Free Better Than Chocolate by Sheila Roberts Page B

candy recipe just like Great-grandma Rose had done all
those years ago.
    Could she, though? No-o-o. Instead of dreaming up a new recipe
that would put them on the map, she spent her REM sleep hours running from King
Kong–size candy-bar monsters that chased her all over town, trying to squash her
with their big, flat feet. Finally three of them cornered her right in front of
the bank.
    “Get her,” growled one, and raised a giant foot.
    “No,” she cried. “I’ll do anything. Anything!”
    So far in her dream she’d appeared to be the last living soul
in Icicle Falls but suddenly the bank door opened and Blake Preston stood in the
doorway dressed in leopard-print boxers. “Did you say you’d do anything? ” he asked.
    “Anything,” she panted. He took her by the arm and pulled her
inside the bank.
    There she saw that all the desks had been replaced with round
beds draped in pink satin bedspreads and the ceiling was one gigantic mirror. In
another corner sat a hot tub, bubbling with chocolate.
    Blake slipped an arm around her waist. “I’ve been waiting for
you,” he whispered. He tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and nibbled her
earlobe, turning her insides gooey. “Why don’t you lose that dress and join me
in the hot tub?”
    “Will you save me from the monsters?” she asked him.
    “Of course. That’s what men are for, isn’t it? Look how Waldo
saved your mother.”
    “Aack.” She covered her face with her hands.
    Blake started chuckling and she glanced up to see that he’d put
on some sort of Dracula cape and sprouted fangs. And they were dripping
chocolate.
    She let out a shriek and ran for the door. But then she caught
sight of a big, brown monster eye peering in at her and dashed blindly in the
other direction with Blake in hot pursuit, his cape flying out behind him.
    “Bwa-ha-ha. You know you want me,” he cackled.
    “I want to save my company!” she yelled over her shoulder.
“Sign something that guarantees you’ll save my company.”
    “First let’s seal the deal,” he called as he chased her around
a bed. “Come on, Samantha, you know you want to.”
    “I shouldn’t do this,” she said, and hesitated, which gave him
time to get around the bed and catch her. “It’s all right,” he murmured as he
kissed her neck. “Trust me.”
    Next thing she knew he was helping her strip off her little
black dress. And lo and behold, she was wearing leopard-print panties and a
matching bra.
    “Now, sign this,” he said, and produced some sort of contract
and a pen shaped like a licorice stick. Samantha took it and scrawled her name
across the bottom of the document. “What did I just sign?”
    Blake scooped her up in his arms and smiled at her. “You signed
your life away, baby. You sold your company to Madame C.”
    The cheap chocolate company in Seattle? “No!” she protested,
and struggled to get free.
    “And now nobody needs you anymore.” With her still squirming in
his arms, he flew over to the hot tub and dropped her in. “ Sayonara, sweet cheeks,” he said, and began pushing her head
down.
    She wakened just before she drowned, sitting up with a jerk and
panting, covered in sweat. What kind of sick subconscious did she have, anyway?
She pushed her hair out of her eyes and lay back down with a whimper. Nibs
slowly made his way across the bed to investigate and she drew him close.
    “Okay, it was only a dream,” she told herself. And one that had
convinced her that no matter how bad things got, she didn’t want to end it all
by drowning herself in chocolate.
    * * *
    Blake was picking up his midmorning Americano at
Bavarian Brews when he spotted Samantha Sterling coming through the door. She
wore a short, faux-fur-trimmed jacket over jeans that hugged her thighs and tall
black boots—typical Icicle Falls business casual. Except this woman made
business casual look erotic and he had to beat down a surge of red-hot lust. The
memory of her losing her temper at him doused