Reawakened Passions. Megan Hart

that Jon remembered why. He’d seen a few ads for the sex toy company while surfing the internet. The ads had promised a wide selection of items geared toward women’s pleasure, along with packaging that might’ve been discreet but sure as hell wasn’t too sturdy. The box had split right open when it fell off the counter. Jumped off, more like it. Jon had seen it shift and move and knew right away why it had found a life of its own.

      It had something to do with the smell of lilac, and the music box tinkling he’d heard. Mel had heard it too. He saw it in her face just before she got that sultry, cat-in-heat look in her eyes. That look had faded, but looking down at her as she grabbed up the toy and tried without much success to shove it back in the broken box, Jon found himself wishing she was still looking at him like that.

      Her shoulders shook. With her head bent and her hair spilling over her shoulders and her face, he couldn’t see her expression. The low, stuttering noise coming from her throat told him a lot though. Shit. She was crying.

      Uncertainly, Jon touched her shoulder. The kitchen was so narrow that he couldn’t quite get down there on the floor with her… as appealing as that idea suddenly was. It would be cold and hard against his skin if he lay down on it, but her flesh would be hot when she climbed on top of him…

      “Shit,” he muttered aloud. Stop thinking about that. Stop it. This isn’t you. And it’s not her.

      He’d sensed the presence the second he came through the door. A woman, he thought. Like the guy in his place downstairs, she’d been here a long time. She stayed back, and Jon didn’t reach for her because Mel looked up at him then with her bright blue eyes, rimmed with some kind of dark liner. Sparkles. She wore sparkles on her lids, and it slayed him. And she wasn’t crying. She was laughing.

      Mel drew in a quick breath and let it out in a long stutter of giggles. Shaking her head, she got to her feet. There was obviously no use in trying to put the toy back in the package. Holding the box in one hand, the vibrator in the other, she shook her head.

      “A girl’s got to take care of business, if you know what I mean.”

      “Uh… yeah. Right.” It was a dumb thing to say, but it was the best he could do.

      Mel’s laughter faded away. Now it was just awkward. Coughing a little, she tucked the vibrator behind her back and scuffed at the tile floor with a toe that he hadn’t noticed until just now was bare. She’d painted her toenails bright red.

      The feminine presence stirred and shifted, moving closer. At the first whisper, Jon clenched his jaw. At the tickling touch of a fingertip along the back of his neck, his shoulders went stiff.

      He had to get out of here.

      “It was like someone had jabbed him with a pin. He ran out so fast I didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye. It was totally unreal.” Mel leaned on the counter while she waited for the barista to finish making her mocha. She’d ordered a double tall with extra whip—it had been that sort of week. Also a half dozen of the Morningstar Mocha’s featured cupcake, red velvet with cream cheese icing, because, hey, her rabbit didn’t care if her thighs were a little too jiggly.

      “Maybe he’s like, religious or something.” Today Tesla wore her platinum blond hair in a series of pin curls, a few of them colored bright pink. She and Mel had first bonded over their hair color. She pushed Mel’s cup across the counter. “On the house.”

      “I look that bad?” Mel took it. She wasn’t too proud to turn down free coffee.

      Tesla laughed. “Yeah. You look that bad.”

      “Thanks.” Mel rolled her eyes and sipped. “God. So good. Anyway, it’s not like I asked him to, I don’t know, help me test the batteries or anything like that. Not that I didn’t want to. My new neighbor is super F.I.N.E.”

      “Better not to um… defecate… where you eat,” Tesla advised with a small jerk of her chin toward the guy wiping down the tables in the front of the coffee shop. “Look at what happened to Darek.”

      Ooh. This was gossip. Mel leaned closer. “What happened to him?”

      “You know Brandy?”

      “Always chewing gum?” She’d waited on Mel a few times. Usually screwed up the orders in a way Tesla never did.

      “Yeah. Well. She and Darek were totally gaga for each other, right? But she up and dumped him a week ago. Guy’s been nothing but a mess ever since.” Tesla’s expression darkened. “Can’t get a decent day’s work out of him. And when they work together, God. Totally sucks.”

      “I wouldn’t have to work with him,” Mel reminded.

      “No, you’d have to live with him in the same building, and that would be worse!” Tesla shook her head and wiped the counter with a damp cloth before tossing it under the sink. “You’d have to hope he moved out, or you’d have to. And your apartment’s pretty great. Except for that weird stuff. What’s been going on with that?”

      The ghost in Mel’s apartment had become a running joke in her daily visits to the Morningstar Mocha, but Mel didn’t feel like laughing about it now. “Still weird. Now sort of extraweird.”

      “Extraweird? Do tell.” Tesla grinned, but her smile faded when she saw Mel wasn’t joking. “What?”

      Sometimes the Mocha overflowed with customers, which would’ve made this sort of conversation impossible, but today, just her luck, it was almost empty. Mel sighed and sipped at her mocha—perfectly prepared. “It’s going to sound crazy.”

      “Hmm. Double chocolate raspberry swirl muffin-level crazy?” Tesla pulled one out of the case and put it on a plate. “Because I think it’s just about time for me to take a break. C’mon.”

      Chuckling, Mel followed her to one of the tables near the front. In the bright sun things that went bump in the night seemed easier to talk about, even if she did still feel strange. She took one of the forks Tesla handed her and cut a bite off the muffin. “I told you about the smell and the music.”