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She groaned, already aching and swollen with desire. It was going to be a long afternoon.
* * * * *
Saturday afternoon, Gayle abandoned the pile of rejected clothes on her bed, and headed for her date wearing a chic black leather miniskirt and pink angora sweater under her denim coat. After all, Rikard’s ad said he liked leather. And she recalled reading somewhere that pink was a good color to wear to a first date, because it sent signals saying you were gentle and feminine. Fuzzy textures implied you were soft and invited thoughts of touching.
Plus, she knew pink looked good with her skin tone. She’d actually bothered with full makeup, as if she was going to a customer site, instead of just her usual tinted moisturizer and lip gloss, and knew she looked good.
Her cell phone was tucked into her black and pink purse, with her friend Carrie on the speed dial. Carrie was more than willing to act as her safety net for the date, provided she got all the juicy details in return.
As the blocks melted away beneath Gayle’s determined stride, the nervous quiver in her stomach grew progressively stronger. What if he was a complete troll? Or had some odious personal habit? What if he was drop-dead gorgeous, with the elegant and sophisticated manners of a James Bond? She took a deep breath, straightened her spine, and forced herself to smile cheerily. Just another audition.
She turned the corner to the café three minutes before two o’clock. A tall, blond man in a fitted black leather jacket was bending his head to talk to the hostess. Was that him?
He straightened and turned to scan the tables on the sidewalk, revealing his rectangular sunglasses of pale green, and a strong profile of high cheekbones, firm jaw, and well-shaped nose. His blond hair was artfully styled to give a rumpled, just out of bed look, falling across his forehead in graceful arcs, covering his ears and brushing his neck and shoulders.
Gayle hurried up to the hostess stand. “Rikard?”
He smiled, his gaze flicking down and up her body, lingering for just a moment on her leather skirt. “Gayle.”
A shiver rippled across her skin at the sound of her name being said in his rich voice. The false sexual purr of the hostess startled her out of her reverie.
“This way, please.”
She followed the hostess’ swinging hips, the woman working her clinging Hawaiian print silk sarong to full effect. Gayle was aware of Rikard’s presence behind her, and casually shrugged off her barn coat while she walked. She was rewarded with a soft intake of breath, and felt the heat of his gaze on her formfitting fuzzy sweater. Oddly, the hostess’s blatant attempt to hijack his attention made Gayle feel better. She wasn’t the only one to fall under the spell of Rikard’s voice.
When they reached the table, Rikard held out a chair for her, giving her the better seat, with a view overlooking the sidewalk. He took the facing chair, looking back at the café.
The hostess
handed them their menus, lingered a moment longer, then returned to her station. Rikard and Gayle stared at each other in silence, then both began speaking.
“So, what do you—?”
“Is this your first—?”
They both broke off, chuckling, and any lingering nervousness dissipated.
“You first,” he offered, gesturing her on with one gloved hand.
He wore black leather driving gloves, the supple leather clinging to his hands like a second skin. Gayle’s heart sped up as she pictured those gloved fingers stroking her body, circling gently around her ear, slipping along the edge of her jaw, and finally dipping down to fondle and caress her breasts.
“Thanks. I was just wondering how many responses you’d followed up with so far.”
“Judging the competition?” Rikard smiled, although something seemed vaguely wrong with his expression. The green lenses of his glasses made it difficult to read the look in his eyes, and even though the sun was behind him, he hadn’t removed them.
She shrugged, inexplicably nervous again. “Just curious.”
“Yours is the first message I returned,” he admitted. “I have a musician’s ear, and the other respondents’ voices were frankly painful to listen to. Whereas yours is a pleasure.”
“Well, I am always the first one asked to make phone recordings at work.”
“You said you were a programmer. Of telecom equipment?”
The waiter interrupted them before she could answer. She ordered a grande chai, with whipped cream. Rikard ordered a tall cinnamon coffee. They turned in their menus, then he indicated she should continue with a wave of his gloved hand and another of those oddly off smiles.
“No, I’m a general purpose programmer. I do tech support for a marketing branch office, keep the sales people’s laptops running, clear the viruses off the manager’s system, and do back office databases and demo code off the server.” She paused, then laughed and shook her head. “That probably made no sense to you whatsoever.”
The corner of his mouth crooked up. “I was with you until back office databases. What are those?”
