My Only Vice. Elizabeth Bevarly

it was absolutely essential that he keep his distance from the flesh-and-blood Rosie Bliss. Especially the flesh part of her. The last thing he needed or wanted in his life was a nice woman. Not much in Sam’s life had ever been nice. He didn’t do nice. He didn’t want nice. And he sure as hell didn’t deserve nice. Even if there was a part of him that still craved it in the form of Rosie Bliss.

      He told himself it was time to leave Alice’s Aerobics Attic since, clearly, there was nothing amiss at the studio. But he couldn’t quite make himself look away from Rosie. Her gaze was fixed on the part of the mirror that was in front of her, a few feet away from where Sam stood. Almost without realizing he was doing it, he moved down until he was standing right in front of her, so that it felt as if she was looking at him, instead of her reflection.

      There. That was better. Maybe it wasn’t him making Rosie gyrate and sweat the way she was, but there was nothing wrong with pretending it was him, right? Aside from the fact that it made him seem like a pathetic loser, he meant.

      Ah, screw it. As long as nobody else found out that he, whose nickname at Boston Vice had been Ironheart, was lusting after a goody-two-shoes florist in a place so saccharine it would make Norman Rockwell gag, Sam was in the clear. He’d defy any heterosexual male not to succumb to the charms of Rosie Bliss. And even the gay ones would have lusted after her flair for flower arrangement.

      The electronic funk music on the other side of the mirror segued into something slower and less frenetic, so the movement of the women became slower and less frenetic, too. Sam continued to watch Rosie as she stretched her arms up high and brought them down again in two graceful arcs, pushing them behind her back and linking them together before thrusting her chest forward. When she did that, the clingy yellow…whatever the hell you called those things women worked out in…stretched taut, defining two ample, exquisite breasts whose nipples pushed through the fabric without an ounce of inhibition. His fingers twitched involuntarily at the sight, as did another part of his anatomy that had no business twitching while he was on the cock…uh, clock. Try as he might, though, he simply could not make himself look away.

      Not for the first time, he wondered why she was living in Northaven. He’d learned shortly after meeting her that she’d moved to town less than a year before he had. Even though their paths had crossed scarcely a dozen times since, usually at meetings of the Northaven Business Owners’ Guild or some kind of civic function or holiday celebration, he’d spoken with her often enough to form the impression that her origins weren’t as small town as her current life was. No one in Northaven seemed to know a lot about her—except that she was extremely nice to everyone and didn’t have a mean bone in her incredibly luscious body. And also that she was an absolute whiz with snapdragons.

      Maybe she’d been driven to Northaven for reasons similar to his own, Sam thought as he watched her arc one arm over her head and bend her entire body to the side in a position he was sure would make for interesting coupling. Of course, as far as he was concerned, when it came to Rosie, sorting the laundry would make for interesting coupling. As would sweeping out the garage. And grocery shopping. Retrieving the mail. Hosing out the garbage cans…

      He was about to indulge in his favorite Rosie fantasy—the one where he hired her to do a little, uh, landscaping on his, um, enormous oak—when the front door to Alice’s Aerobics Attic opened and her husband, Don, walked in. Although it was Alice’s name he called out, every woman in the room turned to look at him. Sam, too—very reluctantly—tore his gaze from Rosie and turned his attention to the other man.

      Don looked even worse now than he’d looked the last time Sam saw him. His green Clover Mart jacket was rumpled, and the brisk early-October wind had blown his salt-and-pepper comb-over completely off the top of his head without his even having noticed it. He seemed a lot older than his fifty-eight years, which Sam supposed could happen to a man when he’d been caught red- handed in the meat section using the big roll of oversize plastic wrap to sheathe a naked cashier. Don had insisted it was groundbreaking performance art. Alice had insisted it was grounds for performing a divorce.

      Yeah, small-town life really wasn’t what Sam had expected at all.

      “Alice!” he heard Don yell again on the other side of the mirror. The man sounded nervous and more than a little agitated. “I’ve got something for you! You’ve been asking for it! You deserve it! And now you’re gonna get it! But good!”

      And with that, Don did indeed begin to wave something around. When Sam saw what it was, a cold, unpleasant sensation slithered into his belly. Because what Don was holding was a helluva lot more menacing than a not-on-sale Juiceman. And it could go off any minute. Worst of all, however, Don was standing right next to Rosie Bliss.

      ROSIE WAS BATTLING a bizarre sensation of being watched when Alice’s husband, Don, came barreling into the aerobics studio out of nowhere. Again. As usual, he looked out of breath and anxious, and Rosie hoped he didn’t drop onto his knees and plead with Alice to take him back, the way he had last week when he’d barreled into the aerobics studio out of nowhere. Because it had taken all six class members to help him stand up again, so bad were his knees. Not so usual, though, this time Don was brandishing a… Brandishing a…a…a…

      What the hell? Rosie thought when she recognized the thing in Don’s hand. It looked like…

      Nah, she immediately assured herself. It couldn’t be. Not a nice old guy like Don. He might be a little off these days, what with shrouding cashiers in Glad Wrap and threatening to throw Alice into financial turmoil with frivolous shopping, but he wasn’t the sort of man to go out in public with a…with a…a…a…

      A vibrator?

      Rosie tilted her head to the side, to observe the object from another angle. Yep, Don was brandishing a vibrator all right. The Xtacy 3000 model, if she wasn’t mistaken. In the Vixen Scarlet color that was so hard to find these days. Even on the Internet. Rosie was fairly familiar with the product, since she’d been shopping around for one for the past month herself, wanting to upgrade from her Xtacy 2000.

      Well, what else was she supposed to do? Small-town life agreed with her in a lot of ways—ways she hadn’t even anticipated, truth be told—but Northaven wasn’t exactly bursting at the seams with eligible men. At least those under the age of seventy-five. Even if ol’ Don was estranged from Alice now, it would take a lot more than an Xtacy 3000 in Vixen Scarlet to make Rosie think twice about dating him. Which was moot, anyway, since he was clearly still deeply in love with his wife, performance art with his head cashier notwithstanding.

      Of course, there was Northaven’s incredibly hunky police chief, Rosie thought. As she often did. Especially when she was keeping company with her Xtacy 2000. Not only was he way younger than seventy-five—she guesstimated he was in his mid- to late-thirties—but with that thick dark hair and those chocolate-brown eyes…and those broad shoulders that strained at the seams of his white cop shirt in the warmer months and his leather cop jacket in the winter…and that perfectly packaged rump that even brown twill cop pants couldn’t mar…and those big manly hands, each of which would very nicely cover a woman’s breast or splay lovingly over a woman’s behind….

      Damn. As always, she was getting way ahead of herself when there was no way she’d be getting any. Not from Sam Maguire, at any rate. Because he evidently didn’t notice the steamy heat ballooning around the two of them that Rosie noticed whenever they encountered each other. Possibly because the steamy heat was only ballooning off of her. Even though she always made a point to seek Sam out on those occasions when they were attending the same function, he only greeted her politely, made a little small talk, then found some reason why he had to go speak to someone else before politely excusing himself to do just that.

      The first couple of times it had happened, Rosie hadn’t thought much about it. He was a public servant, after all, and new in town to boot, so he’d naturally need to make himself available to a lot of people. She’d finally taken the hint, though, the last time she’d encountered him at a Chamber of Commerce gathering, when Sam had excused himself to have a very important discussion with Luther Bybee. No one in Northaven ever elected to have a discussion with Luther Bybee. Because Luther Bybee