For the first time since we'd met, it would be just the two of us.
We had spent years eying each other, meeting at tradeshows or conferences two or three times a year. And in all that time, I had watched him. We had talked often, but always in a crowd. Still, I'd catch him looking at me, too, his eyes running over my body like a pair of eager hands, intense enough to almost feel. Now we would be alone. I had arrived at this conference a day early and on impulse asked the hotel operator to ring his room, just in case he had, too. "One moment," she'd said. And in a moment I heard his voice, deep and surprised. "I just got in," I said. "It's raining too hard to go anywhere. If you haven't eaten, would you like to join me for dinner here?"
I expected him to say no. It was feeling all too easy. Instead, he said, "Yes." Then "When?"
"Twenty minutes," I said. "I'm still checking in."
"I'll be there," he said.
Twenty minutes. Time to change my shirt and fix my makeup, no time to shower. Oh well. I wasn't expecting much. He hadn't given any indication that he did, either. Would he this evening?
But then I hadn't a clue what he was really like. I knew the basics. That he was about six feet, maybe 240 lbs, all muscle. His hair was almost black and cropped short--he'd been a Marine and liked the look--his shoulders were massive, his back nicely tapered, his ass nicely rounded. His eyes were more bronze than brown. I was about half his weight, a few inches shorter, blonde, gray eyed. If nothing else, we made a striking pair.
I liked that he was a cop from New York, a vice cop no less. It gave an edge to our conversations, though it never came up exactly. I never asked, and he never offered. When we talked it was light, banter--all for fun, so that if anyone had been listening, they have heard just two casual acquaintances making very proper small talk.
In twenty minutes exactly I was in the bar, the usual gathering place at these events. He wasn't there. I walked across the lobby to the restaurant and he was there, at a candle-lit table, a bottle of Riesling on ice. He stood when he saw me, and my breath quickened.
"I thought you meant the bar," I said.
"Not tonight," he said. "I felt like something special. And you're looking too good for a bar." I could feel myself flush slightly. I could feel the warmth of that flush between my legs and wondered if he could tell. When I smiled at him, his eyes held mine. It was like striking a bargain, making a promise.