Jo Leigh - One-Click Buy - September Harlequin Blaze

“I lived on coffee in Manhattan,” she admitted. “It was the only way I could maintain my schedule.”

He sniffed appreciatively, allowing the rich aroma to fill his head. When combined with all the other scents permeating this room, it was making him weak with physical hunger.

Or she was. He honestly wasn’t sure which.

“I think I would have killed for something this good even when it was one-hundred-twenty degrees in the desert.”

Izzie sat on one of the other stools across from him, her cup on the counter between them. Watching him intently, with a bit of trepidation, she forecast her curiosity before the words left her mouth. “How did you make it through every day?”

What a good question-and one nobody had asked him yet. Oh, he’d been asked about the action and the things he’d seen. Asked if he’d shot anyone, killed anyone, saved anyone. Asked what he’d done to relieve the boredom, to accomplish his mission.

But nobody had asked him what it was that had held him together every single day. Not until now.

“I’m sorry, that’s probably none of my business.”

“It’s okay. If you want to know the truth, it was this that held me together.” He gestured around the room.

She frowned skeptically.

“I don’t mean the bakery. I mean this lifestyle. Home, family, all the safe, secure stuff I grew up with that I thought would be exactly the same when I got back. Only, it wasn’t.”

Staring at him, Izzie revealed her thoughts in her expressive brown eyes. She understood what he meant-got it, exactly. Nick didn’t look away, liking the connection even though they were separated by several feet of sweet-smelling air. Mentally, though, they were touching. Bonding. Sharing the unique brand of estrangement they had each been feeling from the world they’d grown up in.

She finally shook her head. “Well, obviously you have some things to figure out, man-cub.”

He grinned, remembering what he’d said about the Jungle Book. “Yeah, well, so do you, right? You didn’t get what you bargained for when you came home, did you?”

She shook her head.

“What’d you do in New York, anyway?” he asked, never having gotten the whole story. He knew she’d had a good job but had given it up to come home and help her family.

“I was…in the arts,” she murmured, lifting her cup to her mouth. She blew across the surface of the coffee, sending steam curling up into the air. It colored her cheeks, already flushed a delicate pink from the heat of the yeasty kitchen. “On the stage.”

An actress. The idea stunned him for a second, though it made sense. Izzie had looks and personality and a lot of self-confidence. He suspected she was amazing on stage.

“But I got hurt last winter and haven’t worked since.”

He lowered his cup, waiting.

A tiny frown line appeared between her eyes as she explained. “I tore my ACL in my left knee and had to have surgery. It required a lot of rehab.”

“And you’re on your feet working in a kitchen all day?” he asked, appalled at the idea of how much pain she had to have experienced. He knew guys who’d had those injuries during his high-school sports days. They were not fun.

“I’m better.” She pointed down to the stool on which she sat. “And I work sitting down a lot.”

Nick wanted to know more. Lots of things. Like what kind of life she’d led in New York and whether anyone had shared it. And what her neck tasted like. And what she planned to do once her father was well enough to come back to the bakery. And what she’d eaten today that had left her lips so ruby red. And why she was resisting something happening between them.

And when she was going to be in his bed.

But the phone interrupted before he could ask, much less get any answers. Excusing herself to answer it, she revealed her frustration with the caller with every word exchanged. Nick heard enough to understand what was going on-her part-time delivery person was calling in sick.

“I can’t believe this,” she muttered after she hung up the phone. “All these orders and he bails on me.” Almost growling, she added, “Are the Cubs playing today? It sounded like the little bastard was at the ball park.”

Fierce. He liked it.

“Don’t sweat it, Iz. I’ll help you out.”

Blinking, she replied, “Huh?”

“I’ll help you make the deliveries.” Hopping off the bench, he walked over to a tall cart, laden with cardboard boxes labeled with the names of several local restaurants. “After all,” he said, offering her a boyish smile over his shoulder, “what are friends for?”

FRIENDS WERE FOR going to the movies with. Sharing bad date stories with. Getting through boring reunions with. Crying over breakups with. Dieting with. Drinking with. Clubbing with.

Friends were not for having sex with. Or lusting over. Or inspiring lust simply by the way they handled a few heavy boxes and filled out their soft, broken-in jeans.

Nick Santori was no friend of hers. Because oh, God, she had already broken every “friend” rule in the book and she’d only agreed to his terms a few hours ago.

When they’d talked in the kitchen, he’d been friendly and warm. That boyish smile he’d flashed her when he’d offered to help her with the deliveries had made him seem so charming and endearing. Completely the opposite of the brooding, simmering hunk of male heat she’d watched through covetous eyes at the club last weekend. It was like he was two people in one body.

And she wanted both of them desperately.

She couldn’t believe she’d thought she could handle being merely his friend. Now, having been closed up in a delivery van with him for the past couple of hours, she was definitely having second thoughts.

He was being so damned wonderful. Not just offering to help her, he had refused to let her lift a single box. They’d gone to a dozen shops and restaurants, delivering cakes, pies and pastries to some places for their dinner customers tonight, and muffins and coffee cake to others for their breakfast crowds tomorrow. He’d charmed her customers, and her. He’d even driven, since Izzie hated dealing with the traffic. She’d sat in the passenger seat of the bakery van, reading off the list of stops, trying not to notice how big he was and how small the van felt with him in it.

She also tried not to notice how wonderful he smelled. How the sound of his low laughter rolled over her, more warm and sultry than a summer breeze. How his short hair curled a little behind his ear. How strong his lightly stubbled jaw was and how thick his body was beneath his tight T-shirt. How he warmed her from two feet away.

And how very, very much she wanted him.

Especially after the cannoli. It was the damn cannoli that put the nail in her coffin…and the wetness in her panties.

They had an extra box. Izzie had been so wiped out from working so many hours, both at the bakery Tuesday through Saturday, and at the club Saturday and Sunday nights, that she’d miscounted. She’d boxed up an extra two dozen of the decadent ricotta-and-cream filled treats. Once they’d finished all the deliveries, thanks mostly to Nick’s strong back-oh, heavens, that strong back-she’d noticed the extra box and realized her mistake.

So, when they’d gotten back to the bakery and parked in the small private lot behind it, she’d offered him one. He’d immediately taken her up on it, not even getting out of the van before digging in. And seeing him eat it with such visceral, sensual appreciation, was making her a quivering, shaking mess.

“God, these are amazing. No wonder they sell out every day at Santori’s,” he said as he licked at the creamy center of the tube-shaped pastry.

Izzie shifted in the seat. Licking. It was not a good thing to watch a man do if you wanted to have sex with him but couldn’t.