Sweet Nothings: A Karma Café Novella
Read Sweet Nothings: A Karma Café Novella Online
Authors: Tawny Weber
Tags: #Karma Café Series, #Book 2
Sweet Nothings
A Karma Café Novella
Tawny Weber
Sweet Nothings: A Karma Café Novella
Copyright © 2013 by Tawny Weber
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.
All texts contained within this document are a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons (living or dead), is entirely coincidental.
Chapter One
There was delicious, and then there was
delicious
.
Crowded around a café table with seven chattering women who looked at her as a combination of their favorite little sister and a kid to be protected was probably the wrong time to fall into deep lust.
Still, Bianca Snow eyed the golden crust of the apple tart in the dessert display next to her table. Her gaze shifted to the sexy guy across the room. She wasn’t sure which she’d rather nibble on first.
She shouldn’t be hungry for either.
She’d just eaten a yummy bowl of rich minestrone soup with a homemade yeast roll.
So she should be full.
Last week, she’d been dumped by yet another jerk who subscribed to the idiot mindset that
good girls didn’t
. Didn’t have needs, didn’t have wants, didn’t have the
utter gall
to suggest a little hanky-panky after a tenth date.
A suggestion that’d taken her eight dates to work up the nerve to make.
She should be jaded.
But both the tart and the guy were making her mouth water.
Because the guy across the room was hot. Not in the usual, fancy CEO or snazzy lawyer way so common in this part of San Francisco. Although his pricey shoes and leather jacket said he’d probably hold his own with their income bracket. Sun-streaked brown hair shagged around his face like he’d been too distracted to get it cut. His face was made up of sharp angles, his lips full and even across the room, his eyes held an intensity that made her shiver, even though she couldn’t tell their color.
Every time he looked at her, she got a tingle. The kind that made her want to walk across the crowded cafe and ask him if he preferred his women covered in chocolate, whipped cream, or both.
Except she didn’t do that kind of thing. She didn’t approach men, she didn’t ask them out, and she’d never found a guy who thought of her in dessert-terms.
Dammit.
“Dessert, ladies?” Anja Karmanski’s smile encompassed the eight women at the table. Or, really since the Karma Café was a small place, the two tables shoved together to seat the noisy bunch.
Bianca knew Anja wasn’t smiling just because it was her job, or even because she was glad to have seats filled.
Anja’s smile was simply Anja. Fun, sexy, friendly and a little mysterious. Exactly the kind of woman Bianca wished she could be. Which was saying a lot given that she was usually surrounded by seven strong, independent, savvy women who she wished she could be like, too.
All related in some way, some were sisters, others cousins even once or twice removed. But each and every one, the Miner women were amazing.
They’d given her a safe haven when she’d shown up on her best friend’s doorstep with a broken arm, dislocated shoulder and a symphony of bruises. Having finally found the nerve to run from an abusive home at the age of sixteen, they’d opened their arms, their hearts and their home. They’d given her a job, a life, a sense of strength and purpose she hadn’t believed was in her.
What they couldn’t give her, though, was a confidence. Not in herself as a woman. Between her admiration of them, and her voracious romance novel obsession, Bianca knew what kind of woman she wanted to be. She just didn’t know how to get there.
Café sounds, chatter and utensils, all muted into a background hum. Around her, her adopted family ordered dessert, talked business and guys, making plans and laughing happily.
Bianca didn’t join the fun. Instead she stared at the crumbs on her plate and sighed. It seemed like the only person she didn’t wish she could be like was herself.
Quiet girls like her who looked fairytale sweet didn’t attract sexy guys with a talent for rocking the bed. Or the table, or oh man, a wall somewhere. Bianca poked at her crumbs with a fork, wanting more than anything to be the kind of woman who attracted that kind of guy, instead of ones who thought she’d make a nice Sunday School teacher.
Even more, she wished she were brave enough to believe she could handle that kind of guy. But she’d used up all her brave years ago. Ever since, she was all about staying safe.
She stole another glance across the room. The hottie looked over at the same time. Their eyes met.
Lust washed over her in a sizzling shower. Everything went warmed from her cheeks to her thighs, and all the vital points in between. He was the kind of guy who would accept a woman’s sexuality, encourage it even.
The kind who said safe was for sissies.
At least, that’s what the desire pounding through her body told her. It could be wrong. It clearly had its own agenda.
His stare was thrilling. It kindled answering tingles, sending sparks to parts that had been dormant so long, she’d been afraid they’d need jumper cables to ignite.
