He had said 6:00 and it was 6:07. Seven minutes normally meant nothing in terms of the wheel of life. But right now each second felt like torture and 420 tortures were adding up to one big ball of fear. And it all rested right in her gut where desire should be right now, where happiness should be right now, where joy and, well – not quite love, but at least lust should be residing.

Not this pit of despair.

It’s only seven minutes Laura, it’s only seven minutes Laura, she said to herself. The seconds ticked on until her smart phone clicked over and now it was eight minutes. It’s only eight minutes Laura, it’s only eight minutes Laura, it’s only eight minutes. A thin bead of sweat burst under her lip, and on her cheeks, and in that valley between her breasts in a way that only the cold irrational anxiety of dating could bring out in her.

Oh, fuck this, she said to herself. I don’t think I can do this anymore, even Mr. Hotty Hot Hot Firefighter isn’t worth this. I’m just going to go home and have a date with Ben and Jerry – that’s my comfort zone, right there baby. Maybe the most dependable men on Earth because this, this is bullsh –

Zzzz, the phone buzzed suddenly. She had it on vibrate and she startled and it fell out of her hands, clattering to the ground.

“Shit,” she shouted, reaching down, scrambling after it and hoping that the screen hadn’t broken. Luckily, she had a protective case on it, and grabbed it and slid her finger across the screen to answer the call.

“Hello? Hello?” she said, trying desperately to keep her eagerness out of her voice.

“Hello,” a deep man’s baritone greeted her, with a friendliness that he had no right to offer her right now – yet she was so glad he did. “Uh,” he hesitated, “is this Laura?”

“Yeah. Yeah, it is,” she answered brightly, her voice a little too high-pitched, her anxiety a little too intense right now, but she trudged on.

“Oh, yeah, really?” The voice stammered. “Yeah, this is Dylan. I am so sorry,” he said, and she hoped that the sincerity was true. Hoped it was true, needed it to be true with a part of her that knew…that knew that there was no way of knowing.

“I’m so sorry. I’m running late. I am walking down Twelfth Avenue right now, and, in fact, I can see the entrance to the restaurant and, wait a minute, ooh, I don’t know.” A low wolf whistle. “I don’t know if I’m going to be able to make it.”

“What? What? What did you say?”

“Yeah, there is this gorgeous woman just standing out there and, and I don’t know, I mean, I think – let’s see, she’s wearing a fuzzy sweater and a damn fine gray pencil skirt and heels that make her legs go on forever. And, I don’t know, you know, Laura – I may have to date her tonight instead of you.”

She nearly dropped her phone again. Oh, my God, her brain burned, her internal voice screaming like a rat stuck in a cage with Napalm all over it and lit on fire. And then she got it, calming down instantly. Oh, oh, he was complimenting her. He was joking. He liked her. Who was this guy?

Now she could see him. Deep breaths, Laura, she told herself. He was joking around. Being playful. Not mean. He was a block and a half away, walking toward her with a swagger, with a confidence she didn’t see in many men. One hand in his pocket, just marching down the street like he had all the time in the world. And boy, were his eyes eating her up. She could feel it from a block and a half, now a block and a quarter away.

She was giving it right back.

Her heart was beating a million times a minute from the fear about his joke, and the anxiety that the joke had triggered. But now – but now it was like the electrons were playing between them. Molecules were flying millions and millions of miles a second between the two of them. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do when they actually stood two feet from each other, because she was ready to take him right there, right then on the street, public indecency be damned.

Pretty soon, just seconds later, he was down to a block, half a block, and he took his hand out of his pocket, giving her a wave. And she realized that he had been talking to her the entire time and she had no idea what he was saying.

“Laura? Laura? Hello, hello – are you there? I can see you and you’re just standing there. I am waving at you right now… Laura, have I mistaken you for a human being or are you a really hot store mannequin?” He heard her laugh. Aha. Keep going, Dylan told himself. Recover from the terrible joke.

“Or part of some performance art thing like that guys like me don’t understand? Were you Andy Warhol’s protege? Or is this some sort of flash mob set-up and nineteen naked members of the Pirate Party are about to appear and don Mickey Mouse masks in some geopolitical protest?” She suddenly folded and bent over laughing. He breathed a sigh of relief. Sweet!

That was it – she was forcing him to use every remaining brain cell in his body to process basic bodily functions as every red blood cell rushed to his groin. He couldn’t stop raking her body with his eyes. He couldn’t stop eating her with his retinas. She was some kind of Dylan magnet. Her entire appearance was luscious and her eyes – as he got closer he saw the kindness, the sweetness in them. There was a beauty, a full body, full-fledged gorgeousness about her that made him hard instantly.

“Stupid business casual,” he muttered to himself, mouth tilted away from his phone. He was wearing the kind of pants where his arousal could become very obvious.

