Well, Mom might be hard to catch off guard, but this year he had an advantage, or so he hoped, in the form of Sinfully Sweet. According to the ad in the newspaper, the shop promised an amazing array of extraordinary chocolate confections.
While he and Kevin walked the short distance to Larchmont Street where the store was located, Daniel enjoyed the contrast of the warm northern California sun tempered by the cool breeze. They’d no sooner turned the corner, however, when the sight of a familiar figure walking toward them slowed his footsteps. Then he halted abruptly. As if he’d walked into a wall, and stared.
Kevin, who’d fallen a few steps behind him, bumped into his back and grunted at the impact. When Daniel remained frozen in place, Kevin moved to stand beside him and asked, “I thought you said the store was this way. What’s the problem, bro?”
His powers of speech freakishly suspended, Daniel continued to stare. At Carlie Pratt, sans P.B. and J.—which meant the devilish duo was probably at this very moment joyfully digging more holes in his yard. Carlie Pratt, who, with the golden sunshine gleaming on her tousled, shoulder-length reddish brown curls, appeared to be surrounded by a gilt halo.
But that was the only angelic looking thing about her.
She moved forward with a slow, wickedly seductive stroll that brought to mind cool satin sheets, and hot, sweaty sex. Damn, what a walk the woman had. Like steamy sin in motion. How was it that he’d never noticed it before? Probably because every time he saw her she was rushing around after her dogs. Or driving her car. Or had her arms filled with grocery bags. Or was carrying the large, portable padded table she brought to her massage therapy clients’homes. Or was sitting on a lawn chair in her backyard, where the grass, to be fair, was marred with even more holes than his.
Well, she wasn’t rushing or driving or sitting now, and the sinuous sway of her curvy hips as she leisurely walked, her attention focused on the store windows, rooted him to the spot as if he’d turned into a pillar of cement. Normally she was dressed in either a bulky sweater or loose-fitting clothes that resembled hospital scrubs. But not today. No, today she was dressed in a pair of snug faded jeans that hugged every gorgeous curve—and damn, she had more curves than a roller coaster—and a V-neck sweater the color of a ripe, juicy peach. She all but made his mouth water.
Kevin clapped a hand on Daniel’s shoulder then said in an undertone, “Whoa, dude. I see what put you in this trance. She. Is. Fine.”
Yes. She. Was. He’d thought her attractive from the day she’d moved in, but had ignored the observation as he’d been with Nina at the time. Then, even after Nina was out of the picture, with both him and Carlie working, they’d seen little of each other—except for the puppy incidents.
Well, he was seeing plenty of her now.
And liked everything he saw.
For a guy who prided himself on being practical, logical and sensible, he experienced a rush of heated lust that all but incinerated and stupefied him where he stood. A reaction that could be described as neither practical, logical nor sensible.
And apparently he wasn’t the only one who liked what he saw.
“If that’s what the girls in Austell are like,” Kevin said, “I’m thinking you’re crazy to move. And the way you’re looking at her, man, you’re a goner.” He tapped Daniel non-too-gently under the chin. “You might want to lose the slack-jawed, bug-eyed look before you introduce yourself.”
Daniel swallowed and relocated his voice. “No introduction needed. I already know her.”
“Yeah? Know her as in the biblical sense?”
A crystal-clear image of Carlie naked in his bed, materialized in his mind’s eye, and with a frown, he blinked it away. But not without the image leaving a trail of heat in its wake.
“No.” He lowered his voice further. “She’s my pesky neighbor, the one with the hole-digging dogs.”
From the corner of his eye he saw Kevin’s speculative look. “You’re not looking at her as if you think she’s a pest. If you want my opinion—”
“I don’t—”
“She’s enough to make a guy want to cover his yard with dog biscuits.”
Daniel turned and looked at his brother. He wasn’t sure how his expression appeared, but whatever it was, it had Kevin putting up his hands in mock surrender. “Hey, I was just making an observation. No need to shoot me the ‘hands off’ glare. I want a yard like I want a bad rash. She’s all yours.”
