I like the idea of him watching me as I swoop around at speed, avoiding the other skaters, the tinny dance music blaring out from the speakers. I only gave up skating because I was so busy with homework and exams. I'm having a good time. Maybe I should come here more often. But is it Ronan that I'm enjoying, more than the ice?

  When I look over to see if he's watching me, he waves and smiles, but on my next turn around the rink, I glance over to where he was standing and he has disappeared.

  Is this his way of standing me up for being in such a mood at the start of our date? My heart sinks. I'm not sure why I care, given this is a one off date anyway, but somehow I've gone off skating around on my own.

  “Hey.” Ronan skates up behind me and comes to a stop in a shower of ice. “You're not giving up so soon?”

  I look at his skates and then up at him. “You can skate! You made me think you couldn't.”

  “I wanted to hold onto you. It seemed like a good idea.” He laughs and runs his thumb over my cold cheek, holding my gaze. My nipples tighten to achy points and it's nothing to do with the chill of the ice and everything to do with this man and his touch.

  I gather myself together. “So where did you learn to skate?”

  “I was on the junior ice hockey team. But it's years since I've been to a rink.”

  “Why did you give up?”

  “I gave up everything for a while.”

  He doesn't say it, but I guess that must have been when his mother left.

  We end up having a great time on the ice, skating around together, sometimes holding hands, sometimes me skating backwards looking at him, sometimes him, looking at me. It's exhilarating, but I start getting cold after half an hour or so and he catches me shivering.

  “Let’s get out of here,” he says. “Enough for now?”

  There's a cool breeze in the air despite it being August and it's just getting dark when we leave the rink.

  He holds my hands in his and kisses them, blowing on them to warm them up. “I forgot what skating was like. Thanks for taking me back there. Now for something hot and dinner, as well.”

  “Coffee,” I say. “Or hot chocolate, you mean.”

  He laughs. “No, but I can live with that, if you want coffee before dinner. I can put off the reservation.”

  “It's okay. Let's go to dinner.”

  “I haven't been to a restaurant before, so you had better hold my hand.” He grabs hold of mine again as we walk to the car.

  “Very funny.” But I leave my hand there in his, all strong and warm surrounding my much smaller fingers, and I can't help regretting we didn't park the car much farther away.

  CHAPTER 9

  Ronan

  Dinner at Luigi's is good. Everything is always cooked to perfection there. Other Italian restaurants cook food I can easily manage at home, but Luigi has a way with chicken and pasta and cream sauce that makes his food like nothing I ever tasted.

  But it's not dinner that makes the evening special. I've eaten at Luigi's many times. It's Amy. She makes me laugh, she makes me smile. Her face lights up when she talks and it's as if I'm the only guy in the restaurant, even the only person she cares about in the world.

  She looks at me with those big eyes and long lashes and I want her to sense that I care just as much about her, that she's more than some girl I'm taking out.

  It feels like I'm jumping from the open doorway of a plane here, not knowing if my parachute will open. This is whole new world for me. But if I'm going to risk falling for anyone, I'd like to risk it with her. For once, I don't think one night will be enough. I've never wanted any woman in my bed so much, or cared more whether she says no or yes to the idea. A first for me.

  “So,” I say over coffee. “I'm all ears. What is Sandra's advice about dates?”

  “I thought you didn't agree with Sandra's relationship advice.”

  “Not so far, but I need to know what it is too, so I can trash it. Did she say anything about this date?”

  “I'm not telling you what she said.”

  “Now I really want to hear it.”

  “How come you're on the dating scene again?” she says, swiftly changing the subject.

  “Did Sandra tell you to ask that?” I laugh. “Anyway, what do you mean again? I've never been off it.”

  Her eyes widen at that. “I just thought you must have been divorced or something.”

  “You can't believe no one snapped me up?”

  “I just thought… with you being so old.” She laughs and ducks, as I take a fake swipe at the air in front of her as if I was going to strike her.

  “No, not married. Not separated. Not divorced.”

  “No one ever pinned you down, huh? Well, you don't have to worry about me. I'm only after one evening out and a ticket to the XT Music Awards.”

  “Your kinky date with Sandra. I forgot. When is the happy day?”

  “September second.”

  “So, you won your bet.”

  “I did.”

  “So you're a betting girl. What if I bet you something?”

  “It depends what you're offering.”

  “One night, no questions asked.”

  She gulps. “I thought you were going to behave yourself.”

  “You didn't really think that, did you?”

  “No.”

  “But the thing is, you still agreed to a date with me. That means…”

  “I had an incentive. You know that.”

  “Is that really the only reason you agreed?”

  “Maybe I wanted to impress you with my ice skating.” She smiles. “But that was when I thought you wouldn't be able to skate as well as me.”

  “I was still impressed. You have some great moves on the ice. And I can't wait to see your moves in other places.”

  I assumed she'd take my teasing as the joke it is. But her face drops.

  “Hey, what did I say? I'm sorry. I want you to stay with me tonight; I can't say I don't. But I don't expect you to.”

  “It's okay,” she says. But I can tell it's not.

