I lean against the wall, wine glass in one hand, as you talk about your day. Your movements are fluid as you peel and chop and taste. You pick up a small knife with a sharp serrated edge, swallow a mouthful of wine, then reach for a pepper and start slicing. The pepper is bright yellow - the colour that children pick to draw the sun - except for a blush of orange around one pouting oval end. Your fingers are quick and deft and confident as you slice, throw the seeds and the fleshy core into the bin, and scrape the mismatched golden slices into the simmering pan. Beside the stove is a large wooden pepper grinder, the wood pale and smooth, the grain following its subtle sensuous curves You pick it up and grind pepper into the spaghetti sauce you're building, then continue holding it as you talk, your strong fingers running absently along its grooves.
I put my wine down and walk to you, take the grinder from you and run my hands up your neck to the soft hair that curls onto your collar. Pull you towards me. You kiss me, so softly at first that it's like imagination, then harder as my breath quickens. Your lips are sure and certain and warm and it feels completely right.
Your emails have been exciting me all day, the passion of what you couldn't say making me tremble and my nipples harden to flushed excited peaks beneath my soft cotton shirt. Ever time the new mail icon appeared on my screen this afternoon, my heart thudded and my cheeks burned. Every time I met your eyes across our desk in the crowded office, the intensity of your gaze and the passion in them sent a shock through me, making me crave your touch.