by Susanna Carr
“I showed you a private side of me and I’m regretting it.”
Sean closed his eyes. “Don’t,” he pleaded. “Don’t feel that way. I’m honored that you trusted me and I want to show you that I’m worthy of that trust.”
“And you’re doing that by giving me shoes?”
He gave her a wry smile and glanced down at the stilettos. “When you were tempted to try on the shoes, I knew they were made just for you.” He frowned and looked back at her. “You were trying to talk yourself out of them. I should have encouraged you but I didn’t.”
Isabel remembered that moment. But her discontent hadn’t been because of Sean. “I was disappointed in myself, Sean. I’m still holding back when I should be reaching out and grabbing what I want.”
“You made me face a part of myself that I try to ignore,” Sean said. “And I won’t let you hide from a part of you that makes you uncomfortable or uncertain. Even if it costs us both our jobs, even if we’re not a couple, I will always cheer you on.”
Her mouth trembled. She took a step forward and rested her head against his shoulder. Isabel released a sigh when he gathered her close.
“I love the woman you were and I love the woman you are becoming,” Sean said. “I love you, Isabel.”
Her pulse skipped hard as she looked up. She saw the love shining in his eyes. Isabel grasped his jaw with her hands and claimed his mouth with hers. She heard the shoes drop to the ground before he thrust his hands in her hair and hungrily returned the kiss.
“I love you, too, Sean,” she murmured against his mouth.
He pulled away. “Are you going to give me a second chance?”
“Yes.” She moved in for another kiss.
Sean tilted his head back. “Isabel, we are in front of the library and I swear everyone in town is staring at us.”
“So what?” she asked as she linked her arms over his shoulders and clung to him. “Let them talk.”
CRAVING YOU
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
1
CONNOR WIPED HIS ARM across his forehead and exhaled as he glared at the moving boxes in his kitchen. How had he acquired all this stuff in one year? He was an expert at moving house after spending most of his childhood moving from one place to another. But this was his final move. He could get through the process one last time.
He paused from closing up the box with heavy-duty tape as satisfaction welled up inside him. He’d finally bought the house he wanted. It would require a lot of work to restore but it was exactly what he needed for the next step of his life.
Connor tilted his head when he heard the singing from the other side of the duplex and smiled. Laura Dawson, his next-door neighbor, was belting out a country song in her kitchen this Saturday morning. Not belting it out well, he decided as his smile widened, but she did it as she did everything else—with gusto.
His smile faded as he realized that was the one thing he was going to miss. It was difficult moving away from Laura. They had been neighbors for a year and had become good friends. He would go so far as to say the best of friends.
And that was why he had to move away. Now, before he ruined an important friendship.
Connor stopped when he heard a mechanical screech followed by Laura’s yelp of surprise. He dropped the tape roll without hesitating and sprinted out his kitchen door and across their shared backyard. “Laura?” he called out.
Her shrieks became louder. He pushed open the screen door and stepped into Laura’s kitchen. His eyes widened when he saw the bright green standing mixer spewing out white powder and a brownish sludge. It sprayed across the floor and he heard it splat on the walls and cabinets.
Laura shielded her face, her curses at the machine as colorful as her clothes, as she tried to reach the mixer. Connor got hit with a glob of slippery batter and he reached for the electrical outlet and pulled the plug.
The mixer went silent and Laura stopped screaming. Connor’s mouth fell open as he stared at her. Laura stood completely still, her arms out wide as if that would keep the batter from dripping off her pale skin.
Her face was spattered with flour and flecks of butter but it didn’t diminish her feminine beauty. Nothing could hide the constant twinkle in her brown eyes, the bold tilt of her pointed chin or the wide smile that could light up a room.
Connor’s body tightened as his gaze dropped. Laura’s orange camisole barely contained her high breasts and it bunched up on her flat stomach. Her belly button piercing glinted in the sunlight, drawing his attention. He swallowed hard when he noticed the scandalous length of her cutoff denim shorts. Her legs seemed impossibly long. He wanted to reach out and see if her thighs were as smooth and soft as they looked.
He also knew that if Laura turned around, her shorts would offer a teasing glimpse of her ass. His skin itched as he imagined cupping her curves in the palm of his hand.
“What is going on here?” Connor asked gruffly. “This place is a disaster.”
Laura threaded her fingers through spikes of her short, fire-engine red hair, but if she was trying to remove the batter, all she really managed to do was smear it in deeper. “I was cooking,” she announced with a hint of defiance.
“Cooking?” Laura Dawson did not cook. It was a point of pride for her. Coming from a family of domestic goddesses who also owned Dawson’s Diner, Laura was the black sheep of the family.
“Baking, actually.” She continued as she sloughed off the sticky tan dough from her arms. “Banana bread for the book club.”
Connor reached out and placed his hand on her forehead. He ignored the jolt of awareness coursing through his veins from the simple touch. “Are you sick?”
“Ha-ha. Very funny.” Laura batted his hand away. “We all have to make something for our meeting today.”
