All's Fair in Love and Chocolate (Marietta Chocolate Wars #1) - Amy Andrews Page 0,8

bathroom and changed from the overalls and Skechers she’d donned earlier this morning back into her skirt, her liquid-gold Delish blouse and her latest black patent Louboutins.

Her uniform.

It wasn’t actually the Delish uniform—apart from the top, which was just one of the corporate range—but it was her uniform. She liked the image her clothes projected. Her job was important to her and it was important she looked the part. All business. Cool, calm, confident. Efficient. Managerial.

Viv glanced at herself in the mirror, tucking a stray strand of hair that had escaped her carefully coiffed chignon sitting low on her nape. She ran her palms over her hair, smoothing it more out of habit than necessity. Delish employees had to meet exacting standards and Viv believed that started at the top.

She may only be going to the cottage on Bramble Lane that Delish had rented for her for six months, but the second she stepped outside the door she was Delish and the way she looked and acted and carried herself while in the uniform was paramount. Delish wasn’t just about good quality chocolate, it was about sophistication.

There was nothing homespun about Delish.

Of course she could not go to the cottage. She could get in her car and be in Bozeman in just over half an hour. Be at that hotel in another five. Be sitting at the bar another five after that. Like she’d been tempted to do every night this week.

Just sit there, nursing a drink. In case…

But, like every other night, Viv banished the thought from her brain even as she smiled at the memory. She hadn’t planned on picking anyone up at the bar like she’d occasionally done during her yearlong sojourn around the country. But then she’d spotted him from across the bar and her libido had purred oh yessss.

And Reuben had not disappointed.

She liked that he hadn’t been sleazy or come on too strong. That it hadn’t been him trying to get her into bed. That he’d been surprised and even a little thrilled at being hit on. But when he’d taken charge… Viv shivered thinking about it now.

The way he’d given her what she’d wanted, how she’d wanted it and when she’d wanted it before he’d even thought about himself. And the way he’d gone down on her with a thoroughness that really should have earned him some kind of trophy.

Best tongue in show? Most outstanding oral performance? The Cunnilingus Cup?

Because he’d been right—she had moaned and thrashed and finally begged him to finish it when she could take no more of the way he was holding her so exquisitely on the edge.

And then there were the two times after that—slow and lazy but no less mind-blowing.

Viv sighed as she headed toward the door. It had been, without a doubt, the best sex she’d ever had. And she’d had some good sex. It had certainly made it a lot harder than usual to creep out early the next morning and move on to the next town.

Because that’s what Viv did. She moved on. To the next place, the next shop, the next challenge. After almost two decades of the stultifying suburban drudgery of her childhood, Viv was living her best life. She was moving on like all those people she’d seen exercising their right to freedom when they’d dropped their keys off each morning. Which was why she wouldn’t—no matter how tempted she was—go to Bozeman while she was in Marietta.

One-night stands were best left as one-night stands. The reason they glittered so bright in the memory was the thrill of the illicit. Of putting it all on the table for just one night. Of being someone else. Why ruin the memory of something good with the potential mediocrity bred from familiarity?

Viv generally didn’t pursue relationships with men—one night or otherwise—when she was stopping somewhere for six months. It complicated things. It was a distraction to the job she was trying to do and made leaving harder because suddenly there was a string to cut.

She’d learned that the hard way at her very first store when she’d dated a guy on what she’d thought had been a casual basis but who’d been devastated when she’d left even though she’d thought they were on the same page. He’d texted her so much in the first two months after she’d gone Viv had changed her number.

And she had been a lot warier since. Avoiding entanglements just made sense.

Putting Reuben firmly from her mind, Viv switched out