Breaking the Ice

Chapter 11

11

Samantha settled herself in the restaurant chair. She’d arrived deliberately early and she could see Nick three tables in front. He had wanted to wear a fedora, a fake mustache and a trench coat. She’d vetoed it. She’d vetoed his secret password idea too – he was getting way too much entertainment out of her tribulations.

Although he had been recognized by a couple of diners wanting autographs so the disguise hadn’t been such a ridiculous idea.

She smoothed down the front of the little black dress she’d worn on nearly all her dates because Nick had been right about it. Some mascara, lip gloss and her hair loose and wavy and she didn’t look half bad.

A good-looking man approached her table and Samantha held her breath. Surely, she couldn’t be this lucky? Could she really go from Vincent to va va voom? He stopped and smiled at her. “Hi? I’m Paul?”

Oh Nick. You have done well.

“Are you Samantha?”

She smiled back, almost lost for words as her eggs stood to attention. Finally. He shook her hand. It was a nice, firm, warm grip. One tick against the wall.

“You’ll have to forgive me, I’m a little nervous,” he admitted as he sat opposite. “I haven’t been on the dating scene for years.”

Samantha grimaced, wishing she could say the same. “You haven’t missed much.”

Paul laughed. “Oh dear, that doesn’t sound good.”

Samantha bugged her eyes. “It’s a jungle out there.”

Paul nodded and told her about his last blind date who had put him off socializing with women for an entire year. It seemed she’d been so nervous that she’d drunk to excess, her mouth getting pottier and pottier as the evening wore on. Samantha laughed as the story went from bad to worse, all the time thinking: He could be the one, he could be the one.

“Sam!”

She looked up to find Nick doing a theatrical double-take. “I didn’t realize you were eating here tonight.”

Samantha frowned. Why the hell was he here? This wasn’t part of the plan. She plastered a fake smile on her face as her eyes went full what the fuck ?

“I think you’ve dropped this.” He scooped her napkin off the floor and passed it over.

Damn it! The signal . She groaned inwardly. “Oh, how silly of me, I dropped my napkin accidentally .”

Her emphasis was lost on him. Or ignored. “Paul. How are you doing?” Nick stuck out his hand. “Damn, dude, it’s been years.”

Her date shook hands and asked if Nick was dining alone. Nick did his best fake oh-no-that’s-alright-I-like-eating-alone routine. But Paul, polite to a fault, insisted and, before she knew it, he was ensconced at their table.

“How’s the knee?” Paul asked.

A conversation about hockey followed. They included her in the conversation but Samantha tuned out as she glared at Nick. It was clear that the two men knew each other reasonably well and the more her date talked the more she liked him.

He was certainly a vast improvement on all the others.

Unfortunately, her desperate stabbing stares were making no headway with Nick who appeared to be enjoying himself immensely. A sharp kick to his shin raised no more than a slight dent to his fixed grin. Paul laughed at some witty observation Nick made and Samantha admired the fact that it wasn’t just women he could charm.

Nick was great with people, period.

And if she wasn’t trying to secure her eggs’ future she could probably sit back and listen to him all night. She could most certainly look at him all night.

Paul’s cell phone rang. “Oh.” He glanced at the screen. “I’m so sorry, I have to take this,” he said before excusing himself from the table.

Samantha didn’t mind. It gave her a chance to get rid of Nick. “What are you doing?”

He grinned. “Well, I don’t know about you but I’m having the time of my life.”

“I dropped the napkin accidentally . I don’t need you to rescue me. I need you to go away. I think Paul could actually be the one.”

“Really? The one? I did good?”

“Yes.” She shot him an exasperated look. “You did good. Now go away. He’s coming back.”

For a moment, as Nick’s eyes dropped to her mouth, kicking off a little flutter behind her belly button, Samantha wasn’t sure he would go away. But he stood as Paul sat and excused himself and it was gratifying to see that her date didn’t object to the departure.

The evening went well. They dined and talked till late. He walked her home and she even invited him in for coffee. Given the total wipeouts that were her previous dates, it was great just to feel like she was dating a human being.

He was interested in her job and why she’d downsized from her corporate climb. She told him the whole sorry saga and assured him the bookshop was only temporary, ignoring the twinge that came with the statement. She found out he was forty-one with a twenty-year-old daughter he clearly adored and had been amicably divorced for five years.

A family man. Perfect!

He asked about her family and she told him how much she missed her sister and nieces and how she wished they lived closer.

It was a nice evening and, as he left, he asked her out the next night and when he leaned in to kiss her she prayed it wouldn’t be a dud because this was a man her eggs could live with.

And the kiss was… nice. Just like the rest of him.

Okay – it didn’t leave her breathless or inspire a sudden desire to drag him back into her apartment, but it had promise. Given the other disasters it was practically red-hot.

She could definitely work with it.

Samantha entered the bookshop the next morning still thinking about Paul. “I gather from that dreamy look that he passed the kiss test?”

Samantha didn’t bother to answer – she just smiled.

“Wow. That good, huh?”

“Not bad,” she admitted. “Quite nice, actually.”

