Isabel Sharpe - Just One Kiss

Daniel’s grin made Angela catch her breath. His blue eyes had caught the late evening light. His white teeth were surrounded by golden, smoothly shaved skin that looked as if it smelled and tasted wonderful. Angela felt as if her body had stopped functioning. Certainly her brain had.

Daniel knelt at her feet; his fingers landed softly on her bare knee, shooting Angela through with arousal as if he’d touched her … somewhere else.

“I think you could give me a lot of pleasure, even though we hardly know each other.” His voice was low and slightly husky, his eyes didn’t leave hers, so blue and so serious, humor dancing at their edges.

Angela’s cue. Her hands landed on the firm planes of Daniel’s pecs, her mouth lifted toward his. “I think I’d like to.”

“But …”

“No.” She put her finger to his lips, heart thudding. “We’re here, Daniel, you and me. We’re alive and we’re together. This is supposed to happen. For both of us.”

Then she let herself melt fully against him, and whispered, “You’re okay with this?” just to be sure.

“Yes.” He murmured the word without hesitation; his hand cupped the back of her neck and he bent to her mouth, his lips sure and sweet.

ISABEL SHARPEwas not born pen in hand like so many of her fellow writers. After she quit work to stay home with her firstborn son and nearly went out of her mind, she started writing. After more than twenty novels—along with another son—Isabel is more than happy with her choice these days. She loves hearing from readers. Write to her at www.IsabelSharpe.com.

Dear Reader,

When I visited a friend in Seattle a few summers ago, I knew I had to set a book there. After the idea came to me for a series about friends whose businesses represent the five senses, I realized I could set three books there! It’s a great town, clean, green and close to one of my favorite things in the world: the ocean.

Of course the five friends who own the Come to Your Senses building not only explore Seattle’s cultural diversity, great food, coffee and hot spots, they also find love. In this first book, Just One Kiss , expert baker Angela struggles with wonderful and sometimes overwhelming feelings for the unexpectedly sexy Daniel, who, finally throwing off past grief, is ready to taste everything she has to offer.

It’s very exciting starting a new series. I hope you enjoy all the books in FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS!

Cheers,

Isabel Sharpe

www.IsabelSharpe.com

Just One Kiss

Isabel Sharpe

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Mark, who among many other wonderful qualities, put out a good bake.

“YOU ARE WELCOME.” Angela Loukas handed the plump waxed bag across her sparkling glass counter to her favorite customer, Marjorie. The seventy-something woman came daily to Angela’s bakery, A Taste for All Pleasures, between 5:00 and 6:00 p.m. for her next-day’s breakfast—today a cinnamon-pecan roll. Given that Marjorie weighed about a hundred pounds, Angela worried the bakery items were all she was eating. “Would you like a black-pepper fruit tart for dessert tonight?”

“Oh …” Marjorie glanced doubtfully at the tiny tarts—raspberries, blueberries, kiwi slices and mandarin sections glistening with currant jelly glaze and speckled with crushed black peppercorns.

“On the house,” Angela said impulsively. “For a loyal customer.”

“Oh, well. I can’t say no to that.” She reached to accept the tart, fragile hand bones extending from her flawlessly tailored coral linen suit. “I’ll eat it right away. It looks too good to wait.”

“I hope you enjoy it.”

Marjorie took a bite and chewed carefully. “Hmm. Yes. Very nice. But your muffins are exquisite. And those cinnamon rolls … my goodness. As if God had smiled on them.”

Angela kept her expression warm, but her heart sank. God hadn’t smiled on the tarts? Maybe she needed to revise the recipe yet again. “Thank you, that’s very sweet.”

“You’re welcome. I’ll see you tomorrow, Angela, dear.”

“See you then.” Angela waved the tiny woman out of the shop, still pondering the reaction. She’d added the new section of European pastries to her year-old bakery in the last few months. So far, in spite of low prices and occasional giveaways, and in spite of Seattle’s relatively sophisticated population, her customers still seemed to prefer the standard cookies, muffins, cupcakes, simple breads and other familiar baked goods she’d started with while she built confidence.

Her dream was to turn A Taste for All Pleasures into a European-style bakery known city-wide for its selection, quality and aesthetics.

Not there yet, but she wasn’t giving up.

Her door chime began a phrase from one of Angela’s favorite songs, Green Day’s “Wake Me Up When September Ends.” Seth Blackstone, whose music studio was upstairs in the building, had rigged the notifier to play her favorites when customers came in.

Angela’s welcoming smile got wider when she saw Bonnie Fortuna, gifted florist and owner of Bonnie Blooms, the shop opposite hers in the building she and four other entrepreneurial friends who’d graduated from Washington University together had bought a year before. Four businesses were arranged on the first floor, with individual apartments and Seth’s studio/apartment combination on the upper.

“Hey, Bonnie. How’s things today?”

“All good.” Bonnie stood in the center of the bakery, wearing her trademark hodgepodge of styles and colors, proffering a vase of burgundy and pink alstroemeria. “Thought you’d like these. Maybe over by the coffee?”

“Ooh, those would look great, thanks.” She watched Bonnie rotate the black-and-silver vase on the high counter until the arrangement sat just right against her faintly rose-colored walls. “Would you by any chance be hoping to trade for a cookie?”

“A cookie. Well …” Bonnie gave the flowers one last look and nodded her satisfaction. “I could find uses for a cookie. Especially if it happens to be walnut-chocolate-chunk.”

“It does.” Angela handed one over. “What’s new?”

“Wait, let me concentrate.” Bonnie bit into her cookie and closed her green eyes rapturously, a smile curving her bright red lips. “ Ohhh , these are so amazing. You are Seattle’s cookie queen.”

“Thanks.” Angela leaned her elbows on the counter next to the register. Cookies. Yeah. Ordinary, everyday recipes she could make in her sleep. “So what’s going on? Did that guy you met dancing ever ask you out?”

“Oh, him. Yeah, sort of.” Bonnie made a face.

“And …?”

Bonnie studied her alternating scarlet and black fingernails a little too carefully. “I wasn’t really feeling it.”

“Why not? You don’t have to marry him, just go out.”

“Hmm.”

“Geez, Bonnie. You can’t sit around the rest of your life wait—” She stopped herself from blurting out her suspicion that Bonnie was still waiting five years later for their resident musician, Seth, whom she dated junior year until he freaked out over how serious the relationship was getting. Bonnie hadn’t come close to being serious about anyone else since. “You can’t avoid men forever.”

“I’ve dated plenty. What about you? You’re not exactly pouncing on single guys, either.”

“I’m not … ready.” Angela winced at how lame the excuse sounded. She’d been divorced for three years, after nine months of a dream-come-true marriage that turned nightmare when Tom was unfaithful with the exact type of woman his parents had wanted him to marry in the first place. Annabel, aka The Princess, was tall, WASPy and aristocratic, with strawberry-blond hair, flawless skin and an inheritance the size of her chilly conceit. While there sat half-Greek wallflower Angela Loukas—not tall, not blond, not rich, not chic, and worst of all, not perfect.