Chapter 7

Riley got up early and made tea instead of coffee. She spent two hours on a drawing, pausing only to fix Curtis breakfast, and get him started on the PBS educational shows he liked in the morning, and which would give her another hour of uninterrupted work time before she needed to be a mother again.

She waited intentionally to check her email, because she was too anxious about hearing from Bob. She'd thought his repeated calls, on his days off, had been cute. Now she was worried that she was getting too involved. She had, in fact, bought a new outfit because of this man. She'd called it a bikini in her email, but it wasn't a bikini. Rather, it was a bra and panty set, if it could even be called that. It was scandalous, even by her standards, and she wandered around the housed naked half the time. This new suit covered her areolas and her vulva, but that was about it. She'd gotten it at Feminine Studios, a lingerie shop in downtown Colorado Springs, just outside Old Colorado City. The price tag had taken her breath away, but it was so beautiful she had to have it. She had even broken her rule about thong underwear, but only because the saleswoman had sworn that, if it wasn't completely comfortable, they'd take it back.

She'd never been measured for underwear before. It had been an interesting experience.

But the result was undeniable. For the first time in her life she actually wanted to get dressed in her undies.

It was, therefore, more disappointing than she expected, when she found out he hadn't seen it. Or at least the bottoms, since those were all she'd worn when she went outside.

But that was okay, because she fully planned for him to see her new undies when they Skyped. Maybe not right away ... but very soon.

She looked at her watch. Based on the time stamp on his email, he was already in bed.

She sighed. She wanted to talk to him now!

And that, she decided, was the problem.

She liked this man entirely too much.

During the rest of the seventy-two hours Bob was on, he never got a chance to see Riley. He did send her several emails. In one of them he said he was helping with a "big problem" that was taking most of his time. He wished he could tell her about the fires, but while she undoubtedly knew about them already, his role in fighting them would have to remain secret. She returned his messages, saying she couldn't wait for him to get an opportunity to see her "new bikini" and hear what he thought of it.

But the first time they Skyped, which was after he went into "sleep cycle" at four in the afternoon, he still hadn't seen her laying out in it. For reasons she could not even pretend to understand, she decided he had to see it from on high, first, and so when his image popped up on her monitor for the first time, she was wearing a T shirt that said, "Here I am. Now what are your other two wishes?" She grinned as his face leaned too close to the camera.

"You're so tiny," he complained.

She told him how to expand the picture to full screen, and laughed delightedly when it was obvious he could see her better ... and liked what he saw. She held her elbows out and pointed with both index fingers to the words on her shirt.

"I want to be there," he said instantly. "And wish number three is to be able to touch what you're pointing at."

It wasn't until then that she realized it might look like she was pointing at her breasts.

"You're awful," she said, dropping her hands.

"I'm truthful," he said. "Hi. I can't tell you how nice it is to see you. I thought talking was the best thing in the world, but I was wrong. This is bester."

She laughed again. "You've seen me before."

"Not up this close," he said. "I could see you up close like this, but that would set off bells and whistles and people would ask me what I was looking at and want to see it too. Call me stingy, but I don't want anybody else to see you like that."

"So ... did you see me today?"

"No," he sighed. "I wish I could have seen you about four hours ago, but I was too busy.

"So you still haven't seen what I look like laying out in my new bikini?" she asked, trying to make it look like she was pouting.

"We could rectify that right now," he said, and the hope in his voice was so over the top that she had to laugh again.

"Not on our first date," she said. "I am not a slut." She wrinkled her brow. "Well, not outside the hours of noon and twelve-thirty on days I hope you're working." She smiled. "You have my permission to hold out hope that, someday, you can see me like that when we Skype."

"Oh man, oh man, oh man," he groaned. "It's a good thing all you can see is my face."

She grinned. "See that little picture in the corner of the screen?" she asked. "That's you, and that's what I can see. For a guy who works with cameras and such all day long, you're kind of slow on the pickup. I can see a lot more than your face."

In truth, all she could see was his upper chest, shoulders, and head. But she still liked teasing him. She saw him look at the small image of himself.

"In that case, it's a good thing you can't see my hands," he said.

She laughed again. "Are we being naughty, Bob?"

He grinned. "Like you said. It's just our first date. You don't get to see me doing that until much later."

"Awwww," she said, trying to sound sad.

The fact that he did not change his mind, and offer to show her his manhood, even with her teasing him like this, made her panties damp.

