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“Too late,” Sabrina said, giving him a saucy chin tilt and a flick of her hair. “You’ve already been reported to management.”
Kit bent closer. “Then management will have to punish me.”
She was riveted by his eyes. “Fifty lashes with a limp cannoli.”
“Kinky,” he said, and walked away.
“Nice meeting you,” Mackenzie called. She waited until he’d disappeared behind the steel porthole doors. “Hot damn.”
Sabrina slumped. “You see what I’m up against?”
“And you think that man doesn’t want you?”
“He hasn’t made a single overture.”
Mackenzie stared after Kit. “He looks like the type to go in for a slow, teasing seduction,” she said softly. “You’re so lucky.”
“Lucky? Does that mean you’re letting me out of our deal?”
Mackenzie gave a start. Her thoughts seemed far away. “Oh.” She looked across the table at her sister. “Umm, no.”
“How can I possibly resist him?” Sabrina said with a soulful moan.
“I already told you. Chocolate.”
“That makes no sense. I ate an entire chocolate dessert two minutes ago and I can promise you that Kit looks just as attractive to me.”
“You need to let the chocolate chemicals accumulate in your brain and bloodstream.”
“Huh?”
“Look at it this way. How did the chocolate make you feel?” Mackenzie dabbed her lips with the napkin. “It was a fabulous dish, by the way. Kit obviously knows his stuff.”
“That’s for sure.” Sabrina sat up with her hands in her lap, thinking of how she’d inhaled the pastry even though she’d never been a chocolate fiend. “I guess I feel sort of satisfied. Warm and happy. It’s not quite an all-out sugar rush, but the chocolate gave me an emotional boost.” Or maybe that was Kit, she thought. For a man who moved with a languid deliberation, being around him certainly zapped her with energy.
“Did you know there was a survey that said fifty percent of American women prefer chocolate to sex?”
“No way!” Sabrina gawked. “They’re obviously not having the right kind of sex.” She narrowed her eyes. “You’re kidding me, Mackenzie. You made that up.”
“It’s true. I had to read lots of candy research for my old job.”
Sabrina was catching Mackenzie’s drift. “You are not suggesting that I feast on chocolate in place of sex.”
“Uh-huh. Pretty much.”
“Forget it.” Sabrina waved her arms like an umpire. “I’m outta here.” But she didn’t leave.
“What’s the alternative, Sabrina? Not only will you lose the bet and the ring, but you’ll go back to falling into one brief relationship after another. It’s your pattern.” Mackenzie put on her I’m-saying-this-for-your-own-good expression. There were times it was hard to believe she was the younger sister. “You see a guy, you fall in lust, you think he’s The One and a month later you’re on the phone to me complaining that he’s around all the time and you can’t breathe. Sound familiar?”
“Yeah.” Sabrina put her elbows on the table. “So?”
“The same thing will happen with Kit if you can’t control your craving.”
“I thought you said he’d go for the slow seduction.”
“That doesn’t mean he can resist if you go nuts one night and corner him in the kitchen to act out some crazy apron-stripping fantasy. He is a man, after all. It’s up to you to say no.”
Sabrina peered between her arms, head in hands. “I was never any good at that.”
“That’s why you turn to chocolate. Remember, I’ve seen the research. The chemicals that chocolate produces in your body are similar to the pleasurable effect you get from making love. Endorphins are released. Seratonin and caffeine and phenyethylamine—something like that. They’re natural opiates.” Mackenzie smiled. “To be fair, some scientists say you’d have to eat chocolate by the pound to truly be affected, but…whatever. I’m sure it would help a little.”
Sabrina dropped her hands. She was skeptical. “So every time I get an urge to suck on Kit’s tongue I should pop a Hershey’s Kiss instead?”
“Right. What could it hurt?”
“My dental bill. And pretty soon I wouldn’t be able to fit into Dominique’s dresses.”
“Pooh. You could stand to put on a few pounds.”
Sabrina ate, but her metabolism was high and she burned the calories off, unlike Mackenzie, who was prone to curling up on the couch with a good book and a bag of butterscotch candies.
“Are you game?” Mackenzie prompted.
Sabrina shrugged. She had nothing to lose. “I suppose. But you’re going in for that haircut as soon as I can wangle another appointment with Costas.”
Mackenzie didn’t hesitate. “I will, I promise.”
“Do I really have to hold out for the entire year?” Assuming Kit was interested…
“That would be ideal. Of course, I could be generous and give you some leeway if he proposes before that—” Mackenzie stopped and laughed at her sister’s horrified expression. “But I know that’s asking too much. If the threat of losing grandmother’s ring isn’t enough of a deterrence, could you at least pledge not to jump in bed with Kit until there’s a real, honest, emotional connection between you two? Get to know him as a friend first. You might be surprised how different making love with a friend will feel.”
“Well, you always went on and on about what a good friend Jason was, but I don’t remember you ever saying he gave you hot sweaty jungle love.”
“Our love life was satisfactory.”
Sabrina grimaced, staring at Mackenzie until she blushed. Anyone having merely satisfactory sex might as well gorge on chocolate instead, and they both knew it.
