Angel-chan: Hey everyone I was planning on posting this chapter on the 2nd of November but I couldn't.

Ikuto: And why the hell not!

Angel-chan: Because you idiot while I was typing chapter 5 at the time I was at my families clothing factoring why was I there because my mother made me go to look after my baby brother since no one was about to watch him back home because they went to work. Therefore, I took my laptop-finished chapter four and started with chapter five. I was almost done when I had to leave the laptop for a while because I had to attend my baby brother. When I came back I pushed play on my music and was about to start typing again only to have my music start playing like a screeching sound and my screen turning blue meaning my laptop crashed for a while. I didn't think much of it until I realized that I hadn't saved the new chapter because I had just started on it. Luckily Microsoft word has Document recovery so I got everything back just as I left it.

Amu: Wow that was really lucky.

Ikuto: Yeah you did.

Angel-chan: I know I love Word. Okay now then back to business answering reviews *smiles*

squirtlepokemon215: You don't have to wait any longer *smiles*

Kuroyuri: Hahahaha I'm glad to see that you think the last chapter was awesome. And I'll try my hardest to type as fast as I can *Smiles*.

101 PrettyKitty: No more wait for the next chapter because it's here!

Guest: Hahaha No I'm not Irish If you read the book Chocolate Kisses then you would understand why I put Irish. In fact I'm Latin.

Blu2012: I'm happy to know you like how Ikuto was made in this story. It is all thanks to the author of the Chocolate Kisses book. Oh sorry about that and thanks for catching my mistake sometimes I type so fast and I really do not see my mistakes. *smiles* what part was the "I'll be by" part. Hahahaha Utau is not our sister in this one because they she would have to be a bitchy sister and I just couldn't make Utau a bitchy person even though she can be sometimes. Therefore, it's better for her to be my daughter.

Ikuto: Finally, she done okay so like you all know xXxStrawberryAngelxXx does not own Shugo Chara! Or Chocolate Kisses.

Angel-chan: Impatient boy…Well Enjoy *smiles*

Chapter Five

1:03 p.m.

Ikuto biked home from his mother's place, enjoying the sunshine and the hint of spring's fragrance released into the air by the thawing earth AT his mother's insistence, he'd eaten half a sandwich before he'd left. At his insistence, his mother hand refrained from interrogating him about Amu.

He wasn't sure he subscribed to her faith in love at first sight. However, he couldn't deny that throughout his twelve lively years of postgraduate bachelorhood, he had never felt anything like the imperative craving he experienced every time he thought of Hinamori Amu.

There was something tough and determined about her, something strong and self-aware and extremely appealing to a strong, self-aware man like Ikuto. Amu knew what she wanted and she went after it, and she wasn't looking for anyone to make things easy for her.

He could make things easier. Along with the sensual pleasure of their final kiss, he was haunted by her words, her concern that if the Valentine's Day cotillion was a flop Rose Petals Banquets might go out of business.

He didn't want her business to fail. He couldn't bear the notion that Amu would have to fold up her ten and go back to working in a diner—not when she had so much talent. He'd tasted her chocolate kisses. He knew what a culinary genius she was.

And to think that fate of her business rested in the hands of his bitchy older sister…

Ikuto prayed that the cotillion would be a success and that Angel would sing the praises of Amu's catering to all her snooty, snobby friends, and that Amu would find herself besieged with contracts for her serviced. But even a success tonight wouldn't be enough.

She need a larger work space, assistants, storage facilities…She need the proper capital. Ikuto could put together a suitable package of financing for her if she let him.

He headed down the stairs to the den. His condo was in a complex across town from his mother's. It was a nice enough place, and his one-year lease included an option to buy. It would be a bit small for two people, though.

"Cripes," he said aloud, then laughed. He wasn't about to invite Amu to move in with him, was he?

The light on his answering machine was flashing. He punched the button and listen.

"Iku?" Angel's voice roared out of the speaker. "I was just wondering if you could do me a great big favor and bring Lulu de Morcerf Yamamoto to the cotillion with you tonight. Since she isn't related to any of the debutantes, she can attend only as someone's guest. Could you please bring her as your guest? It would be so much fun for both of you. I know it's a last-minutes, but she really would love to come and she's very fond of you."

