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Several weeks earlier...
Amber Wong was the Queen of Bad Boyfriends.
She even had a cross-stitch that said so.
She took it out of her night table. There was a border of vines and flowers; the letters were blue and purple. Queen of Bad Boyfriends.
She’d stitched it in a fit of fury after her last break-up, almost a year ago now. Somehow she’d ended up dating another guy with a weird fetish for Asian women. You’d think she’d have figured out how to avoid these idiots, but no. She’d also managed to date a few cheaters and had more than her share of general douchebaggery. She’d even dated a guy who’d proclaimed, when he was drunk at a party, that women shouldn’t have the right to run for public office. Or even vote.
Yet these men always seemed normal and well-adjusted to Amber when she first met them. She wasn’t sure why her asshole detector was so bad, but it was.
Finally, at the age of twenty-five, she’d wised up. After finishing her Queen of Bad Boyfriends cross-stitch, she’d made another.
Rule #1: No Dating.
She’d hung it above her bed.
Amber had followed that rule scrupulously for the past eleven months, and she was proud of herself for that accomplishment.
However, there was one serious problem.
Sex.
She hadn’t had sex in a year, and it was really starting to get to her. The toys in her night table saw quite a bit of action, but it wasn’t the same as being with an actual human.
It was now January 5, and she’d made a New Year’s resolution: have sex without dating.
She hadn’t made a cross-stitch of that, however.
Back in university, Amber had had a fair bit of casual sex, but it was harder to meet people her age for a hook-up now. She could try an app, but she’d been putting that off, afraid she’d only end up swiping right on men who were total assholes.
At least she wouldn’t be dating these assholes, just sleeping with them. Though it would be better to sleep with someone who was a half-decent person.
Amber rifled through her night table drawer. She tossed her collection of sex toys on her comforter, followed by her sexy lingerie, which hadn’t seen action in a while. And she didn’t expect that to change. Sexy lingerie was a relationship sort of thing, not something she’d wear with someone she was just going to fuck a few times.
Ah, there it is!
Finally, she’d managed to locate her squashed box of condoms. Since, with any luck, she’d be having sex in the next couple months, she figured she should start keeping them in her purse again, just in case.
She ripped three packets off the strip then noticed the numbers printed on the packets.
They’d expired.
She let out a rueful chuckle. She hadn’t had sex in so long that her condoms had expired.
It didn’t make sense, though. Condoms were good for a few years, weren’t they? It had only been eleven months for her...though she’d stopped using condoms with that guy several months earlier.
Hmm. Maybe she had a newer box.
Amber searched through the rest of her night table and came up empty.
Alright. She needed to get condoms. Best to be prepared, and she was going to the bar with her friends tonight—perhaps she’d get lucky. Unlikely, but not impossible.
It was three o’clock and she wasn’t meeting Gloria and Roxanne until seven. She’d run out to the grocery store, which had a pharmacy. Surely they’d stock condoms, and hopefully there would be discounted Christmas chocolate, too.
Condoms and chocolate. How wholesome.
* * *
Amber lived in Stratford, Ontario. Home of the Stratford Festival and the Ontario Pork Congress, as the sign said. It had about thirty thousand people, so it wasn’t huge, but it was much bigger than the town where she’d grown up, Mosquito Bay, which had a population of less than two thousand.
Her apartment was nothing special, but fortunately, it was less than a ten-minute walk from the grocery store. She picked up a basket at the entrance and quickly located the Christmas chocolate. She was able to get cheap Santas and reindeer chocolate, plus some truffles. She also managed to find some candy cane ice cream for less than two bucks.
After that, she headed to the “family planning” section, feeling a little uncomfortable. Even though she was twenty-six and not at all ashamed of her love for sex, there was just something about buying condoms that made her cheeks turn bright red.
It was probably because of what happened the first time she’d tried to buy condoms.
She’d gone to the lone pharmacy in Mosquito Bay. Seventeen years old and ready to have sex with her first douchebag boyfriend. Thankfully, her father worked at the pharmacy in Ashton Corners, the next town over, and not this pharmacy. But as she was heading to the cashier, her grandmother came in, noticed the box in her hand, and screeched, “Aiyah! What are you doing?”
