First Dates and Birthday Cakes: MM Romantic Comedy by Isabel Murray

Author:Isabel Murray [Murray, Isabel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-06-03T18:30:00+00:00

6

When he’d said he wanted to date me before he did anything else to me, Jake wasn’t kidding. If you counted my birthday party as our first date, then tonight we were on our fourth.

I was definitely being romanced.

Our second date had been back at the rink. As a skating coach, Jake’s hours were more flexible than my office-bound nine to five. He often worked on weekday evenings, meaning that while I was finishing up and leaving the office for the day, he’d be coming off a free afternoon and be heading into evening coaching sessions.

We managed to find an overlapping couple of hours early in the week to meet in the small cafe overlooking the ice. We had coffee (mine was decaf), talking and laughing and sitting unnecessarily close to each other until his class showed up. I hung out for another half an hour after that to watch him at work, admiring his patience and unflagging good humour with his young hopefuls.

When I went over to the barrier to say goodbye, he spotted me at once and zipped over with the arousing, competent grace that had captivated me from the first moment I saw him.

He thudded gently into the boards and gripped the edge to lean over and catch my lips, all in one smooth move. He kept it to a quick peck, so as not to scandalise his students—who whooped and clapped—and I walked out smiling like a fool.

If I hadn’t already known that my heart was in big trouble as far as Jake was concerned, that kiss would have done it.

On our third date, we grabbed a quick sandwich for lunch, eating on the go as we strolled around a small park midway between the rink and my office. I lingered as long as I could, reluctant to leave, and ended up speed-walking back to my car, but not before Jake had caught me by the shirtfront, reeled me in, and given me a kiss that made it impossible to concentrate on work for the rest of the afternoon.

We’d texted, although not much. Flirting via text wasn’t my strong suit. It really wasn’t Jake’s strong suit.

His thirst-trap selfie game was on point, though, I’ll give him that.

The number of locker room and gym mirror shots I now had stored in my camera roll would have given teenage Ben carpal tunnel syndrome.

Forty-something Ben was smart enough to pace himself after the first twinge.

And here we were, two weeks later, finally on a proper date, with no one having to end it and hurry off to work.

Jake had picked me up from my house and driven us into Oxford, and I was impressed. The restaurant was fancy as hell. It served amazing Polish food that sorely tested my self-control, it was the classiest, most romantic dining establishment I’d ever been in, and I couldn’t wait to get out of there.

“Dessert, gentlemen?” the waiter asked as he was clearing the plates from our main course. He leaned past me, arm brushing my shoulder, and turned his head to give me a challenging look.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.