And, of course, Laura had wanted to be spontaneous with her choice. He peered into the mixing bowl and shook his head. He wasn’t an expert but even to him the batter didn’t look right. “Buy something from the diner and say you made it.”
“No one would believe me. Anyway, we have to make one of the recipes in this cookbook we’re reading. Unfortunately, Isabel and Sydney already picked the easiest ones.”
His mouth twitched. “You read a cookbook?”
She gave a sharp nod that made him think her answer wasn’t the full truth. “I tried to get out of it, but Sydney said I had to read it or I will not get to select another book for the club.”
“Choosing a book must be very important to you,” he murmured.
“Enough that I was reading a cookbook and trying to make something on a Friday night. The smoke alarm kept going off and I’ve had to throw away one attempt already. It’s been so frustrating,” she said with a groan. “What did you do last night? I came by to see if you wanted to hang out.”
“You came over to avoid cooking.” Or to get him to help her make something. He knew how Laura’s mind worked.
“But you weren’t home,” she said, ignoring his comment. “Where were you? Checking out your new house?”
“I was out with Marissa.” He didn’t like that his voice went soft or that guilt squeezed his chest. Connor shouldn’t feel guilty about going out with another woman, but lately he didn’t want to share that kind of information with Laura. He grabbed a paper towel and started wiping up the other side of the counter.
“Marissa?” Her eyes narrowed and then went wide as she recognized the name. “Wait, you went out with Marissa Diaz? The current Miss Seedling?”
He nodded and focused on cleaning the counter. Tension skittered along his nerves as the silence pulsed in the kitchen.
“I don’t see it with you two,” Laura finally said.
&nbs
p; The knot in his stomach twisted harder as he tossed the paper towel away. “Why not?” He was reluctant to ask because he wasn’t sure if he’d like the answer. Yet he valued Laura’s opinions and he knew he would always get an honest answer from her.
Laura scrunched her nose. “I grew up with Marissa. She’s nice but she’s...well...”
He tilted his head and watched her stumble over her words. It was an odd sight to see since Laura usually had no difficulty sharing her thoughts on anything. “Just spit it out.”
“Boring.”
“She’s not boring. She’s sweet.” A little too sweet, maybe. He had been careful and guarded the entire night. He’d felt no connection with Marissa, and it didn’t make sense. The current Miss Seedling was everything he wanted in a woman. She was all about home and stability. Two things he had yearned for most of his life.
“I know Marissa,” Laura said as she grabbed a rag from the sink and wiped down her arms and legs. “We had to sit alphabetically throughout high school. She is not the right woman for you.”
He was ready to settle down and find the intimate small-town life he had only seen on television. Yet somehow the women he had been dating for the past year were all wrong.
“Come to think of it, I’m beginning to question your choices,” Laura continued as she scrubbed harder. “There was Selena, the preschool teacher who was too shy to have a conversation with you, and then there was Taylor. She’s a nice woman but I swear she needs an intervention from all the volunteering she does. That’s just not natural.”
Connor chuckled. “What was wrong with Angel or Mariah?”
“Nothing,” she reluctantly dragged the word out of her mouth. “I guess what they say is true. Opposites attract.”
Not quite, Connor decided. He’d found all of those women interesting. He’d admired them, but there was no sexual attraction. Worse, he’d found himself comparing them to Laura. Laura had always come out the winner and that didn’t make sense. She had no interest in creating a home or settling down. Her longest romantic relationship had lasted less than two months.
“Well, thanks for coming by and helping me. I know you’re busy moving today,” Laura said in a louder voice. Her smile had a determined edge as she wrenched the bowl from the mixer. “I better pop this banana bread in the oven and clean up before I go to the library.”
“Are you still working there?” Laura had been ordered to complete community service hours at the library after she’d destroyed her ex-boyfriend’s property.
“I swear it never ends, but I have learned my lesson.” She held up her hand as if she was taking an oath. “Don’t throw a computer out of a window, even if it belongs to a two-timing rat. On the plus side, the library has air-conditioning.”
She turned around and Connor froze. His stomach clenched and his skin tightened as he stared at the smooth curves of her ass peeking out of her tiny shorts. His blood pumped hard through his veins as his cock twitched. When Laura bent down to retrieve a pan from a cabinet. Connor bit back a groan and forced himself to look away.
He was, unfortunately, very attracted to Laura. He had hoped this inconvenient feeling would fade over time. No such luck. If anything, the attraction had grown stronger the closer they became. Soon his restraint would break. He had to get away before his true feelings were revealed. As much as he wanted to sleep with Laura—be with her—she was all wrong for him and the life he had planned.
“I don’t know how you can stand doing all that yard work in this heat.” There was a buzzing in his ears and her voice seemed far away. He watched in a daze as she plunked down a bread pan. “It’s too hot, even in the morning.”
Hot. It was scorching hot. His T-shirt and jeans felt heavy and constricting. Sweat beaded on his forehead. He was too close to Laura. Connor curled his fingers into fists, digging his blunt fingertips into his palms. He needed to get away before he touched her. Caressed her. Claimed her.
Laura rested her hands on the messy counter and gave him a strange look. “Are you okay, Connor?”
