Chapter 24
Bea
‘So, you’re dating?’ Cal asked once the bar was closed, and they were cleaning up.
‘Well,’ said Bea. ‘Craig took me to dinner.’
‘You have a good time?’
Bea couldn’t work out if Cal was being an interested employer or curious for other reasons. She briskly tidied away clean glasses. ‘It was lovely, thanks.’
‘Right.’ Cal swept a cloth across the bar with some force. ‘That’s good then.’
‘Yes, it was.’
‘And does he intend to show you any more of Edinburgh?’
Bea hadn’t kissed Craig, never mind slept with him, but Cal didn’t need to know that.
She shrugged. ‘I think we may have coffee next week, although I’m not entirely sure of his intentions regarding showing me things.
’ There was a double meaning in this and she fully intended there to be. Why not make Cal sweat a little?
‘Right. Well, make sure he’s treats you properly. I wouldn’t trust half of the punters that come in here. You deserve to be treated well, Bea.’
‘You think so?’
‘Aye, I do.’
Bea folded her arms. ‘You’re right, Cal. But remind me. Why is it that I deserve good treatment?’ If Cal was changing his mind about last week, then he was as culpable as the next guy of messing her around and he wasn’t getting anywhere near her without earning it.
As if reading her thoughts, a spark appeared in Cal’s eyes and for a moment he contemplated Bea in silence. Then without another word, he moved round to her side of the bar – mere feet from her – and spoke in that deep Scottish burr that set Bea seriously off balance.
‘Because you are bloody amazing, that’s why. Every punter in this place finds you breathtaking. That Craig guy doesn’t know how lucky he is.’
‘Oh yeah?’ Bea drawled. ‘I’ve encountered a few guys who haven’t known how lucky they are.’
Cal glanced at the floor, then swiftly back up to Bea. That electricity was there again, like a flickering cord of static pulled between them.
‘I think we both know I’m one of those guys, don’t we?’ he admitted.
Bea almost laughed at this unexpected frankness. ‘Well, I didn’t like to be the one to say, but…’
‘No, it’s fair enough. So, how much do you like Craig?’
‘I like him.’ Bea fiddled with one of the beer tap nozzles. ‘He’s nice.’
‘Nice.’ Cal nodded. ‘Okay. Well, I can be nice. But do you feel this with him?’
‘Feel what?’ Bea met Cal’s gaze dead on. She knew exactly what he was talking about, but she wanted him to explain his meaning. He wasn’t getting to wherever has was driving to without a few stoplights on the way.
‘This.’ Cal waved at the space between their two bodies. ‘The energy that’s here when we stand next to each other. Do you get this with him? Because I’ve never experienced it with another woman in my life’
‘Um.’ At Cal’s disarming candour, Bea loosened her hold on the beer tap. If what she thought was on the cards was on the cards, she might need both her hands.
‘No. I don’t feel this when I am with him,’ she said, meeting his honesty dead on with her own. ‘Only with you.’
Cal gave another curt nod but said nothing more. Is that it? Was all he wanted ego-boosting affirmation that I like him more than I do Craig? I should have kept my mouth shut.
‘I’ll cash up.’ Bea opened the register, ready to get out of this toxic place.
Cal, standing on the other side, pushed the drawer closed with the same force as earlier and took a step towards her.
‘Cash up later.’ He fixed her with a look she’d seen a million times before yet had never seen in her life.
Bea blinked, pinned to the spot by the magnetism of Cal’s presence. ‘If you’re sure.’ She knew unequivocally that he was: the intent in his stare, the way his lips had fallen slightly apart. Everything about Cal emanated lust.
‘I’m sure. Bea, I made a mistake last week after our kiss. I’m man enough to admit that. I should never have said that was the end for us.’
Man enough to admit he was wrong. This apology was filling Bea’s cup in so many ways. God, she wanted Cal to kiss her, and somewhere from within, she heard emerge a whispered ‘Okay’.
‘I’m sorry,’ Cal murmured, cupping her face, his touch warm and confident against her skin, eyes almost drunk with sincerity. ‘Honestly, it’s just the beginning.’
Bea’s breath caught in her windpipe. This was huge.
This was what she wanted. Really wanted.
But thoughts of Craig flashed across her mind.
She was at an intersection and she knew it: one where a split-second decision was in the offing.
Cal held her face and her future in his hands.
If she was going to tell him she chose Craig, now would be the time.
Now, before this Cal flame that was flickering in front of her ignited into a full on blaze.
