"Thank you so much, I appreciate what you did," says the twenty-something young woman to her saviour. "I'm Amy, by the way."
"Rick, and don't mention it." A little older and a lot taller the personable guy sharing the lift shrugs self-deprecatingly.
"Some other residents in this block get annoyed when my granny wanders, it's great you brought her home. I could kiss you."
"I won't stop you."
"It was a figure of speech," Amy is visibly flustered, "I meant it affectionately."
"I'll take that," he replies encouragingly.
Acting wholly out of character, she rises on tiptoes, kisses his cheek and favours him with a heart-warming smile. Time stops, the tension is palpable. Throwing caution to the winds Amy leans in closer and kisses him again, this time on the lips.
"Am I completely misreading this," he ventures cautiously, "or are we having a moment?"
"Not sure what we're having, just that it feels good." With perfect bad timing the lift reaches the ground floor and the doors open.
"I didn't want that kiss to stop," says Rick.
"Me neither," Amy looks at him apologetically. "Sorry, got to rush to the pharmacy and pick up Gran's meds," she adds and is gone.
Rick understands her haste, aware that Amy looks after her increasingly frail and forgetful granny, frequently visiting the apartment block where he and the elderly woman live; a devoted granddaughter with little time left for herself. On a couple of occasions, he's helped Amy carry in shopping bags and today returned the confused old lady to her care, having fortunately intercepted her attempt to leave the building clad only in nightwear.
What just happened there? Amy wonders walking down the road minutes later, futilely attempting to slow her heart rate. We only kissed, although I'd like it to be a whole lot more. She imagines being held in Rick's arms and then taken to bed. Shakes her head to dispel the unlikely fantasy. I mean, quite apart from these shapeless dungarees and the pounds put on lately while cooking for Gran, I wasn't sylph-like in the first place, he's not likely to fancy me. A fit guy like Rick is way out of my league, probably just being polite. For a few minutes though it had felt wonderful, human contact, a sense of possibility. Forget it, not going to happen.
Wow, thinks Rick, on his way to work, that girl certainly knows how to kiss. A rare genuinely spur-of-the-moment encounter, although to be honest over recent weeks he's become conscious of a growing physical attraction. The pretty face, those sparkling green eyes. Something else too, nothing immediately obvious, perhaps an unfulfilled sexuality? He's never seen her wearing anything but unflattering workaday clothes and wonders how her curvy body might feel close to him.
Amy can't seem to get Rick out of her head. What's not to like? She isn't the only woman locally to give him a second glance. Clearly a kind person, helps without being asked and went the extra mile today to save Gran from an accident or worse. Seems to live alone and work away a lot - at what she's no idea. That's all she knows, except, strangely, Amy's noticed him check her out a couple of times, she hopes favourably.
Three days later they cross paths again, inevitably in the lift.
"We can't keep meeting like this," Amy laughs, "what are the chances?"
"Pretty high, I've been standing here since Thursday hoping to bump into you," Rick jokes. Her heart skips a beat.
"I'm going to ignore the frankly stalky implication and take that as a very weird compliment," Amy tries to keep the exchange light.
"Good, that was my intention, oh, here we're here." They both step out on the ground floor.
"That kiss the other day?" Rick raises a quizzical eyebrow.
"Yes..." She blushes at the recall.
"I'd like to finish it properly."
"When?" To her embarrassment, Amy's voice rises an octave.
"Anytime in the next 10 seconds," Rick, cups her face and kisses Amy like he means it. She responds passionately, desperate to feel his lips on hers, not caring who might see, uninhibited and going for broke. When they finally step apart from the intoxicating embrace both are breathless and excited.
"An improvement on our last encounter," Rick observes, "yet somehow this corridor lacks ambience, want to come to mine?"
"Yes!" An invitation that doesn't take any time to consider. Rick takes her hand, Amy inwardly glowing at this small intimacy, and leads her through his front door.
Okay, good first impression, a clean, bright, comfortable flat, not some bachelor hell hole of fake-leather furniture and unwashed dishes. Amy is relieved and impressed.
"Very nice."
"Me, or the decor?"
"Both." Amy spontaneously snogs him and is enveloped in Rick's arms, that dream at least has come true. Feels the hard-wired male reaction of an erection stir against her leg. So, Rick does find her desirable...
An observation confirmed when he undoes the dungaree's shoulder straps - when in her life, Amy wonders distractedly, did they become default attire? - and slips his hands under her T-shirt to caress prominent breasts. At least I've got decent knickers on, thinks Amy. During the last few days, her greying everyday underwear has been consigned to recycling and replaced by seldom-worn, sexier items from the back of a drawer. Ready for anything. Sparks of desire, charged with unspoken expectation and longing arc between them, physically and mentally drawing the two closer.
"A confession," he murmurs, surfacing from another kiss.
"You're saving yourself for marriage, not that sort of boy, just sobered up?"
"All the above. No, just that I've secretly fancied you for ages."
"Me, seriously?" Amy can't hide her surprise.
"You," Rick confirms, gently squeezing her boobs and sending a delicious shiver of sensation through her body. He rolls Amy's erect nipples between his fingertips, and she moans softly, craving his touch, arousal tingling between her legs.
"Why?"
"Basic physical attraction, also your intellect."
"Why do you think I'm clever?"
