Diana and I walk to the restaurant, because it's not far and the night is pleasantly warm. I slip my arm through hers and like the way my dress moves over my skin where her body brushes mine as we walk. It feels nice to be strolling along with Diana, going out together for the evening as a couple, enjoying the sense of stability that's creeping into our relationship.
Diana has chosen well, as far as the restaurant goes: it's a small, quiet, subtly sophisticated place with a small, quiet, pretty courtyard at the back, onto which our table looks out. It's one of her favourites, I know – she's on first-name terms with the proprietor, who takes her through personally, to show her where we'll be seated – and she has talked now and then of bringing me here before. That would have been nice, but it's nice to be with her here on this night too. And I don't mind at all that we're sharing our first time here together with a few others, even others from the office. I think Diana has been looking forward to this evening for a while, so it's lovely to be privileged enough to share it with her.
We've got there first, despite her impatience with how long it took me to get ready, and after Diana's satisfied herself about the table, we hover near the small bar counter to wait for the others. Diana nudges me to sit on one of the stools there. She squeezes in to stand close to me as I pull myself up onto the seat and cross my legs, so close that her hip presses my leg. The movement brushes the hem of my dress up a little, and the brush of the soft material of her trousers on my bare leg gives me a little tingly thrill. As she leans an elbow on the bar to order us both a drink and turns her body into me, she hooks the thumb of her near hand into her pocket. Her fingers brush my knee and push at the hem of my dress, and she automatically rubs my bare knee gently for a moment or two with her knuckles. The casual, unthinking affection in the gesture (as well as the fleeting sexiness of it) thrills me more than anything else, and as I watch her interact comfortably with the staff I realise again that I could never be as happy as I am when I'm by her side. Diana fulfills me in so many different ways, and gives my life sense and purpose in a way no-one else has ever been able to do.
The others arrive within a few minutes of each other and we're led through to where we'll be eating. By some unspoken mutual agreement, Diana and I manage to arrange it so we sit apart from each other and both spend most of the evening talking to other people – which I know we both feel is as it should be. After all, it is a work event really, and it is principally Diana's gesture of gratitude to people from the office whom she likes, respects and wants to thank for a job well done. It's not the time or place to indulge in public displays of being a happy couple, even though, as it happens, it's unlikely any of the others would mind particularly.
At one point I have a few minutes to sit back quietly and watch her, and I realise that it's been a little while since I've seen her more normal side. I realise I've got used to being one of the few to see her as someone outside work: as a person rather than a company executive, as a friend, and primarily as my lover. I think I'm probably the only person who sees more of her in private than at work. And even when we do socialise with others from the office, she's still different from how she is when it's just the two of us. I feel a moment of delicious disconnection where the coolly businesslike and always slightly distant Public Diana I was initially attracted to (and so frustrated by) collides with the tenderly affectionate Private Diana I've come to know (and fall in love with.) Not that she isn't considerate and pleasant at work, when she needs to be, or that she can't be a self-centred bitch at home sometimes – but I realise with a rush that I'm lucky to know her so well, to see these different sides of her, to be the person she seems to feel closest to and most comfortable with. I realise I really do love her.
Once I realise this, I know it is only a matter of time before I actually say the words, and my whole body tingles with happiness. I don't want to alarm her, but I do want to find some way of saying something. I wonder if there will be a moment later, when we're alone again, when I can tell Diana how much my world now revolves around her, how much I love the way she fills my thoughts and dreams, fulfills me, makes me whole, and how much she is the focus of my life.
She glances up and catches me staring at her, and for a long moment she stares back at me. I wonder if she can tell what I've just been thinking, if she can read just how much I love her in my face. She stares at me carefully for a few slow seconds, then her face softens and she smiles gently. The tenderness of her expression takes my breath away and I have to drop my gaze. I feel my hand stroke the back of my own neck, almost as if I'm holding myself down to stop myself from throwing myself into her arms and kissing her endlessly.
She looks at me in the same way again after the main course, and I feel my insides melt with affection for her. And desire. Desire like I feel I've never known. Now I know how much I love her, it feels as if I want her even more than before, want to let my body take over when I run out of words and express everything I feel for her in the most intimate closeness two people can know. The force of my lust constricts my throat and tightens into a hard knot inside me, and again I have to look away as I feel my whole body flush. When I glance back at her, she's still staring at me and her gaze seems to take in all of me: my hair and face and bare neck, my earrings and make-up, my flushed cheeks and throat and my necklace against my bare skin, the shape of my body in my dress. And her gaze tells me that she plainly wants me as much as I need her.
We catch each other's eyes in a similar way a few more times as the meal continues – quicker glances that pass between us just to keep the connection across the room, keep the flame of desire for her flickering inside me.
***
On the way home, arm-in-arm with her again, the closeness of her now that I know how deeply I love her is overwhelming. I can hardly speak at all, and it's as much as I can do not to sigh in pleasure as our bodies brush together with each step. Diana is never particularly chatty when we're walking home anyway, and this time just makes a few comments about some conversation she'd had in the course of the evening, or on how well the night's gone. It's a pretty quiet walk back.
At the end of my road, she asks, 'Are you alright, Fiona? You're very quiet.'
'I'm fine.' I fiddle with an earring and take a deep breath. 'It's been a really nice night.'
'It has. I'm glad we did it.' She leans in and brushes my hair with her lips briefly. She knows I love the feeling of that. 'You look stunning, by the way. I can't say that often enough.'
