Breaking the Ice

Chapter 9

9

Dr. Colin Emery was not a man she was going to have to stop at Dora’s for. Oh, he was pleasant enough. Polite enough. Middle-of-the-road good looking. Middle-of-the-road interesting. But he had one major flaw. His teeth were atrocious. Not in a sugar addict way, in fact, quite the opposite. They were perfect. White. So white. Too white.

Unnaturally so.

How did he expect anyone to take him seriously with teeth that obviously glowed in the dark? Because it didn’t seem to matter what came out of his mouth, the ghostly white of his choppers negated everything. Every time she thought she was being a little too Seinfeld about it he’d smile at her and it was like a lighthouse beacon had flashed across her path.

“I’ve noticed you’ve been admiring my teeth,” Colin said midway through the main.

“Ahh.” Samantha felt a bit like a rabbit caught in the headlights of his teeth. It was true. She had been staring, but they were… compelling.

“Fabulous, aren’t they?” he beamed and she wished she’d brought her sunglasses.

Next there followed an exceedingly one-sided conversation about the cosmetic dentist he had in his practice and what a marvelous job she did and how she was so much in demand.

“She does all the stars you know.”

Samantha nearly aspirated her mouthful of wine when he told her it was only five thousand dollars and she found herself wondering if maybe he should have stopped at a thousand? Reduced wattage, reduced price. She suddenly had a vision of Nick’s easy smile and his nice normal teeth and wished she was having a meal with him instead of Colin the White.

There was one consolation at least. There was absolutely no discussion about her body faults. No, no, Colin seemed perfectly happy to fill up their time talking about himself.

All she had to do was smile and nod in the right places.

He offered to walk her back to her apartment and although every sensibility she possessed told her not to, she acquiesced. So, the man had freaky teeth. She needed to be less judgmental. Maybe he was the one and she was casting him aside because of something so trivial.

There was only one way to know for sure. As Cher said, and Bec loudly seconded, it was definitely in a man’s kiss. She wasn’t going to run a mile like every instinct she owned was telling her to do without full possession of the facts.

All the facts.

What if her eggs tap-danced when he kissed her? What if he curled her toes and made her sigh and gave her a feeling of being home? What if one kiss saw her break the land speed record from the apartment to the 7-Eleven and back?

When the moment came she was ready. He had said goodbye in the foyer and he was leaning in for the kiss and she deliberately made her mind blank.

Okay eggs, here goes.

And nothing. It was… limp. Insipid. Uninspiring. Her eggs remained unimpressed. It was kind of closed-mouthed which was a good thing because all she could think about was his teeth casting a searchlight halfway down her throat.

She brought it to an end and he left murmuring about seeing each other again before heading for the door.

Not in this lifetime, Colin. No red rose for you.

Samantha walked into work the next morning with a scowl not even the pleasure of being at Birdie’s could erase.

“I take it you didn’t need the 7-Eleven?”

She looked at Nick’s beautiful white teeth behind his lovely full lips. White. Not glowing white like a fluorescent skeleton from a party bag at a Halloween white. Normal, everyday, I’ve-been-alive-and-eating-for-the-last-thirty-years white.

She told him the sorry saga and he collapsed on the couch, clutching his side in hysterics. Worse, the entire day was filled with teeth jokes.

“What I don’t understand was why you felt the need to kiss him? I mean, he was obviously doing nothing for you.”

“That was only because I couldn’t get past the choppers,” she explained. “I had to give it a go. I mean what if he’d been a really good kisser? Good kissers can be forgiven a lot.”

“Really?”

“According to Bec, yes. And she tested her theory extensively through high school.”

“But he wasn’t. A good kisser?”

“Nope.” She shook her head. “It wasn’t terrible. It was just… forgettable.”

“So do you kiss test all your dates?”

She nodded. “Usually. Bec trained me well. She always says if one kiss can make you breathless, if there’s chemistry… that’s a good beginning.”

“Chemistry’s important.”

His voice went gravelly and heat suffused her middle. She’d bet anything there’d be nothing forgettable about Nick’s kisses. “That’s what Mr. Mears always maintained,” she said.

“Mr. Mears?”

