Unbroken Pleasures (9 page)

I peeled off my
clothes and stepped into the shower just so I could feel the water warm my cool
skin. I closed my eyes and let my hands roam over my body. The space between my
legs ached for his touch but I would have to settle for my own. I touched
myself as I thought about his hands on me, the way he’d touched me and gripped
my flesh in desperation. I moaned as I climaxed and braced myself against the
shower wall. How could he have such an effect on me when he wasn’t even here?

When I crawled
back into bed, I closed my eyes to think about Adam and the way he’d gone out
of his way to create a beautiful picnic lunch for me. I smiled as I imagined
him playing with his puppy. I felt a twinge when I thought about him looking at
me with those brilliant green eyes. I looked forward to our date. I would
embrace the evening and I vowed to myself that once dinner had finished, I
would invite him back to my house to help fill this lonely bed. I would take
the risk of a broken heart so that I could feel the arms of a man wrapped
around me.

The next
afternoon I took advantage of a thirty minute break between appointments to
make a phone call to Sylvia. I was pretty sure that she should be on her lunch
break and I had a very important matter to discuss with her.

“I have a date,”
I announced once we got past the usual greetings. I knew she could hear the
excitement and nervousness in my voice as I said the words out loud.

“Do you know his
name this time?” she asked. She laughed lightly but I knew that she was
repressing the genuine concern that she still harbored for my encounter with
the stranger.

“You remember
that guy Adam that I told you about with the puppy that kept finding an excuse
to make an appointment and tried to ask me out every time?”

“No way. You
finally said yes? I thought you swore up and down that you would never go out
with that guy?”

“Yes, I finally
agreed. We actually had a little picnic at the park together on Monday and it
was nice. He made sandwiches and poured grape juice in wine glasses. It was
very sweet.”

“Oh, Alex! I
can’t believe you didn’t tell me sooner. This is newsworthy!”

“It’s not that
big of a deal, Sylvia, but I do have a big favor to ask you which is why I am
calling. I’m going to need your help.”

“Oh, I think I’m
going to like this.”

“It’s been a
while since I’ve gone out with a guy, especially one that I think I could keep
around for a while and my wardrobe might need a bit of a makeover.”

“Don’t be silly,
Alex, you have some of the cutest clothes of anyone I know. Surely you can find
something suitable for the evening. What are you doing together?”

“We’re going out
to dinner but I’m not worried about the dress so much. It’s what I am going to
wear underneath that I need some help with.”

“Underwear?”

Sylvia sounded a
bit stunned by the idea so I took a deep breath to steady my nerves. I needed
her help but I didn’t want to make a big deal about it.

“Yes, underwear.
That sort of thing. It’s been a while.”

“So you plan on
inviting this guy back to your place? I thought you were looking for something
long term?”

“I am.”

“Rushing things
a bit, don’t you think?”

“Look, I didn’t
say that I was definitely going to sleep with him or anything but this guy has
potential and I want to be prepared. Is that so crazy to imagine?”

“Well, it beats
dragging strangers back to your house and shagging them without even asking
their name.”

I felt a sting
as she said the words and it hurt. I still couldn’t look at my encounter with
the stranger as a bad thing no matter how crazy or daring it had been. Even
though I was still desperately trying to forget him and let it go, I knew that
there would always be a little part of me that regretted not following him out the
door that morning. I swallowed my pride and ignored Sylvia’s comments.

“This from the
woman who set me up on a blind sex date,” I countered.

“Okay, okay, put
away the claws, Kitty Cat. I have some free time later this evening so why
don’t you meet me at Victoria’s Secret and we’ll take it from there?”

“Thank you,
Sylvia.”

I hung up the
phone and wondered what I was getting myself into. I probably could have
handled picking out suitable lingerie on my own but somehow knowing that Sylvia
would be there beside me helped or maybe it was my own personal insurance that
I’d make good on the promises that I’d already made to myself.