"Thank you," she said, on impulse.

"What for?"

"For being you," she said. "I haven't met a man like you in a long time, and a girl always likes to meet a man like you."

"Far away and harmless?" He smiled.

"Oh, you're not harmless," she laughed. "Not by a long shot."

"What does that mean?" he asked.

"It means you need to stay far away, because if you were here, I might not be able to resist your charms."

"I have charms?" He sounded so surprised that she knew it was genuine. That made her laugh too.

"You have charms in spades," she said. "Why else do you think I'd lie out half naked and let you look at me?"

"Actually, I thought that was a happy accident," he said.

"Well it was ... at first," she admitted. "But even that very first message you sent me displayed certain attributes that women find admirable. I can honestly say I have never laid out in my back yard half naked for any other man."

She wasn't about to go into what she had done for other men, especially Chuck.

"I am honored more than you can imagine," he said, gravely. "I hope to build on that foundation."

"And that is a good example of how charming you are," she said.

"This is weird," he said.

"How so?"

"Well, when I first saw you, all I wished was that I could talk to you. You know ... just get to know you. Then we emailed, and all I wished was that I could hear your voice. Then I got to do that and what I wanted most then was to get to see you. I didn't even think about this Skype thing, but that's exactly what my fantasy was, that we could talk face to face. Now I'm doing that, and already all I can think about is how wonderful it would be if we were in the same room. It's like I'm never satisfied, and yet, what has happened already is the coolest thing I ever experienced!"

"My shirt has caused problems," she said in mock sadness.

"I agree," he sighed. "Perhaps it would be best if you took it off."

She laughed. Then, completely on impulse, she lifted the shirt and flashed her breasts at him for all of one second.

"That's all you get on a first date, pervert," she said, feeling a blush stain her cheeks.

His look of shock abated, and he smiled.

"I'd like very much to discuss arranging a second date."

It went on like that for another ten minutes. Then they calmed down and chatted like friends for an hour. It was during that period of time that she suddenly jumped and waved her hands at the screen.

"I got the present you sent me!" she squealed. "It's beautiful, Bob!"

"I told you it reminded me of you," he said, smiling.

"If you'd given it to me in person you probably would have gotten lucky," she said.

He blinked. "I'll keep that in mind for later," he blurted.

"Later?"

"For when I'm behaving badly while I think about you," he admitted.

She laughed. "You probably don't behave any more badly than I do."

"Oh, I wouldn't say that," he said.

"You've seen me outside, when I hoped you were watching," she said. "I do much more than that when I get back inside and you can't see me."

"Wow," he sighed. "I'm going to keep that in mind for later too."

"Good," she teased. "You have my permission. The statuette is beautiful, Bob. I'm honored that you associated me with it."

"You see why I couldn't answer your question about slinky underwear. She's kind of wearing that sort of thing."

"I'm glad it wasn't what I was thinking of," she said. "A lot of men might buy a woman something like that, but I'm glad you didn't. Instead, I went out and got some myself. You'll get to see it later."

"Not now?" he asked, clearly pouting.

Again, she flashed her naked breasts at him for just a few seconds, grinning as she did so.

"Can't," she said. "I'm not wearing it right now."

"That shirt is clearly bothering me," he said. "I am positive you should take it off, so I won't be tempted to think naughty things."

She stuck out her tongue at him. She was completely unconscious of the fact that, as she did that, she pinched her nipples through the material of the shirt.

Both were sad when it was time for Riley to go pick up Curtis.

He did promise to try to look down on her the next day.

Bob keyed in the command that would display his tasks for the shift. There were two things in the morning, but his attention was drawn to blinking red numerals for the only afternoon tasking on the list. The red, blinking numbers said only "1430." What that meant was that it was a top priority mission, with a tentative start time, which could change radically at a moment's notice. Following that were the words "Executive assistance." He'd never seen a tasking like that before. If the Secret Service asked for sat time it was usually for surveillance of a large park, or other place a heavy hitter was going to go appear at. They used satellite photos to plan security, and sometimes wanted detailed examination of the area on a repeating basis, looking for changes they didn't know about. What that meant was that if somebody else (meaning a bad guy) was getting ready for a presidential visit, while they (the Secret Service) were getting ready, that usually resulted in little changes that somebody like Bob was good at spotting. He'd had two of those missions, but they'd always been tagged USSS before this.