The Fireman's Baby: A BWWM Pregnancy Romance (3 page)

There was something exhilarating in being able to captivate a man, and Laura had felt that she had captivated Daniel. It made her walk taller as she became acutely aware of the feel of her own body and the attention it could command. She felt the touch of her long, dark hair against her bare shoulders as she turned to shut the door behind her and then she melted into excited laughter.

She felt like she was doing something dangerous and daring; like she had a naughty little secret that she could carry around all day. She rushed to clean the house and rearrange her clutter to make it seem like a mature, sexual woman lived here rather than an awkward just-turned-thirty girl who spent her time reading advice columns written by mature, sexual women.

Chapter3

When she picked up her magazine to clear it away she scoffed at the woman from the lipstick advert who would never get to spend a night with anyone as hot as Daniel. The thought sent a thrill shooting through her once more. Somehow she, Laura Clark, had managed to seduce a man way out of her league. Her body reacted with spasms and heat every time she brought to mind his dark eyes and that incredible, rock solid washboard stomach...

Laura had to make a special trip to the store to buy something for dinner. She wasn't sure that she would be able to impress the captain with half a bag of brown rice or the half an avocado that had been in her fridge for just a tad too long now. And what to wear? Her mind was a carnival of thoughts.

She was glad that she had been in her mini-shorts and tank top when she had called the fire department and ran out into the street. Usually a modest dresser, having that extra bit of skin on display had undoubtedly helped her to catch Daniel's attention, but a dinner date required something a bit more sophisticated than strawberry-print cotton.

A little black dress was a bit too much for a dinner in her tiny semi-detached house, but jeans and a T-shirt didn't quite present her as the elegant and experienced woman she wanted to project. In the end, she settled on a black skirt and a red spaghetti strap top. It was another number that Sophie had commented on.

Apparently it made her look like an escort, but the expensive kind. Laura had tried on everything in her wardrobe and come back to the red top at least three times over before she finally decided to wear it. After all, this was supposed to be a night of steamy, no-strings sex, so there was no sense in wearing an outfit that suggested she was looking for anything else.

In truth, after looking at herself in the mirror in all the other outfits, Laura knew that the little red top with the slinky straps was her only real option. Ever since seeing the captain look at her in that wanting way, she had been craving seeing that look again.

Laura had never considered herself a particularly sexy woman, but Daniel had seemed to want just what she was offering and that made her feel alive. The silky red top came down in a gentle V-shape which clung tightly to her breasts, but just skimmed across her cleavage in a way that drew the eye without being too slutty. The back of the top was open, revealing the soft, dark caramel skin of her back.

People underestimate the sex appeal of a bare shoulder and an open back. Any woman can flash her chest. It’s blatant and can instantly make a man stand to attention, but there is a certain sophistication and femininity to an exposed back that is a promise, but not a preview; a hint. It was this distinction that made a man know that he was dealing with a sensual woman who knew what she was doing and would keep him entranced. Not that Laura knew this of course. She just thought the color red made her eyes look brighter and that the cut flattered her figure, which it did.

By the time it was quarter to eight, the pasta dish was almost ready, the wine was in the fridge, and Laura was dressed in her red top with her make-up carefully applied to subtly enhance the allure of her dark eyes and the shape of her soft lips. When the doorbell rang at precisely eight, Laura took a deep breath and opened the door.

Daniel looked different in trousers and a dark blue shirt, but no less handsome. The soot was gone from his skin, which was now shown to have a healthy tan. His shirt fit in such a way as to cling to the contour of the firm, rounded muscles of his arms, but only skim across that incredible six-pack stomach that drove Laura mad. A promise, not a preview.

Laura stepped back to let him in and he stepped past her closer than he needed to, before handing her a bottle of red wine he had brought with him. Laura didn't know a lot about wine, but this one had a cork instead of a screw-cap, so it was probably the expensive kind. Daniel began to look around her kitchen as she put it in the fridge alongside her own bottle.