  I change the subject. Anything to bring a smile back to her face. We talk about her favorite bands, and the Awards, and a trip she's just back from with Sandra to Barcelona. But then I can't resist probing to find out what's going on here.

  “Are you dating anyone else right now?”

  “No,” she says. “No one.”

  “So how come I'm not having to fend off all your suitors to take you out tonight?”

  “The guys lining up with the camels outside my door, you mean.”

  “Yes, those. I bet they make a right mess of your dad's lawn.”

  “No.” She laughs and then that cute little frown comes over her face again. Cute but worried.

  “Do I make you nervous?”

  “No, not really.”

  “That sounds like a yes.”

  “Let’s just say Yes and No.”

  “You don't strike me as the nervous type, more the giving a guy a hard time type.”

  “Things are not always as they seem. A girl has her secrets.”

  “I'm all ears.”

  She opens her mouth as if to explain but then she clams up again.

  “Let's get out of here.” I summon the waiter to pay. Who knows what's going on with Amy? I hope she'll tell me when we're alone.

  CHAPTER 10

  Amy

  It's dark outside now, but overcast, with not a star in sight. Ronan opens the car door for me, gets in and starts the car. “I'll take you home.”

  I messed up. I'm so used to saying no to guys and fending off their advances all these years, I don't know how to say yes. If I say what I'm really afraid of, Ronan will think I'm a complete nutcase.

  Even Sandra thinks I'm making too much of what happened in high school, that I talk myself out of getting close to any guy because I've said no for so long and that I should just sleep with someone, anyone who seems nice enough, to get it over with, but I don't know. It feels like a big step.

  I like Ronan. Too much, if anything. He's the last person I want to laugh at me. That would just kill me.

  We were chatting away in the restaurant earlier, but now he's not saying anything much. He asks me if I'm warm enough. I tell him I'm fine. He's taking me home, and I know that's the last I'll see of him.

  “I'm sorry,” I say. I'm not sure why. It just comes out. A miserable end to a date with a guy I like, a guy I might have fallen for if the circumstances were different.

  “What are you sorry for?”

  I don't know what to say to that. Sorry for being me? Sorry for being such a hopeless date? Sorry for not being like other girls?

  He stops the car at the side of the road. “Hey,” he says. “Don't cry.”

  I was hoping he hadn't noticed the tear that had started running down my cheek. He rubs it away with his thumb and kisses me gently on the mouth. It’s so fast, but it catches my breath. I want him to kiss me again.

  “No need to be sorry. I had a great time. Well, I did until now and you cried on me.”

  “Take me home with you.”

  “Not unless you tell me what's wrong. Is it something I've done?”

  “No, not you.”

  “Someone else then?”

  “It's just me being stupid.”

  “It's the last thing I thought you were.”

  He clicks open my seat belt, and his own, and pulls me to him, holding me against his hard body. My heart is pounding. I'm sure he must be able to feel it.

  He pulls me away from him a moment and looks me in the eye. “What do you really want?”

  “I want to go home with you.”

  “Are you sure that's what you want?”

  I nod.

  The air between us is thick with unspoken desire.

  “Show me you mean it, then,” he says and his mouth meets mine.

  The kiss is zero to sixty in two seconds—our mouths veer from delicate first touch to hot and savage dueling in no time, as if it's impossible to get close enough to each other.

  I detect the faint taste of coffee and bitter dark mint chocolate from the restaurant, the pressure of his lips on mine, the slight rasp of his regrowth against my skin. I take in the man scent of him—cologne, soap, cotton—but the rest is pure intoxicating Ronan.

  Our tongues twirl and wrestle, impossible to say where my mouth ends and his begins, and excitement and an aching hungry need for him build in me, the kind I've never felt. I want this. I want him.

  “Okay. I believe you,” he says, softly, when we finally part to catch our breath, and he looks at me, his pupils so large his eyes look black in the darkness of the car.

  CHAPTER 11

  Ronan

  What the fuck is going on with me? I don't do complicated or get involved. I run a mile when women cry, especially if I might be the cause of her tears. Women are great company. They love to talk themselves into my bed and I love sex. Doesn't every guy? But I stay resolutely out of anything that smacks of a long-term relationship.

  So what the hell am I doing, breaking my own rules and not taking Amy straight back home to her parents when she cried? I must be out of my mind.

  She's looking nervous again. I tilt her chin up and kiss her again. I can't stop kissing her. Her soft lips on mine, the apple shampoo clean scent of her, feel so good I don't want to wait. Every part of me wants to take her, obliterate every doubt and make her mine right here in the car. I want her now. Fuck taking her back to my bed.

  We're on the edge of the forest. The road is quiet but not empty. Not here, then. But I have to touch her. That can't wait.

  I kiss her again, my hands beneath her open coat holding her by the waist and then beneath her pink sweater, her skin soft and warm and dry.

  She gasps when my fingertips touch the bare skin of her back and the lights of a car going past illuminate the front of her sweater highlighting her hardening nipples through the thin wool fabric. I reach out and tease them to tight points.

  She sucks in a breath, but doesn't pull away. I look into her eyes, watching for any sign she objects as I pull up her sweater, exposing her flimsy lace bra and the tops of her breasts to the night air. And then I bend my head and take a lace-covered tip into my mouth and suck hard.

