Chapter 20 #2
‘Aye, I’m sure. Why don’t I make us another drink while you find a good bit to read. I can’t promise it’ll be as good as your Manhattan, but I will try.’
‘Sounds like a deal.’ Bea scrabbled through her phone for first the novel then a suitable scene to read, while Cal went behind the bar to mix his own version of the Manhattan.
‘Okay, I think I’ve found something,’ she said, as Cal brought round the deep red drinks and perched atop his bar stool again. ‘I won’t bore you for too long, but I think you’ll like this scene. This one is set in Alabama and is from my Montgomery Millionaires series, the second series I wrote.’
‘Brilliant. I’m ready when you are.’ Cal’s face was deadly serious.
Bea wished she could ascertain whether he was interested in hearing her writing or if he was more attracted to the salacious aspect of it.
In choosing which scene to read him, she’d gone for the latter, hoping she wasn’t misreading the signs and making a monumental fool of herself in front of her boss.
She was sure she saw a little something extra there behind those dazzling green irises.
She parted her lips and stared at her phone. Then she looked back up at Cal.
‘I’d like to say this is a rough draft but it’s pretty much what went in the book, so if you don’t like it…’
Cal remained silent and intently focused on her.
‘I’ll just read, shall I?’
‘Aye.’ He smiled and before she fell off her seat from the weight of the lust he invoked in her, Bea looked down at her phone again.
Jake swung the door of the summerhouse open and stormed in. He would make sure Holly Buchanan never made a fool of him like that again.
‘Holly!’ he called. ‘I know you’re here. It’s Jake Dupree.’
‘Oh, hi, Jake. I’m up here.’ Holly’s voice called innocent as peach pie from one of the upstairs rooms. Damn her! Making him climb the stairs to give her a piece of his mind and acting like nothing was wrong when she knew fine well she’d got him all riled up.
‘Damn, you, Holly Buchanan. You sure like to make things difficult for a man, don’t you?’ Jake strode up the stairs two at a time. ‘Now you listen to me. We need to set things straight about what happened today, so…’
Jake stopped in his tracks. Holly was standing in front of him in the frame of the bathroom door, naked but for a tiny towel wrapped around her.
It covered a body which was soaking wet and covered in residual bubbles.
Her hair was sodden and dripping onto her cleavage.
Jake experienced a stiffening inside his pants.
‘Now, what exactly could be so important, Jake Dupree, that a girl has to get out of the bath when she’s soaking wet like this?’ Holly asked.
‘I was… I… Now you can’t just do what you did this morning, Holly. Deep Bay is mine and you know it.’
Holly dropped her towel to the floor.
Bea glanced up at Cal. ‘Do you want me to read more?’
Cal’s lips had fallen ever so slightly apart. ‘Um… Are you kidding? You’re stopping there? It sounded like it was getting good.’
‘It kind of was, but I wasn’t sure how many chapters you like to read in a day.’
‘Well, I’m sure that wasn’t a whole chapter so keep reading if you like. I’m still awake. In fact, I think you might say I’m becoming awaker.’
Bea liked this Cal, the version that was loosening up to her. She could see his wicked sense of humour filtering through the seriousness, like sunlight glimmering through the weave of a dark drape.
‘I’m sure,’ she said, teasingly, ‘that you can imagine what happens next.’
‘I’ve got a fair idea. Does she put her clothes on and they go for a picnic?’
Bea rocked with laughter. ‘That’s exactly what they do. How did you know?’
‘I told you. I’ve read a lot of these types of books. Plus, I got a hunch. They both were hungry, I think.’
‘Hmm, you’d be right.’ She met Cal’s gaze dead on and for several loaded moments, they were locked together in a magnetic forcefield. ‘I think they are both starving,’ she added.
Cal got it. Her meaning. He placed his drink on the bar, slid off his stool and stood looming above Bea but close enough to, no doubt, hear her heart thundering in anticipation. ‘So,’ he said, ‘where can I find out what happens next?’
