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“I slapped his silly face and then I resigned my position in the firm where we both worked.”
“Ah, so you’re without a man and without a job.”
“It appears so.”
“Mm… If you’re as smart as you are pretty, you won’t be without either for long.”
Burke excused himself for a trip to the bar, but when he asked if she’d like another, she declined. She watched him staggering as he disappeared into the crowded bar area. He returned within minutes, smiling, another whiskey in his hand.
The moment he sat down, he reached for the Scotch. Callie grasped his hand before he could pick up the glass. “I’ve told you my sad story,” she said. “Why don’t you tell me yours?”
“My sad story?” He lifted his eyebrows as if surprised by her request. “What makes you think I have a sad story to tell?”
She tightened her hold on his big hand. “Because you’re drinking to drown your sorrows and—” she hesitated momentarily “—you look like an unmade bed.”
He tossed back his head and laughed. Genuine, gut-deep laughter.
When he looked at her again, a rather cocky, crooked smile remained in place. “I like honesty in a woman. Unusual quality in most. So, I look like an unmade bed, do I?”
“Yes, you do. And the moment I saw you, I noticed the sadness in your eyes.”
His smile vanished. He knocked her hand aside and lifted the whiskey. This time he downed the entire drink in one long swallow. Afterward he coughed several times.
“Observant little thing, aren’t you?”
“Please, don’t drink any more. You’ve had more than enough.”
He deliberately pinched his cheek. “I’m afraid I can still feel, so that means I haven’t had enough.”
“Want to tell me what’s wrong?”
“Why is it that women always want to poke and probe into a man’s business? If you really want to help me, then why don’t you come closer and I’ll tell you what will really make me feel better.”
She noted that he’d begun to slur his words more and more. Another drink and he might not be able to walk. So, why do you care? an inner voice asked. This man doesn’t mean anything to you. He’s a stranger. But he is a stranger in pain. He needs someone tonight. Someone to ease his pain. And you need someone, too, that inner voice reminded her. Someone to ease your pain.
Callie slid closer to him so that they were shoulder to shoulder. Then she draped her arm around his waist and cuddled to his side. “Don’t drink any more and we’ll discuss what we can do for each other…how I can ease your pain and you can ease mine.”
She had no intention of giving this man anything more than sympathy and caring. The two things they both needed. But first she had to find a way to stop him from drinking, didn’t she?
He grinned at her. The bottom dropped out of her stomach. She’d never had such a strong physical reaction to a man—not even Laurence, and they had been lovers. It was as if she and this stranger, this Mr. Lonigan, were somehow connected. She couldn’t explain the odd attraction she felt for him. Did he feel it, too? she wondered. She thought that perhaps he did. Right now he was looking at her as if he could see straight through her clothes. His intense scrutiny made her feel completely naked.
“Would you come home with me, my darling?” he asked, his voice a deep, sensuous invitation.
“I’ll make sure you get home safely.” She made a counteroffer.
“Will you now?”
Callie’s heartbeat quickened when he stared at her, his eyes twinkling with devilment. “I’m not really into casual sex,” she admitted. “I’ve just lived through one of the worst days of my life and obviously you have, too, so perhaps—”
“No sex, huh?”
“I’ll get us a taxi,” Callie said. “And I’ll see you home.”
Burke glowered at her. “Take-charge kind of girl, are you? Well, I don’t need anyone to take charge of me, thank you kindly.” With that said, he tried to stand. After swaying right and left, he quickly sat. “I seem to be quite blotto.”
Callie couldn’t suppress the giggle that escaped from her throat.
“You won’t get an argument from me. You, Mr. Lonigan, are most definitely blotto.”
Within ten minutes Callie, aided by a pub employee, eased Burke Lonigan into a black cab, then slid in beside him. While she rummaged in her purse for money to tip the young man who had helped her, Burke handed the man an overly generous twenty quid.
“Where to, governor?” the driver asked.
When Burke gave the driver his address, Callie gasped. His home was in Belgravia? Only the extremely wealthy lived here. Multimillionaires. Was her Mr. Lonigan that rich? she wondered. Not your Mr. Lonigan, an inner voice scolded.
Burke slipped his arm around Callie’s shoulders and pulled her against him. His whiskey breath was warm and soft against the side of her face. A tingling shudder rippled up her spine, and her stomach fluttered with sexual awareness.
Burke nuzzled her ear and laughed when she trembled. “You’re as jumpy as a virgin, my darling.”
“I’m not a—”
“Of course you’re not. You had a fiancе, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Engaged long?” Burke asked.
“Nearly a year,” she said. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Are you married or engaged or anything?”
“Never married. Never engaged. But a great deal of anything.”
His teasing manner helped her relax just a bit. “Have you ever been in love?”
“Depends on your definition of love.”
