“I can have the waiter take the bottle away if you want,” I add when Danny doesn’t respond. “Another drink isn’t worth you feeling tempted.”
“I don’t feel tempted,” Danny says, folding his napkin and placing it beside his empty plate. “I’m ready to get out of here.” He looks up, meeting my eyes with a hungry look that sends another shiver of excitement across my skin. “I need to be alone with you.”
“Then let’s get the check.” I drain the last of my wine in several long pulls while Danny flags down our waitress and signs the bill to the room.
By the time we step outside, my head is spinning and my skin is so flushed the crisp night air rushing in off the lake feels wonderful on my cheeks and bare shoulders. I’m definitely tipsy, but I’m also so much calmer than I was on the way to dinner, and able to think about the things Danny and I are going to do together without anxiety drifting through my wine-fuzzy thoughts.
“You want my fleece?” Danny asks as we start up the gravel path into the woods, following the trail of tiny lanterns illuminating the way into the forest.
I lift my arms out to the sides and suck in a deep breath of cold air. “No, thank you. The cold feels great. And doesn’t the air smell brilliant? I’ve never smelled such perfect air, not even on Maui.”
“It does,” Danny agrees, looping his arm around my waist as we walk. “And you look amazing. This dress has been driving me crazy.”
“I thought it might.” I’d worn a sleeveless black lace dress with heavy red stockings and knee-high motorcycle boots, knowing the combination of hard and soft was exactly the kind of thing that drives Danny wild.
“You know me pretty well,” he says, his fingers curling possessively around my hip, making my belly flutter and my nipples tighten inside my strapless bra. “But I know you pretty well, too.”
“I know. I love you in these jeans.” I lean into him, relishing the way my nerve endings are sizzling to life.
This is different than what happened on the plane. This isn’t desire sneaking up on me before I can start stressing. This is wisps of wanting drifting through my limbs and into my core, smoke rising slowly from wood about to catch fire.
This is the way it used to be with Danny and me, when just holding his hand as we walked along the beach could make my skin tingle and my body ache. When meeting his eyes over ice cream was enough to make me drag him back behind the dessert shop to make out by the Dumpsters when we were too young to have a place to go.
“And because I know you, I’m pretty sure you’re keeping something from me,” he says as we climb the steps to our cabin’s front door. He turns to me as we reach the porch, where matching wooden rockers creak in the wind, and pins me with one of his piercing looks. “And I think I have an idea what.”
“Oh yeah?” I ask, the wine making me bold enough to meet his gaze and pretend I have nothing to hide. “You’re right, I do have a secret, and I’ve been wanting to show it to you all night long.”
I reach for the bottom of my full, knee-length skirt and draw it up my thighs, revealing the tops of my red stockings and the black garter belt holding them in place. I know the second they’re visible in the dim light of the porch lamp by the way Danny’s eyes darken and his breath catches.
“I bought that garter belt you said you liked last Christmas,” I say. “That’s why I wanted to wait earlier. I wanted to surprise you.”
Danny curses softly as he sinks to his knees in front of me and reaches out to grip my thighs in his big hands. “Spread your legs.”
“Shouldn’t we go inside?” I ask, even as I obey him, my pulse beginning to beat low in my body as I widen my stance.
“Not yet.” He presses a kiss to my right thigh, and then my left, setting a heavy, achy feeling to spreading through my pelvis. “This first.”
His mouth hovers inches from the apex of my thighs, his breath warming my skin through my satin panties and making my clit swell. I hold absolutely still, breath coming faster as I imagine what he’s going to do next. I expect him to kiss me, or maybe pull aside the crotch of my panties and slide a finger inside where I’m getting wetter by the second. I don’t expect him to lean in and trap my clit between his teeth, biting down hard enough to send a shockwave of desire rocketing across my skin.