Samantha grinned. “Junior high biology teacher.”

The day passed and Samantha busied herself reading another Larry and Stretch between customers. She had quickly dropped her snobbishness toward the Westerns and was rapidly approaching addiction. Now these were men who didn’t need any fancy modern cosmetic touch ups. They were men and they knew it and you could take them or leave them but goddamn it, you’d never forget them.

And if they kissed you, you’d know it too.

The door jingled and Sally, one of their regulars, came through the door. She was a sweet young thing, not quite twenty and a true romance junkie. She worked in the city animal shelter as a trainee vet nurse and came in once a week to resupply. Today though, Samantha took one look at Sally and knew she wasn’t in the market for romance.

“What’s up, Sal?” she asked and the girl promptly burst into tears.

Samantha ushered her over to the couch then flipped the door sign to closed as she motioned for Nick to get a coffee – cappuccino on oat milk just the way Sally liked it.

Nick lifted an eyebrow at her but Samantha wasn’t sure what was going on until Sally unburdened. She’d been dumped. Her boyfriend of a year had dropped her like a hot cake. “He said I was getting fat,” she cried and her voice wobbled and the tears fell anew.

Samantha was incensed as she patted Sally’s back, waiting for the tears to subside. Sally was five foot ten and perfectly proportioned. How dare he screw with her head like that? How could anyone take a perfectly nice, pretty young woman like Sally and break her heart with such callous disregard?

Sally would go on an instant crash diet and be screwed up about her body for the rest of her life. “Nick,” Samantha demanded as he delivered the coffee. “Tell this girl how gorgeous she is.”

“Sally, if I was a decade younger, I’d be nuts for you.”

Samantha could have kissed him when Sally blinked through damp lashes and gave him a wobbly smile. Nick Hawkeye Hawke had said exactly the right thing.

By the time Sally was composed enough to leave, Samantha had convinced her that Darren was a low-life slug who would come to a nasty end if there was any karma or justice in the world. And that Sally didn’t need him. In fact, women didn’t need men at all. They were pleasant distractions with which to decorate your life but they weren’t essential and sisters could well and truly do it for themselves.

Did she feel like a hypocrite given her own desperate search for a demographically acceptable male specimen? Sure. But it had worked.

“Thank you, Sam,” she sniffed. “You’re so good at this. How do you know all this stuff?”

Samantha looked into her bright young face and knew she wasn’t going to tell her the truth. Sally didn’t want to hear that she’d had her fair share of low-life slugs and had let too many of them slime her. Or that she’d been dumped more often than she cared to remember.

“Experience.” She dragged Sally into a hug. “Now, remember. Be kind to yourself tonight. Do not beat yourself up. On the way home buy vodka and Oreos. Works every time.”

Thirty minutes later, Nick was shutting the door after Sally who’d left with a crammed bag of books. “She’s right,” he said as he turned the sign back to open. “You are good at it.”

“Well when you’ve been dumped as often as me you tend to know a few survival tricks.”

Settling back on the couch, Samantha picked up her book but she was aware of Nick behind the counter watching her, his gaze like a caress against her skin. “What?” she demanded, after a few moments, looking up from her Western.

“Have you really been dumped a lot?”

“Yep.” There seemed little point in denying it now he knew.

“Have you ever done any of the dumping?”

“Nope.”

“You don’t seem too cut up by that?”

Looking over her book at him, Samantha shrugged one shoulder. She’d learned early on that men and a career weren’t compatible. “It’s usually well and truly fizzled out by that time. I get pretty absorbed in my work.”

That was why she’d gone for the arty types in recent years. They kept odd hours and tended to be egocentric, absorbed in their own world. They didn’t care that she often didn’t get home till midnight or cook them dinner. And they weren’t emasculated by her superior income.

Nick stared at her askance. “You do know men need to feel needed, right?”

Right, like she had time for that. “Nick… I’m an independent woman. I’m super organized, well paid and have my life mapped out. I can look after myself. I don’t have time for men who need their egos stroked.”

“Then why do you bother with men at all?”

Good question . “I like the company. And it’s handy having someone to kill the spiders.”

Nick blinked. “Is that it ?”

