The Chocolate Seduction

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“You can come, too,” he said, “for beer.”

“I have the whole day off.” Her mouth, which was wide, became even wider when it stretched into a quick grin. “I needed it to make my big move, although I may have exaggerated the undertaking to Dominique and Curt.”

“You do have to wait for the cable guy. That could take all day.”

“Not on a Sunday. Besides, I don’t have a TV. Maybe I can wangle another day off to wait for the phone guy.”

They could have a fling, Kit thought. Sabrina was a flingy kind of woman. Just because he hoped to settle down didn’t mean every date had to be taken with serious intentions. It would be okay, spending several weeks, maybe a month—or two—with Sabrina. From the little he knew of her work history, and going by the severe lack of possessions, she didn’t stick with anything for long. She’d be ready to move on before he started feeling too serious about her. They’d go their separate ways, no harm, no foul.

A perfectly imperfect solution.

“So you’re saying you have a free day with almost nothing to do?” Kit eyed Sabrina.

She’d turned her face away, but he could see her very flirtatious, very female smile. “I wonder what I should do with myself. Any suggestions?”

“You’re forgetting the cleaning,” Mackenzie said, raising her voice above the traffic.

“That should take an hour.” Sabrina glanced at Kit. “Not only is my new place a scuzzy rat hole, it’s an extremely small scuzzy rat hole.”

“Welcome to the Manhattan working class.” He touched his fingertips to her leg, feeling the heat of her skin through the thin cotton pants. The scratchy seat of the cab thrummed beneath him. “What should we do with the rest of the day?”

“We?”

“I’m not working until the dinner shift.”

“Umm.” Sabrina jiggled her leg and he lifted his fingers away for an instant before dropping his palm over her thigh, soothing the pent-up energy that ran through her like an electric current. He heard as her breath caught short, then released in a luxurious sigh. “Umm. I suppose we’ll have to think of a way to entertain ourselves.”

At her low velvety purr, Kit’s libido leaped right past thoughts of homey comforts and women who’d make good wives and mothers. Parker had been right—this was the best moving job ever.

“Stop!” Mackenzie suddenly commanded from the front seat. “Stop. Right here, in front of the candy store.”

The car screeched across a lane of traffic and pulled halfway into an illegal parking spot by a fire hydrant. “Mizzy, I can’t stay here—” the driver beseeched as his passenger jumped from the cab.

Kit gaped at what had caught Mackenzie’s attention. The display window of the narrow storefront was piled high with gold boxes and trays of chocolates in all sizes and shapes. Sabrina leaned past the futon, took one look and muttered a dire warning under her breath.

Mackenzie slammed the car door as she got out. “I’ll only be a minute. I need to buy my sister a housewarming gift.” Suddenly her face loomed in the open back window, serious with a disapproval Kit didn’t understand. “A nice big box of fudge.”

“NO, THIS ISN’T the closet,” Sabrina said, triumphantly throwing open the door of her third-floor flat after a delay that had entailed a journey into a dark, dank basement to hunt down the super and receive her new keys. “It’s the apartment.”

The wall opposite was so close it bore scrape marks from the front door. Kit edged in backward, dragging the futon. He expected to see a room opening off the narrow hall, so it took him a few seconds to understand that the hall was the room. It widened by several feet on the right—that was the living room—and culminated in a tiny stove and a sink built into the wall on the left, which was the kitchen. The scarred doors midway in between might open onto a vast ballroom with skylights and a light-filled conservatory, but he was betting on a closet and airplane-sized bathroom. Although the ceiling over the living area was high, it slanted sharply, giving the space an odd lopsided feel.

There was only one place to put the futon. He dropped it beneath a double-hung window covered with filth so thick it served as soundproofing as well as an effective sunblock. A layer of black soot lined the sill. It was only May, but already the apartment was airless and stifling.

Mackenzie hauled in the cleaning supplies. She carried the enormous box of fudge to the kitchen, took one look at the stained sink and said, “Sabrina, are you sure about this? I’ll loan you the money for first and last if you want to get a bigger place….”

