"Thank you so much, I appreciate what you did," says the twenty-something young woman to her saviour. "I'm Amy, by the way."
"Rick, and don't mention it." A little older and a lot taller the personable guy sharing the lift shrugs self-deprecatingly.
"Some other residents in this block get annoyed when my granny wanders, it's great you brought her home. I could kiss you."
"I won't stop you."
"It was a figure of speech," Amy is visibly flustered, "I meant it affectionately."
"I'll take that," he replies encouragingly.
Acting wholly out of character, she rises on tiptoes, kisses his cheek and favours him with a heart-warming smile. Time stops, the tension is palpable. Throwing caution to the winds Amy leans in closer and kisses him again, this time on the lips.
"Am I completely misreading this," he ventures cautiously, "or are we having a moment?"
"Not sure what we're having, just that it feels good." With perfect bad timing the lift reaches the ground floor and the doors open.
"I didn't want that kiss to stop," says Rick.
"Me neither," Amy looks at him apologetically. "Sorry, got to rush to the pharmacy and pick up Gran's meds," she adds and is gone.
Rick understands her haste, aware that Amy looks after her increasingly frail and forgetful granny, frequently visiting the apartment block where he and the elderly woman live; a devoted granddaughter with little time left for herself. On a couple of occasions, he's helped Amy carry in shopping bags and today returned the confused old lady to her care, having fortunately intercepted her attempt to leave the building clad only in nightwear.
What just happened there? Amy wonders walking down the road minutes later, futilely attempting to slow her heart rate. We only kissed, although I'd like it to be a whole lot more. She imagines being held in Rick's arms and then taken to bed. Shakes her head to dispel the unlikely fantasy. I mean, quite apart from these shapeless dungarees and the pounds put on lately while cooking for Gran, I wasn't sylph-like in the first place, he's not likely to fancy me. A fit guy like Rick is way out of my league, probably just being polite. For a few minutes though it had felt wonderful, human contact, a sense of possibility. Forget it, not going to happen.
Wow, thinks Rick, on his way to work, that girl certainly knows how to kiss. A rare genuinely spur-of-the-moment encounter, although to be honest over recent weeks he's become conscious of a growing physical attraction. The pretty face, those sparkling green eyes. Something else too, nothing immediately obvious, perhaps an unfulfilled sexuality? He's never seen her wearing anything but unflattering workaday clothes and wonders how her curvy body might feel close to him.
Amy can't seem to get Rick out of her head. What's not to like? She isn't the only woman locally to give him a second glance. Clearly a kind person, helps without being asked and went the extra mile today to save Gran from an accident or worse. Seems to live alone and work away a lot - at what she's no idea. That's all she knows, except, strangely, Amy's noticed him check her out a couple of times, she hopes favourably.
Three days later they cross paths again, inevitably in the lift.
"We can't keep meeting like this," Amy laughs, "what are the chances?"
"Pretty high, I've been standing here since Thursday hoping to bump into you," Rick jokes. Her heart skips a beat.
"I'm going to ignore the frankly stalky implication and take that as a very weird compliment," Amy tries to keep the exchange light.
"Good, that was my intention, oh, here we're here." They both step out on the ground floor.
"That kiss the other day?" Rick raises a quizzical eyebrow.
"Yes..." She blushes at the recall.
"I'd like to finish it properly."
"When?" To her embarrassment, Amy's voice rises an octave.
"Anytime in the next 10 seconds," Rick, cups her face and kisses Amy like he means it. She responds passionately, desperate to feel his lips on hers, not caring who might see, uninhibited and going for broke. When they finally step apart from the intoxicating embrace both are breathless and excited.
"An improvement on our last encounter," Rick observes, "yet somehow this corridor lacks ambience, want to come to mine?"
"Yes!" An invitation that doesn't take any time to consider. Rick takes her hand, Amy inwardly glowing at this small intimacy, and leads her through his front door.
Okay, good first impression, a clean, bright, comfortable flat, not some bachelor hell hole of fake-leather furniture and unwashed dishes. Amy is relieved and impressed.
"Very nice."
"Me, or the decor?"
"Both." Amy spontaneously snogs him and is enveloped in Rick's arms, that dream at least has come true. Feels the hard-wired male reaction of an erection stir against her leg. So, Rick does find her desirable...
An observation confirmed when he undoes the dungaree's shoulder straps - when in her life, Amy wonders distractedly, did they become default attire? - and slips his hands under her T-shirt to caress prominent breasts. At least I've got decent knickers on, thinks Amy. During the last few days, her greying everyday underwear has been consigned to recycling and replaced by seldom-worn, sexier items from the back of a drawer. Ready for anything. Sparks of desire, charged with unspoken expectation and longing arc between them, physically and mentally drawing the two closer.