“I suppose what I’m trying to ask is why you’re so sad tonight. I thought perhaps you had a broken heart, too.” She cuddled against Burke Lonigan’s large, strong body. Oddly enough, being encompassed in this stranger’s arms made her feel safe and comforted.
“Ah, I see.” He released her, scooted her toward the opposite side of the taxi and then laid his head on her lap as he stretched his long legs across the seat. “You don’t mind, do you?”
“No.” And she really didn’t. Unable to stop herself, she threaded her fingers through his wavy black hair, which felt incredibly soft and silky to the touch.
Burke lifted his right arm. Reaching up, he caressed the back of her neck with his fingertips. He lowered his left hand to begin a similar maneuver with her knees.
She could stop him. She should stop him! But she didn’t. His touch somehow soothed her as, at the same time, it excited her. An odd combination, but she knew no other way to describe the sensations fluttering inside her body.
“My father died.” Burke’s voice was low and quiet, as if he were talking to himself.
“Oh, I’m so very sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry about. The old bastard lived to be nearly eighty!”
Callie didn’t understand the bitterness in Burke’s voice or the sudden tenseness in his body. Why would anyone refer to their father as an old bastard? Although she and her father didn’t always agree on everything, they got along rather well. Arthur Severin had been a strict but loving parent who had done his best to bring up his only child after his wife’s untimely death when Callie was twelve.
Burke chuckled. “Actually, I’m the bastard. My parents were never married. He was an older married man and she a young Irish maid. My mother married a Yank soldier when I was ten and we moved to America. I only became acquainted with my real father when I returned to England as a grown man.”
“Did the two of you never reconcile?” Callie asked.
“In a way, I suppose we did.” Burke halted his caress of Callie’s knees, allowing his hand to cup her kneecap. He lowered the hand at her neck until it rested at his side. “I’m afraid Seamus Malcolm didn’t have room in his life for an illegitimate son, so in all the years I knew him, he never actually acknowledged me. Just kept me on the fringes of his life. Tossed me a crumb from time to time.”
“He sounds like a beastly man.” Callie’s heart ached for Burke Lonigan, for the little boy inside him who still longed for a father’s love and attention.
“Not really. He was just a man of his time.” Burke harrumphed. “Old Seamus died last week. I was out of the country. On business. His family—his legitimate children—didn’t even bother to try to contact me. I wasn’t here for my own father’s funeral. I returned to London this morning and when I telephoned him, as I often did after I’d been out of the country, I was told that he had died.”
Burke lifted his head from her lap, then slowly pulled himself into a sitting position. “When I stopped by the house this afternoon to pay my condolences, I was told I wasn’t welcome.”
“Oh, how dreadful for you.” Callie wrapped her arms around him and hugged him to her.
Engulfing her in his embrace, Burke melted against her. “The maid who turned me away followed me out into the street and told me that Mr. Seamus had asked for me on his deathbed and they had told him I wouldn’t come.”
“Oh, God!” Callie held Burke, offering him sympathy and comfort and tender care.
He buried his face against her neck. She caressed the back of his head, then turned and kissed him sweetly on his temple. He lifted his face to her, and his breathtaking blue eyes glistened with moisture.
“It’s all right,” she said. “It really is quite all right to cry for your father.”
“I don’t cry,” he told her, the tone of his voice hard, even if his words were slightly slurred. “I’ve cried only once since I was a lad of six, when someone called me an ugly name and I knew what it meant. The other time—the last time—was when my dog Skippy died. I was eleven and knew better than to act like a crybaby.”
She couldn’t bear it, Callie thought. This beautiful, brokenhearted man, who so desperately needed the relief of tears, refused to give in to his emotions. Horrid masculine trait! She wanted nothing more at that moment than to ease his suffering, to erase the pain she saw in his eyes and somehow give him the emotional release he needed.
As if he could read her mind, Burke studied her intently and then without a word he covered her mouth with his. The kiss was wildly passionate, and yet an odd blend of tenderness and savagery. He devoured. Taking, demanding, needing. At first, she simply allowed his plundering, but within moments she responded. Hesitantly she opened her mouth, inviting his invasion. But the second he cupped the back of her head, pressing her deeper into the kiss, she ignited, like dry timber to a lit match. Rational thought ceased. Sensation ruled her completely.
All her bruised and battered emotions clashed with sexual heat and the two melded into raw, primitive need.
“Here we are, governor,” the driver said, then hopped out of the cab and opened the door.
Burke ended the kiss, slowly. As if he had all the time in the world. As if some heavyset, gray-haired cabdriver wasn’t watching them. As if passersby couldn’t see them.
Still lost in a sensual fog, Callie’s mind swirled. She eased out of Burke’s arms, her body decidedly weak.
“Want me to help you with him, miss?” the driver asked.
“Sir, are you implying that I can’t walk without assistance?” Burke demanded, but his tone implied a teasing attitude.
