LITMIR.BIZ

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was great; she’d make the best out of anyone. Maybe it was just me who was a miserable old cow. Maybe that’s why Jeff had left me.

      My Last Man. Oh god, it was him. Mick Jagger. My prospective Heathcliff. God knows why I was calling him that and hoping he’d be that way. I’d read that book; it was bloody awful. Still, I did hope his voice matched his pleasing appearance. Things could be looking up.

      He was tall. Really tall. He still looked tall sitting down. He was quite delectable, I decided, but I didn’t know if my opinion was a result of the other men being so terrible. I readjusted my cleavage. It was looking a bit uneven. It often does. The ‘v’ of my top had veered too far to one side and half a boob was exposed. I sorted myself and it didn’t go unnoticed. Mick gave a sexy half smile, his eyebrows raised in a seductive fashion. I blushed under my bronzer and my highlighter. Highlight your face, it makes you look younger, all the magazines said, but I may have overdone it tonight. I’d done nose, chin, cupid’s bow, below eyebrows and apples of the cheeks. I looked glowing and illuminated and like I’d been dabbed all over the face with a Pritt Stick. Concentrate, I thought. You’ve got his complete attention. Okay, let’s have it. What was his voice going to be like?

      ‘Hello,’ I said, in what I hoped was a highly alluring manner.

      ‘Hello,’ he said. I waited for him to say more. ‘What did you think of the staring round?’ he drawled. ‘Quite a good idea, I thought.’

      Oh yes, bingo! Result. He was rumbling, husky, very northern and sexy as hell. Yum.

      ‘It was… intense.’ I said. Oh, he was quite delicious. Smouldering eyes, full sensuous lips, a knowing, teasing look in his eye. The night could definitely be looking up.

      ‘Yes. I had great success with it,’ he said, leaning forward and putting both elbows on the table. I moved my glass as he was in danger of knocking it to the ground, along with all of my senses. I was giving his sexy voice my full attention. I sat up straighter, squeezing my boobs together slightly with the sides of my arms. I didn’t care if one popped out a bit now – let it!

      ‘Did you?’ I matched him flirty tone to flirty tone. This was going well.

      ‘Yes. Four phone numbers and the promise of a blow job. Quite an impressive strike rate, even for me.’ My heart sank. My boobs subsided. Oh no. He was a pervy lothario. I should have known he was too good to be true.

      ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘I see.’ I dropped the flirt and went for world-weary. ‘So you’re here to gain more notches on your bedpost?’

      ‘A few more can never hurt. I’ve got a way to go before it completely disintegrates.’ He chuckled, low and long. I was going off him more by the minute. ‘Would you like to partake?’

      ‘Partake?’

      ‘In my love. There’s plenty to go around.’

      ‘In your love,’ I repeated, dumbfounded. ‘And I’m sure there is. Though I bet they’re queuing up.’

      ‘They are. Care to join? You’ve got some curves I’d love to get a handle on.’

      I hurriedly pulled my top up. I’d zip it up to my neck if I could. The damn cheek of him! It was outrageous. It was more outrageous that his sleazy tactics obviously worked. I had a feeling a lot of women were powerless to his dubious charms. Poor devils.

      ‘The queue? No thank you. I would like to decline your love, thanks all the same.’ He suddenly looked revolting in my eyes. Pathetic.

      ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘You’re one of those. You’re looking for a deep and meaningful…’

      ‘Relationship. No, not at all. And I’m certainly not looking for someone like you.’

      ‘Too bad.’ Mr Sex-Mad-Speed-Dating-Perv was smirking at me, despite my rebuttal. ‘You have some serious curves for an older woman.’

      ‘You’ve already said that. Repetition is incredibly boring. And you have some almighty nerve for an out-and-out creep.’

      ‘Touché.’

      Touché? That didn’t even make sense! ‘What?’

      ‘Farewell.’

      That did.

      ‘See you, wouldn’t want to be you,’ I said, childishly and stood up. Mick was my last man. That was it. I looked round for Sam as the final klaxon sounded and everyone scraped back chairs and rose to their feet. Some people couldn’t wait to get away from their last table partner; others stayed hovering and chatting away. A lot were a combination of both: one trying to edge away, the other trying to make them stay. I marched away from Mick, who was already casting his roving eye around for fresh prey, and stood at the edge of the room.

      I sighed. Sam was nowhere to be seen – had she pulled? I desperately, desperately wanted to go home and put on my dressing gown and my slipper socks and eat cake. I wouldn’t even care if Will caught me in the act. In fact, I could even invite him round for cake – I had that chocolate cheesecake in the freezer I could stick in the microwave. I bet he’d still be up. I could tell him all about tonight and how awful it was and we’d have a good old laugh about it, then we’d laugh together about that Save the Whale poster and how funny it was when he’d seen me coming back from the skip and…

      Ugh. I was being stupid. Will wouldn’t want to come round my house for cheesecake and a chat at this time of night! I shouldn’t even be thinking about it. He was my neighbour. Yes, it would be nice having a man to just have a normal conversation with again – no agenda, no game playing, no danger of getting hurt – and we could be casual friends, possibly, who would talk on the drive and help each other with neighbourly stuff and give each other a hand with the odd bit of decorating, but we wouldn’t be having cosy, late-night chats over cheesecake where we’d share confidences and laughter. The fact that he was just a nice man to have a normal conversation with should be enough to deter me. Why ruin that? Inviting a man round late at night was dangerous territory, and I was so not interested in getting into anything untoward with this man – it would be a total disaster and I was being a complete twit.

      I looked around for Sam again. Tonight had not gone well, had it? In fact, it had been bloody awful. My first foray back into the world of dating, after all these years, had been a giant disappointment. I was so not ready for all this.

Chapter Seven

      People shuffled on the dancefloor to Take That. Bruno Mars was swaying in the centre, his eyes closed. Ozzy had struck lucky, he had his arms round a giggling Ginger Spice, complete with Union Jack dress, and was singing in the poor woman’s ear. Elton was grappling with Britney. And there was Sam, jiggling like Olivia Newton-John at the end of Grease and swigging from a glass of something that must hold at least four hundred calories. It would be a manic burst of sit ups and a set of burpees before bed tonight for her, I knew, but I was happy she was enjoying herself. I smiled as I watched her; we could stay for a bit longer. And I was very happy that I wasn’t counting calories. Food was coming round now on trays carried by Jedward. I grabbed a duck wrap and dipped it into plum sauce; all this unsuccessful dating had made me ravenous.

      There was a bench up against the side of the room. I plonked myself on it, polished off the duck wrap and then eased my shoe off my right foot.

      ‘I’d put that away, if I were you. You never know if there are foot fetishists in tonight.’

      I stuffed my foot back in my shoe, mortified. Of course I was wearing my customary ruby red nail varnish but my foot looked all pinched and a bit swollen. It was autumn, my feet were not supposed to be out on display.

      ‘Well, I certainly don’t want to give anyone any fodder,’ I said, looking up. ‘There’s probably all sorts in here.’

      I found myself looking into a pair of very green eyes under a curtain of tousled, curly-ish blonde hair. There was a

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