Public Relations I

Laura was pretty sure her brain should be arrested on indecency charges. Thanks to Bill’s hearty breakfast, she hadn’t been able to think about anything else all day.

At mid-morning, she’d been so wound up, she’d almost called him and told him to meet her at a downtown hotel. Common sense won out on the impulse. The media from across the colonies were packed in down there for the week, interviewing the governors-elect for the colonies, and they knew her even if the average citizen wouldn’t know her from Aphrodite.

It wasn’t that she was afraid for people to know, because she wasn’t. She just didn’t want it to come out in a way that seemed tawdry because what she and Bill shared definitely was not that.

No, Laura just wanted control of how they went public with their relationship. In fact, she had an idea about that already, one that had begun formulating when she looked at her schedule yesterday and she planned to address it with Bill this evening.

The Presidential Winter Solstice Gala was in a couple days, and she was required to attend. Normally, she would have been able to get out of it, but this year’s dinner was also honoring the governors-elect, and Richard declared attendance mandatory for his cabinet unless they were going off-world for the holiday.

If Bill came with her to the event, they would be officially seen together. So far, the venues they’d been in together weren’t the kind that really drew official attention, meaning the media didn’t frequent her suburb and the nearby shopping areas, nor the shore. Because her job wasn’t as interesting as say the Secretary of Defense’s job, she wasn’t a priority. In fact, unless she was making a speech somewhere or holding a press conference, reporters didn’t really bother with her. She was fine with that because it meant she could lead a relatively normal existence and got her job done without a whole lot of hassle.

Laura didn’t think that would change just because she arrived on the arm of a military commander, but there was a chance his picture would make the paper, alerting his son, and it would definitely raise eyebrows amongst her peers. She had never taken anyone to any official event in the past. She’d always gone alone, so suddenly showing up with someone would definitely get their attention and signal that it was serious.

And it was serious.

What she felt for Bill was not waning, but deepening, just as their connection, whatever it was that had drawn them together in the first place, was holding fast, facilitating their longing to get closer, the incomparable intimacy, the blossoming love between them, and her surrender to all of it without hesitancy. He was surrendering with her, just letting it happen, same as she was, and it felt like they were dancing. It was fluid and sensual, exhilarating and beautiful, a dance she seemed to know even though she’d never danced it before. Apparently all she’d needed was the right partner. Or maybe she was just being fanciful, love filling her mind with all manner of poetic notions. One thing she was certain of, she wouldn’t want to dance this dance with anyone else.

Rising from her desk, coffee cup in hand, Laura walked over and looked out the window. She hitched her hip on the short, wooden filing cabinets and watched clouds move quickly across the sky, pushed by blustery winds.

It was sunny but cold out, had been all day.

When Bill had woken her that morning, he’d pulled her from that deep, restful sleep that descended in the early morning hours when it was freezing out. He’d shut off the alarm before it could sound and stirred her to wakefulness with soft kisses and delicate caresses. Her breast and nipples had been the prologue to a beautiful narrative written with his tongue in the soft folds of her sex.

She flushed thinking about it just now, those gentle, loving licks over and through her, the leisurely flicks to her clit, and deep delvings into her pussy, tasting, devouring, making her writhe in pleasure, making her gasp and moan, making her cry out to him. She hadn’t minded being woken from that deep sleep for the sweet, passionate loving he had to give. And it had been sweet and passionate, start to finish, and, when she’d told him she couldn’t take any more, he’d ascended and wrapped her in his arms with a soft “I love you,” then she’d slept a little longer, until it was time to get up and get ready for work.

Laura had really missed him today, and not just because he’d put that promised smile on her face and left her with the urge to frak him senseless. No, Bill had a way of filling a room, even if he was completely still and didn’t say a word. Because of that, her office and every other place she’d been today seemed empty because he wasn’t there.

Taking a sip of her coffee, Laura’s eyes sought out the newsstand out in front of the building. She needed to go down there in the next half-hour and get the latest boxing weekly so that she and Bill could choose a bout to attend while he was on leave. She was really looking forward to that, suspecting that they’d…

Laura’s thoughts trailed off and she smiled as she caught sight of a familiar form approaching the newsstand.

Bill.

Dressed in jeans, his short brown leather boots, brown weathered-leather jacket, and what looked like a black turtleneck, the salt-and-pepper waves of his hair danced on the frequent gusts of breeze, but he paid it no mind, as he pulled his hands out of his pockets, fished his glasses out of the breast pocket on the jacket and put them on.

Laura set her coffee cup aside and just watched him, heart lifting at just seeing him, knowing was here, close, and that he would undoubtedly be heading to her office very soon. She figured he must have come to pick her up and take her home. She hadn’t expected that, but then again, she hadn’t expected a lot of things where he was concerned, including falling in love with him.

She found herself breathless as her eyes took him in, how he tilted his head back to read the titles of the periodicals on the stand, squinting slightly against the glare of the late afternoon sun bouncing off them. She imagined the creak of the leather of his jacket as he leaned forward and picked up what he wanted. She could see that bright smile of his from all the way in her office and it made her giddy like a school girl. The feeling lingered as she watched him pay the vendor then head toward the steps leading into the building. He mounted them, eyes on the ground, still smiling, and she watched him until she couldn’t see him any more.

Picking up her coffee, Laura made her way back to her desk. She set her cup on the corner, near a stack of folders, but didn’t sit down. She was too excited. Every part of her seemed to be vibrating with anticipation and she did nothing to discourage it, not even the arousal, which had never really left her during the day.

To pass the time while she waited for him, Laura straightened up her desk for the morning, knowing she probably wasn’t going to get anything else done today. She then picked up a small stack of folders that needed to be filed in the main records hall and took them out to Kate.

In the middle of passing along instructions, the back portion of the office where Laura’s aides had their desks suddenly went dead silent, and her insides fluttered like they were full of butterflies.

Smiling, she turned around and saw Bill standing in the main entrance of her office, jacket unzipped and a copy of Boxing Weekly under his arm as his voice rumbled across the distance to her.

“Thought you might like a ride home.”

< Hearth VIII | Public Relations II >