Stolen Moments Ch. 03

What in God's good name was she doing here?

Suzanne walked into the restaurant's main foyer. Pagiani's. The scent of garlic and basil teased her as she closed the door to the blustery evening outside; the low light caused a hazy glow as the chatter of patrons buzzed low in her ears. She scanned what she could see. Some dining, part of the bar. No one sitting alone.

Foolish. How was she going to recognize him? What would she do when she met him? What if he wasn't what she expected? What if he was? What if he wasn't here? She pressed her hand to her chest and forced herself to take a deep breath. As she did, her chest rose and fell against the silk of her blouse, and her nipples rubbed against the smooth texture, becoming erect almost immediately.

Against her better judgment, she had worn the gift. Worn the gift, and placed a dark grey silk blouse unbuttoned as far as social boundaries would let her without labeling her as something not acceptable. Her skirt went to just above her knees, but the tops of her thigh highs clung to her skin, and served to remind her that she had followed the man's instructions, and had not worn any underwear.

The outline of her nipples could be seen through her otherwise conservative and well-cut blouse. And if anyone decided to look, they would be able to tell that no cloth covered them. Blood pooled to her nether regions and she suddenly became very aware of her body. "No one here can know..." she assured herself. "No one here is going to look at my breasts. No one can know what I am feeling..."

Her eyes continued to scan the room. Looking for someone looking for her. She stepped further into the foyer to get a look around the corner. An attractive man in his late 40's sat by himself at a table across the way. Grey streaking his temples. Sitting alone.

No. A woman was coming back to his table from the powder room. It couldn't be him.

Suzanne couldn't decide if she felt brazen, sexy, insane, or just stupid.

"Can I help you miss?" A man behind the podium intoned. He looked at her with a critical eye. Suzanne felt more naked then she should.

"Is anyone here waiting for Suzanne?"

"No, Miss. Will you be dining with us this evening?"

" I uh... believe so." She sucked briefly on her upper lip, and then looked the Maitre D in the eye. "Look. Is there a bar I can wait at until my date arrives?"

He raised an eyebrow.

"Of course Miss. To your right. May I ask after a name? Perhaps when he arrives I can point him in your direction?"

"No. That is quite all right. Thank you."

And with that, Suzanne made her way away from the little man as quickly as dignity would allow. Had he known? He couldn't have known! She still felt haunted.

She moved further into the bar.

"Oh no."

Michael, her coworker, was sitting at the bar, chatting with the bar tender and nursing what looked to be a scotch.

Michael had only been with the company a few months, but had never taken the time to speak with Suzanne. She never really wondered about it. Michael was an attractive man at 31. Dark, well kept, he had the look of a man who never made any effort to look good, but always did anyways. The sort of man made to walk around bare-chested and hold babies. She assumed he was a cocky bastard from the start and didn't pay him much mind. But he was here. And he had to know who she was. And he would go back to the office on Monday and tell everyone that she had shown up at this restaurant and that no one had come to claim her.

Suzanne felt a blush rising, and turned the leave.

"Suzanne!! Is that you?"

She stopped dead in her tracks. She couldn't just walk away now. She had to make an appearance. How would she explain it? If the man didn't show, she would appear no more than an abandoned wallflower. If he did, Michael would surely recognize him, and the news would go well with Monday morning coffee and doughnuts. She took a deep breath, steeled her shoulders, turned around and smiled brightly.

"Michael?"

"It is you! Come here and have a drink."

Suzanne made her way to the bar and found an empty stool near her co-worker.

"Vodka tonic please," she asked the bartender.

Michael was looking at her. Not just at her... but AT her. She felt her nipples tighten painfully again as she felt he could see them beneath the thin silk of her blouse. It was disconcerting. With that look, certainly he could see into her very soul, and know what she was about tonight.

"What are you doing here this evening?" He asked brightly. He sounded awfully happy to see her. Maybe it was just small talk, or surprise at seeing someone from the office. His date would show soon. Men like him didn't go places like this without a woman on his arm or a fist full of buddies.

