Free Kiss Them Goodbye by Stella Cameron

had ever looked at him quite that way, studying his face minutely, spending extra time on his mouth until she leaned a little closer and her own lips parted. “And I like you, that’s a good reason to come see you.”
    “You’re embarrassing me,” he told her. “But don’t let that stop you.”
    She smiled, a quirky smile, and inclined her head to take in his body. He was grateful he remained what Madge Pollard, Cyrus’s bright-eyed assistant, called lean and mean—only with enough bulk to make a girl weak at the knees. “Do you lift weights?” Vivian asked. “Live on some sort of chemicals with Gatorade chasers? I don’t think chests just come like that.”
    He controlled an urge to sweep her on top of the table and sit with his chair pushed back, making sure he hadn’t missed anything about her—or as little as he could do that with her clothes on. “I do a lot of physical work,” he told her and shrugged. “And I like to run. Oh, what the hell, I might as well fess up to it all. We’ve got an old Nautilus at the station and I love that thing.”
    “Worth every second,” she said, her voice somewhat lower. She pointed an index finger at him, made circles with it, looked into his eyes, back at his chest, and slowly set her fingertip on one of his pecs. Vivian poked, quite definitely poked, and made an “ooh” shape with her mouth. “You’ve been eating your spinach.”
    He sent up thanks that she managed to keep things light enough to stop him from inviting her to join him anywhere, as long as he was inside her.
    “Your face got to me the first time I saw it,” Spike said, and Vivian saw a wicked glitter in his eyes. So this was to be tit for tat. “You’ve got cheekbones that don’t quit and your eyes aren’t just green, they’re green-green and when you close them, you’ve got more black eyelashes than one woman should have. They curve against your face, and flicker because you’re always thinking aboutsomething. And your skin is so white. Black hair and white skin. Is your skin the same all over?”
    Her eyes flashed at him. “That’s a secret.”
    “I like secrets. They turn me on. Sometimes I can’t quit until I find them out.”
    Her left hand rested on the table and he covered it with his right. She was cool, almost too cool. Their eyes met and she smiled at him, a conspiratorial smile. Spike turned up the corners of his mouth and made himself keep on looking at her, but something had changed in him and he couldn’t afford that change. He wasn’t going to be able to put Vivian Patin out of his mind easily. At this moment he doubted he would ever forget the way she looked at him now.
    He could not have a woman in his life—other than casually. He already knew it didn’t work. Vivian wasn’t the kind of woman a man tried to get close to—with no strings attached.
    She turned her hand over beneath his so that their palms touched and their fingertips rested together. He played back and forth, softly, and saw her shiver again but not, he thought, out of fear or because she was cold—not this time.
    “This may not be the best timing,” he said, “but what happened with the fire your father died in?”
    She nodded and bent low enough over their joined hands to ensure her face wasn’t visible. “Chez Charlotte—that was my parents’ restaurant. Burned to the ground. The fire started in the kitchens and that’s where my father was found.”
    Spike knew he must listen quietly and not try to prompt her with his own questions.
    She kept her face down but curled her fingers into his palm and made light rubbing motions that tickled vaguely. “My dad was a calm man—unless he lost his temper, and he did do that regularly. But he was alonethere. Something I don’t get, and neither does Mama. All alone and cooking. They say he must have been and that he probably set the stove on fire.”
    Spike picked up her hand and held it between both of his. Her fingers were long but