The Chocolate Touch by Laura Florand Read Free Book Online

again, confused.
    “Non, non. Il vous les offre.” It’s a gift. He offers them to you.
    How incredibly sweet. He must just love his open admirers. She slipped it into her worn, woven purse, wishing it was the kind of memento she could keep forever instead of one that had to be eaten within days or lose its quality.
    She heard the music as she stepped out of the shop. Her heart already lifted, it was easy to turn toward the sound, to head toward the Place de la République and its crowd of dancing people.
     
    Dominique always liked that first moment when he stepped into the street, carrying the scent of cacao with him so strongly that people turned to look at him, trying to catch his flavor. It was so vividly better than stepping into the street smelling of blood and death. Better, even, than stepping out smelling of the cacophony of scents he would pick up cooking, anything from onions to pumpkin, when he had been apprenticed to a chef; or that butter and flour scent when he had been shifted over to pastries.
    He heard the music from the Place de la République and smiled. He kind of liked forging his way through protests on his way home from work. And he loved the way people would come into his salon to relax over sumptuous desserts after an hour or so of energetic protesting. Paris. Nobody did life better.
    It was a pro-immigration or anti-discrimination protest—he could tell before he even got close enough to see the signs, from the diversity of the crowd, every ethnicity from the nearly pure black of Senegalese to the bronze of Moroccans to the white skin and bright blond hair from Poland. With a liberal dose of nos-ancêtres-les-Gaulois French who sympathized with the cause. A punk rock group was playing on a stage under the proud statue of Marianne, symbol of the French Republic; he could only make out half the words, but the group was known for its anti-discrimination themes.
    All the streets were blocked to car traffic, and the white vans of riot police formed stern lines up the edges of those streets, reminding the protesters what would happen if things got out of hand. But the police themselves lounged tranquilly in the vans as the crowd danced with bobbing signs for the television cameras but continued to play nice.
    He spotted his inconnue dancing happily near the fringe as he came closer and felt a little jolt to his heart. She had a big grin on her face, as if she didn’t want to think of anything in the world but dancing.
    He stopped unnoticed a few meters away from her at the edge of the crowd and was just thinking about joining her when she stopped grinning and moved out of the crowd.
    Two men followed her, closing in even as he moved forward to meet her. He had just time to glimpse the stark, ferocious expression on her face, out of all proportion to the situation, when he reached them. The two men were grinning, moving far too close to her and looming over her; he caught the words “my dick.”
    He grabbed her arm and yanked her from between the two of them so that she fell against his chest. “Fuck off,” he told the two men, showing the edge of his teeth.
    He had an instant to realize he had scared the hell out of her when she jerked wildly, and then all the tension drained out of her and she looked up.
    She relaxed to—an incredible degree. He couldn’t possibly be that reassuring.
    The two men bristled, and instantly the berserker urge swept him, the violent pleasure at the idea of taking them on and anyone else in the mob they pulled with them. What did he care if he ended up bloodied and beaten? He had survived it before. He grabbed her shoulder, ready to fling her out and straight toward the protection of the riot police.
    But the older con flicked a glance over Dom’s hard body and carnivorous expression. “Connard. Je t’emmerde.” The asshole turned sullenly back into the crowd, the younger one growling but following suit. If it took two of them to go after one small woman, one by