Angel did matchmaking the way she did everything else—without subtlety. Her attempt to hook Ikuto up with Lulu de Morcerf Yamamoto was last-minute because she'd only just seen him with Amu that morning. Evidently Angel was prepared to do whatever was necessary to keeping him from fraternizing with the help.

Shaking his head, he pulled out the telephone directory and looked up Rose Petals Banquets. The phone rang four times and then Amu's machine clicked on: Hi, you've reached Rose Petals Banquets. Please Leave your name and number and let us cater to you.

Amu?" he shouted over the tape. "It's Ikuto. If you're there, pick up!" Cater to me! He almost demanded, but he figured that might frighten her.

A few long seconds passed and then, to his delight, he heard Amu's say. "Hello, Ikuto."

He wanted to discuss ways of raising capital for her company. He wanted to tell her that he missed her, that kissing her outside his mother's home had been a prelude, not a finale, and that she nothing to be afraid of. He wanted to describe his own Rose Petal Banquet, starting with her lips and working his way down to her adorable buns.

"How are your hearts?" he asked

"My heart? The cake layers you mean?"

"Yes."

"They came out well. I was just about to start making the frosting."

Frosting. He'd already painted her lips with molten chocolate. Now he was assailed by visions of her with cold sugary white stuff on her lips.

"I'll be right over," he said.

"Ikuto—"

"What I was thinking," he hastened to explain, "is that if I drive over we can use your van and my car to transport the food. It would cut down on the number of trips you have to make."

She didn't speak for a minute. Evidently, she was assessing his offer, weighing the possible hazards in accepting his assistance. "All right," she finally said. He wondered whether that meant she was no longer afraid of him as much as he missed her—or quite simply that she didn't want to have to make more than one trip to Tsukiyomi Hall.

What it meant to him, he acknowledged after saying goodbye, was that they would be traveling to Tsukiyomi Hall in separate vehicles. He wouldn't be able to glance to his side and see her clean, sharp profile. He wouldn't be able to lean across the console and steal a kiss the instant she turned off the engine.

But before they left for Tsukiyomi Hall they would be at her house, in her kitchen, surround by hearts and frosting.

The possibilities made him smile.

Bisoux De Chocolat

Over the whir of her mixer, she almost did not hear the tapping on the door connecting the kitchen to the garage. She turned off the appliance and opened the door.

She had known it would be Ikuto, yet seeing him, having him so close, feeling his presence fill her kitchen…Well, there was no adequate way Amu could have prepared herself.

"I do have a front door," she pointed out. "You don't have to come in through the garage."

He grinned. "I came to help out, not to act like a guest." He shrugged out of his jacket and gazed around the kitchen. Spotting the bowl of fluffy pink frosting, he headed directly to the work island, finger poised for dipping.

"Behave yourself," she scolded, shoving him away before he could poke his finger into the bowl.

"Oh, come on. Just a teeny, tiny little taste?"

He looked so imploring, so irresistibly boyish, she relented with a sigh. He dabbed his finger into the soft pink confection, licked it off and started with surprise. "It's peppermint."

"What did you expect?"

"Strawberry, I guess. It's pink."

"Of course it's pink. Today's Valentine's Day," she reminded him.

His smile grew deeper. "You're catching on," He murmured in a disturbingly husky voice.

Aware of how close he was to kissing her—and how much she wanted another of his kisses—she quickly turned away, grabbing the mixer and turning it on, clinging to the handle as if it were a weapon. "If you came here to flirt with me," she shouted over the drone of the motor, "you can leave."

"I came here to help you," he said, then shook his head. "Not true. I came because I couldn't stay away." He said it so frankly, so bluntly, she had to accept his words as the truth.

If she matched his candor, she would have to admit that ever since she'd driven away from his mother's townhouse she had been thinking of him, reliving his kiss, obsessing about him. Wishing he would come to her.

She could scarcely admit that to herself. She wasn't about to admit it to him. " Well, if you're here to help, you may as well help," she said, guiding her spinning beaters deeper into the frosting. "There's a roll of plastic wrap on the counter by the phone. Could you bring it over?"

He located the box and carried it to her, then moved behind her and planted a kiss on the crown of her head. Her scalp tingled, sending a flutter of sensation down her spine. She shivered and clicked the motor speed higher, whipping the fluffy pink frosting against the sides of the bowl.