Look out Adam, I
was embracing this dating thing full force.

Chapter 9

By the time
Friday night came around, I was a bundle of nerves. Three times over the course
of the work day, I picked up the phone with the intention to cancel my dinner
plans with Adam. I thought about the assortment of lacy and skimpy
undergarments that I’d purchased with Sylvia’s expert advice and wondered if
I’d have the nerve to wear any of them. I felt like I was pushing myself too
far outside my comfort zone. Even with Ed, I’d never put much effort into a
sexual relationship. We were more friends than lovers, I admitted to myself with
a sigh and even that was too painful to let go. I was terrified to get too
close to anyone.

Adam pulled into
my driveway in his gray Toyota Celica at seven o’clock on the dot. I took a
deep breath, checked my face and hair in the mirror, and met him at the door
before he had a chance to knock. I realized as I opened the door to his shocked
expression that I probably appeared more eager than I’d intended, but it was
better than lingering in the entryway of my house not knowing what to say to
each other when my head was filled with all the possibilities of what we could
be doing.

He took my arm
and led me to the passenger side of his car and opened the door for me and we
drove to the restaurant together mostly in silence. He snuck a glance over at
me a couple of times along the way as we tried to make small talk and I blushed
every time despite my efforts not to. I felt like I was a school girl on my
first date.

The restaurant Adam
had chosen sat on the outskirts of town and was a quiet little Italian place
that I’d been to maybe once or twice during the time I’d been with Ed. I almost
dreaded walking through the door and being hit with a flood of memories but
much to my relief and surprise, there were none. That part of my life had truly
ended and I felt no sense of loss or remorse about it.

Of course, it
helped that the owners had done some extensive remodeling since my last visit and
I barely recognized the place. Even if I had, I wasn’t convinced that it would
inspire any memories of Ed either happy or sad. I was grateful for that and I
relaxed as we ordered our food and settled into the cozy atmosphere to enjoy
each other’s company.

He looked at me
with those intense green eyes and I smiled. This might not be so bad after all.

“How is Tiger?”
I asked feeling the tension between us lighten.

“Living up to
his name, that’s for sure.”

I laughed. At
only nine months old, Tiger had already managed to wreak havoc on Adam’s home,
at least from what he’d told me during his office visits. I was all too
familiar with the playful curiosity of a puppy, all the more reason that I
wasn’t ready to adopt my own anytime soon. High maintenance, just like the
upkeep on a relationship as Sylvia would say.

“I don’t know
what state the house will be in by the time I get home,” he said, “but I
wouldn’t trade him for anything. Do you have any animals? As a vet and animal
lover, your house must be a zoo.”

“I have three
goldfish named Edgar, Allen, and Poe.”

“That’s it? No
cats? Dogs? Horses? Wild pigs?”

I laughed. “No,
just fish. That’s as much as I have time to manage at the moment.”

“I swore I’d
never get a dog,” he said taking a sip of wine.

“What made you
change your mind?”

“I guess I got
tired of being alone. My wife and I split about two years ago and I was
depressed for a long time. I finally decided it was time to stop feeling sorry
for myself and move on with my life. Tiger gives me a reason to worry about
something outside of my own miserable life. He’s my reason to get up in the
morning.”

“I’m so sorry,”
I said suddenly feeling a little uncomfortable. I took a sip of my own wine.

“Don’t be. My
life is better now, especially now that I’ve met you.”

“Adam...”

“I thank the
heavens every day for making me get that crazy dog because he’s what led me to
you. You have no idea how happy I am that you finally agreed to go out with
me.”

“You and Tiger seem
very happy together.” I didn’t know what else to say.

“What about
you?” he said.

“What do you
mean?”

“Do you date
much? I get the impression that you tend to keep to yourself.”

“No, I don’t. I
guess I had my own heartbreak to overcome before I was ready to dive back into
the world of dating and I’m still not sure I’m there yet.”

“You finally
agreed to go out with me. That’s a good sign. What was his name?”

