My Only Vice

For David

My Only Love

CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

About the Author

Coming Next Month

1

AS HE WATCHED the seemingly endless parade of nearly naked, thoroughly sweaty female torsos gyrating wildly to electronic funk music, it occurred to Sam Maguire that small-town life wasn’t exactly what he’d expected it to be. Of course, the reason for this particular parade of naked, sweaty female torsos wasn’t to earn its owners a living, however dubious, which would have likely been the case for such a display in the big city. No, the reason for this particular parade of naked, sweaty torsos was more to keep its owners in shape—however dubious.

That was beside the point.

The point was that a naked, sweaty female torso was a naked, sweaty female torso, and it was a sight to be revered, whether under the strobe lights of Buster’s Bootie Call in Boston, or under the Art Deco fixtures of Alice’s Aerobics Attic in tiny Northaven, two hours away. So Sam would, by God, revere them. Even the ones at Alice’s that hadn’t quite gotten around to that in-shape thing yet. Hell, it wasn’t as if the bodies at Buster’s were exactly ready for their close-up. The tattoos on most of them had headed farther south than Tierra del Fuego.

Sam’s reason for watching these torsos, however, wasn’t much different from what his reason for watching them in the big city had been. A stakeout was a stakeout, too, whether it was in Boston or Northaven, even if the criminal element here consisted less of drug pushers and vicious pimps and more of dognappers and petty thieves. Even at that, Mrs. Pendleton’s Yorkie had turned up safe and sound by nightfall just as Sam had assured the elderly woman it would, and she never received one of the animal’s red beribboned little ears along with a ransom note, as Mrs. Pendleton had been so certain she would. The local thefts were no more difficult to solve than the isolated dognapping had been, since most of those were perpetrated by fresh-faced teenagers who didn’t even know enough to hide their tracks, so unaccustomed were they to a life of crime.

Sam’s current case was easily the ugliest he’d investigated since his self-inflicted relocation to Northaven a little over a year ago. Alice the aerobics instructor’s estranged husband had been drinking too much white Zinfandel on the weekends and making threatening phone calls to her. But his crime, too, was a far cry from similar ones committed in the big city, since the worst of Don’s threats had been to spend with wild abandon, using the joint MasterCard he and Alice still shared. To the tune of five hundred dollars if Alice didn’t give him a second chance to make up for his indiscretion with the head cashier at his grocery store.

Nevertheless, Sam had promised Alice he would stop by both her house and the aerobics business on his daily rounds to make sure Don didn’t try anything funny. Well, anything funnier than racking up a three-figure debt on a credit card, anyway. So what if Sam lingered at the latter destination a little longer than he did the former? Alice’s business was open to the public, and was therefore more easily accessible than her home. And her customer base constituted a threat to more people than just Alice herself. Any cop, urban or small town, would make sure he lingered longer in the more open—and consequently more ripe for mayhem—environment.

Especially if that was the environment that had the naked, sweaty, gyrating female torsos. Talk about your mayhem…

The women in Alice’s current class didn’t know Sam was watching them, since Alice had instructed him to enter through the back and observe the studio from behind the wall of two-way glass, just in case he arrived at a time when Don was indeed there trying to wreak havoc. Presumably by doing something crazy like waving around a loaded Juiceman he’d just flagrantly purchased with their credit card—and not on sale, either. But as Sam’s gaze roved down the line of women and he recognized one of them as Rosie Bliss, he was in an even smaller hurry to leave.

Northaven’s resident florist had her lush fall of dark red hair—hair that normally tumbled to nearly the center of her back—piled loosely atop her head, held in place by some invisible means of support. She was wearing a clingy yellow…whatever the hell you called those things women worked out in that barely covered their breasts…over clingy black…whatever the hell you called those things women worked out in that barely covered their asses. Every other inch of her was creamy, ivory—and sweaty; did he mention sweaty? And gyrating, too?—flesh. She was even working out barefoot, unlike the other women, who were all wearing sneakers, and something about the way her toenails were painted a dark blood red made Sam want to…

Well. There was no way he could deny it. He wanted to suck on Rosie Bliss’s toes until the cows came home. Then he wanted to suck on the rest of her until the cows went out again. And he’d hope like hell they never brought their bovine little selves back again.

