“Um, this doesn’t look like practicing to be a regular guy,” Sara said, as Warrick pulled in front of the curb at a fancy restaurant. A valet opened her door, but she looked over at Warrick, instead of getting out.
The smile he gave her could have melted the panties off half the adult female population of New Haven. “It’s not. Just trust me on this one. We’re practicing something else tonight.”
“Oh yeah?” She gave him the voice that said she wanted answers, even though her panties were busy packing their bags for their trip south. “What is that?”
He didn’t fall for it. “I’ll tell you later.”
He got out of his now-open door and handed the valet his key, leaving Sara to turn to the man still holding her door. His look of patience told her how much this place cost.
“Thank you,” she murmured, then looked down at herself. She’d forgotten she’d been dressed in a navy dress for the show, her hair and makeup still done. Samantha had brought Jill and Jennie and Kelly over to dress her, swearing they were responsible for all of Samantha’s clothing choices. She’d trusted them, and was glad she had or she’d have felt even more awkward walking into a place like this.
Warrick took her hand and walked through the door, nodding to the host holding it for them.
“Good evening, Mr. Staunton.” A smiling woman who looked like she might be either an owner or manager greeted them, then instructed a host to show them to their table. So, he’d either planned ahead and reserved a table, or they simply gave him one whenever he walked through the door. Neither would surprise her.
They ordered drinks and listened to the waiter talk about specials. Sara kept her left hand in her lap and fingered the menu with her right hand.
“What looks good to you?” Warrick asked.
“It all looks good.” It was true. She’d seen four or five entrees already that sounded amazing. Her mouth watered at the descriptions and the restaurant was filled with heavenly smells.
“I’ve had the salmon, the chicken, and the prime rib. They’re all amazing. The chef here probably couldn’t mess anything up if he tried. My favorite thing is the red snapper, if you like fish.”
It was one of the items she’d already flagged as possible. She set down her menu and nodded. “Done.”
The waiter approached the table within seconds and Warrick ordered for both of them. He added a bowl of soup for himself. “Would you like a salad or soup, Sara?”
“Um…”
The waiter handed her back the menu. “I recommend the baby bibb with apples and blue cheese.”
Sara nodded. “That sounds good, thank you.”
A second waiter brought their drinks while a third placed flatware next to their plates based on what they had ordered for dinner. She’d never seen so many wait staff serve one table. When they’d left, Warrick spoke first.
“You were great with Marcus. The interview was fantastic.”
She laughed. “I have a few other words for it.”
“Nah. You were great. You know, it was interesting when he asked if we’d be working on prosthetics for lower limbs. We could always see if Jax Cutter wants to work with you to design something. If you’re interested, that is.” He sipped his beer. “He might be able to pull together some people to consult on it.”
“I hadn’t thought of it until he asked. I’d definitely need to work with someone to figure out what’s required. The differences between designing a hand and designing a leg would be substantial.”
“How so?” Warrick asked, and she got the sense he actually cared about the answer.
“Well, to be honest, I’m sure I don’t know enough to recognize what all of the differences will be. I know enough to know I need to know a lot more.” She lifted the white wine she’d ordered and took a sip, realizing she’d just said the word “know” about five hundred fifty-two times in one sentence. Her nerves were getting to her. “With a hand, the issue is grip strength and small motor control. Dexterity, the ability to shift and move the hand, to close it in more than a simple grip. A leg needs to hold the weight of the body, move at the knee in a natural way, balance when standing still and while moving.” She stopped to think. “I’m honestly not sure where I’d start.”
He grinned. “But you’re thinking about it now. I can see those wheels turning.”
She couldn’t help but smile back. She was thinking about it. She’d love to see what was on the market and look for ways to either improve what was available, or make the existing technology available in a more affordable way.
“We should talk to Jax about it,” Warrick said.
Their soup and salad arrived and Sara was glad she’d ordered it. She realized she’d forgotten to eat lunch. She’d been nervous about the interview, but Warrick had been right. As soon as the host got her out there, he’d started talking to her like they were old friends, and she’d been able to relax.
She had to force herself to slow down so she didn’t seem like she’d never had a decent meal. “How can a salad be this good?” She asked.