'Thank you.' I smile at her and feel a lurch of pleasure at the frank desire in her eyes. 'I did notice you staring.'
'Couldn't help myself.' She grins. 'You don't want to know what I was thinking.'
I stroke her arm lightly, letting my fingers linger on the warm skin of her wrist below the cuff of her jacket. The flames of desire are licking my insides. 'Are you sure about that?'
She looks me up and down quickly with blatant lust, fanning those flames, then chuckles. 'My God, Fiona, but I am a lucky woman to have you.'
'Oh, Diana...' The bolt of pleasure hits me deep and the fire inside me leaps higher. The yearning for her tugs at my insides, and I have to concentrate on keeping my voice steady. 'I'm glad you think so. I know I'm so very lucky...'
She blinks quickly at the quiet forcefulness of my voice, as if unprepared for the intensity of my emotions, then puts her arm around my waist affectionately. 'Lucky us, then.' She tugs me against her briefly and for a second her hand strays down off my waist to brush the curve of my bum, before resting almost innocently on my hip. We fall silent again and walk the last few hundred yards to my house, slightly quicker and more determined now.
***
In the hall, she flicks the stairs light on then gently takes my clutch bag from me as I shut and lock the front door. Even though I have my back to her, my senses are heightened with the anticipation and arousal, so I can feel her close behind me before she even leans in to kiss my neck. I hold my breath for as long as possible as her lips leave a soft ticklish trail on my skin and stir a few strands of my hair that have worked loose. She breathes out through her nose slowly, making me sigh as her breath raises goosebumps on my skin, then she breathes in again equally slowly as she touches one hand lightly to my waist. She slides her other hand down my arm and over my hand where it's resting on the door. I let myself lean back slightly and want her to move so that I can feel her press up against my back, but she doesn't. She stays where she is, keeping a slight gap between our bodies, and the anticipation of a touch that never comes is infinitely more arousing than if she had actually moved in close behind me.
Her fingers slide between mine and she kisses my neck again, slightly higher up this time so that her nose nudges my pinned-up hair. I gasp aloud. Her lips move to just behind my ear for the third kiss, her cheek pushing my earring, and I lean my head back and splay my fingers under hers so she can grip my hand against the door. She kisses down my neck and onto my shoulder, using her nose to nudge the collar of my dress away from the base of my neck. I whisper her name as she finally moves up behind me and uses her hand on my waist to pull me back against her lightly. We shiver together as our bodies brush against each other.
After a moment she moves to put my clutch bag on the small hall table and takes my keys from my free hand to toss them on top of it. I turn round and surprise her by kissing her full on the mouth. Her body responds instinctively – she pushes her fingers into my hair and slides her hand from my waist down over my hip and bum to press me onto her, and her hot tongue probes my mouth.
Where she's pressing me onto her thigh I can plainly feel her heat through the material of my dress and her trousers. I move against her sensuously, using my breasts and body to rub hers and my lips and tongue on her mouth to hold her attention. I press one hand onto her neck to keep her kissing me and distract her from my other hand, which slides between our navels. I feel the silk of her blouse and a tiny patch of her skin beneath, then the waistband of her trousers, and I manage to finger her flies open before she quite realises.
She murmurs my name in surprise into the kiss, but I pull her tongue into my mouth and thrust my hand into her open trousers, and her protest is cut short. Her zip is rough on the back of my hand as my fingers slide over her underwear, and the thin material is slippery from her arousal. With a surge of excitement I press my fingertips up onto her and begin to stroke.
***
As I feel her excitement build she pushes her mouth against my ear and whispers roughly, 'Inside...'
I move my hand to push down inside her underwear and touch her wet heat directly. Her low moans of pleasure arouse me intensely.
'No, Fiona...inside. Please...' She sucks her breath in and I hold mine too. I press one finger between her lips for a moment then withdraw it and slowly enter her fully with two.
***
She lets me take her like that for longer than I expect, but eventually reaches down to pull my hand away. Gently but firmly, she guides me up against the wall, turning my back to her, and takes her time about stroking her hands over my body through the dress. She unzips it just far enough to unclasp my bra but makes no attempt to remove either item of clothing, just leaves them like that, but kisses her way up the exposed stretch of my back to my neck.
After she's finished caressing me, she clasps one hand over mine again and holds it against the wall, beside my head. The other hand moves down my body and strokes the backs of my legs, then pushes up the insides of my thighs under the dress. I press back against her and my whole body yearns for her to take me.
She pulls her hand out from between my legs and slides it round my waist over the dress, over my navel and down the front of my legs, finally lifting the dress again so her fingers can slip inside my thong. I shiver with pleasure at her touch.
'Reach back, Fiona,' she orders in a hoarse whisper. 'Do me at the same time.'
Twisting my hand behind me, I fumblingly do as she asks.
***
When we get upstairs, we make love fully clothed again, on the bed, then undress each other carefully, unhurriedly, enjoying the protracted process of revealing each other's bodies inch by inch, until we fall back, fully naked, into each other's arms on the bed.
***
At one particular, heart-wrenchingly good moment, where it feels as if she has reached right through into the very core of my being and is holding my heart in her hand, I can't stop myself from blurting out, 'Oh my God, Diana...I love you. I love you so much.'
She breathes in sharply. 'Oh, Fiona...I...oh God...'
I bury myself in her arms and bathe in the wonderfulness of being with her, and because I am so overwhelmed by the swirl of my own feelings, I don't notice her hesitate.