Jennifer Greene: Blame It on Chocolate

When his head ducked, he saw those whiskey brown eyes deepen, darken. He heard her breath catch. Felt the sudden trembly chill in her fingertips. And then his mouth dived down and settled on hers.

She tasted like warm, dark chocolate. Rich. Soft. Meltable.

Nothing in the universe tasted exactly like chocolate. Not good chocolate. Not really exquisite chocolate.

But she did. And no, it wasn’t the Bliss she’d been indulging in that put that “exquisite taste” idea in his mind. It was her. Her mouth. Her taste. Her lips molded under his, melted under his. She went still, on the inside, on the outside.

And damn it. So did he.

“Jennifer Greene’s writing possesses a modern sensibility and frankness that is vivid, fresh, and often funny.”

—Publishers Weekly on The Woman Most Likely To…

“This is a must read book. Great job, Ms. Greene!”

—Old Book Barn Gazette on

The Woman Most Likely To…

“Combining expertly crafted characters with lovely prose flavored with sassy wit, Greene constructs a superb tale of love lost and found, dreams discarded and rediscovered, and the importance of family and friendship….”

—Booklist on Where Is He Now?

“Crisp, pulls-no-punches humor….”

—Publishers Weekly on Where Is He Now?

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Lucky

Hot to the Touch

Wild in the Moment

Wild in the Moonlight

Wild in the Field

To incurable chocoholics everywhere.

Of all the vices worth enjoying, this one seems awfully close to number one.

I gined ten pounds researching this book for you.

Taste-testing the best truffles on the planet was hard work! But worth it.

Trust me on this….

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

EPILOGUE

WHEN THE ALARM CLOCK BUZZED on Monday morning, Lucy Fitzhenry leaped out of bed. It was hell waiting for that alarm. She hated wasting time on sleep when her life was so brimming full. She wasn’t just jazzed to start the day; she was kite-high and dancing-ready.

She made it three feet across the room before the nausea hit. One second she was fine, the next she was beyond miserable. Thankfully she made it into the bathroom before a major upchuck.

Afterward, she knelt on the cold tile with her elbow crooked on the toilet seat, too weak to get up—at least for another couple seconds—feeling infuriated in general.

She knew she was getting an ulcer. This was the third time in the last two weeks her stomach had done the revolt thing, and healthy twenty-eight-year-old women with cast-iron stomachs didn’t hurl for no reason, so that had to be it. An ulcer. An ulcer caused by stress.

It was tough for a fussy perfectionist who’d always been big on responsibility and doing the right thing and making everyone happy to suddenly take on wickedness. She was trying. She was putting her whole heart into it. But it definitely wasn’t coming naturally, so she had to struggle at it, and changing one’s personality was unavoidably stressful.

Her stomach rolled one more time, but the ghastly part of the nausea seemed to have passed. She hoped. Slowly she pushed to her feet, opened the glass doors to the shower, and flicked on the faucets.

She’d had the clear glass shower doors put in last week. That, and her sleeping naked, were two visible signs that she was gaining on her wickedness goal. Another concrete measure of progress were the purple satin sheets on her bed. Temporarily she didn’t have a guy to vent all this new wildness on, but one thing at a time. Her stomach needed to recover from all these personality upheavals before she gave it any more stress.

By the time she climbed out of the shower, she was not only feeling fine again, but picking up speed. She ran naked into the kitchen to pop a bagel in the toaster, then charged back to the bedroom to raid her closet. Since ninety percent of her wardrobe consisted of either designer Gap or designer Old Navy, the day’s clothes decision was hardly tricky. She opted for Gap today. T-shirt. Sweatshirt. Jeans—not her favorite pair; they bagged a little in the butt, but she should have known better than to buy a size seven without trying them on; they were always a little big.

Back in the bathroom, she poked in her contacts, smacked on lip gloss, and ran a brush through her chin-length blond hair—her hair was so fine it was already nearly dry. Then she claimed the bagel and streaked for the front door…taking ecstatic, if hurried, pleasure in galloping over the white carpet. White. WHITE. White, thick, plush and totally impractical. The print over the fireplace of the eagle flying over silvery-green waters was another splurge—she fiercely, fiercely loved that picture. But both the print and the carpet were further proof that she was mastering the indulgent, impractical, wicked thing.

Of course, the carpet wasn’t paid for. And neither was most everything else. But as of two months ago, she was no longer renting. The duplex had a mighty mortgage, but it was still hers-all-hers. Possibly she was the latest bloomer of all late bloomers at twenty-eight, but what the hey. She’d had to fight harder than most for true independence, and for darn sure, she was grabbing life with both fists now.

At the front door, she yanked on the jacket her parents had given her for Christmas—a white Patagonia number that was crazily impractical considering her work, but unbeatably warm. And on the first of March in Minnesota, there was still a solid, crusty foot of snow on the ground, the temperature cold enough to make her eyes sting. She locked the door, still pulling on her white cap with the yellow yarn daisies. She’d have hat hair all day, but who cared? She’d look like a train wreck after the first hour of work anyway.

With the hot bagel crunched between her teeth, she slid into the driver’s seat of her old red Civic, turned the key and begged it to start—which it did. The baby just liked to be coaxed on cold mornings. Praying for the Civic had become a second religion. The Civ had more than 200,000 miles on her. Lucy’s newest theory was that if she gave the car enough wash-and-waxes and changed its oil long before it asked and vacuumed it twice a week, it’d be too happy to die. At least until she got the living room carpet and couch paid for.

In Rochester, where she’d grown up, people knew what rush hour was. Not here. Eagle Lake probably put up traffic lights out of pride, although some cars did show up to keep her company once she reached the highway. Originally she’d chosen Eagle because it was a nice, long drive from her parents—and also because there was already a solid nest of singles and other young couples in the area—but it was a good half-hour commute to her job. She finished the bagel, tuned the radio up for a kick-ass beat and was singing hell-bent for leather when her stomach suddenly produced an unladylike belch.