Taking the Risk Ch. 02

This is a slow, romantic build to hot sex, between two lovers who find each other. Character based the story is about people who care and want to give pleasure to each other, in all aspects of their lives.

If you like romantic stories please enjoy, and give feedback please as the ending is not yet written! Just like in real life.

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Francesca sat, totally embarrassed and in shock as she watched the man walk through the door into the room.

What must he think he has got stuck with for the evening?

Last night when her sister had phoned and asked her to come to supper tonight and meet some friends of hers she had accepted. Mum was babysitting Jace for the night, and she was pleased to get out of the flat and actually have some adult conversation for a bit.

It wasn't until she got here that her sister admitted that she had set up a blind date for her tonight with some man she herself had met only last night at her friends Sarah and Pete's.

She was absolutely mortified.

It had been a year since she had managed to get the courage to break up her marriage. Fed up being used as a punching bag, she and Gary had met when she was sixteen and had been together thirteen years, eight of them married. He was her first boyfriend, and the biggest mistake of her life, and now she was sitting here, the most gorgeous man she had ever seen, sitting staring at her as if she was something at the end of a microscope. People like him don't walk around in real life, only on the movie screen.

His intense look had made her even more nervous, so much so that she was afraid to look up at him.

He must be thinking, what the hell he has got stuck with for the night by agreeing to come on a blind date with her. Gary was always telling her she was such a little 'Haus Frau'. Big floppy tits, fat thighs, ugly face and boring, that's what he would scream at her as he hit her.

She just wished the ground would open up and she could disappear into the big hole that would swallow her up and get her out of this horrible nightmare. Whatever was her sister thinking, setting her up with a blind date and especially one with someone like Mr Gorgeous over there?

Glancing up as he took a sip of his drink, she was taken aback again by his extraordinary good looks and intense sexual charisma. Black hair, thick and layered topped an absolutely beautiful but very masculine face. Clear blue eyes with long black lashes looked back at her over the glass, that intense stare looking at her, and then he winked at her, making her look back down in to her lap, too scared to hold his gaze.

She could hear Eric asking him what he was doing in London instead of back in the States, and in a deep, soft American accent she heard him explain that he had moved over to London for personal reasons about four years ago and opened his own business here, living down in Guildford, near where his English Mother lived. He went on to explain that his mother had been a World War Two war bride, his father over in the UK with the American Air Force, and had gone back to the States with him where he and his sister had been born. His mother moving back after his father died about ten years ago to look after his ailing maternal Grandmother, and then he had followed four years ago to settle in the UK and make a new life for himself here.

Eric started to ask him about his business when Lorraine suddenly announced that the meal was ready and could everyone come into the dining room and take their places.

Rising to her feet she suddenly felt a hand take her elbow and staring up she saw him looking down at her, a very sexy smile and a twinkle in his eye as she stood there, totally transfixed. He was extremely tall, at least six three or four against her five foot five. Five foot seven if you counted the heels she wore.

He seemed to emanate an amazing charisma, which made her weak at the knees and where his hand held her arm there seemed to be searing warmth.

Is this what they called Lust at first sight she thought? He is just too, too perfect.

"Let me take you in to dinner." he murmured to her, his arm moving to the small of her back, he guided her across the room and through the door to the dinning room where he pulled out a chair and waited for her to sit down. Francesca sat and watched as he went around the table and took his place opposite her, smiling across with a sexy smile and another wink.

Oh my God, she thought, he must think I am going to sleep with him tonight. Isn't that what all men think? That a divorced mother of a four year old must be desperate and easy, and he can get a leg over before disappearing, never to be heard of again.

When she first broke up and moved into her little flat on her own she had three of her friends husbands turn up knocking at the door at night, telling her that their wives didn't understand them and could they come in. She was shocked and sent them away with a 'no thank you' and since then kept a distance from those three couples.

But this was different. He looked as if he could have anyone. So what was he doing here on a blind date with her? If he wanted to sleep with her tonight, how was she going to get out of it? He looked as if he never had to hear the word no from any woman.

As the meal went on and the conversation flowed around her, she would look up every so often and see him watching her, smiling to himself. After a while he spoke to her.

"Francesca, that's a lovely name, does anyone shorten it and call you Fran or Frankie?"