"Meeting a friend."

"Mmmm..." he responded into his glass as he sipped his whiskey.

"You look very nice tonight." Suzanne gave him a cross-eyed look and laughed out loud.

"Thanks, I think. Who are you meeting tonight?"

"A friend." And he smiled. A warm and inviting smile. Suzanne shook herself mentally. Don't get drawn into that smile. He's not here for you. And any moment, you're going to run into...

"Oops. You have a leaf in your hair. Must have blown in from outside. Let me get that for you."

All to familiarly he reached over and plucked the miniscule foliage from her hair. She started back a bit at the easiness of the motion and then stopped cold.

As his arm came across her shoulder and near her face, it exuded the scent she had recognized earlier that day. That change crossed her face. He stopped his motion, and, having rescued the errant leaf, moved his hand briefly to caress her cheek... It stole down to rest briefly, casually on her knee.

"You were 7 minutes late you know. You..." Suzanne felt her heart leap into her throat, and she couldn't breath any longer. "You..." She shook her head and closed her eyes. She felt the hand squeeze her knee possessively and she opened her eyes in shock "But you never...how could you... why would..."

"Shhh." he said, and his voice was recognized. She had never really heard it above a whisper, and to see it coming out of this man who's face she had seen at a distance nearly every day... Suzanne felt a shock run through her entire body, from head to toes and then bounding back again. His hand was incredibly, unbelievably warm upon her knee. It slipped just under the skirt, but didn't go any higher... the feel of his hand on the other side of that black silk was excruciating.

"I had a table reserved. Are you hungry?" Suzanne could barely do more than nod as he stood up and offered his arm. She took it, and they exited the bar, returning back to the Maitre D. He sat them without fanfare in a booth sitting in the far corner of the restaurant. Dark and very private.

The Restaurant was done in hues of burgundy and gold. Everything shimmered in the candlelight, and all the tables were covered with long white crisp linen table clothes, adorned with fresh red roses. It felt opulent. Michael sat her down on one end of the booth, and he sat himself on the other. They were given two menus and the wine list. Suzanne didn't event think to look. She was still trying to sort what was occurring in her suddenly eventful life.

Michael perused the menu and wine list briefly, and then put them down, looking into Suzanne's eyes.

"I am glad you came."

"I wasn't sure that I would."

"You knew you would."

"You're cocky."

"You're not wearing any underwear."

The statement slapped her in the face, and rendered her speechless.

"I can see your beautiful nipples right now through your blouse... just their shape. I'm glad you wore it. Now I don't have to cut the thing off of you to get to what I want." Suzanne turned as crimson as the roses... she felt it.

"You look beautiful like this. Tell me. I am right aren't I?"

"About my being beautiful?"

"That's not a topic up for debate. Did you respond to my request?"

Suzanne felt a wetness begin to pool between her legs. She had never gone without underwear in public, and she was certain she had never felt so naked before in all her life.

"Yes."

"How do you feel?"

"Naked."

Michael just laughed and his eyes twinkled. The waiter approached. As Suzanne hadn't bothered to look at her menu, Michael ordered for them both, and requested a bottle of pinot noir to accompany the meal.

"Good," he answered after the server left them. "You should."

Suzanne felt his hand on her knee again under the table. It worked her way slowly up her leg. She suddenly felt as if all eyes were on her and she stiffened noticeably.

"Don't," he instructed. "You'll only draw more attention if you make a scene. The table clothes are long enough. Let me."

His hand made his way up her thigh again... And she couldn't take it. It one motion she grabbed her purse and stood up to leave the table. The steely grip of his hand on her wrist stopped her in mid-motion. She turned to look at him.

"If you go now, you will never know," was all he said. Then he let go of her arm, his gaze more than strong enough to hold her on its own. Suzanne blinked. And she couldn't move. Couldn't leave. Couldn't sit down. She stood in limbo for nearly a minute...

"Sit down Suzanne. If you had really wanted to leave, you would have done so by now."

She did. Against her better judgment, she did. His hand was back on her knee.

