Her Secret Weapon. BEVERLY BARTON

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 fiancé, 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 СКАЧАТЬ