A frown yanked down Daniel’s brows. “She’s not all mine. I don’t want her. Hell, I can’t wait to move away from her.”
“Uh huh. Okay. Whatever you say.” He jerked his head. “She’s stopped.”
Daniel’s head whipped around. Carlie had paused to look into a store window, affording him a side view, which was just as curvy and outstanding as the front view. The breeze caught her hair, blowing several shiny curls across her face which she tucked behind her ear with an absent gesture. Then without glancing their way, she entered the store and vanished from his view.
Her disappearance yanked him from the stupor into which he’d fallen, and he blinked and rubbed his hand over his face. That’s when he realized that his glasses had slid down his nose and his jaw was once again hanging open. Definitely not his best look. Good thing she hadn’t seen him. She’d think him a gawking, slack-jawed, nerdy techno-geek. While he couldn’t deny he was a techno-geek, and by association kinda nerdy, no way was he a slack-jawed gawker.
At least he hadn’t been until thirty seconds ago.
He started walking, his limbs feeling oddly stiff, as if they really had turned to cement, and he craned his neck to see which store she’d entered. He vaguely noted Kevin walking beside him and pretended he didn’t hear his brother’s poorly suppressed chuckles. Seconds later he realized she’d gone into Sinfully Sweet.
It suddenly struck him that the words sinfully sweet and Carlie Pratt seemed to go together very well. Sorta like hot and steamy. Hot and bothered. Hot and who the hell had lit his jeans on fire?
Hmmm…was she making a purchase for herself—or looking for a Valentine’s gift for a boyfriend? He frowned. Did she have a boyfriend? He hadn’t ever seriously considered that question before. When she’d first moved in, he’d assumed she had several boyfriends after he’d observed, through his home office window, a number of men entering and leaving her house. Then, when he’d returned her muddy puppies to her the first time they’d dug under the fence into his yard, she’d told him she was a massage therapist at The Delaford Resort just outside of town near Crystal Lake, but that she freelanced on the side, treating a select few, long-term clients at the house. She’d made no mention of a boyfriend, and he hadn’t particularly wanted to know.
But all of a sudden, he very much wanted to know.
Yet with his brain once again firing on all cylinders, he frowned and shook his head at this sudden need for knowledge about her personal life, then decided to call it…simple curiosity. Yeah, that’s all it was. It wasn’t as if her boyfriend status really mattered—especially as he was moving in two weeks.
Kevin nudged him in the ribs. “Hey, there’s a coffee shop. I’m going to go order a caffeine I.V. drip. Once I’m revived, I’ll meet you in the candy store. That’ll give you some time to chat with your neighbor you don’t, um, like.”
Man, was there anything more annoying than a smirking younger brother? “I never said I didn’t like her.”
“Oh. Right. You said you didn’t want her.”
“That’s correct.”
“Oh, yeah, that’s totally obvious. Anybody could see that. Really.” With a chuckle, Kevin made his way toward the coffee shop.
Daniel stood on the sidewalk for several seconds, reorganizing his thoughts that the sight of Carlie Pratt had scattered, splattered and fried. What the hell was wrong with him? Clearly he, too, suffered from caffeine deprivation for the mere sight of her to knock him sideways like that. And why the hell was he still standing out here? Sinfully Sweet had been his destination. H
e had every reason to go into that store. And if he just happened to strike up a conversation with her, well, that was only the neighborly thing to do, right?
And as much as he might not like it or want to, he was feeling downright neighborly.
Pulling in a bracing breath, he rolled his shoulders, then walked purposefully toward Sinfully Sweet’s glass door.
2
THE INSTANT CARLIE stepped inside Sinfully Sweet, her senses were inundated with chocolate, coaxing a moan of pleasure from her throat. Decadent treats beckoned from behind the counter and tempted from a colorful display of foil-wrapped hearts in the center of the store. She inhaled, filling her head with the luscious, mouth-watering aroma. She could almost hear the delectable sweets chanting, Taste me, taste me.