“Don’t worry,” Mackenzie said, deflecting the attention. “You and Kit have a different dynamic entirely.”
“Whatever it is will probably burn out before we get to the bedroom when I put this chocolate plan of yours into action,” Sabrina complained.
Mackenzie stood and slipped her handbag off the back of the chair. “Then it was never meant to be.”
“Meant to be?” Sabrina didn’t believe in soul mates and destiny. She believed in having fun while you could because who knew what tomorrow would bring. “Now you’re sounding like Mom and Dad, with all their explanations for why their divorce didn’t stick. But what do you want to bet they’re arguing when they get off the cruise ship?” For their second honeymoon, Charlie and Nicole had booked passage on a lengthy transatlantic cruise. They were due back in another week.
“You’ll see,” Mackenzie said with blithe assurance. “By the time our parents’ second first-year anniversary rolls around, all of us will know if we’ve been successful at changing our lives.”
“A year is a long, long time.”
Mackenzie squeezed Sabrina’s shoulder. “Not when the rewards are worth the wait.”
2
KIT WAS TRYING to convince himself that it wasn’t necessary for him to find out firsthand if Sabrina Bliss lived up to her name. Some things were better left to the imagination. This was one of them.
This…bliss.
So why had he volunteered to help her move?
She hadn’t asked for help. A couple of guys from the kitchen got the idea when she was recently telling them about finally finding an apartment after a month-long search. They’d roped Kit into the deal, and he’d been curious enough to agree. Sabrina came into the kitchen every day and watched him work, sitting silently on a stool, out of the way but very much on his mind. Usually he got into a zone when he cooked. The clamor of the busy restaurant kitchen faded away while he concentrated on molding chocolate tulip cups or icing a multilayered bombe. But Sabrina wasn’t an unobtrusive type of woman. She shot his concentration to bits.
Kit and Parker and Vijay piled out of their cab in Chelsea, telling the driver to wait. Sabrina had been staying with her sister while she searched for an apartment. Mackenzie Bliss had a ground-floor flat in a gently aged brownstone with ivy crawling up the lintel. The street door was open. Kit checked the mailboxes in the vestibule and rang the bell for 1A.
The door opened as far as the security chain allowed. “Why, good morning,” Mackenzie said through the two-inch gap between the door and jamb. Kit nodded. Parker gave her a broad smile. She shut the door, and the chain made a chunking sound when she slipped it free. The men crowded toward her as soon as she opened the door again. She stepped back, holding on to the lapels of her terry cloth robe. “Uh, hi, Kit. What’s going on?”
“This is Parker…” A roly-poly sous chef with a deceptively cherubic face. “And Vijay…” A handsome young Indian who had a deft touch with sauces. “And we’re here to help Sabrina move.”
Mackenzie was clearly surprised, but she recovered to exchange handshakes with the other men. Kit admired her aplomb. Except for minor facial similarities, she was the opposite of her sister—shorter and rounder, softer and kinder, where Sabrina was sharp angles and bright eyes and frequently outspoken. Except around him. With him, she was quiet, observant, a little nervous. Her watchful eyes made him too aware of himself.
“Sabrina’s not expecting you, is she?” Mackenzie let them in. They filed into a short, narrow hallway alongside two shoe boxes, a backpack, a suitcase and a rolled-up futon without a frame, not much thicker than a pallet. They were too early. The moving preparations had barely begun.
“It’s a random act of kindness,” Vijay explained. “Sabrina said to me she was moving this morning, so I came to be of assistance.”
“Isn’t that nice?” Mackenzie had a funny smile on her face as she led them into the living room. “Sabrina? Your movers have arrived.”
Sabrina entered, daubing a towel on her damp hair. She wore loose batik drawstring pants and a brief tank top that tented over her small, high breasts. Kit dropped his gaze to her bare feet, long and bony, then back up, drawn by the irresistible allure of perky, pointed nipples. Vijay was looking at the ceiling. Parker was looking in the same place Kit was, only his mouth was hanging open, showing a tongue wet with spittle.
A modest woman would have clutched the towel to her chest. Sabrina took a long look at the men, then bent at the waist to briskly rub her hair dry. She straightened, flinging the entire curly length of it back off her face. Her breasts moved beneath the top, rounding in the scoop neck before resettling, and Kit thought Parker was about to go into cardiac arrest. His own heart was jumping around in his chest like a caged monkey.
Unfazed, Sabrina threw the towel on the couch and put her hands on her hips. “Hi, gang. What’s up?”
Kit looked at Parker who looked at Vijay who was still looking at the ceiling.
“They’re here to help you move,” Mackenzie said. She stepped farther into the small, cozy room and plopped into a cushy armchair with an unexplained chuckle. She crossed her bare legs, pulling the robe over them. Kit had the sense that she was accustomed to sitting back and observing her sister’s untidy life with a fond, amused tolerance.
“Oh.” Sabrina’s nose crinkled. “All three of you, huh?”
“Muscle power,” said Kit.
“Such beautiful ladies should not be lifting heavy boxes,” Vijay said.
“The more hands we have, the faster it’ll go.” Parker forgot about ogling and cracked his knuckles. “Your new place is a third floor walk-up, hey? Big job.”