“Ed. He left me
a year ago for another woman. We were only married for six months when I found
about her.”

“Ouch.”

“The worst part
is that the affair had been going on longer than our marriage. I’ll never
understand why he even bothered to go along with the wedding in the first place.
He could have saved me and my entire family a whole lot of humiliation if he’d
just told me he didn’t really want to marry me.”

“What a selfish
jerk.”

“That’s an
understatement.”

“Not all guys
are like that, Alex. Don’t give up on the rest of us.”

I smiled at him.
I was starting to like Adam and that scared me a little. “I still don’t think
there will ever be a day when I’m ready to marry again, but I’m starting to put
the past behind me.”

“There is no
reason that we need to rush into anything,” he said.

“I know. I
didn’t mean to imply anything.”

“It’s alright. I
know where you’re coming from. It’s hard to put yourself in a position of
feeling vulnerable again after your heart has been broken.”

“Why did you and
your wife divorce, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“It was a mutual
decision. We were together for about three years but over that time we
discovered that we were more different than alike and we wanted different
things out of life. I wanted to start a family. She wanted to focus on her
career. It just got to the point that we realized that it wasn’t going to work
out no matter how hard we tried so we decided to separate. Once we separated,
there just didn’t seem any reason to get back together, so we divorced.”

“That’s so sad.”

He shrugged.
“There were a lot of things we probably should have talked about before we got
married but we were young and crazy in love, or so we thought. My parents tried
to warn me but it’s not like I was going to listen.”

“Yeah, I hear
you there,” I agreed thinking back to the remarks that my own family and Sylvia
had made when I announced my plans to marry Ed. Sylvia, in particular, had been
dead set against the idea. It wasn’t until I told her that we couldn’t be
friends any longer if she couldn’t support my decision to include Ed as a
permanent fixture in my life that she finally gave in and accepted it. She
never liked Ed but she at least finally made the effort to be nice when he was
around. I had to give her a lot of credit for that.

Ed hadn’t
exactly been Sylvia’s biggest fan either. Every time I mentioned spending some
time with her he rolled his eyes and acted like it was some horrible thing. I
didn’t want to let go of my friendship with Sylvia but I hated the fact that Ed
seemed to think there was some reason that I should steer clear of her. She was
bad news, he’d tell me. Maybe he was only afraid that she’d finally convince me
that he was the jerk that she could see him for.

“Anyway, that is
all in the past,” he said, “and I believe in fresh starts and new beginnings,
and I hope, Alex, that you will be willing to give me even half a chance to get
to know the person that you are because I promise you that I am not like your
ex and I would never do anything so foolish or stupid to break your heart.”

“Adam, I like
you. I really do. It’s just that I’m not ready to think about hearts and
happily ever after and all that stuff. I’m still not even sure why I’m here.”

“I’m sorry. I
guess I just keep getting ahead of myself every time I look at you. I really
meant it when I said we can take things slow and when I say that, I mean even
if you only want to think of me as a friend for the next six months, I can live
with that.”

“Thank you,
Adam. I think we’ll get along just fine.”

“I think so
too,” he said.

The waiter
brought our meals and placed them on the table. The food was even better than I
remembered and I was grateful for the easy conversation that flowed between us
as we enjoyed our dinners. By the time the waiter cleared our empty plates and
we sat back in our chairs to rest our full bellies, I wondered why I’d never
agreed to go out with Adam sooner.

He also happened
to be one of the most attractive men that I’d ever had the pleasure of going
out with, and I found myself staring into his eyes several times as we talked
and ate our food. I could get lost in those eyes, I decided. Maybe it was the
atmosphere of the room or maybe it was the bravery that was brought on by a
couple of glasses of wine, but my desire to kiss him increased ten fold. I knew
he could sense the shift in me as well. I could see the change in the way that
he looked at me. He may have meant what he said about only being friends for
the next six months but there was clearly a side of him that wanted more. A lot
more.