“Nonsense. If I’m going to be responsible and live within my means, this was the best I could find in a safe neighborhood. You can think of the place as an atelier, if that helps. I’ll give the walls a coat of paint and it will be fine for a year.” She glanced at Kit. “Or at least a few months.”

Stepping on the futon, Sabrina flicked the latch and tugged on the window. It didn’t budge. Kit shoved hard on the upper sill and it opened with a screech of the ancient wood and a shower of paint chips. The view was of electric lines looped to the backside of an old button factory on West End Avenue. An enormous water tower loomed beyond the neighboring brick ledge, which threw a shadow into the apartment.

Sabrina wilted. “I’ll paint it sunshine yellow.”

“If you want to live in an egg yolk. Personally, I’d paint everything a bright, clean white. And put up a lot of mirrors.” Mackenzie approached the taps with caution. The pipes clanked when she turned on the water, then spurted out a stream of rusty water.

Kit lugged in the suitcase and the backpack. Sabrina hung her garment bag in the closet and put her shoe boxes on the open shelves above a built-in dresser. “There you go. I’m all moved in.” She dusted off her hands. “Yet another benefit of traveling light.”

“How do you live without accumulating stuff?” Mackenzie asked over the sound of rushing water filling her bucket. “Don’t you read? Listen to music? Cook?” She dumped in half a bottle of Mr. Clean. The stagnant air grew sharp with ammonia.

“I give books away when I’m finished with them. I go to clubs for music. Pots and pans I leave behind for the next tenant.”

Kit leaned across Mackenzie to open the kitchen cupboards. “You’re going to need new ones now. These are empty.” Except for the roaches, scuttling toward the cracks and crevices.

Sabrina had regained her optimism. “Good—a reason to go to the flea market.”

Kit thought of the displays of stainless steel cookware in Williams-Sonoma. Glasses, china, silver…He could outfit her kitchen faster than a bridezilla with a scanner in one hand and a registry in the other. But Sabrina would probably hate that.

Could he have a fling with a woman who didn’t know the joys of copper-bottomed sauté pans?

One look at her bending over to unzip the suitcase answered that question. Hell, yes.

In the other direction, Mackenzie was down on hands and knees scrubbing out the undercounter refrigerator. Her rear end was better than Sabrina’s, from an objective viewpoint. He gazed thoughtfully, but aside from a pleasant moment of appreciation for the female form, Mackenzie’s backside did little for him.

“What are you looking at, Kit?” Sabrina stood watching him, a small tarnished bronze horse statue in her hands.

“I was wondering where to put a dining table.”

“I don’t need one. I’ll eat cross-legged on the futon.”

“Too many crumbs. You’ll get roaches.”

“She already has roaches,” Mackenzie said under her breath.

“That’s not civilized,” Kit insisted. He’d hated the stuffy sit-down dinners at his guardian’s house, but then a few years later when his last-chance foster mother—a Frenchwoman known to all as Ma’am—had laid down the law that her kids must be home for dinner every evening, he’d come to look forward to the tradition. Even though on arrival he’d rudely sworn he’d break every rule she set. A proper dinner and the conversation and connection it established between the “family” had ended up being a rule that held deep significance for him.

“You definitely need a table,” he said.

“I might be able to wedge a bistro table in here. Or I could put it on the fire escape.”

“And when it rains?”

“I’ll eat at Decadence.”

“We can fit one in the hall, here, if the table’s narrow enough. Very, very narrow—a console.” He measured the space with hand spans. “The chairs would have to tuck under or there’d be no room to walk by.”

Sabrina shrugged. “Good thing I’m skinny.”

The comment drew his eyes to her like a moth hurtling into a flame. He could almost hear the snap and sizzle of his single-minded desire hitting the blaze. Her golden hair had dried into rippling waves that skimmed over her shoulder blades. The red pepper tattoo flashed at him, then disappeared when she twisted and turned. He loved watching her move—bending, lifting, stretching to place items from her shoe boxes on her freshly scrubbed shelves, every motion suffused with the athletic grace of a ballerina.

“What now?” she said, catching his eye.

“Were you ever a dancer?”