‘Can you forgive me?’ Cal’s breath was a warm whisper on Bea’s face, intermingling with her own. They were so close now.
Could she? Could she forgive him for stopping their desire in its tracks?
For pulling her in then pushing her away, and now pulling her in once more, like a torturous game of cat and mouse.
What’s to say he wouldn’t do it again? Bea had seconds to decide what to do.
She examined his face but could see nothing but seriousness in his inquiring gaze as he waited for her answer.
‘I suppose I could go some way to forgiving you,’ she whispered at last.
Cal took his signal from this and touched his lips tenderly to Bea’s. Oh, it was hopeless. There was no way in the world she could walk away from this now. No way. Thoughts of Craig had evaporated in the heat of the air between her and Cal.
She kissed him back, soft, teasing flutters at first, to match his own.
Then consideration of apologies or thoughts of other people were obliterated.
Cal kissed with a passion that scorched away his cool exterior.
There was fire and whisky and burning desire in his mouth.
He gave what Bea desperately needed, what he desperately needed in return.
The kiss intensified; Cal pushed into Bea, his tongue hot, finding hers, the force of his want inching her back towards the glowing optics. Bea returned his passion with every fragment of her existence. This was everything.
A glass crashed to the floor.
‘Shit.’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ Cal said huskily, overtaken by animalistic need; broken glasses were not on his agenda. ‘The cleaner can get it.’
‘The cleaner?’
His hungry lips hovered, waiting, eager for this conversation to be over, but somehow enjoying its implications. ‘Aye. In the morning.’
‘You have a cleaner?’
‘Mmm, did I not mention it?’
A smile of realisation crept onto Bea’s face as Cal’s twinkling emerald eyes drifted up to meet hers. There was a definite shimmering of guilt in there. She tilted her head, flicked her tongue across her top lip and eyeballed him. ‘No, as a matter of fact, you didn’t.’
‘Do you mind that it slipped my mind?’ He was biting back lascivious amusement.
How could she mind when he looked at her like that? So confident already that he’d got away with it. ‘I can think of ways my time might have been better spent,’ she said. ‘But…’
Once more, Cal pressed a firm and resolute kiss against Bea's mouth, granting her exhilaration she hadn’t known existed until she arrived in Scotland and met this man.
Arousal surged into parts of her body it had never reached before.
Who cared about a little white lie when this was happening?
This firm body – the one she’d dreamed about for weeks, smelled from too far away, scrawled down thoughts about in a haze of fantasy – was separated from hers only by a thin cotton shirt and pants which were failing in the most spectacular way possible to veil the effect she had on him.
Bea inhaled the delicious, warm male scent.
The lime, the cedar, the need. It was too much.
She drove her palms into his muscular back, trying to bring him closer to her, to become one with him.
The heat from the fevered skin underneath was volcanic.
‘Oh, Cal, I want you so much.’
‘I want you too,’ Cal growled, ‘but this isn’t the place for me to show you how much. Come with me.’ And to Bea’s surprise, he reached out and tugged her away from the bar, through the back room to his office.
In the office, her hand still enclosed in his firm grasp, Cal navigated around the desk towards the chesterfield that stretched along the side wall.
Settling onto it, he leaned back, directed a determined yet encouraging look Bea’s way, and drew her closer.
Bea dropped and straddled his lap. His hardness was underneath her now, so close to her own beating arousal.
‘You’re so beautiful,’ Cal murmured, freeing Bea’s hair from its clip and trailing his fingers through the long red waves.
Any resolve she had left disintegrated. Beautiful. Not ‘hot’ or ‘sexy’ which she’d heard many times. Beautiful. There was something deeper, more enduring, about the word Cal had chosen.
‘So are you,’ she murmured.
‘Thanks.’ Cal spoke distractedly, his attention diverted by Bea’s chest, where the word Butler's was intricately stitched onto her shirt. He thumbed across the fabric, tracing the embroidery and circling when he found her nipple.
Bea gasped.
Then, buttons were flying across the room, sleeves rolling down her arms and Bea was sitting astride Cal, her breasts shielded by a lace bra, but with erect nipples pointing through the delicate black fabric.
‘I’ll get you another one of these.’ Cal cast aside the shirt he’d yanked open and gazed at his uncovered treasure. Bea inched her chest forward, needing his touch like yesterday.
Eyes glazed, Cal reached round to unclasp her bra, his other hand holding her face as he kissed her hungrily again. Passion, tenderness and skill. Bea thrilled. This man needed no assistance, allowing every molecule of Bea’s body to submit to the sensations he was provoking in her.