Ikuto slid his hands to her waist and pulled her back against him. "Turn the machine off," he murmured.

"She felt him through her jeans and his , felt the hardness of him against the small of her back. She swallowed, shivered…and turned the machine off. "Please, Ikuto." Her voice emerged small and breathless. "Don't play game with me."

He slid his hands forward, flattening them across her belly. "I'm not playing games," he swore, his lips close to her ear. "Watching you cook turns me on."

"I'm not cooking," she argued inanely, wishing her legs didn't feel so weak, wishing her hips didn't want to nestle back against him. "I'm whipping up the frosting."

"Whipping it up," he repeated, putting an erotic emphasis on each syllable. "Indeed."

"Ikuto…"

He spun her around in his arms, and then pressed into her again, this time seeking the warmth between her legs. "After you whip it up," he asked, his eyes sparkling with an odd blend of amusement and blatant arousal, "what do you do?"

"I spread it—" Blushing furiously, she cut herself off.

"You spread it," he echoed insinuating his knee between her legs and nudging them farther apart. "It sounds delicious."

"Coming from you, it sounds X-rated."

"It sounds wonderfully wet." He bowed and brushed a light, searing kiss across her lips.

"Actually, it can get kind of crumb-y," she punned, finding the courage to meet his bold gaze.

"I suppose that would happen if you don't spread it properly."

"Or of the cake is to warm," she said, swallowing the tremor in her throat as his thigh moved between hers. "The layers have to cool down."

"I'll bet they do." He flexed the muscles of his thigh slowly, subtly against her. She closed her eyes and suppressed a moan. "I like my layers warm though."

"Then you can't frost them," she told him, her tine rasping. If he didn't kiss her soon, really kiss her, kiss her the way he had outside his mother's house…she didn't know what she would do.

He rocked against his in a deliberated rhythm. "Can't the layers be warm and firm at the same time?"

"Not when it comes to cake."

Reaching around her, he scooped a dollop of frosting onto his finger. "Taste it," he whispered, presenting his pink glazed fingertip to her.

This was insane. She had work to do, tons of work, the most important work in her life. Yet, as if under a spell, she opened her mouth and ran the tip of her tongue over his finger.

Simultaneously his tongue darted out to lick the frosting. Their tongues touched, sweet and sticky with peppermint, and she sane against the work island, buffed by the deluge of hot sensation that seared her.

"Make love with me," he said, half a plea, half a demand. His gaze burned through her, expressing desire and need, lust and something more.

"I can't," she groaned, even as her thighs tensed around his leg, as her tongue tingled with the flavors of confectioner's sugar and butter, peppermint extract and passion. "I can't, Ikuto."

"Because of the cotillion?"

She nodded. Let him think her professional pressures and deadlines were what was preventing them from finishing what they'd so recklessly begun with a finger full of frosting. Let him believe that Rose Petals Banquets was he only reason for saying no.

There would be time later after she'd composed herself, to remind him that he was a Tsukiyomi with a Roman-numeral name, pampered and privileged, a citizen of the community where she would always be an outsider. An employee. A bit too Irish according to his sister.

If Ikuto was looking for a quick fling, she was not interested. And if he was looking for anything more than that, it wouldn't work. She would never belong in his world.

When his hands relaxed at her waist, however, and he eased back her, she found herself wondering whether a quick fling with Tsukiyomi Ikuto might be worth all the heartache and regret she would feel after wards, after he'd had his fun and returned to his proper place among the ranks of the elite.

No man had ever excited her the way he could. No man had ever made her want so much. Not that she believed in love at first sight, not that she believed any of the blarney his mother had dished out, but…God, wouldn't it be nice if Ikuto wanted something Amu did?

What he wanted, she admitted with a doleful sigh, was to have his cake and eat it, too. And she also admitted that cake and chocolate kisses, while delectable treats, would never be enough to satisfy her.

Angel-chan: So what do you think? Is this a fling for Ikuto? And if it is a fling is it worth it for Amu? Should she take the risk?

Amu: If you have answer for them then let us know in a review.

Ikuto: Yeah so R&R and if you do and you do it with your account then even better because then you get a sneak peek of the next chapter.

Angel-chan: Yup you do now *smiles* SO hurry and review everyone that way you get more chapters going your way. Till next time.