“Not bad? Quite nice? Sam… I thought we’d talked about this.”

She frowned. Way to kill the buzz, Nick. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“Sure, but wouldn’t you prefer fantastic, amazing, unforgettable? I mean… the first kiss is a guy’s selling point. You give it all you’ve got. If Paul’s starting with nice then it’s not going to improve from there.”

“Nick do you know how many yuk, blah, boring kisses I’ve had this last little while? Nice is a major step up. Trust me.”

“Yeah, you’ve not had a great run.”

“And we’re going out again tonight.” She smiled to herself at the thought. “You never know. Anything can happen.”

Tonight could be the night she ended her epic dry spell!

Something that was certainly on Samantha’s mind when she stopped at the drug store on her way home. Nick was right about women taking responsibility for their own protection. Okay, maybe tonight wouldn’t be the night but… what if?

She located the condom stand a minute later and stood in front of it staring, completely nonplussed. There were seriously this many choices? And she’d thought tampon selections were ridiculous. No wonder men couldn’t be bothered if they faced this choice every time.

Colored, ribbed, lubricated, flavored, vibrating. Vibrating ? Extra-large. Crap. What if she chose the wrong one? Was she supposed to buy extra-large? Would Paul be insulted if she didn’t? Would his dick strangulate and suffer permanent damage if she didn’t because he was hung like a horse? Damn it, she should have brought Nick with her.

On this she really needed a man’s perspective.

Reading the back of the boxes didn’t really help her either. They were fabulously descriptive of the amazing powers of the particular brand and one even had a nutritional panel.

Dear God . She had to count calories while having sex?

Wasn’t it supposed to burn them?

Glancing at the time, Samantha realized she’d been dithering for fifteen minutes. After another five minutes passed along with two offers of help from staff she thought, screw it , and put one of each packet in her basket and took them to the counter.

The assistant looked bug eyed. “Are you sure?” she asked politely and Samantha just smiled and asked her to hurry.

“I’ll have what she’s having,” an amused male voice said.

Samantha turned to find a middle-aged cowboy waiting patiently while they tallied her purchase. He was wearing a big old hat and a friendly smile.

“If you need a hand using any of those, just holler.”

He reminded Samantha of an aging Larry Valentine and she smiled. The crazy thing was, had he been twenty years younger, she may just have taken him up on his offer. Instead, she paid the money, stashed the condoms in her large DKNY holdall, thankful that she’d thought to take a roomy bag to work this morning, and hurried out of the store.

Paul took her to a movie and then to dinner. She’d dressed more casually tonight. A pair of Prada three-quarter length denim pants and a beautiful floaty Colette Dinnigan top in grays and greens which matched her eyes, sat wide on her shoulders and low on her cleavage.

A pop of cherry on her lips and some Louboutin pumps completed the picture.

And the date went well. The movie was good. The meal was nice. They laughed. And talked. And laughed some more. And he came up for coffee again. Samantha put on some Adele and sat on the couch next to him as the amazing sultry tones full of ache and dysfunction floated around them.

They talked some more as they drank but, thirty minutes later, they were still talking.

Okay… why hadn’t he made a move yet? Samantha was pretty sure he found her attractive but, had she been reading him wrong?

Or was she putting out the wrong signals?

The holdall with the condoms, that she had diligently taken out of their packets and individually separated, was stashed conveniently down beside the lounge. All systems were go.

But… still more conversation.

Maybe he was as nervous as her?

Why not? The pressure on men to be the one to make the first move must be immense and when a person was a little rusty, as Paul had proclaimed to be, it must be even more daunting.

Well, she was a twenty-first-century gal, she could make the first move, surely?

Leaning in, Samantha kissed him lightly on the mouth, mid-sentence. He hesitated for a moment and she thought she’d screwed up but then he kissed her back.

Okay. Now they were cooking with gas.

She unleashed her full kissing expertise upon him, opening her mouth and injecting as much passion as she could muster. But it was difficult when he was holding her so awkwardly. He felt stiff and robotic, even as she thrust her cleavage at his chest. In fact, the closer she got the stiffer he became. And not in the good way.

She broke away. “Is there something wrong?” she whispered.

“Er, um… sorry. I’m not really… prepared for this.”

He looked embarrassed and Samantha relaxed. That was a problem she could solve. “It’s okay,” she assured, “I’ve got condoms.”

She went in for another kiss but he backed away. Then he stood. “Sorry, I didn’t mean…” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “I’ve had a vasectomy; condoms aren’t an issue.”

Samantha stared stupidly at him for a moment. A vasectomy? How were her eggs going to party with his sperm when he was firing blanks?

She knew he was too damn good to be true!

But if it wasn’t condoms, then what? “Okay, so, what is the issue?”

“It’s a bit embarrassing,” he said, talking to the floor now. “I take blood pressure tablets. They make me… impotent. If I’d had advanced warning I could have taken some Viagra. I didn’t realize you wanted to move this fast.”

Samantha blinked at the double whammy – being called easy by a guy who couldn’t get it up. She knew the situation wasn’t Paul’s fault and talking about it had taken courage. And she felt for him, but man… had she really shaved her legs for this?