Sweet Nothings: A Karma Café Novella Read Online Free

was she hesitating?
    She was cozied up in timid-ville, gazing wistfully over the brave fence, wishing she qualified for residency. Only once had she ever snuck over the fence, using up all her brave-mojo escaping a miserable home situation at sixteen. And instead of starting a precedent to bravery, starting a new life had pretty well cemented her desire to hunker down where life was safe and challenge-free.
    But now she felt like she was standing on the edge of a cliff. She could stay in the safe zone, go through that door and quietly do her job. Or she could take a leap over the scary edge, walk through that door with the intention of seducing the sexiest guy she’d ever seen slurp soup.
    The safe zone was comfy, but the scary edge held the prospect of great sex. And all she was doing now was peeking over the edge. That didn’t mean she had to dive over the side. If it turned out that the guy wasn’t as nice as he was cute, hey, no harm no foul. Stepping back in the safe zone in those circumstances wasn’t a retreat. It was being a smart woman.
    “You’re smart, Bianca, not chicken,” she muttered to herself as she lifted the bag again and stepped up to the door. “Smart women go for what they want instead of running from it.”
    She’d spent eight years surrounded by smart women. Seven of them, all ballsy, all strong. Wasn’t it about time she started acting more like them, instead of hiding behind them?
    She lifted her hand to knock, then when there was no reply, followed Natalia’s instructions and used her key to let herself in.
    With her friendliest, greet the client smile plastered on her face, she entered the apartment.
    The radio was playing, but the room was empty.
    “Hello?” she called.
    Nothing.
    No sexy hottie coming out of the bedroom. No gorgeous guy ready to parlay her attempted flirting into a full-blown affair.
    Nothing.
    She frowned at the small boom box on the counter, then the bank of lush greenery, a ficus and fern, two pathos and a palm in the window caught her eye. She remembered Anja arguing with her mother about always leaving music on for the plants at night. Anja, whose apartment was across the hall, must have won the debate over what time of day the plants needed to rock out.
    Bianca sighed, her heart settling back to its normal rhythm. The nervous excitement drained, leaving her a little flat.
    No biggie. She’d proven to herself that she could do it. She’d walked through that door with the intention to seduce a hot guy. She, who’d never so much as flirted first.
    Dropping to the floor and scooting under the wooden frame that would, before the end of the day, hold a miniature kitchen sink, she grinned.
    She should be proud.
    She eyed the pipe she was there to install and hummed a sad little sound.
    With a twist of her wrist, Bianca shut off the water to the apartment in preparation for installing the sink. She started measuring and fitting pipe, writing the numbers on her hand. Six, nine... her breath caught as she imagined putting those numbers to better use with the apartment’s current resident.
    Was he the kind of guy who liked a little sixty-nine action?
    Was she ?
    Was he able to multi-task? Enjoy his pleasure while putting his tongue to good use at the same time? And just how good was his tongue, she wondered. Was he a slow and methodical lover? Or was he the kind to plunge, hot and fast, with a wild sort of rhythm that would shut her mind down and send her body careening out of control?
    Sexy scenes from every romance novel she’d ever devoured flashed through her mind.
    Her breath a little shaky, she wished she’d worn short sleeves instead of long. Maybe she should twist the valve again and send a little cold water over her head.
    The image of that quickly morphed into hot, gorgeous and sexy from the café, with other things gushing.
    She groaned.
    “Ahem.”
    Bianca froze. Her body went from turned on to tense in a heartbeat.
    Well, hell.
    Guess hottie was here