| Friends With Benefits Five close friends from the U. of Washington live, work and play in the Come to Your Senses building in Seattle's Capitol Hill District. Come taste: baker, Angela Loukas; see: photographer Jack Shea; touch: physical therapist Demi Anderson; smell: florist Bonnie Fortuna; and hear: musician Seth Blackstone. |
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Just
One Kiss
. Sunny, sweet Angela Loukas' bakery is doing well selling cupcakes and cookies to loyal customers. Her cynicism about men and love is seriously challenged when the sexiest man she's seen in a long time shows up at her shop looking shell-shocked. Her desire to help makes her sneak a chocolate cupcake in with the white cakes he's ordered. Chocolate will cheer anyone up. Daniel Flynn has avoided women for a year and a half, honoring the promise he made to his dying fiancé not to date until their planned wedding day had passed. No woman came close to tempting him until he sees Angela's warm dark eyes and rosy mouth. Suddenly he has an insatiable taste for chocolate. |
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Angela turned abruptly. Customer. She hadn’t heard the chime? It meant a lot to her when people first entered the shop to be waiting attentively, welcoming smile in place. “Hi, there. May I help you?” Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. Had they opened the gates to Olympus and shooed a demi-God into her shop? Clear blue eyes. Strong chin. Sandy hair, kept short. Golden skin. Mouth with clean lines, slightly fuller lower lip—she must be staring like a crazy person to notice all that. And he was staring back. Expectantly. Had he answered her offer of help? Had she missed that too? Had she gone suddenly deaf? She scooted to safety behind the counter to stash the cleaner and regain her composure, then tried again. “May I help you find something?” “Oh. Sorry. Yeah.” He laughed awkwardly, a surprising contrast to the masculine-warrior aura he gave off. “I guess I was in another world.” Whew. So she wasn’t the one who had taken that trip. “I understand. Sometimes this world is hard to take.” He looked wary, as if he thought she was about to recommend a specific alternative. “Very true.” Silence. She could not ask him again what he wanted. So she’d stand here gazing her fill while he scanned the cases until he figured it out. Now that she looked past the initial impression of hot-damn, she saw his eyes were haunted, dark circles under them; a vertical line bisected his brows; the stunning lips were set tightly. Not a happy man. As usual, when she encountered someone in pain, Angela wanted to help. Stuffing a person with baked goods wasn’t always a healthy way to deal with grief, but sometimes short-term sweetness went a long way toward curing what ailed a person. “If you have any questions . . .” “I
am here to buy something, not just to stand
gawking.” He tore his eyes away from her bread shelf, mouth
quirked in a self-deprecating smile that didn’t reach his eyes,
but which softened his features enough that Angela’s heart
skipped a beat. Not so much the wounded warrior when he
smiled. More like a man she’d like to get to know. As
a friend. A very sexy friend . . . |