Ever since, Amber had hated buying condoms.
She looked left, then right.
No grandmothers or other family members. Excellent. Seeing as her grandmother didn’t live in Stratford, it was unlikely, but you could never be too careful.
She knelt down and plucked a box of condoms off the shelf. When she stood up—
“Ow!” she exclaimed as she knocked into someone, who must have been reaching for something above her head.
“Sorry, I’m so sorry,” said a low voice.
She rubbed her head as she turned around. The guy was kind of cute. A stocky East Asian man, her age or a little older, with short hair. Even his frown was appealing.
She had a split second to consider that he could help her with her New Year’s resolution before she noticed the box of Magnums in his hand.
Amber couldn’t help rolling her eyes.
She’d had two boyfriends who’d insisted they needed larger-than-average condoms, but honestly, they were both average size—which was fine. However, with the second boyfriend, the condom had slipped off, and she’d had to take the morning-after pill. After that, she’d insisted on normal condoms.
But what if this man is actually...
Well, whatever. Amber wasn’t a size queen; she was the Queen of Bad Boyfriends. More likely, this guy had an inflated ego.
And then something truly horrifying came out of his mouth.
“Amber Wong? Is that you?”
Oh, God! This handsome guy with the box of Magnum condoms knew her!
She regarded him closely. There was something familiar about his features.
“Sebastian Lam?” she whispered.
He nodded.
The Lams had been good friends with her family when they were growing up. Sebastian was the same age as her brother Zach, and they’d been best friends.
Yes, someone who’d seen her play hopscotch and belt out tunes with a hairbrush as her microphone had now seen her put a box of condoms in her basket.
It seemed wrong.
“You’ve, uh, grown up,” he said.
“Brilliant observation. I thought you were out west, doing your residency.”
“I finished.”
“And now you’re working in Stratford?”
“Small town about twenty minutes from here. The doctor retired and I took over his practice, but I live in Stratford.”
Sebastian had always been a good kid. His mother had bragged about him constantly, much to Amber’s annoyance. He’d been a great student, excellent piano player, and then he’d gone to med school.
Holy shit, when had Mr. Perfect Son gotten so hot?
* * *
This was wrong.
Sebastian should not find Amber Wong so attractive.
He did some quick math. She’d be twenty-six now. He assured himself there was nothing weird about a thirty-year-old man lusting after a twenty-six-year-old woman. Perfectly reasonable.
But this was Amber. Zach’s little sister. The last time he’d seen her, she’d been in high school and he’d been in university. It was hard to reconcile the woman standing in front of him with the girl he remembered. He’d barely recognized her.
Her dark brown hair was in a low ponytail that curled over her shoulder, and her lips were pink and full and lickable. She was still petite, but she had curves that hadn’t been there before. Very appealing curves.
“You have a romantic night planned?” He gestured to her basket, with the box of condoms and surplus of chocolate. Surely she’d tell him that she had a boyfriend, making her completely off-limits.
“You think Christmas chocolate and candy cane ice cream on January fifth means I’m planning a romantic night?”
He scratched the back of his neck. “I don’t know. But...condoms.”
“Useful things to have on hand. Mine expired.”
He couldn’t help chuckling.
“What about you?” she asked. “What are your condoms for?”
She said it casually, as though it didn’t matter at all to her, but her gaze traveled over his body, and stupidly, he puffed out his chest.
He’d had a girlfriend in Vancouver. They’d been together for a few years; she was doing her residency, too, and they hardly saw each other.
Then he’d finished and wanted to move back to Ontario and she...hadn’t. She was from Toronto, but she’d wanted to stay out there.
They’d broken up.
Frankly, he hadn’t been as hurt as he’d expected, given they’d been together for so long.
That was a couple months ago now. He’d figured he wouldn’t bother dating again for a while as he got his life settled in Ontario, but when he’d come to the grocery store for his weekly shop, he’d thought it wouldn’t hurt to have condoms on hand.
