Margot knew Ryan well enough to have agreed to his suggestion that, if the weather was bright and not too warm, they would meet in the car park of a woodland nature reserve and take a stroll. An escarpment that gave views over the rolling Yorkshire countryside would be at the limit of the walk. They would then retrace their steps and decide where their time together would take them.
Her hands shook as she closed and locked her car door and walked towards him. He stood on the edge of the woods and leaned casually against the timber fence that marked the boundary of a picnic spot. Ryan looked so relaxed, more so than she felt. Perhaps he was just doing that for appearance's sake and felt as nervous as she did. It was to be the first time that they would be together.
"Hi, you beat me to it!" she said, grinning at him and giving Ryan a quick hug in greeting. His aftershave, or the scent of a choice body spray, is breathed in. She likes it.
Ryan gives her a moment's appraising stare, just like she had done as she walked across the parking lot to be with him.
"It's great to see you this way, even if I did let you choose this place to do that."
"It's a favourite of mine," she answers with a shrug of her slender shoulders and then begins to stroll along the woodland path, close by his side. "This way we're away from prying eyes."
He laughs at her poor joke, his gaze taking in what she has chosen to wear for this, their first meeting. "It doesn't have to be a secret, not for me anyway."
Ryan's no stranger to her, not anymore, and after weeks of seeing and talking to him on a chatline. She already feels smitten with the guy beside her, dressed as he is in washed-out jeans and a tan short-sleeved rowing shirt, his lean face topped by a spikey dark brown mop of hair. She's seen all this already, but nothing beats the guy in the flesh and his real smile, not the one she often saw when they contacted each other on various apps.
"So?" he asks in a deep voice that makes her tummy flutter and tense. Ryan's so darned sexy, so strong, the sleeves of his shirt gripping strong and muscled biceps and his pecs unmistakable. "So, what do you want to know that we haven't told each other already?"
"Oh!"
Her mind's gone blank for a moment, possessed instead by the photos and clips of him that she was able to see. Now, she wonders what he makes of her, dressed as she is in jeans, the knees worn and torn as some like it, her floaty blouse wafting on the breeze and covering a clingy, body-shaping scoop-necked vest. Her blonde hair hangs free, is windblown, and gives her a devil-may-care look.
"Oh, and what else?" he grins, his deep voice getting to her and lightening as Ryan teases, gently. "We wanted to meet and be together and talk, for real... and not just take a walk."
They have already strolled some way into the woods and she keeps on hoping that he hasn't realised that her thoughts seem to be somewhere else, as if on a different planet.
"Ryan, I...I..."
"I'm lost in this moment just as you are, Margot."
Suddenly, he pulls her to him and she looks up, into his questioning eyes. She sees that he feels the same as she does, now that they've met; that in their looks upon each other, there is longing and a desire to make all of their remote chat ragingly real.
There is the unmistakable gnaw of longing in her belly, the ache in her breasts, the tightening of the muscles in her throat.
Is she
really
going to let go so quickly and with the handsome young guy who holds her so darned tight against him that she feels weak? She doesn't have time to think it all through, now that she feels how Ryan presses against her body, his hands lifting her blouse and she feels his strength and warmth through the cotton of her vest as he caresses her.
"May I do that...so soon?"