Sam had had his first run-in with Rosie the day he’d arrived in sleepy Northaven feeling messed up and beaten down by his final case in Boston—the one that had made him look for a job in a place like sleepy Northaven. Of course, Sam had had a run-in with just about everyone in town that day a year ago this past September, including the mayor and the head of Northaven College, the town’s reason for existence. Hell, practically the entire population of Northaven had turned out to greet their new Chief of Police that day—with a picnic in the park, no less.

But it had been Rosie, with that lush fall of dark red hair and those incredible green eyes and that body that leaped right off a trifold with staples, whom Sam had taken home with him that night. She’d been the one who’d joined him in his bed after dark for hours and hours of the downest, most dirtiest sex he’d ever enjoyed.

Not literally, of course, since he’d realized within moments of making Rosie’s acquaintance that she was way too nice a woman for something like hours and hours of down and dirty sex, especially with a guy she’d just met. But Sam wasn’t too nice for that. As evidenced by the fact that he’d gone home after meeting the nicest woman he’d ever met in his life and fantasized for hours and hours about having down and dirty sex with her.

Hey, it had been a while at that point since he’d had any sex with anyone, all right? Not that he’d had much sex since meeting Rosie, either—or any sex since meeting her…dammit—because Northaven was so overrun with damned nice women. He still had better sex with his fantasy Rosie Bliss than he’d ever had with any flesh-and-blood woman. So he had sex with his fantasy Rosie Bliss a lot.

But 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 was notorious in Northaven for repeating the same story over and over again about the genital wart that nearly claimed his life. Clearly Sam wasn’t interested in Rosie romantically. Fortunately, her Xtacy 2000 was always there when she needed it.

She knew Alice had been looking for the new Xtacy 3000, too—Hey, what woman wasn’t?—and thought it was exceedingly nice of Don to have found one for her. It took a special man to extend a vibrating olive branch. Maybe he really was into nude, plastic wrap performance art. Stranger things had happened. Don was obviously doing his best to make amends for the cashier thing.

Rosie was taking a step forward to get a better look at the vibrator and was about to ask Don where he’d found it, especially in the most sought-after color, but her words—and her step, for that matter—were cut short when, out of nowhere, she was blindsided by a huge, growling grizzly bear that wrestled her to the floor and rolled on top of her.

Oh, no, wait. It wasn’t a grizzly bear, she realized when she and the big predator came to a halt. It was Sam Maguire. Speak of the devilishly handsome. Maybe he was interested in her romantically. Though why he’d decided to make his intentions known so suddenly, in such a public venue was a little puzzling. And just where the hell had he come from, anyway? He wasn’t enrolled in Alice’s morning class.

“Uh, Chief?” she said by way of a greeting.

But she got lost after that, because she couldn’t seem to find her way out of those espresso eyes and back to…whatever she’d been doing before she found herself pinned beneath him. All she could remember was something about nudity and plastic wrap and performing, all of which sounded pretty good at the moment.

He was solid rock in all the places he came into contact with her, shoulder to shoulder, chest to calf, his rigid weight pinning her to the padded mat beneath her in a way that should probably have been painful, considering his size, but which was instead incredibly erotic—considering his size. She wasn’t positive, but Rosie was pretty sure that wasn’t a banana in his pocket. He was definitely happy to see her. Really happy, judging by the size of that banana. Colossally happy. In fact, it wasn’t so much a banana he had in his pocket as it was a loaf of French bread.

He smelled wonderful, an enticing mix of clean laundry and autumn wind. And something else, too, something intangible and implacable that was earthy and musky and dark. Something so intrinsically male that Rosie began to wonder how she could ever think an Xtacy 2000—or even an Xtacy 3000—could ever be enough.

And those dark, fathomless brown eyes of his…She’d always thought Sam’s eyes reflected intelligence and good humor, but up close this way, she saw that both were tempered by something less noble and more unpredictable…and held just barely at bay. The impression never quite had the chance to gel in her brain—not that much could gel in her brain with Sam Maguire lying atop her this way—because he rolled again, this time pulling Rosie on top of himself, a position she immediately decided she liked even better. Unfortunately, that impression, too, was quickly dispelled when Sam effortlessly picked her up and set her down on the mat beside him.