Now that he stood in front of her, no more than a foot and a half separating them, he felt like the biggest idiot on the planet for even joking about not dating her. She was stunning, all curves and woman and he wanted to smell her, bury his face in that sweet neck, feel her in his arms and listen to her breath as he made her happy.

What did her cries of ecstasy sound like? Would she turn her face away? Bite the pillow? Rake lines of ownership into his back with those glossy nails?

Later. Later, he would find out. The same confidence that had always been there for him told him so. Like a second person living in his head, it just knew. She was his, and she didn’t know it yet. But she would, and he had all the time in the world to teach her that.

With his tongue.

He just stood there and stared at her and didn’t know what to say; he couldn’t recite what went through his head as his eyes roamed over the perfect topography of her body. She stood there and stared at him and didn’t seem to know what to say, either. This silent dance needed a better beat.

One he could drive home with his –

Finally, she said, pointing to the door, “That is a great restaurant you picked.” Her voice as breathless as he felt. Except she was actually talking and he was standing there looking like a fish out of water, his mouth practically opening and closing as he tried desperately to get something like a linear thought going.

Where the hell was that confidence now? He wasn’t awkward or worried or any of those namby-pamby feelings Mike always described having. It was more that his brain had gone blank at the sight of her and everything but his arousal went into hibernate mode. She smiled and seemed to expect something intelligible to come out of his mouth, but first he had to dig his way out of the enormous, gaping hole of lust he’d just tripped into.

How in the hell was she still single? Why hadn’t someone snatched her up?

“It’s this whole Asian fusion thing. My friend told me it would be a good idea to bring a first date here and it might be a place to impress somebody. Not tapas, I know…” And the food is supposed to be amazing, but that’s secondary. She seemed so nervous, those glittering eyes wary, already on guard from his lame attempt at humor on the phone.

He felt like an ass, could sense he was losing her, and his charm system went into overdrive, not the shallow Dylan so used to getting a woman to step out of her pants within an hour of their first drink in a bar, but the slower burning Dylan who stumbled across Jill in college years ago and who felt sucker punched and euphoric all at once.

“So impressing me is more important than the food?” Laura laughed and looked at him with an uncertain caution in her eyes, a caution that he actually did not like but that spoke of something he couldn’t put his finger on.

“Yeah,” he said, a slow grin stretching over his face, the word more a promise than an answer.

“I don’t think you have to worry about someone like me,” she replied, looking away with a bashful smile, her blond ponytail sliding down the side of her creamy neck as if guarding her, creating a safe barrier and holding her in place.

He cocked his head, looked her over again and wondered what on earth was she was talking about. Standing outside the restaurant babbling like an idiot wasn’t exactly his idea of a good date, though, so he just motioned her toward the door and said, “Shall we?”

As she walked past him impulse took over and he put one hand on the small of her back as the maitre d’ held the door open. The feeling was so electrifying, his hand on her body, that he grew even harder. Impossible – she made his body defy the laws of physics. This was already more promising than he had ever expected.

Even if this dinner was going to cost him half of an entire paycheck, he did not care. He was not really relying on his paycheck anyhow these days, he reminded himself. Finances had changed radically eighteen months ago, a surprise that he and Mike still tried to assimilate. Stop it, Dylan. Stop thinking about Jill, he told himself. None of that should enter into the calculation of the emotional side of this. Tonight is about Laura.

As they were led to their table in a smoky-grey environment, with a giant twenty-foot golden Buddha lit up in the corner and a small fountain bubbling at its feet, all he could do was stare at her feet, trying to to figure out how not to sound like another one of those guys who was desperate enough to go on an online dating site and find somebody to fuck.

Neither one of them seemed to know what to say, so he figured, being the guy, he would take the lead. That’s how it would work in bed…and then his mind went blank at the flash of a vision of his face buried between Laura’s soft thighs, and he practically threw the folded napkin in his lap to hide what he thought must be the tallest raging hard on ever.

He coughed. “Your profile said you’re from Los Angeles, but you moved here to the east coast. Who do you work for?” Just then, the waitress interrupted as if on cue and asked them if they wanted a drink. Laura ordered a sake.

“Make it two,” he added. If she was going to go for the hard stuff, so would he. Boy, this could end up being a much more interesting date than he ever expected.

She felt like she had lost her entire vocabulary all in the past three minutes. This guy was incredible. He had taken her to the hottest place in town. Granted, his friend has recommended it, but who cared if that was the main reason why? Already, this date exceeded her experience on every other date.

Dylan seemed to care, to take the time to make a good first impression, and she loved his sense of humor even if it did nearly lead to her early demise from a heart attack via misunderstanding. She had never been taken anywhere so nice. Of course she could never tell him that. Most of the guys who dated her took her to a restaurant that had 50 inch plasma televisions blasting five different sporting events all at once, and the most gourmet item on the menu was fried mozzarella sticks.