“It's a nice place you have here,” he told her.

“It's tiny,” Laura replied modestly.

“Still pretty large for just one,” Daniel replied pointedly. “Do you live alone?”

Laura smiled at the real question of whether or not she was taken.

“I broke up with my ex six months ago. I've been living alone ever since,” she told him honestly. She leaned on her elbows on the counter and looked up at him from beneath her thick lashes. “Do you live alone?”

“I'm barely home these days,” Daniel replied. “I'm on call so often at the station. I usually sleep there.”

“I guess that comes with being the captain,” Laura smiled.

She turned suddenly at a hissing sound behind her and panicked when she saw that her pasta was boiling over and rushed to turn down the heat on the stove. Daniel stepped past her with a light chuckle and adjusted the lid to let some of the steam escape until the bubbling died down.

“You don't cook very often?” he guessed.

“Oh, I cook all the time,” Laura replied. “But I'm still really bad at it.”

Daniel laughed. “What are we having?”

Laura looked down at her sticky recipe book to remind herself and tried to pronounce the Italian name of the dish.

“Lingwini amatrisheeyana,” she declared boldly.

The captain took a look over her shoulder and laughed.

“Linguine Amatriciana,” he corrected. “Sounds good. I love Italian.”

“Well, I can't promise it will taste like the original, but I can promise that it comes with enough wine that you won't notice,” she told him.

Daniel smiled. “I love girls who cook,” he said. “But I think I like girls who try to cook even more. Did you want to impress me that much?”

“It's the least I could do,” Laura said, taking a bottle of wine out of the fridge and trying to uncork it with a bottle opener.

The captain watched her for a moment with amusement in his eyes, before opening her kitchen drawer and locating a corkscrew. Laura blushed at her own air-headedness. She watched him with mild admiration as he twisted the cork into the screw and pulled it out with a sharp
pop
and then poured both of them a glass.

“Are you a connoisseur?” she asked him.

“No,” he laughed. “But as you're pretending that you can cook, I thought I'd pretend that I know about wine.”

Laura laughed and took a sip. Whether he knew anything about wine or not, the slightly bitter and fruity red wine tasted good to her—even better with his eyes watching her drink it.

“You look incredible in that top,” he told her with a crooked smile. “Did you wear that just for me?”

She flicked him another alluring gaze and a sexy smile, saying nothing, before bending down to check on the rest of the meal in the oven. She could feel his eyes on her as she opened the oven door and so she lingered there a moment longer than she needed to before straightening up and turning to the chopping board to dice the herbs.

“Let me help,” he insisted. He picked up a second knife and began to dice handfuls of fresh oregano. “The others at the Academy used to tease me for cooking,” he told her. “They'd bring in their sandwiches and hot dogs and I'd be there with a homemade risotto.”

“So you're a food aficionado?” Laura asked him with a teasing smile.

“I appreciate fine food,” he told her. He looked up at her with an acknowledging smile. “I appreciate fine things in general.”

“Did you find out what started the fire?” Laura asked. She was beginning to feel herself flushing under his gaze and she didn't want to lose her appearance of being calm and sophisticated just yet.

“Hair straighteners,” Daniel told her. “It was hair straighteners.”

“How many fires do you fight every day?” Laura asked him.

“Well, that depends,” Daniel replied. “It's worse in the summer with all the forest fires, but then again, people set more things on fire in the winter just for heat and warmth. We frequently get called out when there's no fire at all. Road accidents and things like that.”

“What about cats in trees?” Laura asked with a playful smile. “Or does that never happen?”

“I've had a dog under the porch and a parakeet in the ceiling fan,” he told her. “No cats in trees yet, but I'm sure it's just a matter of time. What do you do?”

“I own a card shop,” she told him. “You know, birthdays and anniversaries. It sounds boring, but I like the idea that everyone who comes in is thinking of someone else.”

“Are you the emotional type then?” he asked her.

