start suspecting her of illicit activity, but his curiosity about her had definitely been piqued. Even more so than before. He’d figured a little reconnaissance under the guise of patronizing her shop—especially at a time when it wasn’t open and Rosie might be a little more relaxed—ought to lend itself to some conversation that would reveal a little more about her. Or, at the very least, give him a bit more information to go on in his search to uncover more about her. Besides, it had been a while since he’d sent his mother some flowers.
Still watching Rosie, who suddenly looked as if she were worried about something—in addition to still looking incredibly, well…turned-on—Sam started to lift the mug of tea to his lips.
But before he had a chance to taste it, she cried out, “Stop!”
Automatically, he lowered his hand. But he continued to hold her gaze steady as he asked, “Why? I thought it was for your customers.”
“It is,” she replied quickly.
A little too quickly to Sam’s way of thinking. She seemed pretty agitated about something all of a sudden. Though she still looked very turned-on. Her pupils had expanded to the point where her green irises were mere rims around them. Her cheeks were stained with a crimson blush, and her lips looked redder than usual and were parted slightly, as if she needed more air. The skin above the low-lying neckline of her shirt was flushed, too, and something told Sam it would be hot to the touch.
The fingers of his free hand began to curl involuntarily at his side, as if they very much wanted to test that theory right now, and it was with no small effort that he managed to curb the impulse. But it rose right up again when he noticed how her chest was rising and falling rapidly, pushing her breasts against the thin fabric of her shirt. Her nipples, he couldn’t possibly help noticing every time she inhaled, were hard and distended, another indication that she was indeed turned-on.
And dammit, now Sam was, too.
“Let me brew you a fresh pot,” she said as she began to reach for the mug, pulling his attention—and his gaze, finally—back to the tea he’d just poured for himself. “That’s been sitting there awhile.”
“It’s barely eight in the morning,” he pointed out. “It can’t have been sitting there that long. Hell, it’s still hot,” he added when he felt the temperature of the tea through the mug. “Besides, you obviously just had some yourself. It’ll be fine.”
“But you’d probably prefer coffee,” she said, reaching for the mug again, moving her hand even closer.
Without asking himself why, Sam pulled the cup out of range before she could touch it. He told himself it was because he didn’t like it when people made decisions for him. It wasn’t because he was hoping on some level that, by removing the cup from her reach, she’d be forced to take a step forward to get it, something that would bring her body closer to his.
“It’ll be fine,” he repeated. “I just need a little something to quench my thirst.”
“But—”
He only took a small sip first, in case the tea was hot, then, when he discovered the temperature was perfect, enjoyed a few hearty swallows. He grimaced a little when he realized it wasn’t regular tea, but some herbal stuff that was a little heavy on the cinnamon. Still, it tasted fine, and it went a long way toward alleviating the dryness in his mouth.
He continued to watch Rosie as he enjoyed a few more sips, and couldn’t help thinking she looked more and more panicked with every passing second. Something wasn’t right with her. She just had some kind of vibe coming off her at the moment that wasn’t in keeping with her usual easygoing self. And he couldn’t help thinking it was his presence in her shop that was causing it.
Maybe Ed Dinwiddie was on to something, he thought before he could stop himself. Maybe everything about Rosie wasn’t on the up-and-up, after all. Because somehow Sam was starting to get the impression that she’d been doing something just now, before he came into the shop, that she shouldn’t have been doing. He honestly couldn’t say what, but right now she seemed edgy and anxious, as if she feared she was about to be caught.
Unable to help himself—hey, you could take the cop out of vice, but you couldn’t take the suspicion out of the vice cop—he drove his gaze around the shop as surreptitiously as he could, trying to discern if anything was amiss or out of place. But the place was tidy to a fault, and even more quaint than the police station. The dark hardwood floor was buffed to a rich sheen, the walls were painted forest green, striped with wooden shelves that were overflowing with plants and flowers and pots. An antique cash register sat on the countertop to his left, behind which were more shelves, more plants, more flowers, more pots. There was a door leading to a back room that was open, and Sam could see more of the same beyond, along with tables and stools and flower arrangements in varying stages of completion.
For the first time, he noticed the smell of the place, a mixture of sweet blossoms, cinnamon tea and loamy earth. The only window was the one to the right of where they stood, the faint golden sunlight filtering through it the only light present at the moment. From Malcolm’s Music Mart next door, he could hear the faint strains of something classical and heavy on the horns, music from another time tumbling into a room that might as well have sprung from the same century. All combined, the impressions gave the shop an otherworldly ambiance, where Sam could almost believe time had stopped and he and Rosie were the only people left on the planet.
It was such a whimsical thought for such a practical man. What the hell had come over him to make him think like that? Shaking the odd sensations out of his head almost literally, he downed what was left of his tea and set the mug on a different shelf from the clean ones. Then he looked at Rosie again.
Big mistake, he immediately realized. Because where before she had looked incredibly, well…turned-on, now, suddenly, she looked thoroughly and profoundly aroused. Not only that, but she hadn’t dropped the hand with which she’d been reaching for his mug, and it still hovered near Sam’s shoulder, as if she were having trouble deciding what she wanted to do with it.
And suddenly, completely unbidden, Sam had a very good idea of what she should do with it. Not only that, but he had a good idea for his own hand, too. In fact, the idea was so strong, and so demanding, he couldn’t push it out of his brain. Because there, in his mind’s eye, he saw himself and Rosie, standing right where they were in the middle of the flower shop, her fingers wrapped possessively around his cock as she jerked him to completion, him with his long middle finger buried in her damp slit as he drilled her for all he was worth.
And good God, where had that thought come from? he wondered as he did his best to squash it. More to the point, why wasn’t it going anywhere, no matter how hard he tried to push it away?
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