  Amy bends her head back, thrusting her chest forward and she gives out a soft, sweet murmur of pleasure that is music to my ears. I release her plump nipple from my mouth and move to the other tip, this time pulling the fabric of her bra aside to take her into my mouth and taste her naked flesh.

  I feel as giddy as a school boy with his first touch of a real woman, and I'm going to come like a teenager too if I'm not careful. I need to take her back to my bed right now. I'm not usually so out of control. She has me all over the fucking place.

  I kiss her on the mouth, fumbling with her bra cup to get it over her hard, wet nipple, and pull her sweater back into place, just as a car pulls up alongside us; a police car.

  My heart sinks, and then sinks even more when I wind down the window and see Jeff Baines getting out. We've crossed paths a few times before, both at school and since that time four or five times professionally. There's no love lost.

  He's one of those people who lets power go to their head and he likes to get in my face. If I hadn't known him at school I'd have thought he was having a hard time at home with his wife and resented me being free and single, but he's always been a pain in the ass.

  “Thought it was your car, Ronan, up to your old tricks, are you? Are you okay, Miss?”

  Amy says, “Yes, everything's fine.” But I can tell she's mortified at being found with me on the side of the road. It was lucky that Jeff and whoever he's partnering with these days didn't come along a few minutes earlier.

  “So, has your car broken down?” Jeff says to me.

  “No, it's working fine.”

  “Just thought I'd better check,” he says. “Unusual for cars to be parked here at night. Best get home then.”

  “Thanks for your concern,” I say, livid. “See you around.” I wind up the window. The police car waits for us to get going.

  “Asshole!” I say. I look at Amy. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes, but I think I'd like to go home now.”

  I start the car.

  Fuck!

  CHAPTER 12

  Amy

  We don't say much in the car going home. I don't know what to say. I felt so good with Ronan before the police car turned up but then it was terrible. I'm shaking with how close that policeman came to seeing Ronan sucking at my nipples, my breasts bare.

  What was I thinking? The truth was I wasn't thinking at all. I can't seem to think straight with him around. And I need to think straight, because losing my head like that could lead to all kinds of crap. I'm better off keeping well away from men. They only spell trouble.

  Ronan walks me to my door and kisses me when we arrive home, but my heart isn't in it. I say good night and slip inside before he has a chance to make up any excuses. He probably thinks I'm a freak for crying in his car and then changing my mind about going back to his place, even though that policeman saw nothing really.

  But less than five minutes after I go inside, Ronan texts me.

  “Missing you already. Sorry about all that. R”

  And my heart melts just a little bit. Then another message comes in ten seconds later, with a whole heap of emojis attached. And then a third one, “I'll call you,” and I hope he means it.

  But I can still hear that policeman talking about Ronan “up to his old tricks.” Chances are, he'll amuse himself with me and break my heart. I can do without that.

  So when he calls next day straight after work, I want to be cool with him, even cold. I can't think of any other way to protect myself from him, other than by not taking his calls. Somehow, I can't do that. I can't shut him out completely.

  “You called,” I blurt out without thinking.

  “Yes. Did you think I wouldn't? What does ‘I'll call you’ mean, according to your friend Sandra?”

  “I never asked her, but I expect she'd say sometimes it means I'll call you and sometimes it means I won't.”

  “I always mean it when I say it,” he says. Maybe he doesn't say it very often. “Let me take you out again tonight.”

  “I don't know.” Every part of me other than my head wants to say yes.

  “I want to make up for what happened last night. I'll take you anywhere you like. But please don't say you used to be into ballet and you miss it or something. I don't look good in a tutu.”

  I can't help laughing at the thought of him in a tutu. “So we're going ice skating again?”

  “If you like, though ice skating was the last thing on my mind for tonight. If you want to play with ice… that can be arranged.”

  CHAPTER 13

  Ronan

  She falls silent at that. Damn! Why don't I just shut the fuck up. But I can't help my mind running through the possibilities of a naked Amy and a glass of ice, my mouth running cold cubes over her nipples back and forth, between her folds, driving her insane. I'm starting to need an ice-cold shower, just from a quick phone call.

  “What would you like to do?” she asks.

  “I'd like to cook for you.”

  “You can cook? I'd like that.”

  I offer to pick her up, but she says she'll see me at my place. I hope she shows up.

  *

  But she arrives at my door and hands me a bottle of pinot noir just five minutes late. I kiss her cheek. “Thank you. Does that mean you've forgiven me?”

  “I think so. It all depends.”

  “On what?”

  “On how good a cook you are.” And she laughs. Her cheeks are pink, flushed. I hope it's because she's excited to see me, to finally come back to my place, to continue where we left off in the car last night, well away from prying eyes.

  “Beautiful dress,” I say and she flushes again, as if she wore her dress to have exactly the effect of me she's having—making me hard for her. It's not that the dress is overtly sexy—it's a casual, pale green cotton dress with buttons up the front—but it looks stunning on Amy. It skims over her curves and I'm already thinking of my fingers undoing those buttons one by one and finding her plump nipples, hard and needy beneath the cotton.