It miiiight have something to do with the fact that I know approximately what he looks like naked (I can at least imagine it since I touched him like everywhere), and what I think he looks like naked is a thousand times better than what he looks like clothed. He’s rock solid muscle, neatly put together with divine hands. I’ve seen his grandma now too. I know that it’s a combination of good genetics and massive amounts of discipline. It has to be. You can’t get a body like that without some serious hard work. I know these things because I work out every other day, mostly to feel good, but I can’t say that I don’t like the results physically, because I like being toned.
“H-hey.” I drop the word like a moron, all garbled and unsure. I gulp-swallow.
What happens now? Do I extend a hand? How does one greet someone that one barely knows, but has already had sex with multiple times? Yeah, we had repeats on that night.
Baked beans with hot dogs, this is about as awkward as awkward gets.
Daniel extends a hand like he wants me to do the whole handshake thing, and I think why not, maybe we’re starting over or something, but when I reach out, he takes my hand sweetly in his massive fingers, holding it with absolute delicacy and gentleness when in reality he could crush me like a nut on its way to being turned into peanut butter. He raises my hand and scrapes his hot lips over my knuckles, and it’s official. Everything.
I’m officially done.
Officially trembling in the body.
Officially weak in the knees.
Officially wet in the panties.
Daniel smiles at me, deeply, and since this is the first time I’ve gotten a real good look at him when he wasn’t wearing a mask and I wasn’t too shocked by his presence in my boutique to actually get my shit together, I notice his dimple for the first time. I notice a lot more too, from his dark black eyes to his thick lashes, his high cheekbones that somehow give his face a more rugged look, his square jaw that’s been shaved clean for the night and probably smells all woodsy and manly and delicious. And his dimple.
Gah. He has a dimple.
He angles his face just a little, and double gah, he has TWO dimples.
“Are you ready to meet my cacti?”
I don’t know that anyone has ever asked me a stranger question, but I find myself blushing and smiling softly in response to his devastatingly handsome, panty quaking grin. I swear, if I had known he was secretly a plant nerd that first night, I would have- well- okay, the same thing would have happened.
“I am,” I choke, nearly swallowing my own tongue at all the masculine beauty before me.
Daniel walks me to the car. Well, he leads, and I follow. He opens my door for me, and I blush some more. Before he even joins me in there, I can smell the rich aroma that belongs to him and not the car, but clings to all the sleek leather surfaces just the same. He’s woodsy. Not like pines, but like- I don’t know. Real trees. The kind no one ever smells like because everyone thinks that all trees smell like pines, when in fact most trees are more subtle.
Maybe he smells like cacti. Do cacti have a scent?
Daniel starts driving. The quiet between us feels only slightly strained by my nerves, but more comfortable than I figured it would be seeing as we’re strangers who have tasted and touched each other’s intimate bits already. Oh, and also Daniel has this completely effortless, magnetic charm that floats around him like a freaking swarm of flies, only much less bothersome and much more attractive.
“So… What did you do today?” The question wavers a little, like he’s not sure about breaking the silence which isn’t entirely uncomfortable. Maybe he’s nervous too. Or maybe he’s just not good at small talk.
“My mom is actually thinking about putting her house up for sale and moving into something smaller, so she’s been on a mad cleaning spree. She called me to come get all these boxes of my childhood stuff. So, that’s what I did all day. Cleaned out her basement, and things were surprisingly dusty, not musty. It must be a strange basement. Anyway, I hauled them all up to my place and I started going through them.”
“Really?” Daniel turns to me at a light. His face is alive with genuine interest. What dude gets interested about childhood things? My belly does a bit of a flip flop flutter butter completely unbidden.
“Uh- yeah. I- found some old high school assignments. I actually had to do this project for grade twelve English where we compiled our writing in different styles. I started reading that and I was- just- amazed. At myself.”