Summer Fling Read Online Free Page A

curved. They’d been soft under
his, and she’d obviously had a piece of chocolate before she’d got on the plane
because he’d been able to taste the sweetness of it. He wanted to kiss her
again.
    “Stop it,” she scolded him. “Jeez, you’re
an incorrigible flirt. It might work on all the other women you come across, so
to speak, but it’s not going to work on me.”
    “Well, that’s a damn shame.”
    She bit her bottom lip, and he suspected
she was fighting a smile. He held his hand up in submission. “Okay, I’m sorry.
I don’t normally flirt like this. I’m a bit out of practice. You appear to
bring out the worst in me.” He decided to change tack. “Tell me more about why
you smell of chocolate. You said you are a chocolatier?”
    “Yes, I’m a qualified chocolate taster.”
She laughed as he widened his eyes. “I know, terrific job, isn’t it? The
equivalent of a guy taking photographs of lingerie models for a living, I would
think.”
    Images of Chloe Jackson in various pieces
of lingerie flickered through his mind. Sheesh. He was only human. Why did she
insist on tormenting him like this? No wonder the urge to flirt kept rising to
the fore. “Where do you work?”
    “A small chocolate factory in Whangarei.
It’s a bit of a commute, but I’m happy to travel for now because I like living
in the Bay of Islands. I love being near the sea. I go for a swim most mornings
in the summer.”
    Now he was picturing her in a bikini. Not
good. He had to divert his mind from any lewd topics. Her job. That might work.
What could be sexy about working in a factory? “So what does being a chocolate
taster involve? Apart from the obvious.”
    “I test the chocolate when it’s made to
ensure it’s up to scratch. I also travel to try chocolate from different parts
of the country. One day I’d like to go to places where the cocoa beans are
grown, like Venezuela, Brazil, and the Ivory Coast, as well as countries
notorious for their chocolate, like Belgium. I also come up with different
flavors and ideas for new products.” She glowed with enthusiasm.
    “If I did that job, I’d be grossly fat.” His
gaze skimmed her slender form. “Is it like being a wine connoisseur?”
    “Are you asking me if I spit or swallow?”
She kept her face carefully blank for about five seconds, then burst into
giggles. “Sorry. That one was totally my fault.”
    “And you accuse me of flirting?” So much
for being safe talking about her job.
    “Yeah I know. I won’t do it again, promise.
Anyway, in answer to your question, a chocolate taster is only supposed to
sample half a dozen pieces of chocolate at a time or it weakens the palate.”
    “So it’s a serious business, then? Not just
breaking off a chunk and...sucking it?” He couldn’t help it. Everything about
this woman made him think of sex.
    She’d clearly followed his train of
thought, but her challenging gaze conveyed her intention to resist his flirting.
“Chocolate contains over fifteen hundred flavor components. The beans
themselves have different tastes—coastal Venezuelan beans, for example, have a
dairy tang, but other beans from the region can taste of plums or cherries.
Mountain-grown beans tend to be nutty. English milk chocolate often has a
caramel taste, because of the caramelization of the milk. And that’s before you
take into consideration all the added flavors, like coconut, cinnamon, and
chilli.”
    “Wow.” That genuinely impressed him. “I
never realized so much art was involved. I only know the difference between a
Twix and a Kit Kat.”
    “I have a well-trained tongue.”
    And now they were back to sex again.
    Although when they’d first sat down she’d
tried to distance herself from him, her eyes glowed and the pulse in her throat
increased its rate. He wanted to lean forward and nuzzle her ear, press kisses
to her neck, touch his tongue to the place where the skin rose and fell so he
could feel the thunder of blood through her