“Bianca?” Anja asked, laughing a little.
Bianca blinked when she saw everyone at the table was staring at her.
“I think Bianca’s eyeing herself a different kind of dessert.” Joy gave a little head tilt toward the hottie.
“Oooh,” the other six women said in unison.
“Stop,” Bianca muttered as her cheeks heated. Once they all got going, the teasing would last for days.
“I can see why you’d be hungry for him instead of Gramma Odette’s apple tarts,” Anja said, giving Bianca’s shoulder an encouraging pat. It was like being zapped by an electrical current. Sparks flashed so strong through her body she was surprised she didn’t glow blue. Shivering, Bianca reached up to check her hair to see if it’d curled.
What the heck?
“Did you want an introduction?” Anja offered quietly as she glanced across the room. “Or just a little inside information?”
“Information,” chorused seven women.
“Introduction,” Bianca insisted, surprising even herself at the brave request. She ignored the worried frowns around the table. They were too over-protective. She knew it was only because they cared so much, but jeez already. Enough was enough. She was twenty-four. A big girl. Maybe not brave enough to face her past, but dammit, she was strong enough to date a sexy guy.
Wasn’t she?
The last three guys they’d set her up with had been nice enough. Nice jobs, nice looks, but holy cow, they’d been uptight bores. Didn’t she deserve a little fun? A little wild times with the kind of guy she always read about? Her eyes sought the hottie again and she sighed. A few orgasms while her body was still young. Was that too much to ask for?
Maybe it was the intense stares of the other women around the table, or maybe Anja didn’t think Bianca could handle a guy who hadn’t passed a background check. But instead of leading the way across the room, the dark-haired gypsy leaned one slender hip against an empty chair and tapped her finger against her chin.
“Let’s see... He’s single, I know because my mother has been trying to get me to wait on him all week. Since she’s still obsessed with marrying me off, I’ve been avoiding him like the plague. From what I’ve heard of his accent, I think he’s probably east coast. Mother told Gramma Odette that he’s just visiting, not moving this way. He prefers soup over salad, fruit over chocolate and drinks black coffee by the gallon.”
“He’s just visiting?” Bianca repeated, biting her lip. The first guy to ever inspire her to move outside her comfort zone, and he lived outside her zip code, too.
Was that good?
Or bad?
“Oh, please,” Joy dismissed. “Like it’d matter if he lived across the street. C’mon, Bianca. You’re not going to hit on some guy in a café. You’re too smart for that.”
Smart, as in she should know she couldn’t handle a guy like that, Joy’s meant.
“But she’s obviously interested,” Grace argued. Bianca perked up, smiling at the support. Then Grace continued, “Maybe one of us can go talk to him. Get some information and decide if he’s okay, then Anja can make an introduction.”
Bianca’s shoulders drooped.
Why didn’t they fingerprint him and run a credit check, too?
“This is silly. Bianca, I know the perfect guy for you,” Serenity said, leaning around the arguing women to peer down the table. “He’s a preschool teacher.”
Be still my heart
. Bianca almost groaned aloud.
“Drinking that much coffee can cause erectile issues, you know,” Rue pointed out helpfully.
Lovely.
She decided to ignore them all.
So did Anja, who was watching Bianca with an odd light in her eyes.
Unable to meet Anja’s gaze for long. The other woman always looked like she was peering into her soul, so Bianca looked back at the hottie again. He was smiling as he talked to Natalia. And oh, what a smile. It made her tummy do a roller coaster style loop-di-loop.
Suddenly, more than anything, she wanted to be the type of woman who could attract—and handle—a guy like that. The type who went after what she wanted instead of waiting around and wishing. The type a man would want, would even crave because she was so fascinating.
And there was nothing fascinating about sitting quietly in the corner, wondering what it was like to live an exciting life. She was never going to get what she wanted, in life or in bed, just sitting around wishing for some fluttery fairy to wave a wand and change her life. If she wanted those wishes to come true, she was going to have to get her butt in gear and start making them happen.
Even if the idea of doing all of that was a little scary.
Her eyes locked on the hot guy across the room again. He was perfect.
Gorgeous.
Sexy.
Easygoing, if his chatting with Natalia was any indication.
And an out-of-towner.
Temporary yumminess.
What better guy to try to experiment with.
With that in mind, Bianca pushed back her chair. She was doing it. She was going to introduce herself.
As she tried to stand, her chair hit the wall, the seat banging into the back of her knees, her butt hitting the surface again. Her elbow hit the table, sending a glass flying and dishes clattering.