Laura flashed him a devilish glance. “Not tonight.”

He grinned back, finished chopping his oregano with a flourish and finished his glass of wine. Laura realized that she had almost finished hers and poured them both another. She pulled out plates, cutlery, and table settings from the cupboards and Daniel rushed to help her set the places at the small kitchen table on the other side of the counter. He looked up at the photos pinned to the wall behind it.

“Who is this with you?” he asked, pointing to a photo of Laura and Sophie hugging with big grins on their faces.

“That's Sophie,” Laura replied. “She's been my best friend since forever.”

“It looks like you spend a lot of time together,” he commented.

“Well, I don't have a sister,” Laura told him. “So I'm glad to have Sophie around. Do you have any brother or sisters?”

“A younger sister,” he nodded. “Do you have any brothers?”

“One older.”

“So what's your older brother doing, letting you invite strange men into your house for bad Italian food?” he teased her.

“I don't think I'm going to be telling my brother about tonight,” Laura laughed lightly.

“Why not?”

“Ooh, I'm not sure he'd approve of my behavior.”

“I'll hold you to that,” Daniel grinned.

Laura served the bad Italian, which turned out to actually be pretty good, especially accompanied by another glass of wine and his good company. The two began to talk about everything and anything, but it wasn't the words that were making Laura's body tingle.

No, it was the deliberate, teasing body language which played between them. The way she slowly closed her lips over her fork and slowly pulled it out from her mouth. The way he kept his eyes fixed on her over the top of his wine glass as he drank, looking at her in a way which told her that he was only thirsty for her.

At one point she even felt his leg brushing against hers beneath the table and she didn't move hers away, but simply smiled another teasing smile so that he would know she had noticed and that she liked it.

After dinner, Laura began to gather the dishes and Daniel helped her once again. She didn't know if he was truly that much of a gentleman, or whether, like her, he just wanted to live in the excitement of standing close to one another. The electricity between them was tangible.

It hung in the air, heavy and anticipating, building a desire, minute by minute which rested in the shrinking space between them, as Daniel moved closer to her to take the dishes from her hands and reached up over her head to hang the wine glasses from their posts.

The young woman enjoyed every minute of the wait. It wasn’t like her to prolong the inevitable, but this man oozed experience and charm and she didn't want to seem tactless by rushing it.  What's more, she could feel him growing more desirous as the night went on. Moment by moment, his gaze grew longer, resting on her movements as she washed the dishes and settling on the bare skin of her back when she was turned to the sink.

Every time that Laura thought her libido had peaked, Daniel would brush by her again and another tingle of sexual desire would shoot through her, building the need within her to have him. Never had doing the dishes been so pleasurable.

When the dishes were done and put away, Laura invited Daniel into the living room. Even though she could feel his desire for her mounting, she was still somewhat surprised when he followed her to her sofa. The insecure girl inside of her still couldn't quite believe that this incredible, handsome man would be interested in shy little Laura.

Then again, Laura wasn’t herself tonight. No, she was like that girl in the magazine—beautiful, erotic, and aware of the effects of her slow deliberate movements and lingering glances. In fact, both of them knew the effect they were having on the other, which made the unspoken dialogue between them grow ever clearer and the wait grow shorter and more intense as the minutes ticked by.

Laura sat at the end of the sofa. Daniel could so easily have sat on the other end, but he didn't. Instead he sat right by her side so that her thigh was touching his and he rested his arm on the back of the sofa behind her head so that she could feel the heat of his body emanating against her own skin. He poured more wine into her glass.

She was beginning to grow a little heady from the alcohol, but in the most delicious way. Where alcohol usually diminished her senses, with Daniel beside her, it seemed that the effect was the opposite. She was ultra-aware of every breath coming from his strong, muscular chest and the way that the hand behind her head would playfully stroke at her hair now and then. She became less hesitant and turned her body into his as they continued to drink their wine and talk into the night.