"No," she answered in a quiet voice, "my family call me Chesca, but my Grandma always called me Froo for some reason."

"Froo. I really like that. Mind if I call you that?" and he smiled across at her. "My name's Mikhail, Misha for short. I was named after my Russian Great Grandfather who along with his four brothers walked out of Russia on foot at the start of the last century and immigrated to the States."

Russian heritage, she thought, so that's where he gets his incredible colouring and strong looks from. Francesca sat and looked across the table at him, taking in his lovely eyes, bright and clear, his well defined cheek bones, straight nose and a couple of days growth of dark stubble surrounding a very sensual mouth that when he was smiling, like right now, creases and deep dimples appeared in his lean cheeks.

"Are you a model or something?"

Francesca could have curled up and died, she didn't know why she blurted that out, but she did and now he probably thinks she's very gauche, on top of everything else.

"I did a bit to help pay my way through college when I was younger, but I have a company now that produces videos for Corporate Companies, training videos, that kind of thing. We're based in Central London and growing. What do you do Froo?"

Embarrassed at her lack of career she mumbled, "I'm doing a typing course at the moment to get back into work. I was a full time mum before I got divorced, so I have no real job right now."

Misha smiled, nodding, whilst Francesca felt herself go very hot, uncomfortable with her lack of experience and skills in life. She was so conscious that she hadn't done much with her life. Marrying, having a child, and looking after her husband and home, whilst it was apparent from what the man sitting at the other side of the table from her had said, that he had lived and done so much.

Eating her meal and listening to the flowing conversation around her, she very rarely made a comment. In the past Gary had always told her that she was stupid and when ever they had come home after being with friends he had told her she'd made a fool of herself and him when she had expressed an opinion, joining in with the discussions between the people they were with.

Starting to feel sorry for herself, her eyes starting to well up with repressed emotions, she suddenly stood up, mumbling to excuse herself and rushed out to the downstairs toilet.

Sitting on the closed toilet lid, in the small room just off the front hall she hung her head, feeling a complete idiot. This last year had been such a roller coaster of emotions, and tonight, to breakdown in front of the person who was here as her blind date was the last straw.

The tears started to flow and she sat there having a real crying jag.

Once she had got herself under control she stood up and looking in the small mirror over the hand basin, winced as she saw that her mascara had run and her eyes looked piggy, red and swollen.

Oh God would this nightmare evening ever end? To find out that she had been set up as a blind date with someone who must be horrified to be set up with someone like her, and then to have to sit down at the table opposite him with her face looking like she had gone six rounds with Mike Tyson was just too much. Washing her face and taking a deep breath she unlocked the door and stepped out into the hall only to find him standing there, his hands in the pockets of his trousers, slouched leaning against a wall and a pensive look on his face.

As she stepped out of the toilet in to the hall he looked up and pushing himself away from the wall, walked over to her. Lifting one of his hands up to her face and cupping the side, he looked down into her eyes. Francesca standing there, her heart beating as if it was going to escape from her chest, she heard him whisper to her in a concerned voice, "You OK babe?" before his head bent down and he kissed her lips, gently in a feather soft kiss.

In a small trembling voice, "Yes, I'm sorry if I made a scene in there."

"No problem. You want to stay out here a while before going back in?"

"Please."

Taking her hand he led her to the bottom of the stairs and once she had sat down on a couple of steps up, he sat down at her feet.

"Four years ago I was living with someone I was crazy about. I was just starting up the business and one night I came home to our apartment and found she had cleared out all her things and left. It took me over a year to get over it, and every so often the well of emotion would get me, even at the oddest times and places. Froo it's only human to get emotional and to feel raw after a relationship breaks down, for any reason."

"I can't imagine any woman wanting to leave you."

Laughing he said, "It wasn't the first time! Nor the last."

Smiling back at him, she replied, "They must have been blind."

Misha's face went serious as he took her hand in his and looking up into her red rimmed eyes quietly said, "Please don't judge me on my looks, give me a chance for you to get to know me as a person. My friends all tell me I'm an OK guy. Let me take you out tomorrow night. Marechiaro's in the Kings Road, I can pick you up around seven thirty and we can talk and get to find out about each other. I'm a very good listener if you want to unburden yourself on me."

"I don't know if I can get a baby sitter with so much short notice."

"Oh I think you'll find that your sister will say yes when you ask her!"