Room...but Not Bored!

Room...but Not Bored!
Dawn Atkins

Roommates are off-limits… aren't they?Ariel Adams hates everything about the beach. So when circumstances force her to move into a small beach house, she's convinced life can't get worse. It can. The house isn't empty. Inside, sports gear, dirty towels, a giant dog…and Jake Renner– the sexy handyman fixing up the cottage– fill the rooms to overflowing. So much for privacy! How is she supposed to share the cramped space with too-tempting Jake…and only a sheet dividing their bedrooms?Used to leading the life of a carefree bachelor, Jake knows Ariel thinks he's just another beach bum. To complicate matters, the more time he spends with Ariel, the more Jake finds himself unable to resist her. After a few wild encounters with her, Jake is hooked…and ready to prove to Ariel that they make better roommates when they're sharing the same bed!

Jake wasn’t just a beach bum who lived only to play…

“Taste this, Ariel,” Jake said, holding out a spoon dripping with chocolate, unaware of the swell of hope inside her. He was just going to feed her again, as he’d been doing since the day she arrived, a perfectly innocent gesture.

But this time it would mean more. Ariel gripped his wrist, pulled the spoon to her lips and slowly licked it, holding his gaze, her heart pounding, her pulse racing. What am I doing?

Jake’s eyes flared.

“Mmm,” she said, telling him she wanted more…much, much more. So much more that it would mean tearing down the sheet that acted as a wall between their beds.

“Ariel,” he whispered, then leaned in to kiss her. In the background she heard the phone ring, but this was one time she wasn’t going to answer.

Dear Reader,

This is a story about how love smoothes people’s rough edges, just as the waves polish stones on the beach. And Ariel Adams clearly needs some smoothing—even her name sounds sharp. And Jake Renner, for all his laid-back-beach-bum facade, needs Ariel to show him he’s outgrown looking ahead only as far as the next wave.

I share Ariel’s tendency to be ruled by plans and arrangements. I share her trouble with balancing work and fun, being able to say yes to something spontaneous. Writing about Ariel’s endless lists gave me a good laugh at myself.

And of course I adore Jake—he reminds me of my own husband, who loves water sports, too, and has a keen sense of fun. I love the way Jake nurtures Ariel with food and gives her permission to relax and enjoy life.

I hope you love Ariel and Jake as much as I do.

Best,

Dawn Atkins

P.S. I’d love to hear what you think of this book. Please write me at dawnatkins@cox.net. You can learn about my upcoming books at my Web site, www.dawnatkins.com.

Books by Dawn Atkins

HARLEQUIN TEMPTATION

871—THE COWBOY FLING

895—LIPSTICK ON HIS COLLAR

HARLEQUIN BLAZE

93—FRIENDLY PERSUASION

HARLEQUIN DUETS

77—ANCHOR THAT MAN!

91—WEDDING FOR ONE

TATTOO FOR TWO

Room…But Not Bored!

Dawn Atkins

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

To David, for making love so easy

Contents

Chapter 1 (#u50d3a22a-684b-52e7-a608-ad962d5ac549)

Chapter 2 (#u0b5fc3b0-c09c-54af-8d20-582293405ad0)

Chapter 3 (#u700bdf75-2ee5-505a-97c1-fd28ca200eb3)

Chapter 4 (#ucd8a3500-f7fe-5479-8283-33485f98aae8)

Chapter 5 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 6 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)

1

IN HEELS AND A BUSINESS SUIT, with two monstrous suitcases in her sweaty grip and her computer bag slung over her shoulder, Ariel Adams stood on the stone stairs that led down to the beach cottage she’d just acquired. She blinked against the silver flash of California sun on gentle waves and wondered what she’d done to deserve this hell.

Okay, so most people would consider the rippling ocean and white-sand beach where a man juggled driftwood for a rapt retriever and seagulls dipped and cried, to be picturesque and enticing—perfect for sunset strolls, refreshing swims and building sand castles. But Ariel Adams was not most people.

To her, the beach was too…beachy. A giant cat box with a shifty surface tough to walk on and a fishy smell. The beach meant grit and mildew and sea salt that scoured, stained and bleached everything.

No, Ariel did not like the beach. And now she had to live there. Her left eyelid twitched from exhaustion. Terminally jet-lagged after the flight from London, all she wanted was to sleep for a week. But she couldn’t afford that luxury. She had to figure out how to start her solo consulting business two years earlier than she’d planned. She sagged against the rusted guardrail, demoralized, until she repeated her mother’s motto in her head: Keep on keeping on.

Job one of keeping on was to cross this beach without ruining the high-dollar silk panty hose she’d bought in honor of her new life in London—the life her partner Trudy had thrown out the window. The twenty-seventh-floor office window of their client Paul Foster to be precise. That high up, the windows didn’t even open.

Paul and I are in love, Trudy had breathed, airy as a romance heroine, as if that were enough to explain how a perfectly sensible woman—Ariel’s mentor in this very male business—had turned into a doe-eyed fool.