“Not as much as you’d think,” Mackenzie said from the depths of the chair.
“I appreciate the thought, guys.” Sabrina came forward and gave Vijay’s cheek a pat. “But it’s not exactly necessary.”
A lot of Kit’s reactions to Sabrina weren’t necessary, but he had them anyway. After undertaking years of travel and adventure while he tried to figure out his place in the world, he’d finally come to the point where he was ready to settle down and make a real home. By all rights, he should have been attracted to Mackenzie. She appeared to be precisely the kind of woman who would suit his new vision for his life. But he couldn’t get Sabrina out of his head.
“We want to help,” said a ruddy-cheeked Vijay.
“You might be fooled,” Parker said, putting a hand on his midsection, “but this isn’t fat—it’s muscle.”
“Of course it is.” Sabrina reached out and squeezed Parker’s biceps. “One-hundred-percent muscle.”
“We’re here,” Kit said. “You might as well take advantage of us. We have a cab waiting outside, but we can also call for a van….”
Sabrina cocked her head to aim a smile his way, but she didn’t turn toward him or touch him. He tried not to feel seriously deprived, especially when he saw the chili pepper tattoo on the back of her bare shoulder. That tattoo had been driving him crazy for a week, peeping out from under the straps of her sleeveless dresses and tops, never quite showing itself.
“The thing is,” she said, “I travel light. Did you see the stuff in the hallway?” She gestured. “That’s all there is, aside from a garment bag and bunch of cleaning supplies that Mackenzie’s going to lug over so she can scrub out my new place.”
“You don’t have furniture?” Vijay asked, dismayed.
Parker was gleeful. “Man, this is the best moving job ever.”
Kit clapped his hands, being brisk to cover up his dismay at discovering that Sabrina was as flighty and footloose as he’d suspected. “Let’s load up then. Our cab’s waiting.”
He knew what it was like to travel light, had been that way himself for years. But he’d had enough of that lifestyle. Everything had changed for him a couple of months ago when he’d stood over a gravesite in Cleveland and said goodbye to the only family he’d had left. Now that he was completely and utterly alone, he finally understood how important it was to make a bond, to build a family, to have someone to hold on tight to.
First step was finding that someone.
Sabrina Bliss was the slippery type. Not what he was looking for.
“I can do it myself,” she was insisting, but the men were already discussing who should take which end of the futon. Kit solved the problem by slinging the awkward bundle over his shoulder. “Wait, let me get my shoes,” Sabrina said as he grabbed a string-tied shoe box and headed out. Mackenzie had already run off to the bedroom to change.
The luggage and the shoe boxes went into the cab’s trunk. Kit had to wedge the futon, folded like an overstuffed crepe, into the back seat. Sabrina loped out of the brownstone in sandals, her damp hair flying behind her. She climbed into the cab with her garment bag and a big straw satchel, sliding herself into a space beneath the futon.
Kit asked the driver if it was okay for a passenger to sit up front. “Mackenzie?” he said, opening the door.
She rattled down the stoop with a mop and a broom and a bucket filled with assorted cleansers, dressed in comfy sweats with her house key held between her teeth. “Mmph.”
He got her settled, then peered in the back of the cab. “Room for one more—the muscle of this operation.”
Vijay and Parker bumped into each other trying to get there first, but Kit moved nimbly past them and bent one end of the futon so he could squash it down and fit inside, his legs arranged like puzzle pieces. “Take the next cab,” he said, winking to the losers as the taxi drove away.
Sabrina stared straight ahead for a silent minute. “But Vijay doesn’t have the street address,” she said after they’d turned the corner onto Ninth Avenue.
“Damn,” Kit said cheerfully. Her thigh was pressed against his and he could feel the dampness of her hair seeping into his T-shirt. Her shampoo smelled like flowers in the rain.
Sabrina didn’t seem too concerned. “I guess we can manage on our own.” Her eyes slid sideways toward Kit. “Seeing as the muscle’s here.”
Mackenzie hooked a hand over the seat back as she turned to speak to them. “But that was rude, leaving Parker and Vijay at the curb when they were nice enough to…” Her voice trailed off when she saw that Kit and Sabrina weren’t really listening.
They were looking into each other’s eyes, pushing the rolled and folded futon down across their laps. “I’ll make it up to them,” Sabrina murmured.
“I’ll buy them beers after work.” Kit had never been this close to her. Her lashes were brown, and one of her eyes was slightly darker than the other, hazel mottled by green and gold flecks. Her nose was narrow, with a sharp tip, but her mouth looked soft, especially when she wet her lips. She didn’t have on a speck of makeup and he could see a couple of freckles and tiny dots of moles, plus a thin white scar on her chin and small lines around her mouth—imperfections that made her even more perfect. He thought that she was the kind of girl who wouldn’t care if her hair got tangled in the wind. She would exchange fun days in the hot sun for a few extra wrinkles later on. She’d laugh and frown and wear her expressions on her face without scheduling Botox injections first.
The lonely boy inside Kit wanted her as a friend. The man on the outside simply wanted her.
