All's Fair in Love and Chocolate (Marietta Chocolate Wars #1) - Amy Andrews Page 0,3
with obvious amusement.
Reuben glanced around. “About half. Either directly or indirectly.”
She laughed. “A true local, huh?”
“Pretty much.”
Bozeman wasn’t a small town; it had a population just shy of fifty thousand, but Reuben had been born and bred in Marietta and he’d been with the Bozeman Sheriff’s Department for the last five years. People knew him.
“You—” he tipped his chin at her empty glass “—want another?”
She nodded slowly, her gaze not leaving his. “I have beer in my room.”
The invitation in her eyes was clear but the cop inside made Reuben hesitate. He didn’t want to be the hey, little lady guy but it seemed inherently unsafe for her to be picking up complete strangers in bars and taking them back to hotel rooms.
Christ, he could be anybody. For that matter—so could she.
“Aren’t you worried I might be some kind of…serial killer on the prowl?”
She laughed. “I don’t think too many serial killers talk to their mother’s friends about fabric at a bar on a Sunday night. And besides I hit on you, remember?”
The thought was utterly arresting and he grinned. “You did, huh?”
“If it wasn’t obvious then my pickup skills need some work, too.”
Reuben’s gaze roved over her face and, now it was clear where this night was heading, he let it wander a little lower, to the way her blouse cupped her breasts. “There’s nothing about you that needs work.”
She smiled. “Good answer.”
“I was just trying to say you can never be too careful about these things.”
“Reuben, I don’t know whether you’ve noticed or not, but I’m a woman.”
“Oh yeah.” He grinned. “I noticed.”
She returned the grin. “So if you think I haven’t been raised from birth to be constantly vigilant about my safety, constantly on alert for danger then you don’t understand what it is to be a woman at all.”
As a cop Reuben was relieved that Vivian was smart about her safety. As a man it sickened him that women had to always be on guard.
“I’m thirty years old and I’ve developed quite a good sixth sense for members of the opposite sex and you don’t tweak my radar at all. At least not in a bad way.” She grinned at him with what was almost a leer before her smile turned indulgent. “But…” She glanced at the bartender. “Mike?”
Mike, who’d been slicing lemons looked over his shoulder then ambled toward them. “What can I get you?”
She ignored his question. “Do you know this guy?” She tipped her head at Reuben.
Mike eyed Reuben up and down clearly bemused by the question. “Yes, ma’am. Known him most of my life.”
“So, would you say it’s okay for me to take him back to my hotel room and do dirty, unspeakable things to his body without fear of him chopping me into little pieces and poking them down the drain hole in the bathtub?”
Reuben wasn’t sure if Mike was more shocked by the detail of the question or the fact she’d been so frank. But he got over his shock quickly with a bark of laughter. “I think you’ve got to worry more about his—” Mike wiggled his little finger at her with a grin. “And his rumored lack of err…” He dropped his voice. “Staying power than any homicidal tendencies.”
“Thanks, dude,” Reuben said as he left and Vivian laughed. Clearly Mike needed to be more like Mike right now.
“You need any more convincing?” she asked, but before he could answer she leaned in and pressed her lips against his in a brief, yet somehow cataclysmic, kiss. Pulling away, she offered him her hand. “Shall we?”
And it was that easy. Just the way Reuben liked it.
Draining the rest of his beer, he threw some bills on the bar for Mike who grinned and saluted and then he slipped his hands into hers and stood.
*
Reuben let her lead the way. He may have been at this hotel quite a lot over the years but he’d never gone past the bar and besides, Vivian’s back view was as delectable as her front. Her skirt fitted her nice, round ass like a glove and that curve from waist to thighs should have come with a hazard label. And the way those hips swung.
God…it was like staring at a hypnotist’s watch.
Then there were the stilettos. Shiny black with a tall spiky heel and the flash of a glossy, apple-red sole. And the way they emphasized her calves… They weren’t slender, but the heels gave them definition and Reuben couldn’t help but imagine how good