My Only Vice. Elizabeth Bevarly
saw Sam Maguire standing framed in the doorway, his hands hooked loosely on his hips.
The door swung closed behind him, but he took a step forward and landed in a pool of golden, early-morning sun that filtered through the window beside him. The light was almost otherworldly, lighting dark amber fires in his chocolate-brown hair and somehow softening his rugged features. Even the starkness of his white cop shirt seemed to fade to a softer cream, the sun reflecting off the gold badge pinned to his pocket and making it shine like a beacon of goodness and decency.
The look he was giving her, however, was anything but decent. His eyes were narrowed, and his lips were flattened into a tight line. But the scowl did nothing to detract from his extreme good looks, and in fact made Rosie feel kind of—
Well. There was no denying it. Either her new recipe was working way faster than she’d thought it would, or Sam Maguire’s simple nearness was about to bring her to a cataclysmic orgasm. And although Rosie knew her aphrodisiac teas were good, she was pragmatic enough to realize they weren’t that good. So she had no choice but to accept the fact that human flesh and blood would always be more powerful than plant life in bringing a woman to the brink of sexual fulfillment.
Damn, she thought. So much for not polluting the effects of the infusion with thoughts of Sam Maguire. He hadn’t even said hello to her, and already her skin was growing warm—which was always her first indication that a new tea was working. The next indication was always the dampening of her palms, which—
Yep. There they went, right on cue. Except way too early for the reaction to be a result of the tea. Rosie just hoped the other kind of dampness that came next, the dampness between her legs, held off for a little while long—
Uh-oh.
Great, she thought as she vaguely registered Sam’s nod and softly muttered hello. At this rate, her nipples would begin to tingle in no time fla—
Oh, yeah. There they went, too, way ahead of schedule. Maybe doubling up on the damiana hadn’t been such a good idea after all….
Because it couldn’t just be Sam’s simple presence making her want to wrestle him to the floor the way she did just then. Could it? She always at least indulged in a little small talk before it came to that, even in her fantasies. It had to be some faster-than-usual reaction to the tea. Maybe the cinnamon and damiana worked better together than she’d realized.
“Um, hi, Chief,” she said, gripping her mug tightly with both hands to keep herself from…oh, she didn’t know…grabbing the placket of his shirt and ripping it down the middle, buttons flying. The top two were already undone—something that would have made her job much easier—and dark hair sprang from the opening, making her fingers itch to investigate further.
Unbidden, an image erupted in her head of him naked and prone on her bed as she dragged her fingers through the dark hair on his chest before inching them slowly, slowly, oh-so-slowly down to his flat abdomen. Then lower still, into the thatch of dark hair surrounding his cock, which she circled with sure fingers and drew eagerly toward her waiting mou—
Rosie squeezed her eyes shut tight in an effort to drive the vision out of her head. But that only made it more vivid. Because now she saw herself, too, naked and crouched over him on her hands and knees and faced in the opposite direction, with Sam gripping her hips in strong fists, his head lifted between her legs. Both of them seemed to be competing over who could consume the other first, and neither seemed to be slaking their hunger. As he hungrily ate her, she moved her head slowly up and down, pulling his big cock farther into her mouth with every descent. Immediately, Rosie snapped her eyes open again, but not before she saw the fantasy Sam’s tongue dart quickly in and out of her damp—
“I’m, um…I, uh…” She tried to remember what she’d been about to say, but couldn’t seem to string two thoughts, never mind two words, together. Definitely needed to lighten up on the damiana in the next recipe, she told herself. And also, the next time she mixed one up, she needed to be in a different ZIP code than Sam Maguire was in. Or maybe a different area code. Or country. Or hemisphere. Or galaxy. Yeah, that might be enough.
Finally, she managed to say, “I’m, ah, I’m actually not open yet….” Well, not her store anyway. There were other parts of her that were wide open, at least in the fantasy she couldn’t seem to chase out of her brain. “I mean, I, um, I haven’t even picked up my bank float for the ass register. I mean cash register,” she quickly corrected herself when she realized how egregiously she’d misspoken.
“That’s okay,” Sam told her. Though the look he was giving her was anything but okay.
Still, she couldn’t help thinking, if he wasn’t going to buy anything, then he must have come here for another reason, and maybe that reason was, oh…Rosie didn’t know…to have really smokin’ sex.
His expression changed suddenly, to one of worry. Color her crazy, but worry didn’t seem like the thing a man should be feeling if he’d just shown up for really smokin’ sex.
“Are you okay, Rosie?” he asked cautiously. Caution, too, she thought, probably wasn’t a good indicator of that smokin’ sex thing being only minutes away. “You look a little…”
“What?” she asked.
“Distracted,” he told her. Though he looked as though he’d been about to say something else. Something like, oh…Rosie didn’t know…profoundly turned-on in a way that makes me want to pull down your pants, spin you around, bend you over and bury myself inside you to the hilt.
Oh, God…
Rosie did her best to calm herself, her thoughts and her privates. “Can I, um, can I help you, Chief?” she tried again, somehow stopping herself before uttering the entire question she’d really wanted to ask, which was Can I help you, Chief, out of those clothes?
“Yeah, actually, you can,” he said.
Rosie knew a moment’s euphoria, until she realized he wasn’t talking about the clothes thing, but was simply answering the standard question of retailers everywhere. Note to self, she thought, doubling up on damiana makes for excellent fantasizing but it’s not so good on the coherent thinking. Or maybe it was just the way Sam Maguire was put together that made for incoherent thinking. Not to mention the excellent fantasizing.
Um, what was the question again?
Thankfully, she didn’t have to remember, because Sam replied, “I need to order some flowers.”
Well, hell. If he was ordering flowers, it was doubtless for a woman, and that could seriously jeopardize any asking him out on a date she might do. Worse, it could jeopardize his response to her invitation. Worst of all, it could jeopardize any potential for smokin’ sex. Unless they were flowers for a funeral, she thought further, brightening. If he was going to order flowers for a dead woman, well, that was a whole ’nother ball game. Not to mention A-okay with Rosie.
“For a funeral?” she asked, hoping she didn’t sound as optimistic as she felt, since that would be in really bad taste.
Sam’s expression turned confused this time. “Uh, no. For my mother.”
Even better, Rosie thought. Not only did it offer a new positive dimension into his character—one of caring son—but it would save her a bundle in the therapist bills she’d be paying to help her cope with her joy at hearing the news of someone else’s death. Talk about a win-win situation. The only thing that might improve it would be if Sam, oh…Rosie didn’t know…stepped forward and filled her mouth with his tongue, shoved one hand up her shirt to massage her breast, and thrust the other into her pants to fondle her until she was insensate with ecstasy. Other than that, the conversation was moving along swimmingly.
Sam looked at Rosie and told himself for the tenth time that she couldn’t possibly be feeling the way she seemed to be feeling. Surely it was just wishful thinking on his part making her look as if she were incredibly, well…turned-on. Because she really did seem to be incredibly, well…turned-on. In fact, she’d been looking as if she