Oh boy, this upscale store was the last place a self-confessed chocoholic on a tight budget should be, but after seeing the newspaper ad announcing the grand opening and the intriguing Valentine’s Day promotion, she’d been unable to resist the temptation. She could resist a lot of things, but chocolate wasn’t one of them. Nor was the chance to win a fabulous Valentine’s dinner date at The Delaford’s five-star restaurant. One glimpse inside Sinfully Sweet let her know that her willpower not to overspend would be sorely tested.
Just think about the whopper tuition you still have to pay, her inner voice advised. And the freakishly expensive text books you need.
Right. As if she could forget. With another year to go before she earned her bachelor’s degree in occupational therapy, and the added burden of having to shoulder the house’s entire rent payment after her friend Missy had eloped two days before they were supposed to move in together, money was tight. Certainly tighter than she’d envisioned it being by the time she was twenty-eight, but as she’d discovered, life had a habit of throwing curve balls when you expected a nice, easy slider.
Still, she wouldn’t let anything keep her from finishing her degree, then securing the job she’d dreamed of—one where she’d help people who faced challenges helping themselves. Like her grandfather, whose stroke ten years ago had set her on the course she’d chosen for herself. And whose recovery continued to inspire her to this day.
At first she’d considered not moving into the house, but given that she would have lost two month’s rent and her security deposit, not to mention the fact that she desperately wanted a place with a yard for P.B. and J., she’d moved in, thinking she’d look for another roommate. But after enjoying a few weeks of just her and the puppies, she’d stopped looking and tightened her financial belt in other places to make up the difference.
Indulging in gourmet chocolates had been one of the luxuries she’d painfully axed. Good for her piggybank, but tragic as far as her taste buds were concerned.
But surely after two months of denying herself, of surviving on supermarket chocolate, she deserved a small treat. Right? Her gaze zeroed in on a display of imported truffles and her mouth watered. Oh, God, something from Belgium would be so fabulous….
Clasping her hands together, she closed her eyes and drew in another delicious breath, vaguely aware of the door opening and closing behind her, then the sound of approaching footsteps.
“Wow, it smells really good in here.”
Her eyes popped open as she instantly recognized the deep, husky voice coming from directly behind her, and with a quick intake of startled breath, she whirled around. Less than an arm’s length away stood Daniel Montgomery, her very attractive neighbor. Who looked very attractive indeed in a dark blue flannel shirt that did great things for his hazel eyes rimmed by his black rectangular-framed glasses and a pair of faded jeans that did great things for everything else. Her very attractive neighbor who had, since the minute she first saw him, the weirdest effect on her pulse. Who rendered her either tongue-tied or turned her into a blathering dolt. And who, except for the holes P.B. and J. kept digging in his yard, didn’t even know she existed. And even if he did, what difference did it make? He had a girlfriend. She’d seen them sharing a kiss on his front porch the day she moved in. Plus, he was moving.
Figures. First time in three years she had a straight guy for a neighbor, one who was actually cute, not to mention intelligent, and patient—as proven by his run-ins with P.B. and J.—and who wasn’t a whacko. And he was taken. Although from what she could see, all the good ones were taken. It seemed that lately the only sort of men she attracted were jerks who thought that “massage therapist” was another name for Woman Who Wants to be Groped and Leered At.
Daniel Montgomery had certainly never leered at her. Or so much as looked at her with anything other than exasperation and mild annoyance. Not that she could blame him, what with the mess the puppies made in his yard. And not that she was complaining about the lack of a leer. Heck, no. She hated to be leered at.
But still, the guy could have at least looked. You know, in an admiring, complimentary sort of way.
Sort of like he was…doing right now?
Her heart performed a jiggly little dance and she blinked. Surely the sunlight streaming through the window had obscured her vision. She blinked again and ridiculous disappointment flooded her. Yup, the sun had indeed played tricks on her because that wasn’t an admiring look at all. No, it was more like confusion. Like he’d never seen her before. The sun must have messed with his vision, too.
His befuddled expression prompted her to say, “Hi, Daniel. It’s, uh, me. Carlie.” Uh, oh. Tongue-tied time.
