Voyeur - Lacey Alexander [49]
As they sat down at the table with their salads, he on one end and she at the side so that their knees touched underneath, she motioned toward the nearest panes with her fork. Outside, all was black with night, but inside bright lights shone. “You realize that anyone on any other hillside nearby who happens to have binoculars or a telescope like yours could see us right now.” She’d noticed the expensive telescope by the window, near the computer, upon her arrival.
Braden cast a devilish grin. “But we’ll never know, so what’s the harm?”
She glanced again to the telescope. “Do you look at people through your telescope?”
He gave his head a matter-of-fact tilt. “No, snowflake. I look at stars through my telescope. But it’s not a bad idea, now that you mention it.” He winked.
“So you haven’t always been such a voyeur?”
She watched him consider the question. “I guess I’ve always had tendencies toward watching, always been turned on by the visual aspect of sex. But I’ve never been as into it as I am right now, with you.”
Why did that warm her heart? She supposed, even if it was silly, it made her feel a little bit special to him in some way—different from all the other women he’d surely been with.
“I love being able to look over and see your gorgeous tits through that sheer fabric right now, honey, love the way your nipples poke against it to make those dark little points. And I loved being able to see you in the kitchen, too. You might think I was busy opening up the lasagna and pouring the wine, but in between I was looking at your beautiful naked pussy and your nice little ass.”
She pulled in her breath and knew instinctively that her nipples jutted even more prominently at the transparent fabric now.
“By the way,” he added, “as much as I liked coming on your ass, I should probably mention I did it for a practical reason, too. I forgot a condom.” For the first time since they’d met, guilt laced his expression.
Laura gasped—she hadn’t even realized! How incredibly irresponsible of her!
“The good news is,” he said, “I’ve never forgotten before.”
She lowered her chin in doubt. “Never?”
He shrugged those strong, sexy shoulders she’d dug her fingernails into earlier. “Okay, when I was young a few times. But long enough ago that if anything was wrong, I’d probably know it by now. Anyway, I remembered about halfway through, and I know it’s not foolproof or anything, but figured pulling out couldn’t hurt—and as it turned out, it was pretty damn fun.”
She let out a sigh of relief. “Well, I’m notoriously careful, so no worries from me. Notoriously careful until now, that is,” she added, letting her brows knit. “And I’m on the pill, too.”
“Good to know,” he said with a hint of a grin, then glanced to a large wall clock. “Time to check the lasagna.”
Laura cleared their salad plates as Braden opened the oven to send the scent of Italian spices wafting through the air. “Mmm, think it’s ready,” he said, and she wasn’t sure she’d ever seen a sexier or more endearing sight than Braden in his black boxer briefs, wearing two big oven mitts as he extracted the tray. Maybe it was about sex and food—two primal needs being met by the same handsome source.
As he started cutting the lasagna, Laura asked, “So how old are you, flyboy?”
“Thirty-five,” he said with a quick glance.
And they said men reached their sexual peak at eighteen? She wasn’t buying it. She also found herself liking that he was older than her—his age somehow fit the sophisticated man-of-the-world image she held of him.
“You, snowflake?”
“Twenty-nine.”
He grinned, scooping squares of lasagna onto two plates. “Big three-o coming up.”
“You look like you survived it okay.” Boy, did he ever.
“But I hear that particular milestone is a lot harder on women.”
“For most maybe,” she said, “but I’m kind of looking forward to it. To me, thirty is like . . . real adulthood. A last leap into true maturity. All grown up.”
His lids lowered, darkening his eyes. “Oh, you’re