Lauren Dane - Cake

She won’t be satisfied with just one bite….

Art student–slash–bike messenger Wren Davis pursues what she wants. And what she wants now is Gregori Ivanov, rock star of the Seattle art scene. With his tattoos, piercings and sensual sneer, Gregori is the ultimate bad boy. Wren’s gotten to know the man beneath the body art, too—and it only makes her crave him more.

But Gregori loves women like he loves cake and champagne—intensely, but only for the moment. And after Wren experiences just how scorching sex with Gregori is, she’s determined to show him that just one taste won’t be enough….

Contemporary, sexy stories for sassy women

Cosmo Red-Hot Reads from Mills & Boon

www.millsandboon.co.uk/cosmo

To my lovelies on the Loop That Shall Not Be Named for a trip to Vegas complete with inspiration via a red Mohawk and leather pants.

Dear Readers,

Cake started out with a sentence in my head—he loved women like he loved cake. I loved Gregori, this hard-edged artist with tattoos, piercings and a bright red Mohawk, and I loved that he had a thing for champagne and sweets.

What was the most fun was putting him through the paces my heroine had in store for him. Wren is a strong-willed, intelligent, independent artist in her own right. She wants him and she absolutely has no plans to let him wall her out. Especially once they manage to break past all his reservations and they end up in bed.

Wren isn’t a pushover. She’s not a doormat. She doesn’t let him push her away with all the exterior stuff he’d used to keep everyone thinking he was a shallow, selfish hedonist.

Now, she does enjoy those aspects of Gregori’s personality. The leather pants, the lines of Cyrillic winding up his body. The way he knows just exactly what to do with a woman’s best parts. They have smoking-hot sexual chemistry from the start. But Wren knows there’s more between them. He’s worth knowing, and she’s worth being loved, and they have to struggle some to find a way to make the pieces fit.

There is cake in the story. And champagne, and Ladurée macarons (admittedly, Gregori and I share a weakness for these things—write what you know!). But at its heart, Cake is a story about two people who seem like opposites on the outside but who connect in a way no one else possibly could.

Happy reading!

Lauren

Contemporary, sexy stories for sassy women

Cosmo Red-Hot Reads from Mills & Boon

www.millsandboon.co.uk/cosmo

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Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

About the Author

Also by Lauren Dane

She heard the music as she ascended the stairs and knew he’d be working. Her heart sped as she hastened her pace. Watching Gregori Ivanov work was a sensual treat. He tended to fall deeply into his work. The building could fall down around him and he wouldn’t notice.

There was something incredibly sexy about that. His intensity was a little overwhelming, but in the best sort of way.

Once she got to his floor, she didn’t bother ringing the bell—Gary Clark, Jr. was playing so loud Gregori wouldn’t have heard it anyway.

She let herself into the front entry of the massive space Gregori occupied. Three stories of windows washed the place in light. He took up a corner of the old building in Pioneer Square. Depending on where you stood, you could see Puget Sound or the redbrick buildings lining First Avenue.

She dropped the envelopes and the box she’d been delivering on the counter and wandered into his studio, leaning against one of his worktables to watch him.

Pale winter sun gleamed against his bare back. Ink trailed along his spine, over lean muscle. Lines of poetry, mainly in Cyrillic, wrapped around his forearms. Barbed wire marked his ribs, interspersed with more words. When he went shirtless, she’d discovered both his nipples bore silver hoops. He wore fingerless leather gloves, one hand grasping some sort of tool as he prowled around a large metal sculpture he’d been creating for the better part of the past three weeks.

His hair, currently scarlet red, stood up in liberty spikes, but other days he didn’t bother with the full Mohawk effect and he put it in a ponytail to keep it from his eyes. On many it would have looked ridiculous. But on Gregori? It worked. Like really, really worked.

He wore eye protection, but she knew beneath the goggles his eyes were hazel, fringed with sooty lashes usually at half-mast like he was thinking of something particularly dirty.

He worked in jeans so old they bore threadbare spots in all the right places and, though he often went barefoot around the loft, today he wore work boots.

In short, he was a visual buffet. And she was really hungry.

He stalked and paused. Bending to tug on something. Or to grab more tools and sharpen a piece. Wren just watched. Fascinated by the way he created.

It went on this way for another twenty minutes until he finally looked up and noticed her there.

He slid the goggles up, a smile marking his mouth. “Wren. How long have you been here?”

His accent was jagged. Like he was. He spoke in staccato bursts, the sharp twists of his words sliding through the air between them.

“I don’t know. Twenty minutes maybe. Half an hour? I brought some paperwork by and a box. Kelsey says you need to sign the papers in the red envelope and get them back to her.” Kelsey was Wren’s cousin and Gregori’s personal assistant.

He often proclaimed to hate signing things and attending to the business side of his art so she wasn’t surprised when he sighed, taking the goggles and gloves off.

Ignoring the sigh, she stepped closer. “Can I?” Wren tipped her chin toward the sculpture.

He shrugged, pleasure mixing through his annoyance. “Sure.”

She took it in. A man, crouched in the grip of briars and something else she couldn’t make out. The metal was polished in some places, hammered in others. Sharp edges fanned out here and there. “Like flames,” she murmured.

“Yes. Exactly.” He moved closer and his scent caught her attention. Sweat, soap, the product he used in his hair. The fuel from the welding stuff he used. It all married together and became essentially Gregori.

“This is brilliant.” Wren wasn’t flattering. It wasn’t a lie. He was a genius. One of those rare few who not only made a living at what he did, but had ascended to art celebrity.

He made a sound. A growl of sorts. “It’s missing something.” They both looked at it for some time longer until he sighed. “Come have tea with me.”

He issued the invitation like a command. He tended to be imperious at times. But she rarely took him seriously, so she let it wash over her and perhaps might even have liked it. A little bit.