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.
“Been awhile, has it, since a man pleasured you?”
She covered his body with hers and quickly spread hot, damp kisses over his broad, muscular chest. A soft sprinkling of black hair ran from one tiny male nipple to the other. When she licked each nipple in turn, Burke groaned deeply.
“I’ve never been with a real man,” Callie said. “Only with one very self-centered boy who didn’t know the first thing about pleasuring me.”
Her confession poured gasoline on an already blazing fire. Burke captured her mouth, thrust his tongue into her waiting warmth and began a sensual assault that soon had her breathless and desperate for satisfaction. His mouth tasted of the Scotch he’d drunk earlier and his skin still retained the faded scent of some expensive men’s cologne.
She felt his mouth on her breast and vaguely wondered when he had removed her bra. Did it matter? an inner voice asked. No. No! Nothing mattered except that he continue touching her.
His hand crept up inside her scanty bloomers, cupping and caressing her bare buttocks. She writhed against him, loving the feel of his body so intimately entwined with hers. They turned and tossed on the bed, exchanging the dominant position again and again as they caressed, licked, kissed and nibbled each other’s bodies. Sometime during their sexual tumble, Burke removed the last barrier between them—her silk bikini panties.
The moment Burke’s lips touched her intimately between her thighs, Callie realized she was completely naked. She had no time to protest, no time to think about what he was doing to her. The masterful strokes of his talented tongue treated her to a lush, hot treat that left her panting when release shot through her body like fireworks in the nighttime sky. As the aftershocks of her climax rippled through her, Burke mounted her and lifted her hips. She stared into his face and saw the savage arousal of a primitive man. She cried out when he entered her with a forceful lunge. She clung to him, loving the fullness he created inside her as he filled her completely.
She met him thrust for thrust as the pressure increased. Throbbing, blinding, all-consuming hunger like none she’d ever known. She tensed, her body rioting with sensation, and like a thunderbolt, Callie experienced the most incredible pleasure of her entire life.
As her nails raked his back, her moans of completion sent him over the edge. Burke hammered into her, intensifying her fulfillment. And then he groaned like a wild animal—a roar of masculine triumph—as he shuddered violently inside her damp, receptive body.
He eased to her side but kept his arm possessively draped around her. Callie felt weightless and sated beyond belief. Drained. Sleepy. Deliriously content. Without another thought, she curled up against Burke and fell asleep.
In the wee hours of the morning, with dawn at least an hour away, Callie gathered her clothes and crept into the loo adjoining Burke’s bedroom. She washed quickly, refusing to turn on a light or to glance at herself in the mirror. Once she had put on her clothes, she tiptoed across the room, but stopped briefly at the foot of the bed to take one last look at Burke Lonigan.
She couldn’t believe that she’d had sex with a man she barely knew. Twice! Unprotected sex, she reminded herself, and groaned silently. Maybe he was the most gorgeous man alive. Maybe they had truly needed each other. And maybe the sex had been the absolutely greatest she’d ever experienced. Scratch that. No maybe about it. It had been the greatest sex!
But Burke had been plastered and couldn’t be held totally responsible for his actions, where she on the other hand had been perfectly sober and could be held responsible.
She left the bedroom, made her way down the marble staircase and rushed hurriedly through the huge foyer and out the front door. She glanced at the house and said goodbye to her lover. She’d never see Burke Lonigan again. In a few weeks, he would be nothing more than a sweet memory.
Chapter 1
Callie dashed out of the elevator, thankful she’d had several minutes in the lift to catch her breath. The morning had been unusually hectic. Enid had stayed over at a friend’s last night and hadn’t come home by the time the minder had arrived. Thankfully Seamus adored the plump, motherly Mrs. Goodhope, who had raised four children of her own and had ten grandchildren.
Seamus had been fussy during the night, which was so unlike him. He’d woken Callie before dawn. She’d taken his temperature, which was normal, and had tried everything to soothe his whining. And when he’d said mama, and looked pleadingly at her with those big blue eyes of his, she’d almost stayed at home. But she couldn’t allow a fourteen-month-old child to dictate her actions. Especially not when she and that spoiled little boy depended upon her job for their livelihood.
Callie’s quick steps clicked her sensible two-inch heels along the corridor in the office suite of Lonigan’s Imports and Exports, which comprised the entire twentieth floor of an impressive skyscraper in the heart of the Square Mile. The relatively new building, constructed in the mid eighties, blended into the landscape in and around the Barbican Center and the nearby Tower Bridge over the Pool of London. As she hurried toward her office, she nodded and spoke to various employees. She’d been employed here only two and a half months, but she already knew everyone by first and last names and could recite each person’s individual title and duties. Of course, acquiring that knowledge had been part of her job as Burke Lonigan’s personal assistant.
“Good morning, Ms. Severin,” her secretary, Juliette Davenport, said in greeting. “Would you care for some tea and scones?”
“Yes, please, thank you. I didn’t have time for breakfast.” Callie pushed open the door to her office, then paused and asked, “By the way, has Mr. Lonigan arrived?”
“No, but he did telephone and leave you a message. He said to proceed with the McMaster’s shipment and that he’d be in by noon.”
“Oh. Yes, I’ll take care of it.”
She couldn’t help wondering if Burke had spent the night with a friend last night, as Enid had, and that was the reason he would be late coming into the office this morning.
Callie dropped her briefcase on top of her desk, plopped down in her leather swivel chair and punched several keys on her computer to bring up the McMaster’s file. The facts and figures blurred before her eyes as her mind filled with thoughts of Burke and another woman. Some tall, leggy brunette or some luscious