"A confession," he murmurs, surfacing from another kiss.
"You're saving yourself for marriage, not that sort of boy, just sobered up?"
"All the above. No, just that I've secretly fancied you for ages."
"Me, seriously?" Amy can't hide her surprise.
"You," Rick confirms, gently squeezing her boobs and sending a delicious shiver of sensation through her body. He rolls Amy's erect nipples between his fingertips, and she moans softly, craving his touch, arousal tingling between her legs.
"Why?"
"Basic physical attraction, also your intellect."
"Why do you think I'm clever?"
"The MA certificate in pride of place on your granny's mantlepiece, I noticed it when helping you with the shopping.
"Ah, that." Amy got a good degree, was offered an enviable job and had a rosy future before caring for Gran temporarily derailed her life. Now she dares to dream it's taking a turn for the better. Taking the initiative, her hands unfasten his belt.
"This is all getting a bit one-sided mister, and these trousers seem to be tight on you. Oh, wow." A very erect penis springs out. Amy cups his balls and encircles Rick's shaft with cool hands.
"You like?"
"I do like," she confirms.
"Well, you've seen mine, now I get to see yours." He tugs the overalls down to expose Amy's naked breasts and curvy body, her most intimate yet-to-be-revealed treasure concealed by dainty blue panties. Rick slides a hand between her legs. She moans and kisses him again. When they break, he brings dewy fingers up to her mouth and she lewdly sucks them.
"Someone is getting wet."
"Hardly surprising." A thrill of arousal, more intense than she's ever experienced, courses through her trembling body. "I want you inside me," Amy says, shocked at her boldness and all but drags Rick to the bedroom where, to her delight, her knickers are removed and thighs reverently parted. No longer in the land of wishful thinking, this is really happening to me, thinks Amy, scarcely able to comprehend the speed of events. Rick's fingertips lightly glide over the silky texture of her inner thighs to delve between delicate folds. His tongue plays havoc with her clit and Amy lies back, blissfully transported to an erotic seventh heaven.
Reluctantly, Amy places a hand on Rick's head to halt his expert oral attentions. "Steady tiger, I need your cock inside me before I come." Rick slides up the bed and she raises her knees to ease his entry as inch by inch he slides into her, a slow and gentle first fuck. Amy gazes intently into Rick's eyes, moving with him, feels her climax inexorably build and instinctively guesses he is also close. Pussy contracting around his lovely cock, Amy gasps and shudders as he ejaculates. "Oh God, I'm going to come too," she moans, orgasm releasing a flood of pent-up lust.
Dazed and amazed at their sexual intensity they collapse on the bed. Amy considers her new lover carefully, lowers her eyelids and asks seductively. "Please sir, may I have some more?"
"Well..." Rick looks at his flaccid penis.
"I'm sure I can revive you," replies Amy and within seconds his cock hardens in her hot mouth as she sucks his erection back to life. "Prepare for a second coming," she giggles, "do me from behind." She turns around, gets on all fours and lewdly presents her delectable derriere.
"Bad girl," observes Rick and slaps her left buttock, unable to resist the temptation. The pale skin immediately pinkens.
"Stick around and you'll discover just how much that gets me going," she purrs.
Does she like spanking? Amy certainly enjoys the abstract idea as it plays out in her fantasies; the prospect of her complicit surrender is intensely erotic. Rick has shown he can be considerate, can he also act authoritatively? Right now, she has a more immediate need.
Taking her at her word, Rick enters Amy's kneeling form doggy style and settles into an insistent rhythm of long, measured strokes, manoeuvring Amy's hips to adjust the angle and increase the pressure on her clit, deftly locating the sweet spot.
"Oh, Christ," Amy presses a pillow to her face to stifle her cries as they increase in volume; knees giving way she falls forward. Without missing a beat, Rick straddles her thighs and continues.
"I'm all yours, fuck me!" Rick plunges his cock into Amy's velvet slot a final time. "Yes, yes, yes!" she cries, overwhelmed. "Don't stop." Her wish is his command. Warm jets flood her pussy, leaking onto her thighs. Rick holds Amy close until her body, trembling with orgasmic aftershocks, stills. "Thank you," she whispers, dreamy and endorphin satiated.
A perfect moment, followed by an unavoidable hiatus. Rick departs on a month-long tour of Europe, trucking equipment for a famous band. The lovers message daily on WhatsApp and gradually reveal their backstories.
How her creative talent provided an escape from a chaotic background, until the failing health of her beloved gran - the most important person throughout Amy's childhood - scuppered her career plans. Why Rick was cast as the familial black sheep after turning his back on a high-level career for a life behind the wheel. Unexpectedly, two weeks into Rick's trip, Amy's house share folds and there are no affordable options close to her granny, whose one-bed flat is too small for two.
