used to sneak out to buy while at boarding-school came to Caitlin’s mind. She could just picture him aboard a pirate ship, lord of all he surveyed!
But she was no longer an impressionable fifteen, and six years on from those romantic dreams she used to weave in her head she realised there was nothing in the least romantic about this man, that he was just hoping to find a warm and willing woman to share his bed for the night. She was neither warm nor willing!
‘For your information, Mr McCord,’ she bit out impatiently, ‘I was waiting for a friend who has obviously been delayed.’
‘His loss is my gain.’ He still smiled the confident smile of a seasoned flirt.
‘I don’t think so, Mr McCord,’ she said drily. ‘My friend was a she.’ And Gayle should have been here half an hour ago, she thought irritably. She hadn’t felt in the mood for driving into town in the first place, but Gayle had insisted. And now she had obviously let her down.
Rogan McCord sat forward with a sudden burst of energy that had been totally unexpected, having looked like a sleepy feline until that moment. ‘Let me buy you a drink,’ he suggested huskily.
Caitlin found herself a little unnerved by his sudden intensity. ‘I already have one.’ She indicated the drink in front of her that she had barely sipped before his intrusion into her solitude.
‘All the more reason to stay a while longer and finish it,’ he said triumphantly.
She moistened lips glossed a tempting red, her other make-up kept to the minimum, a light blue shadow on her lids, mascara lengthening the darkness of her lashes, blusher accentuating her high cheekbones beneath those slightly slanting eyes. She had been taught from an early age to make the best of her looks, knew exactly how to draw attention from her small snub of a nose, that tended to freckle during the summer months, so that it was the deep blue of her eyes that drew the admiration. Slightly above average height, she was willowy rather than curvaceous, her figure very suited to the fashions the Princess of Wales had made so popular.
But if her wealthy background had taught her how to put on make-up, and allowed her to dress well, it had also shown her how to give a practised flirt a set-down! ‘I have no wish to finish anything with you except this conversation,’ she snapped.
He rose politely to his feet as she stood up to leave. ‘It’s been nice meeting you, Miss——?’ He deliberately aped her way of finding out his name.
‘O’Rourke,’ she supplied tersely. ‘Caitlin O’Rourke.’
‘Irish?’ he derided.
‘What do you think?’ Her eyes flashed.
‘I think that with your Irish ancestry and my Scottish one sparks were sure to fly,’ he drawled, his eyes brimming with laughter. ‘They began to do that for me the moment I looked at you,’ he added drily. ‘You’re very beautiful, Caitlin O’Rourke.’
‘Thank you.’ She was unimpressed by the compliment.
His mouth quirked. ‘You’ve heard it all before, hm?’ he said self-derisively.
‘Or something like it.’ She gave a haughty inclination of her head. ‘Insincere flattery to get a woman into bed is as old as time!’
‘But it wasn’t insincere,’ he drawled. ‘You really are lovely, Caity O’Rourke.’
Her cheeks flamed. ‘My name is Caitlin.’ Only her family ever used that affectionate shortening of her given name.
‘Of course it is,’ he humoured. ‘But I’m sure that when a man makes love to you he calls you Caity.’
‘How dare you, you—you pirate, you!’ She was breathing heavily in her agitation, at once mortified at the lapse in temper that had made her blurt out her secret opinion of him so bluntly.
Rogan grinned, his brows raised. ‘So that’s how I appear to you, is it?’ he speculated. ‘Caitlin O’Rourke, you surprise me!’
She surprised herself. She was twenty-one years old, had stopped reading those swashbuckling novels years ago, and yet one look at Rogan McCord and they all came flooding back to her as he epitomised every fantasy she had ever had of a dark, arrogant pirate invading her life. But this was the twentieth century, for goodness’ sake!
She drew herself frostily up to her full height. ‘I’m sure I’m not the first woman to view your—persistence in that light.’
‘You’re the first one to ever say it to my face. I think I like it,’ he smiled. ‘Unless,’ he sobered, ‘you were thinking of Bluebeard? I can assure you I’m not married,’ he derided, frowning as she seemed to pale. ‘Are you?’ He watched her closely. ‘Because if you’re a bored little socialite wife looking for some excitement in your life by taking a lover I think I should tell you you’re doing this all wrong; you’re supposed to encourage me, not push me away!’
‘You don’t seem to need any encouraging!’ Her eyes flashed.
‘True,’ Rogan drawled. ‘But then that should save us a lot of time.’
‘Mr McCord,’ she rasped, ‘I am not married, neither am I looking for any more excitement in my life.’
‘None of us can have too much excitement in our lives,’ he drawled.
‘In your case that’s probably true,’ she said scathingly, sure this man liked to experience anything made available to him. But she wasn’t available! ‘But I am not on the lookout for some brief meaningless affair.’
‘You aren’t giving us a chance,’ he taunted. ‘Our affair might not be brief or meaningless.’
‘It would be meaningless because we don’t even know each other, and it would be brief because I’m sure you don’t intend to remain long in this country.’
Rogan shrugged. ‘I could change my plans.’
‘We aren’t going to have an affair,’ she told him agitatedly.
‘Why not? I’d like nothing better than to take you to bed right now.’
She gave him a dazed frown. ‘Mr McCord, are you usually this—blunt?’
He shrugged. ‘Not always, no,’ he answered consideringly.
‘Then please don’t make me the exception,’ Caitlin snapped.
One lean hand moved up to caress her cheek with his knuckles. ‘But I’d like to,’ he murmured throatily.
She moved her head back from that caress, her hair moving in a shimmering red curtain. ‘I have to go,’ she said abruptly. ‘It was—an experience, meeting you,’ she added derisively.
He gave a regretful grimace for her determination to leave. ‘You too.’
She could feel him watching her as she walked to the doorway, a tingle of awareness down her spine, telling herself she mustn’t look back, that she shouldn’t give him that satisfaction.
It was a compulsion, instinct, and she paused