“Yeah, fine.” He grimaced at the sound of his raspy voice. Connor cleared his throat and motioned clumsily toward his side of the duplex. “Have to finish packing before my friends come over. See you later,” he said, and then he bolted for the door.
* * *
LAURA STRODE INTO the break room at the library and saw Isabel and Sydney sitting at the small table. She glanced at the food they’d brought for the book club meeting and her mood worsened. An artful display of strawberries dipped in chocolate sat next to a vegetable salad that burst with vibrant colors.
She dumped the bread pan on the table and glared at her friends. “What did you get me into with this cookbook?”
Isabel’s brow furrowed as she stared into the pan. “What is that?”
“It’s banana bread,” she said through gritted teeth. It looked nothing like the kind they served at the bakery at Dawson’s, and the smell of burnt bananas made it obvious that she’d failed—again. “Go ahead and have a piece.”
Sydney poked at it suspiciously with a knife.
Laura placed her hands on her hips. “The recipe is from that aphrodisiac cookbook you assigned for the book club,” she reminded Sydney. “It’s no wonder that Seedling banned it. None of the recipes work!”
Sydney glanced up with surprise. “You baked?”
“You read the book?” Isabel asked. “From cover to cover?”
“Yes,” she bit out. Well, she had flipped through the book from cover to cover, reading the sidebars, bullet points and lists. That counted as reading. It was how she’d gotten through school. It was also how she’d gotten through the monthly Seedling Women’s Reading Circle meetings until they’d figured out she wasn’t reading the books and banned her from the club.
Isabel leaned back in her chair and folded her arms. “Why did you read the book?”
“Yeah,” Sydney said as she tried to remove the bread from the pan with the knife. “Weren’t you trying to get out of it just a few weeks ago?”
“Okay—” Laura raised her hands up in surrender “—maybe I read it because I was hoping to use the information on my next-door neighbor.”
“Connor Adams?” Sydney asked as she tried to saw through the bread.
Laura nodded. “I really, really want to date him,” she admitted and struggled with the wave of disappointment. Usually when she said a wish out loud, it galvanized her into action. This time she felt as if her goal was far out of reach.
“You mean sleep with him,” Sydney corrected as she continued to saw, still not getting any results.
Laura closed her eyes as she pictured Connor. His short wavy black hair was tousled and his scruffy beard did little to hide his angular jaw. His high cheekbones, strong nose and piercing blue eyes often made him look fierce.
Muscular from maintaining the public parks around Seedling, Connor’s skin was golden from the sun and his hands were calloused from hard work. He towered over most people, his legs thick and powerful. The T-shirts he favored stretched across his solid chest and arms.
But Laura knew that Connor used that strength to protect and to create. She’d seen his gentle side and his playfulness. The sexual magnetism. He had no idea how much his voice, his smile and his laugh heightened her awareness of him.
Usually she would brazenly approach any man who caught her eye, but it was different with Connor. There was more to lose; she wouldn’t bounce back from his rejection quite so easily. This hesitation, this caution, was new to her. She didn’t like it, but she also couldn’t change it.
Sydney was right. Laura wanted more than a platonic relationship with Connor Adams. He was the only man who’d ever understood her, who’d ever liked her as a person. But if he was interested in her, they would have already wound up in bed together. Still, she couldn’t get him out o
f her mind, and the only way Laura knew to get a guy out of her system was a hot fling. “I’m not talking about anything serious, just letting this attraction play out. But I’m not his type, so I need to think outside of the traditional seduction box.”
“Why?” Isabel asked. “The two of you would be perfect together.”
“He dates the Miss Seedlings of the world,” Laura said with a grimace. “Beauty contestants. Homemakers. You know, the nurturing type. The women who can whip up a culinary masterpiece from scratch while making holiday decorations and maintaining a perfect home.”
“Those women are scary,” Sydney muttered as she gave up slicing the bread. “Are you sure he’s not interested in you?”
“I seem to have been friend-zoned. That has never happened to me before.”
“Try some of the seductive techniques from the last book we read,” Sydney suggested with a sly smile. “They worked very well on Matthew.”
“Really? Because they didn’t work on Sean,” Isabel said. “I must have been—wait a second. Laura, is that why you assigned that stupid How to Seduce a Man book? So you could try it out on Connor?”
“Of course.” She saw no reason to deny it. “But it didn’t do me any good. And Connor is moving out this weekend. If anything is going to happen, it would have to occur in the next forty-eight hours.”
“What’s the rush?” Isabel asked. “He’s still going to be in Seedling. The town is small and you will see each other frequently.”
“But he won’t be at my doorstep. Consistency of visits and proximity gave me the edge and now I’ve lost that. I need to up my game!”
“What are you going to do?” Isabel asked.
Laura shrugged. “All of my usual methods didn’t work so I’m going to do the opposite of what I would normally do. Through food.” She motioned at the bread pan. “Through aphrodisiacs.”
Isabel and Sydney stared at the banana bread with trepidation.
“Are you sure you’re not trying to become like the women he dates?” Isabel asked. “The ones who are master chefs?”
