From This Moment On: The Sullivans, Book 2 (Contemporary Romance)
Page 23
Maybe he'd give her love.
...Excerpt from LOVE ME (Take Me sequel) by Bella Andre ©2011.
Buy Love Me
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CANDY STORE
© 2010 Bella Andre
On the verge of losing her candy store, Callie Moore decides to blot out her troubles with a tall, dark, handsome stranger. Derek McNear isn't about to turn down a cute, curvy blonde who offers sizzling-hot sex in a commercial refrigerator at his best friend's wedding reception. But the next day, when Callie discovers that Derek is the consultant she has hired to save her store, they find it difficult to concentrate on business. Especially when giving and getting pleasure in each other's arms is so much more fun!
Enjoy the following excerpt for CANDY STORE...
Callie's Candies didn’t open until 11 a.m., Monday through Friday, but Callie always had plenty to do in the morning.
The best was making fudge or coating truffles in coconut and peanuts. The worst was going through her inventory and doing her orders for the week.
This was inventory day, of course. Callie sighed with dismay. Today of all days, she could have used a long, therapeutic session with some caramel and nougat.
“Figures,” she muttered, as she walked into her small office at the back of the store and put her purse down. She took off her suit jacket and laid it across the back of her desk chair. Unbound by the jacket, her breasts felt free and immodest in the white lace camisole, reminding her yet again of her wanton behavior at the wedding.
“Forget about it. You’ve got work to do,” she lectured herself and got straight to it, intent on ignoring the new sensual sensations her body was sending her.
Picking up her clipboard and supply spreadsheet, she went to her dry storeroom first and noted what was low. Moving to her walk-in refrigerator, she checked materials off her list from the top shelf first. The bottom shelves were deep and she had to get on her knees to count cocoa bars. The position was awkward, with her rear end pointing straight up, her hands and knees sprawled unladylike on the floor.
Squirming around, trying to get comfortable in her clumsy position, she said, “One, two, three, four,” aloud as she counted stacks of the finest imported cocoa bars.
Immersed in her counting and in the painful crick that was building up in her neck, she was surprised by footsteps coming up the short hallway and then stopping at the doorway to her storeroom.
“We’ve got to stop meeting in refrigerators like this."
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Callie’s heart almost stopped beating. She would have recognized that smooth, deep male voice anywhere.
She froze in place, unable to get her limbs to work. She couldn’t believe that Derek’s first image of her outside of her client's wedding was like this—could she be any less sexy, she wondered dejectedly—in her own damn commercial refrigerator.
Her face, she was sure, was going to be flushed a deep shade of red when she finally stood up, considering that the man she had been lusting after for the past twenty-four hours had walked into her store unannounced, just in time to witness her pawing through her shelves on her hands and knees with her butt sticking straight up in the air.
“On second thought,” he said, his voice washing over her like hot caramel, “I think I like it."
For a millisecond, Callie considered trying to crawl onto the shelf, hoping that Derek would just go away. Then again, she thought, she hadn’t invited him to her store. In fact, she hadn’t even told him she had a store, so how could it possibly be her fault that he had found her looking less than ideal?
Trying desperately to rouse up some anger—otherwise she was stuck with embarrassed and horny, and that was a terrible combination—Callie crawled backwards and stood up, brushing invisible specks of dust off her knees and skirt.
Her arms folded across her chest, she said, “What are you doing here?"
Derek was leaning against the door, looking more gorgeous than any man had a right to in his pin-striped shirt and well-tailored coat and slacks.
He grinned and Callie wanted to smack the smile from his lips.
She also wanted to kiss him senseless, of course, but she was going to have some control over herself if it killed her.
Which it probably would.
“This is Callie’s Candies isn’t it?"
Callie nodded, keeping her lips firmly pressed together, forcing herself to back up into the refrigerator shelves, rather than jump Derek’s bones.
“I’m here for our appointment."
“Our appointment?"
She was utterly mortified, sure that her skin was turning pinker and pinker by the second. If things got any worse, she would fade away completely into the fabric of her pink suit.
“10 a.m., Monday morning. My assistant set it up with your accountant."
