Page 45 of Breaking the Ice

“Look, I’ve gotta go. Major hormonal tweenie crisis looming. I love you. And Sam?”

“What?”

“Consider Plan B.”

Another couple of weeks passed when Samantha decided the vibrator option was looking better. The blind date scene was its usual comedy of errors. A chiropractor with a weird facial tic. A vet with the hugest nose she’d ever seen. A university professor who seemed to think that asking for the dessert menu first constituted a major crime.

She was no closer to biological – or sexual – satisfaction than when she’d first started.

Working with Nick wasn’t helping. The man oozed pheromones all over the shop. She couldn’t even escape to the obscurity of the shelves as Nick’seau desex appeallurked everywhere. It used to be that she’d walk into Birdie’s and the smell of old books and peppermint would hit her instantly. All she smelled these days was Nick.

And Bec’s Plan B kept rearing its ugly head. Seriously, she needed to release some of the pressure before she jumped him in the back room.

Because Plan B was not part of her goals.

God knew they were being difficult enough to achieve without getting totally off track and losing herself in Nick. Andanyway, just because he’d offered and could kiss like he had a PhD in the subject, didn’t mean he actually really wanted to be Plan B’d by her.

She had presented him with a challenge that night that any red-blooded male would have found hard to resist. But the man had been out with so many Angie clones in the last couple of weeks it was clear she wasn’t really his type. Despite Nick’s protestations that he likedrealwomen he didn’t seem toactuallydate any of them.

Yes, he flirted with her. But he flirted with every woman who came through the door. Crabbers fan or not. Even Dulcie got the Nick treatment. After years in the great dating pool of life, she knew better than to fix her sights on men like Nick.

So. A vibrator it was.

The day she finally decided to go for it, they shut up shop after lunch and she caught the downtown bus with Nick under the guise of shoe shopping. He was going off to his physio session and, luckily, the nearest sex shop was only a couple of blocks from Nick’s clinic.

When they reached their stop, he went right and she went left, hitting the mall soon after, determined to join the ranks of city girls the world over. She’d started this enforced new phase of her life determined to change her attitude and this was just one more step in her metamorphosis.

But, when she got to the adult shop she couldn’t quite bring herself to go in. She went and bought a hot dog from a nearby stand and sat on a seat opposite the door and wondered why sex shops had to look so… sleazy?

The plate glass window was obscured by a thick dark curtain. A row of red flashing lights outlined the window, a little saggy in places, and a red neon sign proclaimedThe Pleasure Centre.She should have just purchased online. But she’d wanted to be able to fully investigate before she bought.

Samantha watched people come and go, some leaving with intriguing brown paper bags. She thought it would be all horny teenage boys or men like the guy who did her tattoo but most of those frequenting the establishment were women who all seemed to look a bit like Bec. And the men were spread across the spectrum. From young to old, professional to blue collar.

She glanced at her watch – time was a’wasting!

Her phone buzzed with an incoming text but she ignored it. If she didn’t do this now, she probably never would.

Putting on her big girl panties, Samantha walked toward the shop, browsing in the shoe shop window next door for a few moments before casually sauntering past The Pleasure Centre and back again then quickly stepping inside.

Her mind was instantly boggled by what she saw. So much so Samantha felt as if she’d entered an entirely new dimension. There were the usual videos and magazines and sexy lingerie but also inflatable partners and bondage equipment and something for every fetish.

And vibrators.Lotsof vibrators.

She stood in front of the display that would have put the nuts, bolts and nails wall at Home Depot to shame. There they stood, all one hundred models, proudly erect, displaying their virtues in all their towering glory. Black ones, pink ones, flesh-colored ones. Big ones, bigger ones and ginormous ones. Ones with attachments and others that had bits that rotated.

Overwhelmed by choice, Samantha swallowed. This was crazy. She was getting out of here. She was looking for something to ease a little frustration, not cripple her.

“Well, well, well, Samantha Evans, you saucy minx.”

She froze.Nick?What the hell.Please don’t let it be Nick. Slowly, heat rising in her cheeks, Samantha turned.

Yup. NickHawkeyeHawke was smiling at her. Well… crap.

“Nick.” She chewed at her bottom lip. How in the hell did he find her in here? Was he following her? “I thought your session went for a couple of hours?”

“It does but the physio had an emergency come up and had to leave. I texted you. Then I spotted you coming in here so I followed.”

She heard the suppressed amusement coloring his voice and smiled weakly. What to do? Pretend she was buying something for a friend? That she stumbled in by accident?

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