She shrugged. “I like the way they smell.” Samantha especially liked the way he smelled. She remembered the musky heat his skin had pumped out the night of the tattoo when she’d been gripping his shirt.

“There are some great male fragrances,” he agreed, sounding slightly discombobulated.

“I don’t mean cologne. I mean just that clean, healthy skin smell. You know that just-out-of-the-shower smell.” Samantha tried and failed not to imagine him emerging from the shower, his skin still beaded with water as he stood still and let her sniff him all over. “It’s… I don’t know… so… male. You know?”

“Yeah. Pheromones.”

“Mmm.” Yes, that was it. “Wish they could bottle that.”

“I’m sure the fragrance companies would if they could.”

True. And they’d make a fortune. Although they had digressed. “I don’t suppose you’ve ever been dumped?” No doubt being let go from a relationship was completely foreign to Nick.

“Of course I have. In my rookie year I had a girl upend a bowl of spaghetti over my head in a crowded restaurant and announce that I had a very ugly disease to all and sundry.”

Samantha laughed, trying to imagine cool, sexy Hawkeye with spaghetti sauce and noodles sliding from his hair. “What on earth did you do?”

“ I didn’t do anything. She thought we should get married.”

“And did you give her any reason to believe that’s what you wanted?”

“It was our third date.”

She laughed again at his indignation. “Well I can beat that for humiliation. Easy.”

“Oh yeah?” He folded his arms. “I’m all ears.”

Samantha opened her mouth to tell the story then realized it was rather personal. And embarrassing. She shut it again, her cheeks warming as she rose and collected the coffee mugs.

“Sam?”

Ignoring him, she took the mugs through to the back room and made a big production of washing them, aware that Nick had followed her and was waiting patiently in the doorway.

“Sam?” he prompted again. “I told you mine. You can’t just start and not finish.”

She flicked a glance at him lounging against the jamb like he owned the place. Which, she supposed, he did. “I’m sure you’ll survive,” she said derisively.

“You know I’m never going to let it drop.”

Samantha looked at him standing there with his arms crossed and remembered the incessant teeth jokes. “Fine.” She took a deep breath, the heat returning to her face. “He said that I wasn’t very good in bed and there must be something wrong with me.”

He went very still in the doorway, his brows pulling down heavily over his eyes. “So… let me interpret that for you. He broke it off because he couldn’t satisfy you .”

“Well… I don’t think he quite saw it like that.”

Nick laughed. “I bet he didn’t. And this guy… he passed the kissing test?”

“He did.” Vance had been a good kisser. “His problem was he had a really big—” She stopped abruptly, the warmth intensifying across her cheeks. “Well… you know… he was… well endowed. You get what I mean?”

“Yes, Sam.” He pushed off the jamb. “I get it.”

His voice lowered to a tease which complimented his lazy prowl in her direction. “But I think he thought that was all he needed to… get the job done. He kept asking me what was wrong with me.” She shook her head. “He was my second lover. I was inexperienced.”

Nick halted just out of reach, his hip leaning against the sink edge. “I hope there have been others that have proven him wrong.”

Samantha’s blush deepened as she picked up a tea towel to dry the cups.

“Sam? There have been others?”

She faltered. “Yes.”

“But?”

Part of Samantha wanted to sink into a hole in the ground. The other part wanted to talk to him about it now the subject was on the table. Nick was her friend, after all, right? And a male. It might be good to get his perspective.

“Sex has always been kind of… ho-hum for me.”

“What do you mean… ho-hum?”

“Well, no, that’s not really true. There have been a couple of guys that were great. Just… not recently. Recently it’s been… average. But pleasant,” she added quickly as Nick’s lips pursed, deepening the cleft in his chin.

“It’s not supposed to be pleasant , Samantha. It’s supposed to be amazing, incredible, mind-blowing. It’s supposed to be addictive.”

Samantha swallowed as addictive echoed tantalizingly around her head. The only time sex had ever been that good was in the pages of a romance novel. “It’s okay,” she hastened to assure him. “Nice is okay.”

His horrified expression would have been comical had she not been on the receiving end. “ Nice is an insult to sex. Flowers are nice. Puppies are nice. Sex should not be nice.”

