by Julia Kent
Page 5
She blanked when the waitress asked her what she wanted to drink, so she blurted out sake, because it was the one drink she had ever had in an Asian restaurant years ago, when her mother had taken her to a Hibachi restaurant for her twenty-first birthday. Well, hey, sake it was. She figured one shot would loosen her up. Then she could show more of herself. With Dylan joining her, she knew she’d ordered appropriately for this type of restaurant and began to let herself unclench a little.
She glanced at the table and saw that she really was revealing more of herself already. Her sweater had dipped down a little too much to show the black lace of her bra and when she looked up, she found that she did not meet Dylan’s eyes with her own, but that he, in fact, was staring at the same spot she had just been looking at.
Apparently, he was not enough of a gentleman to pretend that he was not – until he cut his eyes away abruptly, threw his napkin in his lap, looked down at the menu, and said, “I have no idea what any of this stuff is. ” Then he turned and craned his head to watch one of the servers take a tray over to a nearby table. “Whatever it is, though, it smells incredible. ”
That loosened her up more, her nervous laughter shifting into something more genuine. This incredibly pretentious, but really sophisticated and startling special few minutes felt like it already altered reality for her. Laura couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but was trying very, very hard not to make more meaning out of these few perfect moments with Dylan.
A giddiness, unfamiliar and not fleeting (to her utter shock), filled her skin and her thoughts as she shyly caught his eye and let it settle, not looking away. Their stare deepened into something more primal, more knowing, and her insecurity faded as they communicated without words.
Interrupted by the waitress, she pulled her eyes away with regret as she brought their drinks. Dylan held his up in a toast and said, “To…business analyzing!”
She nodded acknowledgment, and answered, “To firefighting,” clinking glasses before they put down the empty shot glasses. She fingered the rim of her glass and then they both leaned forward on the table with great expectation.
Finally, she realized he expected her to answer the question he had asked what felt like hours ago, and she said, “Oh, oh, I work for Stohlman Industries. ”
“Stohlman?” His expression showed he was impressed. That pleased Laura – it was impressive. Stohlman was known for being very, very competitive for jobs, and it had been hard to break in to the world’s third largest media company.
“Yeah, yeah, I’ve been there well, since I graduated college. ”
“Really? What your degree then?”
“IT – Information Technology. ”
“But you’re a business analyst?”
“Yeah, I work with the tech side of things. ”
He leaned back in his chair, folded his arms, clearly making himself comfortable, and gave her a mirthful look. “So what do you do?”
She laughed, feeling her face relax, feeling her cheeks spread and match his mirth. “Do you really want to know? ‘Cause it’s awfully technical. ”
He leaned forward on his elbows, propped his chin in one hand and said, “Yeah, I do want to know. ”
She studied his eyes. He meant it – he really meant it. Oh, man, was this really the whole package? Did she really get a gorgeous, ripped firefighter who gave a shit about what she did for a living as a business analyst for some nameless, faceless, mega corporation? If so, she didn’t want to pinch herself, ‘cause this might be a dream. Then again, there were parts of her that she certainly wanted him to pinch.
Clear the mind. Whoa there, Laura.
“Well, I work in healthcare IT, and what I do right now is work on a large project for one of the state governments, making sure that their old medical records program for children who get health insurance is compliant with new federal guidelines. ”
He nodded. Made an expression with his mouth that indicated that it was interesting and then said, “You lost me at children’s health insurance…” and he grinned.
She chuckled. “Enough about my job. What do you do? You’re a firefighter, right? So you pretty much save damsels in distress from burning buildings and rescue cats out of trees? I don’t have to really know more than that,” she teased.
He laughed, bright teeth gleaming, straight and perfect, speaking to orthodontia many, many, decades ago. His eyes twinkled a bit as he fingered his empty sake glass and said “It’s a little more complicated than that, but you got the gist of it. ”
“Aw, come on. Tell me more. How is it more complicated? Are there, like, different levels of fire fighting?” The words came out of her mouth and she felt a slow, electric feeling creep up her spine as his fingers crossed the table and reached for hers, his fingers clasping hers, the warmth shaking her, going all the way up her neck, through her hips, into her belly.
Rendering her completely speechless once again.
“Well,” he said, peering down at her hands and then looking at her with raised eyebrows that asked an obvious question. She grinned back. He softened and clinched her hand just slightly more, and the added pressure was like having her hand turn into one big, giant, throbbing clitoris.
“I do plenty of shifts where I rescue cats from burning buildings and help damsels in distress out of trees,” he joked, “but mostly, these days, I am in charge of fire management safety protocols for large corporations like yours. ”
“Really?”
