Free Cherry Crush by Stephanie Burke Page A

some important way.
    Ash wanted training in the art of Reiki, spiritual healing, and had spent several weeks in his dojo and in his bed. She had recently left to make a pilgrimage to Japan to complete her training, leaving a hole in his bed if not in his heart.
    Though Ash had been special and understood his heritage better than most, she was not permanent. She was more like Cara, who was a vibrant woman who had just gotten out of a long relationship and wanted a short fling to ease their shared condition of loneliness.
    But now Laney had asked this of him. His Laney, his cute and sweet Laney. Oftentimes he thought that she was ‘not all there’, as they said in the city, but he found her perfect just the way she was.
    Now his Laney had asked something of him that he’d forced himself never to contemplate—issues that he always pushed aside.
    Laney needed protection, not lust.
    Laney, with her big, slanted brown eyes and rich brown skin…. Laney was someone special, someone otherworldly and untouched. Yet it appeared she was — for lack of a better term — going into heat!
    Laney horny? It just didn’t seem right. Laney lusting after him? That sounded good, no bad! Lust and Laney? That was a bad combo….right?

    “You are way too cute,” Laney snorted, eyes crinkling in laughter as she observed her teacher.
    One of the perks being best friends with the master sensei was all the secrets that certain pupils let out in her presence. True, in the past three years there had only been two women and then Ash, but all the shrieks and yells that came from his loft were not from private grappling lessons on a personal impact mat.
    Marlana had met Chan after he advertised that he had an open apartment right above his new dojo. Desperate for a place to live within her budget, she jumped very cautiously at the chance. She’d knocked on his door, hoping against hope that he wasn’t some loser pervert trying to get a free show through unseemly means and hidden cameras, and she certainly didn’t expect this serene, calm, longhaired man to answer.
    He took to her on sight, like a big brother, and halfway through her interview offered to teach her jiujutsu or karate—for her own good, of course. He felt she was too trusting.
    Soon after, she managed to land her dream job a few blocks from the dojo. Salvatore Bonmartio and his wife, a sweet Italian couple, owned Epicurean Fire, one of the only French Fusion restaurants in the area. Inez and Salvatore, after years of trying, were finally expecting their first child. With the upcoming pressures of preparing for the blessed event, they both decided that they needed someone a little more experienced than the average sous-chef to help run the kitchen.
    Laney, with her many years cooking with her world famous parents in their Parisian restaurant, The Spotted Calf, was just what the Bonmartio family needed and more than they could have hoped for.
    Not only did she bring old-world elegance to her dishes, she brought along a sense of fire and flare with her modern ideals of fusion cuisine.
    With her parents blessing, a stable living situation, and the job she knew would lead to bigger and better things, Laney settled into her new life in Baltimore and discovered she liked living on her own terms — without standing in the shadow of her parents or the constant pressure to be like them — just fine.
    As the sous-chef and replacement for Sal in the small French restaurant, she still couldn’t afford a car. The only recourse she had, other than putting herself in major debt, had been to walk home each evening after closing, clean-up and staff meetings.
    When Chan discovered her walking alone in the dark, blithely unaware of the risks she took as a single woman strolling through the city streets at night, he instantly volunteered to meet her at work and escort her safely home.
    His excuse had been that he needed the wind down from work and late night walking was a good form of