"Now that we have got that out of the way... " His hand began to caress the back of her knee, tickling her, but she concentrated on not letting him tickle her. Giggling just didn't seem the right thing to do right now.

"I have a long evening planned for us tonight. But I have waited one hell of a long month for you, Suzanne. I will have something now." He caught her eyes in his. "Put your hands up on the table."

She hadn't realized that they were gripping them hem of her skirt, keeping it down low on her legs... and resting her arms on the table would be a normal motion for her, yet it was so hard here. She wrestled with herself and laid her forearms lightly on the table... it was the hardest thing she had ever done.

"Good." His hand moved up her thigh again; the flat of his palm on her inner thigh urging her to part her legs. "Michael, I can't."

"Yes you can," Was all he said. Her thighs parted only slightly, but it was enough to feel the rough texture of his hand on such a sensitive part. He found the top of her stockings and his face showed a small smile of triumph. He ran his finger under the strap of her garter belt, and snapped it gently. Suzanne gave a start. "Shhh..." he said. "You don't want the neighbors to know what I am doing, do you?"

Suzanne shook her head no, and found herself a prisoner of her gaze. Her hands worried the silverware on the table. She couldn't look away, even as she felt his hand go higher to cover the part of her that was uniquely female. Suzanne's breath broke and his fingers gently stroked that uncovered part of her. One finger traced the opening of her and then he spread apart her outer lips. Delicately he traced her soft inner skin, following the folds of her center, but always staying away from any part that would bring her to her pleasure. She could feel herself swell and she became so moist that she lost what little comfort she had.

She tried very hard to keep her face neutral as an ache built inside of her.

"So. How is Team J going?"

"What?" She asked breathlessly as his finger briefly passed over her clitoris.

"Tell me about your strategic planning team. I'd like to hear about it?"

"You have got to be kidding." His hand teased her opening and her hips thrust forward involuntarily.

"Nope. If you don't start talking, then they'll know something else is going on here. If you don't want them to wonder, I suggest you find something to talk about quickly... and try not to move in such an obvious manner."

It was like cold water being thrown at her. As she was about to tell him exactly where he could stick his team J, his finger entered her. She gasped. He pulled it out very very slowly, pressing upwards the whole way and making her shudder before he began to gently circle her clit.

She started talking about Team J.

It was a feat of pure concentration. He alternately teased her gently, coaxing her clitoris until she was ready to scream, and then filled he with a finger, rubbing gently, rhythmically, against a spot inside her that threatened to make her die. But she someone how managed a semblance of conversation. Even if she was certain she was just repeating the same detail incoherently, over and over again. If he would only stop changing... just stay with one method...she could come...she knew she could... and bugger what anyone else thought.

Just then, the meals came out. Michael removed his finger with a slow motion and smiled devilishly, and then he sampled the wine.

Suzanne felt as if she had been left on the edge of a great precipice and wanted to cry out, or at the very least, throw a mother of a tantrum.

"You'll survive. Eat your dinner."

"Where do you get off telling me..."

"Eat Suzanne. We're not done here. We've a lot ahead of us, and you'll be glad for dinner by the time I am done with you."

With that, they settled into the longest meal of her life.

Surely it had only been an hour, but dinner had felt like eternity. They had sat across from each other, Michael making small talk, Suzanne trying to act like everything was normal. But it wasn't. Underneath everything, the idle chatter of work and mutual acquaintances, and the normal banter associated with a first date, the air was positively charged. The conversation never turned to the events of one month passed, nor did it dwell on the immediate future. Avoiding those topics made them into a beacon... and while neither brought the subjects up, they were in the forefront of all their thoughts.

The time came for desert. Suzanne started to ask for a desert menu as Michael asked for the check. "I've something else in mind for desert," he stated simply. Suzanne placed her hands in her lap and nervously played with her own fingers out of his sight. The check came. She offered to pay half. He only gave her a look that said he would like to see her try.

And with that dinner was over. He stood and offered her his arm. She took it. They walked out the door.