“I have two theories.” Warrick surprised her with his answer. “One, I’ve discovered everything here is insanely fresh. Chances are, that lettuce was in the ground this morning.”
Sara shook her head. “It’s winter. They couldn’t have gotten it locally.”
Warrick gave a head shake of his own, but his was accompanied by a smug grin. “Hydroponics. They use a local place for much of their produce, and it’s produced year-round with hydroponic farming.”
Sara should have guessed that, she realized. She’d kind of love to see how they did it. “So what’s the second part of your theory?” Sara asked, before taking the last bite of her salad.
“The dressing.”
“Agreed. I’m easy to impress after eating military food, but that dressing was amazing.”
“The food was that bad in the military?”
She laughed. “Oh yeah. Well, not all the time. It depended a lot on where we were. For basic training, the food was awful. But, then, you’re so damned exhausted all the time, you probably wouldn’t taste the difference if it was good so it didn’t matter all that much. It was enough to get something in your stomach before you fell into bed for four hours of sleep, or something to hold you over during a five-hour march.”
Sara leaned back as the waiter took her plate and a waitress stepped in with their fish. “Twice, when I was waiting to be deployed, we were on air force bases. The air force had some amazing food. I have no idea why, but it was fantastic. Unfortunately, we were never there for very long.”
She bit into her red snapper and moaned. Warrick took his own bite and grinned at her. “Told you so.”
“You were right. It’s amazing.” She couldn’t help but close her eyes as the fish all but melted in her mouth.
“Air Force good?” he asked with a laugh.
“Ha! Okay, so the air force food wasn’t quite this good, but at the time it seemed like it. When we were deployed overseas, the food wasn’t too bad, I guess. It was worse the bigger the unit. It seemed like the more mouths to be fed, the worse the food got, which I guess makes sense.”
“It does.”
They ate in silence for a few minutes, and Sara was glad he didn’t ask more about her time overseas. It wasn’t something she talked much about, but it occurred to her how much easier it was to talk about a single aspect of it, like the food, than when people said things like, “tell me what it was like.” Warrick had never done that with her, and she liked it.
From there, they talked about things as varied as moonrocks and water lilies, though she still wasn’t sure how those topics had surfaced. She told him about her brothers, who still protected her like she was fifteen anytime they got together. They lived in her hometown where her parents still were, so she only saw them on holidays. She talked to them every other week or more often, though.
“Sara, Warrick. How’s the ankle?” Sara looked up to see Andrew and Jill smiling at them.
Warrick stood and shook hands with Andrew and then Jill. “It’s much better. Back to normal, so you’ll have to get used to the idea of me saying no to any more basketball games, even if it does mean you guys win when you stick the other team with me.”
Jill turned to Andrew. “Really?” Her tone and the look on her face said it all and Sara laughed as Andrew shrugged sheepishly.
“Are you guys coming or going?” Warrick asked.
“Going.” Andrew slid his arm around Jill’s waist.
Now Jill looked sheepish. “It’s the first night we’ve had a babysitter in a long time but I’m too exhausted and not really feeling well.” She laid a hand on her stomach and Sara’s eyes narrowed in on the woman. She hadn’t realized it, but Jill was wearing a loose-fitting dress and when she ran her hand over the fabric, there was a small swell underneath.
Sara’s eyes went wide and she stood, pulling Jill in for a hug. “Oh my gosh, are you really?”
Tears filled Jill’s eyes as she nodded and Andrew beamed. “She cries at the drop of a hat nowadays.”
“Fifteen weeks, today.” Jill’s excitement was plain. “We told family last week, but we’ve been waiting a little while to spread the news. You know.” She shrugged and Sara did know. Jill and Andrew had tried to get pregnant for a long time before adopting twins.
“But how?” Sara asked, then laughed and raised her hand. “Stop, Andrew. I know you’re about to try to give me a birds and bees lecture.”
They all laughed but Jill grinned at Sara. “He does know what you mean. And no one knows. The doctors didn’t have a real answer for us, and we didn’t care.”
“And now it’s time to get her home to bed,” Andrew said. They said their goodbyes and the couple left as Sara and Warrick resettled into their seats.
“So, what did I miss there?” Warrick asked. “Why is it surprising they’re having a baby? I thought they had two kids already.”
