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.