‘Well, it’s available at all good booksellers.’
Bea noted how her response caused brushstrokes of amusement to appear on Cal’s otherwise intense expression. He touched her cheek, his palm warm and strong. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘I’ll buy it tomorrow.’
And now she could barely muster a response.
She was being dragged along in a current of stupendously sexy and witty Scottish man cupping her face and pinpointing her with a look that carried a raft load of intentions, none of which were especially pure.
‘Mmhm,’ she said. Not that she wanted to talk.
All she wanted to do was kiss Cal Butler. Or have Cal Butler kiss her.
Lucky then that Cal seemed to be thinking similar thoughts.
Lucky then that at the moment she was thinking how much she wanted his lips on hers, Cal, with a direct focus driven by passionate intent, leaned down, pressed his mouth to Bea’s and kissed her.
And oh, how he kissed her. At first, he was soft, teasing, giving a taste of what was to come, then the hunger he’d alluded to moments earlier took over and Cal cranked the heat up, his mouth devouring Bea’s, his strong palms cradling her face, drifting down to her waist, the small of her back, urging her up from her bar stool, sending the unequivocal message of how badly he needed her.
Bea needed this too, so much. She slid from her bar stool, standing to get closer to Cal, all the while kissing him back, responding to and equalling his hunger with her own, waltzing her tongue round his.
His hands found their way to her face once more, before exploring her neck, then travelling to her back and pulling her to him so her breasts were pressed against that firm body pulsing with Scottish blood and heat and passion.
Oh God! If this was how he kissed, the rest would be unbelievable.
Then, as if he’d been injected with a shot of adrenaline, Cal yanked away from the kiss; his hands dropping from Bea’s face and plunging into his pockets, his expression suggesting immediate shock and regret.
‘Fuck, I am so sorry, Bea.’
‘Sorry?’ Bea managed to splutter. ‘Why?’ What on earth does he have to be sorry about?
Definitely not his kissing technique, except to be sorry to all the other men out there because he put them in the corner the way he kissed.
Bea had experienced nothing like it. Tenderness combined with passion, a slow build to a crescendo of intensity.
Though they hadn’t quite got to that bit since Cal had backed off and now was throwing back his cocktail as if to wash away what had gone between them.
‘Sorry,’ he said, again. ‘I’m your boss and that was wrong of me. I shouldn’t be taking advantage of you like that.’
‘Taking advantage of me? But I kissed you back.’
‘Only because I kissed you first.’ He met her gaze. ‘It was unprofessional and I apologise.’
Bea shook her head as if to unblock her ears. If he’d tried to kiss her and she had rejected him, she could understand Cal calling himself out as unprofessional. But that kiss was between two consenting adults.
‘I don’t think there is any such thing as a professional kiss.
’ She tried to lighten the mood. ‘Except if there were kissing championships, then you would have reached professional level.’ Oh, she was waffling now and Cal was pushing in his bar stool and wiping non-existent dust from the bar. He’d moved on already.
‘Look, Bea. You are a stunning woman and I think you probably know now how attractive I find you. But I never mix business with my personal life. It would only end in disaster. I’ll get you a taxi.’
Wow! This sudden coolness shocked Bea and his words whipped her back to their first meeting in the coffee shop where he’d blasted her with his cool air of intolerance and acted like she was an idiot.
She should have seen it then. Known his disposition was so diametrically opposed to her own and that he had the capacity to hurt her with his words.
But she was also being cast back further, back to life with Josh where she didn’t know where she stood from moment to moment and any attempts at affection were rebuffed.
Both men had made her feel like a fool. Well, she wasn’t having that any longer.
She wouldn’t tolerate another Josh. As much as she liked Cal, this was never meant to be anything more than a trip to help her write and she didn’t need a muse to help her do it.
If he thought kissing her was a mistake, then so be it.
He wouldn’t get to kiss her again. So, as matter of fact as she could, Bea turned away and strode to the staff room to grab her purse.
She would walk away from the shame before it could strengthen its grip on her any further.