He seemed to snap out of whatever dazed state he’d fallen into—probably a result of the chocolate sensory overload—and nodded. “I know. Hi, Carlie.”
Just the way he said her name, in that soft, raspy way, hiked up her temperature a few degrees. His nod had sent his black-rimmed glasses slipping down his nose and he pushed them back up with a practiced gesture while Carlie pressed her lips together to suppress the feminine sigh that rose to her lips. Darn it, there was absolutely no logical explanation why she should be so turned on by those nerdy glasses of his, but for some mystifying reason she found them incredibly erotic. One look at him, and all she could think about was planting a kiss on him that would steam up his lenses but good.
Which was really inexplicable as Daniel Montgomery was soooo totally not her type. She liked jocks, and while it appeared that Daniel was in good shape, he had “computer geek” written all over him. From what she could tell, he spent most of his time in his house, no doubt sitting in front of his PC since he’d once mentioned some sort of home-based computer business. Probably got his jollies counting gigabytes or pixels or whatever the heck they were. Oddly, none of that hadn’t stopped her crazy attraction to him. Maybe she was suffering from some freakish hormone imbalance, ’cause, really, give her an athletic, outdoorsy kind of guy any day.
Not that she’d had much luck lately with athletic, outdoorsy sorts, but hey, she’d find Mr. Right eventually. Someday. Probably. Maybe she’d even meet him by winning Sinfully Sweet’s Valentine’s Day contest. Which she should really go check out instead of staring at Daniel. Unfortunately, that was easier said than done. And really, he could always stop staring at her in that very distracting way and get the conversational ball rolling here.
He cleared his throat. “So…how’re P.B. and J.?”
“You mean my dogs?” She swallowed a groan and barely refrained from smacking herself on the forehead. Oh, brilliant reply. But damn it, he shouldn’t be asking her these complicated questions right after he’d knocked her silly with his unexpected appearance.
His lips quirked. “Well, why don’t we start with them and then move on to all the other P.B. and J.’s we know?”
That hint of a smile drew her attention to his mouth. His incredibly tempting, beautiful mouth. She didn’t know if there was such a thing as a male mouth model, but if there was, Daniel would reach superstar status. His well-formed lips somehow managed to look soft and firm at the same time. Like something that both angels and the devil himself had fashioned purely to see if a heavenly/wicked idea
l could be achieved—and they’d met with spectacular success. Like the chocolate, his mouth seemed to beckon her with the same seductive chant: Taste me, taste me.
She jerked her gaze back up to his, then licked her own lips in an effort to get them working since they’d apparently forgotten how to form words. “The puppies…they’re, um, fine. Great. Safely secured inside my house.”
He wiped his brow with an exaggerated gesture. “Whew. My backyard just breathed a sigh of relief.”
Then he smiled, a sort of lopsided grin that in spite of not being perfectly symmetrical was somehow utterly…perfect. A smile that creased a pair of sexy dimples in his cheeks that her fingers—and lips—positively itched to explore.
Everything female in her stood up at attention and quivered.
“What brings you to Sinfully Sweet?” he asked.
She leaned a bit closer—certainly not to get a whiff of him—but to confide in a conspiratorial whisper, “I’m afraid I have a weakness for chocolate.” She leaned back and suppressed an oooooh of pleasure. He smelled great. Clean. Fresh. Masculine. Delicious.
“A weakness for chocolate, huh? Doesn’t everyone?”
She laughed, proud that she managed to sound so cool when she felt like she stood over a barbeque spit. “You, too?”
“Fraid so.” Something that looked decidedly heated and hungry and, well, admiring, flickered in his gaze. “Among other things.”
Whoa. If she didn’t know better, she’d say her sexy, nerdy neighbor whose smile had damn near stopped her heart was flirting with her. She instantly discarded the annoyingly pulse-quickening thought. The last thing she needed was any more useless Daniel-induced fantasies running naked through her mind.
Sinfully Sweet: Wickedly DeliciousConstant CravingSimply Scrumptious Page 9