“You can’t be the guy who-” She shook her head. “That's impossible, because-”
She leaned her weight into the cool air of the refrigerator as the full ramifications of her actions came crashing down upon her.
“Oh god.”
Thoughts rushed around her brain, knocking into each other as the magnitude of her mistake sunk in.
She'd slept with the Candy King.
She'd had a one-night stand with the one person who could save her business.
What if he thinks I knew who he was all along and did it on purpose?
Struggling to sound like she had at least half a handle on her life, she said, “Please forgive me. You’re with Sweet…”
Callie let her voice drop and looked up towards the ceiling as if she obviously knew the name of his company but had momentarily forgotten it. She hoped against hope that he would fall for her act.
The truth was, she was such a bad business owner she didn’t even know the name of the company that had been sent in to save her from ruin.
“Sweet Returns,” he said smoothly, his eyes running past her flushed face to her chest, then quickly back up to her face.
Too late Callie realized that she was flashing Derek through the translucent white silk of her flimsy camisole. She crossed her arms across her chest, wanting to hide her telltale arousal, but it was no use.
With her arms crossed beneath her breasts, the soft flesh rose indecently up out of the v-neck top of her skimpy shell. She didn’t know which was worse: her hard, pink nipples shooting through the fabric like darts, or the bounteous mounds of her breasts spilling from her top.
Wishing she weren’t always doing the wrong thing at the wrong time, Callie bit her lip and said, “Should we get down to business?"
But no matter how hard she tried to act professional, Callie knew she sounded like she’d rather get kissed by Derek than look at the bottom line with him.
She couldn’t help it. Derek was so damn gorgeous. And sexy. And…
Standing right in front of her.
With the intimacy that comes from knowing just how a woman needs to be touched, he brushed back a curl from her cheek.
Callie shivered.
Just like the visions that had kept her awake all night long, Derek was right there within stroking distance. She needed him so desperately that against any good sense she had ever possessed, her arms uncrossed and moved across his shoulders to entwine around his neck and she pressed her breasts up against his hard chest.
“Callie.”
His voice wrapped around her like a deep fog, husky and full of the very need she herself was unable to fight, and then his mouth was on hers and her lips were open and greedy and she was moaning. He felt so good, so damn good, she was nearly sobbing with need.
He sucked at her lower lip, letting his teeth graze her skin, still sensitive from their lovemaking at the wedding, before moving his mouth down past her chin to the side of her neck.
“I was awake all night dreaming about doing this again. Touching you again. Loving you again."
He sank his lips into the crook of her neck and sucked at it.
“Me too,” she admitted o
n a gasp of pleasure, unable to stop the confession from rolling off of her tongue.
...Excerpt from CANDY STORE by Bella Andre ©2011.
Buy Candy Store
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Booklist
The following Bella Andre titles are also available in electronic format.
The Sullivans Series
The Look of Love
From This Moment On
Bound By Love
Candy Store
Ecstasy
Game For Love
Love Me
Shooting Stars
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Bella Andre has always been a writer. Songs came first, and then non-fiction books, but as soon as she started writing her first romance novel, she knew she'd found her perfect career. Known for "sensual, empowered stories enveloped in heady romance" (Publisher's Weekly) about sizzling alpha heroes and the strong women they'll love forever, many of her 20+ titles have appeared on Top 50 bestseller lists, including THE LOOK OF LOVE, GAME FOR LOVE, ECSTASY, CANDY STORE and LOVE ME.
Her books have been Cosmopolitan Magazine Red Hot Reads twice (GAME FOR ANYTHING and WILD HEAT) and have been translated into German, Thai, Japanese and Ukrainian. NEVER TOO HOT won the Award of Excellence in 2011. The Washington Post has called her, “One of the top digital writers in America."
If not behind her computer, you can find her reading her favorite authors, hiking, knitting, or laughing. Married with two children, Bella splits her time between the Northern California wine country and a 100 year old log cabin in the Adirondacks.
For a complete listing of books, as well as excerpts and contests, and to connect with Bella:
Visit Bella’s website at: http://www.BellaAndre.com
Follow Bella on twitter at: http://www.twitter.com/bellaandre
Join Bella on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/bellaandrefans
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