“Pretty much. After 9/11, we had to really tighten up on how you empty out a thirty or forty floor building, especially in the face of a disaster, or in the face of massive, multi-level, widespread fires. ”
She could feel the blood drain out of her face. He has just, without knowing, dredged up her biggest fear. Something in his face said that he knew it. “Oh god, I am so sorry, really. I did not mean to upset you. Did you lose someone in 9/11?”
She shook her head. “No, no, actually I, it’s just that – ” She took a deep breath. In through the nose, out through the mouth. “It’s just that it’s one of my biggest fears. I’ve always been afraid of a fire in my building, and I work on the thirty-second floor. ”
He took his hand away form hers and clamped it over his mouth, shaking his head now, saying, “I pretty much just picked the worst possible thing I could bring up during a first date, didn’t I?”
Her heart rate resumed a normal beat. She took a risk now and reached across the table to retrieve his hand and said, “No, it’s OK, really. If nothing else, it’s interesting that you managed to tap into that about me, after having only known me for –” she glanced at her smart phone ” – for fifteen minutes. ”
“It’s amazing what Google will help you figure out. ”
If she had had a drink in her mouth, she would have spit it all over him. Oh, my God, did he Google her? It’s only fair – she had Googled him. Did he know that she had Googled him? Oh god, was there some way he could have known?
“Laura?” He reached out and touched her chin, tipping it up to catch her eyes. “That was a joke. ”
By the time the waitress brought his meal, which was something that he could not only not pronounce properly, but, by the looks of it, couldn’t even guess at about half the ingredients in it, he felt like he was losing her. Idiot, idiot, idiot! How could he have brought up the burning building scenario on a first date? Within fifteen minutes, no less? God, the look on her face! It was like something collapsed. There was more to it than she was telling; he could see that and it left him with too many questions, inquiries he couldn’t make right now because he was being too stupid for words.
Yet here he was, babbling on about it like it was no big deal, and that’s what he did for a living, and ha ha ha, and here she was, you know, in charge of saving little kids’ health insurance policies.
She began to eat her food. He dug into his. Even though he didn’t like it, he welcomed the silence, perplexed by the
contradiction but lately his entire life seemed to be one big steaming pile of complexity. He watched her. He took the dinner as an opportunity to just keep an eye on her. To see what she was like. To see if she was…what her body language would give away.
She kept pulling on the shoulder of her sweater, correcting everything so that the edge of her black silk bra wouldn’t show, and every time she did it, a little part of him tugged. Mostly in the crotch area. But also in his heart. Because, man, was he lovin’ that little piece of black lace right now.
He forced a mouthful of something that he was afraid might still be half alive in between his teeth. And then, “Mmmm!” he groaned. “This is incredible. ”
“Yeah, mine’s luscious. ”
So are you, he thought, spearing a piece of fish and holding out his fork. “Do you want a bite of mine?”
He held the fork out for her and she looked at him in a certain way, eyes narrowing a bit while cocking her head, one little curl floating out of her ponytail as she tucked it behind her ear and leaned forward. Her lips enveloped the fork, her mouth tugging at the piece of food as he reluctantly pulled the fork away, those lips, those lips closing over the fork. Right now, he wanted part of him to be that fork. A very big, throbbing part of him that no napkin was covering.
Chewing, she groaned; it was the sound he wanted to hear later at night in his bed or in hers or on somebody’s couch or hell, in the alley by the parking lot at this point. Dylan’s cock strained against his trousers, more aroused then he ever imagined possible, just from watching her eat that scrumptious piece of God knows what.
“Isn’t it incredible?” he asked.
“That’s perfection. Where does it comes from?” she asked.
He glanced over at the menu and replied, “Malaysia and, apparently, Tibet. ”
“Oh, a Malaysian, Tibetan piece of perfection,” she said, then crinkled her brow with a bemused look. “Fishing in Tibet?”
He shrugged. “The monks have to do something. ” A diner at one table over frowned at them and Dylan just let it roll off.
Laura speared something else on her plate and lifted the fork to him. He took it, eagerly, greedily, eating something he didn’t even understand, but, watching her, his eyes boring into hers, realizing that this meal was just the appetizer and he was going to have the main course later on.
Oh, holy cow, she’d never been treated like this before in her entire life. In fact she was a bit concerned that she was leaving a wet spot on the upholstered bench and that she had soaked completely through not only her thong, but also her pencil skirt and pretty much through the outer layer of the bench’s covering, the pad, and into whatever store was beneath this restaurant because this guy was not just hot, he was flaming and how appropriate that he was a firefighter.
She could see it in his eyes too. Whatever was going on, there was a kismet here that really shouldn’t be happening. After they exchanged their bites, like a cross between “Lady and the Tramp” and a porno movie, she realized that she was going to go home with this guy. Laura was going to sleep with him and she was going to like it.