“They do,” Sara said. “But the twins are adopted. They didn’t think Jill could get pregnant.”
“Oh.” Warrick grabbed his drink and took a swallow.
“You okay?” Sara asked, but Warrick only had time to nod before the waiter came to the table with a tray of desserts. Each one looked better than the last, and as he described them, Sara had to fight not to sigh in pleasure and order one of everything.
They split dessert, sharing a decadent flourless chocolate cake, something she’d always loved.
“So, when are you going to tell me what we were practicing tonight?” Sara asked after Warrick had signed the check.
He took both of her hands in his. Both her natural hand and her prosthesis, lifting them from where they’d sat on the table. “It was about this,” he said.
“I don’t get it.”
He rubbed small circles over her right hand. “It was about you forgetting to put your prosthesis in your lap, or to use only your right hand unless you absolutely have to use both hands for something.”
He let her puzzle over his statement as he stood, then pulled her up beside him. She didn’t say anything as they walked to the door of the restaurant, and she realized she didn’t have to. He was right. She’d forgotten all about her hand with him. As the night went on, it simply hadn’t been an issue. It was normally something that was right at the surface for her. She was always aware of it, aware of people’s impressions of it, of how it looked, how it might get in the way.
She’d completely forgotten to worry about it at some point in the evening.
Warrick pulled her right hand toward him, leaning over the table to kiss it. He followed by pulling her prosthesis toward him, leaning to kiss that, too. “Thank you for trusting me enough to forget it,” he said quietly, and she felt a thrill race through her at the low gruff tone.
She was speechless, which was something she’d never experienced before. He didn’t wait for her reaction. He stood, pulled her chair out and led her out. She’d be lying if she said she wasn’t walking maybe a tiny little bit on air.
Warrick walked Sara into her apartment building, but forced himself to stop outside her door. He wanted to take her inside. No, scratch that. He all but needed to take her inside. To get his hands on her, to taste and touch every inch of her. To hear her moan, to make her whimper with need. To fill her, bury himself inside her.
But there was still a part of him that knew he wasn’t ready for that. People assumed he’d been so in love with Vicki that he mourned her to this day. His feelings for his wife were complicated. He was smart enough to realize there was a hell of a lot of guilt wrapped up in it. Yes, there was love. But the guilt was there, too. And that was a hell of a thing to get a handle on.
But then Sara looked at him and everything but her faded away. She unlocked her door, before turning to smile up at him. He reached for her. There wasn’t any stopping it. Sara melted against him as he pulled her in to kiss her. His body roared to life in response. She did things to him he never thought any woman would again. He brought his hands to cup her face and turned to deepen the kiss, wanting to taste more of her. She tasted of wine and cinnamon somehow. She gripped his arms, and the response in his groin was damned near primal. He groaned against her mouth as her tongue flicked out to greet his.
She was never passive, and he loved that about her. His heart slammed in his chest as she laced her hand around his neck and pulled him more tightly to her.
He tore his mouth from her, knowing another minute of this and clothes would start to come off. He pressed his forehead to hers trying to give himself a moment to catch his breath.
“I don’t think we’re practicing anymore,” he said.
She moved her head back and forth. “No. This doesn’t feel like practice, does it?”
“Are you scared?” he asked.
“Terrified.”
He put one hand behind her neck and pulled it in, eyes locked onto hers. “Don’t be. I’ve got you.”
Thoughts of guilt were swept away as they moved into her apartment and he stripped her down. She was incredible. He couldn’t get enough of her as he worshipped with hands and mouth and tongue. As he whispered to her to let her know what she did to him. They moved together down the hall, his clothes coming off during the trip.
She writhed beneath him, responding to the smallest of touches, pleading with him for more. Her eyes darkened, a storm of passion and heat, urging him on. Her body spoke to him in a thousand ways, and he wanted to answer each and every one of them. He wanted to give her everything she needed and so much more. He was losing himself in her, but there was finding happening also. He was finding a new version of himself within her.
“Sara,” he whispered when he entered her, and she reached for him, pressing up to meet him, as she pulled him down to kiss her. He kissed her fully, deeply, feeling her clamp down around his cock as she came with a keening moan. He followed swiftly after her, feeling the release with every ounce of his being. It was a release in every sense of the word.