Truly. He picked her up as easily as if she had been a ladybug who landed on his shirt, then set her down with a gentleness she wouldn’t have thought he was capable of managing. And, just like that, he went from being sexy as hell to flat-out irresistible.

“Uh, sorry,” he said by way of an apology.

For one much-too-brief moment, their eyes met again, and he studied her face as if she were the answer to every frustrated question and desperate plea he’d ever shot at the cosmos. And in that much-too-brief moment, Rosie felt like a blessing indeed. Then he was scrambling up off the floor and straightening, and the feeling evaporated like, inescapably, ballooning steam. Where Rosie had expected him to extend a hand to help her up, however, he grabbed Don instead, circling one big hand around the man’s wrist to twist his arm behind his back before snaking the other out to grab the Xtacy 3000 from Don’s grip.

Wow. Sam must want one of those even more than Rosie did.

She shook the thought from her head as soon as it formed, since any man who carried around a loaf of French bread in his pocket certainly didn’t need a little thing like an Xtacy vibrator. Funny, though, how she’d never considered the Xtacy little before….

“Chief Maguire!” Alice shouted when she saw Sam manhandling her husband.

She dropped her hands to her pink-leotard-clad hips and blew a damp, silvery blond curl off her forehead, only to have it fall right back into place. Alice was really too petite and willowy to look menacing, Rosie thought, but damned if she didn’t come pretty close just then.

“What do you think you’re doing to Donnie?” Alice demanded.

Donnie? Rosie echoed to herself. Alice only called Don “Donnie” when she was speaking affectionately about him. In fact, she hadn’t even called him “Don” lately. Since the plastic-wrapped cashier episode a few weeks ago, she’d been referring to him as—

Well, something that wasn’t fit to share in any company, mixed or otherwise. Suffice it to say it had been a looooong time since Rosie had heard Alice refer to her husband in anything remotely resembling affectionate terms. In fact, what she’d called him had been pretty much anatomically impossible anyway, even if one had a loaf of French bread in one’s pocket to do it with. Now, however, it looked like Alice was reconsidering her animosity. Among other things. Because she walked right up to Sam and stomped on his toe. Hard.

“Ow,” Sam replied with much understatement. He lifted the injured foot from the floor, but didn’t loosen his hold on Don. “What was that for?”

“You leave my Donnie alone,” Alice told him, hands fisted indignantly on her hips again.

“Leave him alone?” Sam echoed. “You asked me to intervene if he tried anything funny. So I’m intervening.” He rubbed his foot on the back of his calf and put it—gingerly—on the floor again. “And you’re this close to assaulting an officer, Alice.”

Alice snorted derisively. “Oh, please. I barely touched you.”

Rosie would bet a fallen arch that Sam disagreed. To his credit, however, he said nothing.

“Now let Donnie go,” Alice repeated. “He’s brought me a present.”

With obvious reluctance, Sam did as Alice asked, but he didn’t fork over the vibrator, only looked at it curiously, as if he had no idea what it was. Then, “I have no idea what this is,” he said. “I came running in because when I first saw it, I thought it was a stick of dynamite.”

Rosie couldn’t quite help the smile that curled her lips. “Well, it can be,” she said. “In the right hands.”

The other women in the class chuckled knowingly, something that clearly only confused Sam more. Alice, however, saved Rosie from having to explain by snatching the vibrator out of Sam’s hand and turning it on. It immediately relaxed from its erect cylindrical shape and began to twist itself into a series of elaborate, contorted motions that Rosie knew could be set at a variety of speeds, intensities and temperatures. It was erotic poetry in motion.

“It’s the Xtacy 3000,” Alice said for Sam’s enlightenment. “A personal fulfillment device.”

“Personal fulfillment device,” Sam said without any enlightenment whatsoever.

Then again, he was obviously the kind of man who could personally fulfill a woman to the point where she wouldn’t need a device for that, so Rosie supposed it shouldn’t be surprising that he’d have no knowledge of such things.

Alice rolled her eyes and blew out an exasperated sigh. “A vibrator,” she clarified.

Sam’s dark brows shot up at that, and a faint stain of pink bloomed on his cheeks. Oh, for God’s sake, Rosie thought. He was blushing. Honestly blushing. She didn’t think she’d ever seen such a manly man do something so adorable. That Sam was doing it only made him so much sexier. And so much more irresistible.