lifted it off of her, revealing the fact that she had not worn a bra.
One glance at her full, rounded breasts before him and he groaned hungrily and leaned toward her to cover them with his hands and mouth.
“I knew you were going to look good, but I had no idea you'd look this good...” he spoke in between kisses down the center of her cleavage.
She felt a blaze rush through her at the knowledge that he had been thinking about her body earlier and it turned her on like wildfire. He closed his mouth around her dark nipples, sucking at them as he massage them with his strong hands. Laura closed her eyes and leaned her head backward. His teeth began to pull at her gently and a soft cry escaped her, making him hold her tighter.
Daniel had leaned her back further against the sofa so they'd be more comfortable, but now he lifted his mouth from her breasts and moved to kiss her lips again, hard and soft and hungry, then he looked at her with heavily hooded eyes.
“Laura,” he breathed thickly, “I want you, God I want you.” he looked into her eyes and the desire there was strong enough to make her melt right in his arms.
She gave him a sultry smile and kissed him. “Then come with me,” she said in a smoky voice.
They went to her bedroom and the sexual tension in the air around them fairly crackled with electricity as they pulled each other's clothes off and began to touch one another in new places.
She couldn’t believe the intensity with which she burned for him. Her body was aching, needing his body inside of her, longing for him to fill her. She knew she would have to hold back just a little if she expected their night of unbridled passion to last long enough to make a memory for her to look back on in time to come. She wanted to savor every single moment with the hunk of raw manhood before her, and it was clear that he wanted to do the same.
Daniel sat on her bed and pulled her to him, laying his hands on her hips and squeezing his fingers into their curves as he returned his hot mouth to her breasts and nipples, biting and sucking at them, driving Laura mad with need.<
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He slowly laid back on the bed, pulling her with him and turning at the same time so that she was on her back. He moved down to her legs and pushed her thighs apart, looking at her body and running his fingers gently over her core. He slipped them into her slightly, spreading the moisture in her over the outside of her, making her suck her breath in as he did. He lowered his mouth down to her inner thighs, his lips pulling and kissing at her skin as he moved them closer and closer to her... until he reached her with his mouth.
She had to clench the sheets tightly in her fingers to keep from crying out as he moved the width of his tongue along the outside of her slowly, achingly, and then he pushed it into her, tasting her and discovering just what would build up the pleasure in her enough that she would come for him, and she did, gasping for air and writhing beneath his mouth and firm hands, just as she knew she would when his eyes had traveled over her earlier and set her on fire.
She came hard and her body stiffened as every sense was heightened to the fullest. As she came back down off of her high, his kisses on her became soft against her tender skin, and she sighed quietly and opened her eyes to look at him. He was beautiful laying there between her thighs, staring up at her with his ravenous eyes.
She sat up slowly and rolled him to his back, looking down at him with a wicked grin. “It's my turn, now.” she whispered and he grinned back at her as she began to run her fingers along the length of his thick shaft. He sighed happily as her hand closed around him and rubbed at him, but when her lips touched the tip of him and then her hot tongue slid around him and down him, he couldn’t hold back the moans of ecstasy that escaped him.
Daniel curled his fingers in her hair and lifted his pelvis subtly as she took the fullness of him into her mouth and began to suck on him, drawing heat and pleasure through all of his body right to the focal point of her lips. He groaned and began to pump himself into her mouth gently as she sucked and twisted her tongue around him.
The Baby Shower Page 89