And then he’d run into Amber.
Nothing would happen, but it was nice to have her looking at him appreciatively.
Sebastian had never gotten vast amounts of attention from women. A little, but not as much as, say, Zach. He was too serious, too quiet, occasionally gruff.
Normally, he’d be getting out of this awkward situation as fast as possible, but for some reason, he stayed. Not because she was pleasant to look at, but...
Okay, maybe that was the reason.
“Best to be prepared,” he said with a grunt.
“But Magnums?” she said. “Puh-leeze.”
He frowned. “What’s wrong with my choice in condom?”
“Men who think they need those almost never do.”
Well.
There were so many lines he could say in response.
“Is this from personal experience?” he asked.
“Yes. Condoms shouldn’t be loose, you know.”
“Don’t worry, I’m aware of that. These fit...snugly.”
Was he flirting with her?
Sebastian was not well-versed in the art of flirtation, but this might qualify as such, even if his tone of voice was all wrong.
“Right,” she said skeptically.
That bothered him. Not because she assumed he was smaller than he actually was, but because she thought he was dumb enough to not know what kind of condom he needed.
He’d first had sex when he was twenty, and he’d purchased regular condoms. However, the condom had broken the second time, and after that, he’d invested in some larger ones.
He’d had no problems with broken condoms since then. Nor had any slipped off.
Amber tilted her head and stared at him, as though considering the size of his...member. Wondering if he was telling the truth.
She even licked her lips while looking at his crotch.
And then Sebastian did something so bold, he later couldn’t believe it, though the fact that it didn’t require him to speak probably made it easier.
He took the condoms out of her basket and dropped in a box of Magnums instead.
“That’s presumptuous,” she said.
He’d been paying careful attention to her body language. If he’d thought she would have been disgusted, he wouldn’t have done it.
He managed a casual shrug. “I know.”
“You should also know that I’m not interested in a relationship.”
“Neither am I. I just got out of one.”
“I have a tendency to date terrible men, so I’m taking a break from dating.”
“But you miss sex, and you haven’t had it in so long that your condoms expired.”
“Yeah.”
The silence. It was heavy.
This was not what he’d expected to happen when he’d arrived at the grocery store.
They continued to stand there as a woman walked down the aisle and picked up a bottle of shampoo, followed by some lube, before continuing past.
“That’s a good idea.” He grabbed a tube of lube and placed it in Amber’s basket.
Her cheeks turned a delightful shade of pink, but he could tell she was enjoying this. Which was why he was still here, even though he’d known her since she was a small child.
But she was grown up now, and she could make her own decisions.
“You don’t think this is a little weird?” she asked.
“It is,” he admitted, but he was getting used to the idea. It didn’t feel wrong the way it had when he’d first realized who she was.
She ran her hand over his bicep, which was covered in a gray sweatshirt. He wasn’t wearing anything fancy, but her lips parted and she hummed in appreciation.
He definitely wanted to feel her hands on his skin.
He swallowed. “How about this. I’ll give you my number, and if you decide you want to find out whether I actually need those condoms...” He glanced meaningfully at the box he’d put in her basket. “Send me a text, okay?”
That would give her some time to think about it—give them both some time to think about it—and leave the ball in her court.
He slid his hand over her neck, just above the neckline of her sweater, and to his satisfaction, she inhaled swiftly.
“You should know that I don’t care about size,” she said. “I’m not going to be impressed just because you’re apparently bigger than average.”
He shrugged. “I hear you.”
“You sound like you don’t believe me.”
“Oh, I believe you. I also believe that I have the skills to impress you.”
Why was he so cocky right now? It wasn’t like him.
Most men probably thought they were better than average at sex, and it stood to reason that many of the men who thought that actually sucked.
But somehow, Sebastian was confident he could make Amber very happy in bed.
“You know,” he said, “your ice cream’s going to melt if you keep standing there with your mouth hanging open. You want my number before you head to the checkout?”
She held up her phone, and he entered in his number.
Then he strolled toward the fish counter, whistling.
It was only when he got there that he realized he didn’t need any fish.