Her eyes danced while the rest of her went still. “Are you telling me I look anorexic?”

“No. But you could use some fattening up.”

Mackenzie sat back on her heels. “Sabrina’s the ectomorph of the family.” She swiped the heel of a rubber-gloved hand over her brow. “I’ve learned to accept that.”

“Ah, but you’re sisters—both attractive, in your own way.” Kit reached for the broom. “It’s just my cooking gene showing. You have an instinct to nest, Sabrina has one to roam, and I want to stock and furnish this sad excuse for a kitchen.”

Having emptied the suitcase, Sabrina zipped it shut and trundled it into the closet. “I can’t get used to being around all these men who cook,” she said from inside the door. “If only the average husband knew how attractive their wives would find them if they put on an apron now and again.” She poked her head out and winked at Kit. “Tell me, do you have groupies, huh?”

He batted her gorgeous backside with the broom. “Only you.”

“That’s what you think,” she said with an airy laugh. “Actually, I’m only interested in the chocolate.”

He raised a wicked eyebrow. “Hmm. Is that so?”

She blushed. Must have remembered previously admitting to her sweet tooth deficiency. “It is. Now that I’m in restaurant management, I have to develop my taste buds.”

“I’ll cook for you anytime.” He hadn’t meant for his voice to lower, but it had, making the offer more suggestive than friendly. Sabrina swayed toward him, her eyes liquid and alive.

Mackenzie gave a discreet cough.

Sabrina was quick to back off, blinking. “That won’t be necessary, thanks. The super told me there’s a Korean grocery around the corner. I’ll go later and pick up a few staples.”

“There’s always the fudge,” Mackenzie said. “A piece a day keeps the testosterone away.”

“What does that mean?” Kit asked, sensing an undercurrent between the sisters. They were up to something.

“Oh, nothing you’d want to know about, Chocomeister.” Sabrina’s voice was too innocent. “Wowza,” she said, “there’s a giant spider web in here. With mummified remains and all. Give me that broom.” She held out an open hand, her long fingers motioning to him from around the closet door.

Kit came up behind her. “Aren’t you afraid of spiders?”

“Not at all. I’ve lived in too many hovels to squeal over every creepy-crawly creature that appears.” She lay her hand on his forearm. The hair on it prickled even after she’d released him, muttering a throaty “Sorry.”

He slid in beside her, making as if he was examining the web, but actually consumed with the sweep of her hair over his arm, the warmth of her body so close to his. The sound of her breathing filled the closet. Was it short? Was it shallow? Was she as aware of him as he was of her?

“Do you have a paper?” he croaked.

“Umm.” Sabrina left the closet, but was back in an instant, handing him a white square. “A paper towel.”

He took it, angling toward the spider web. She leaned with him, her arm resting across his shoulders. “What are you doing?” she whispered. “Just kill it. Stomp it.”

He touched the paper towel to the web, coaxing the fat spider onto it. “Out of my way.”

Sabrina nimbly stepped aside. He carried the paper towel to the open window, turning it over as the spider crawled along the edge toward his fingers. He shook the towel outside, over the fire escape. “Go, little spider. You’ve been set free.”

“Free to build a new web on my fire escape,” Sabrina said, elbows propped up on the sill beside him. A touch of a breeze fingered through her hair, blowing strands of it across his face. She drew it back behind her ears in the way that women did, making a ponytail. The neck of her top gaped a little, displaying her collarbone and the shadowed hollow between her breasts. He imagined touching her there, with his fingertips. Tasting her, with his lips.

Her mouth curved. “So…the mystery man reveals a soft heart.”

“I’m no mystery man.”

Her eyes engaged his. “And your heart?”

“Give it a little time,” he said. “Maybe you’ll find out.”

AN HOUR LATER, the three of them sat in a row on the thin futon, looking at the apartment, freshly cleaned but still sadly bleak. Mackenzie and Kit had stretched out their legs. Sabrina’s knees were drawn up to use as a desk. She was making a list on the back of a dry cleaner’s receipt.

“Pillows,” Mackenzie said.

“Pots and pans,” said Kit.