As if to make a point, Burke climbed out of the taxi and stood on his own two feet. Callie slid out directly behind him, then searched in her purse for money to pay the driver.
Burke grabbed her hand. “I’ll take care of this.” He removed his wallet, pulled out several large bills—twice the cost of the taxi ride—and handed the generous sum to the driver.
“Thank you, sir. Thank you, indeed.” The middle-aged man smiled broadly. “I’ll be glad to help you inside, governor. No extra charge.” When he chuckled, his potbelly jiggled like jelly.
“My darling, do you need any assistance putting me to bed?” Burke draped his arm around Callie’s shoulders.
Under the streetlights, Burke’s hair shone a rich blue black and his eyes glimmered with temptation and promise.
“Thank you,” she said to the driver, “but I think I can handle things.”
Callie tried not to let Burke’s beautiful period house in prestigious Belgravia intimidate her, but she couldn’t help it. The house must have cost him no less than two million pounds! She was far from poor and had been raised quite comfortably by an American diplomat father and a disowned-by-her-family English aristocrat mother. She had friends from every walk of life, including her independently wealthy cousin Enid. But the kind of money it took to live in Belgravia was the kind possessed by oil sheiks and business tycoons. Just who was Burke Lonigan? she wondered. And what am I doing with him?
When Callie remained unmoving on the pavement in front of his home, Burke nudged her into action. “You haven’t changed your mind, have you?”
Although his steps were unsteady because of the large amount of liquor he had consumed, Callie’s movements were shaky for a different reason. Suddenly, she felt very uncertain about going inside this mansion with a man she really didn’t know.
When they reached the front door, Burke dove his hand into his pocket and brought out a key, but before inserting it into the lock, he turned and wrapped his arms around Callie. She felt small and vulnerable. With her flats not adding any height to her five-foot-three-inch frame, Burke towered over her a good nine inches.
He pressed his face against her neck, then nuzzled softly and whispered into her ear. “You need me tonight, my darling, just as much as I need you.”
He kissed her. A preview of things to come. A hint of the passion they had shared in the taxi sparked, and she knew it wouldn’t take much to set them aflame.
When he unlocked and opened the massive front doors, she went with him into the dark belly of his home. He didn’t give her time to assess the situation or to get her bearings before he led her deeper into the cavern of the large foyer. The downstairs area was pitch black, but at the top of the impressive staircase a dim light shone from an open doorway.
On their ascent up the marble staircase, Burke continued kissing her, his lips brushing her cheek, her temple and her jaw. All the while he kept his left arm securely wrapped around her shoulders, he maneuvered his right hand alongside her waist and up to gently cradle the underside of her breast. She sucked in a deep breath when his fingertips brushed her nipple.
The light in the hallway came from a bedroom. Burke’s bedroom, she surmised. While her mind instructed her to look at the room, to appreciate the decor and take time out to catch her breath, her senses felt no compulsion to do more than enjoy the ardent attention of the man who kissed and caressed her.
You need this, an inner voice prompted. You need to be loved tonight. Mindlessly, passionately loved. No commitment. No concerns beyond this one night. Don’t think. Feel. Feel what it’s like to be with a man like Burke Lonigan.
Burke shed his coat and let it fall haphazardly to the floor. Then he loosened the buttons on his shirt and tossed the fine linen garment aside. With trembling fingers, he caught the hem of Callie’s cashmere jumper and lifted it up and off, then added it to the pile of clothing accumulating on the floor. Before she could catch her breath, he tumbled them onto the massive mahogany bed. His laughter rumbled from his chest as he rolled Callie on top of his long, hard body. She gazed at him, into his sexy blue eyes, and felt her bones beginning to liquefy. Her feminine core clenched and unclenched. Her nipples peaked.
She didn’t think she’d ever wanted anything so much in her entire life. Sanity warned her that she was making a mistake. But lust promised her ecstasy beyond her wildest dreams.
She straddled him, the action hiking her skirt to mid-thigh. At the apex between her spread legs, she felt the large, throbbing bulge of Burke’s arousal. Every nerve in her body quivered.
He ran one hand underneath her skirt to cup her hip. “You’re wearing tights,” he complained. “Take them off.”
She kicked off her shoes, then lifted her legs and hastily removed her skirt and her tights, leaving her in only a pair of coral silk panties and matching bra.
“That’s better,” he said, as he tried to unbuckle his belt. When his fumbling attempt failed, he cursed under his breath.
“Here, let me.”
Callie had never undressed a man, not even Laurence, who had preferred to remove his own clothes and be waiting in bed for her. She went at removing Burke’s clothes like a madwoman intent upon stripping him bare at record speed. Within two minutes, his shoes, socks, belt, trousers and underpants lay askew across the foot of the bed.
“Eager little thing, aren’t you?” Burke teased her.
“Very eager,” she admitted.