“I’ve done my research, Nick.” She folded her arms. “Apparently I’m one of a surprising majority of women who find… pleasure elusive.”

If Samantha thought her research might impress him, she was wrong. He only seemed more alarmed. “Are you saying that you’ve never…?”

“No,” she denied emphatically. “I have. Of course I have. It’s just… hit and miss… and with the last guy… Gary… it was more miss.”

“Christ.” Nick shook his head. “I think you’re seeing entirely the wrong type of man.”

“It’s okay. It wasn’t like the sex was bad . I was mostly too tired to get off anyway. It’s not that i mportant.” It sure would have been nice though.

He bugged his eyes at her. “Of course it’s important, Samantha. And you need a guy willing to show you.”

“Um… working on it. Remember?”

Staring at her in obvious frustration, he shoved his hands on his hips. “I’ll do it.”

Silence descended as they both stood very still. Where in hell had that come from? Samantha tried to gather thoughts that had scattered to parts of her body that were currently lurching crazily at the suggestion.

Was that her eggs trembling?

She didn’t know where to go from here but the only way through it without total embarrassment, was humor. “You’re that good, huh?” she joked as her panties well and truly worked themselves into a wad.

His eyes never left her face. “I have a 100 per cent success rate.”

Silence again. Except for her breathing. Or maybe that was his? His aftershave wafted toward her and she was reminded again how much she liked the way men smelled. Nick suddenly looked like one of Rita’s pirate heroes stepping from the pages. Dark and rakishly good looking with a thoroughly indecent proposal. Like he’d just opened his treasure chest to her and lordy, lordy it was tempting.

But… they were friends now and she didn’t have time to dally with Nick who did not want a baby, while her eggs got old. “I’ll keep that in mind, Nick. I really will but…”

He inched closer. Close enough to touch. “But?”

Samantha placed her hand on his chest to stop him from coming any nearer. The muscles playing beneath her palm had a strange dizzying affect. Her whole body hummed with awareness as she heard Cher playing in her head and he hadn’t even kissed her yet.

This had to stop! She was supposed to be finding someone her eggs could live with, not letting herself be distracted. So she heard Cher – too bad! She would not let a tantalizing proposition and an iconic rock star derail her focus.

“But you’re my boss and, I think” – she searched his gaze – “my friend? I’ve never had a guy friend before and I know it’s only been a few weeks, but I really like it.”

“Ever heard of friends with benefits?”

Samantha couldn’t quite believe she’d fallen down this rabbit hole. The one where Nick Hawke from the New Brunswick Crabbers was offering to be her bit on the side. The one where she knocked him back.

“I need to stick to the plan, Nick.”

“I’m not talking about your kooky plan. About eggs or babies. I’m talking about you and me and a night of unforgettable sex.”

Something told her one night of unforgettable sex with Nick would make her eggs impossible to live with. “Kooky or not, I’m sticking with it and apart from the many other reasons why this would be a bad idea, you don’t want babies which means you don’t fit the demographic.”

“So you can’t fuck anyone outside the demographic?”

Samantha swallowed as his profanity flushed through her on a wave of heat, titillating her way more than it should have. What the ever-loving hell? “Definitely no fucking outside the demographic. But” – she dropped her hand from his chest and was relieved when he eased back – “I am serious about the friends thing if I haven’t just completely blown it.”

He gave an exaggerated sigh. “Just my luck that the woman I see every day, who needs a damn good orgasm, has put me in the friend zone.”

Samantha smiled, grateful that he’d taken the rejection on the chin with no apparent dent to his ego. “I’m sure it’s an entirely new experience for you. It’ll do you good.”

“Yes, Mom,” he said, rolling his eyes.

“Are you still okay with helping me find dates?”

“Are you kidding? If the other dates turn out to be as hilarious as the first, I’m definitely along for the ride.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“What else are friends for? But remember.” He tapped the sink then backed slowly away, a knowing smile playing on his mouth. “Any time you’re in need of a truly good orgasm, just yell.”

Muscles behind Samantha’s belly button contracted in a very unhelpful manner at the low, smutty promise in his voice. “You’ll be my first port of call. I promise.”