Commitment (7 page)

“Dangerous?” She scoffed.

He took her hand, sandwiching it between his palms and leaning closer. “Hello, Maggie,” he said, a laugh coloring his tone. “It’s terrifying to see you again.” She gaped when he snatched the champagne flute from her fingers and downed its contents in one gulp. “Can I get you a fresh drink?” The devastating dimple in his cheek flashed like a bawdy wink when he handed her the empty glass. “I think we’re both
gonna
need another.”

Chapter Five

The proverbial ton of bricks had nothing on seeing Maggie McCann live and in Technicolor. From the moment he dared to lift his gaze to meet hers, he was reeling. What the hell is a guy supposed to do when confronted with a woman who looks like she was conceived while Snow White’s animator was busy ogling Jessica Rabbit?

When Sheila started to introduce them a red light flashed in the corner of his mind. He said her name and his brain chirped like a car alarm poised to go off. She spoke and the beeping began, drowning out the low, husky contralto of her voice. She was that Maggie. The one-in-a-hundred-thousand
Maggies
. The Maggie he’d spent a decade and a half avoiding.

She kissed his cheek, damn her. That was a first. Hopefully a last. Well, not really hopefully, but it would be better if it were the last. Kisses from Maggie, no matter how innocent, were just too damn risky. Her perfume coiled around him, making his head spin and his lungs cease to function, and the alarm in his brain whoop-whooped.

She wasn’t his type at all. A good girl. Home, hearth, hearts and flowers—that was Maggie. Jesus, she smelled good. Buzzers, horns, and New Year’s Eve noisemakers blared at him. The manic robot from
Lost in Space
was flailing, droning his name in a desperate attempt to warn him. Danger! Danger!

He panicked. Not that he’d ever let her see him sweat. The minute Sheila disappeared into the crowd, he opened his mouth and the
snark
came pouring out. The old offense as a defense ploy usually worked like a charm for him, but it didn’t faze Maggie McCann. She stood at the bar, her emerald eyes shooting off sparks of fiery indignation. Her lips trembled, and he nearly doubled over to stave off the urge to kiss them into stillness.

An image of her pressed up against the bar flashed in his mind’s eye. His mouth on her throat, his knee pressing the full skirt of her dress between her legs, his hands
overfloweth-ing
with Maggie.…

Thankfully, the star of the show managed to squelch the vision when she babbled some crap about it taking two people to make a marriage work. Tom had to shove his hands into his pockets to keep from shaking her. Hard. He wanted to shake her, and not just because she was naïve enough to believe the platitudes she was spewing. He could see it in her eyes—the sadness, the disillusionment, the loss of…innocence.

Her eyes. The innocence in her eyes punched him in the gut each time he got within ten feet of her. He wanted to scatter every single one of the pins holding that crimson mane in a sleek, sophisticated twist. He ached to plunge his hands into the flames of her hair just to see if he could stand the heat.

Something flashed in her eyes when he spewed some crap about it taking only one person to blow everything to shit. They stared at one another for a heartbeat, possibly two. Then the golden lights her anger lit sputtered and died, leaving her gaze cool, dull, and flat. For one heart-stopping moment, the Maggie McCann who’d inspired countless fantasies ceased to exist. The threat that had his fight or flight instincts raging had been neutralized. He should have been cheering, but when she murmured her excuses and turned away, he felt oddly bereft.

Her curt dismissal and sudden departure hurt more than he cared to admit. Then, she paused to give the shithead who’d been groping her ass a toe piercing and a piece of her mind, and he couldn’t help but laugh. For the first time in he didn’t know how long, he laughed. For real. It gathered strength low in his belly, bludgeoned its way through his chest, bubbled up in his throat and burst forth like a geyser.

Those lush hips swayed as she hurried away, a siren song so seductive no mere human could resist. Tom had no choice but to chase after her. He followed her through the crowd, his eyes fixed on the black satin bow tied at the nape of her neck. After he shook the pins from her hair, he’d untie that bow with his teeth and peel that good girl out of her bad girl dress….

Tom called her name, an easy apology ready on his tongue, but it died on his lips when he looked into her eyes. Everything he ever thought he knew crumbled under his Bruno
Maglis
. Tiny pebbles loosened under his soles when Sean confessed the decay of his marriage. The dust of a hundred half-hearted attempts at relationships made it hard to find his footing. The undisguised pain in Maggie’s eyes made him slip, and her harsh assessment of his treatment of her over the years left him teetering on the brink. His hand closed around her elbow and he led her from the ballroom, terrified that if he let go he’d stumble over his own feet.

Ironic that feeling completely off balance was what led him to be balanced on a stool in the dim lobby bar, staring into his scotch and listening with half an ear as Maggie rambled. She spent too many precious minutes dissecting the demise of Tracy and Sean’s marriage. He didn’t want to hear it. Not just because it hurt to think about it, but because the sharp-edged tone of her voice sliced him to ribbons.

Old habits are hard to break. Tom fell back on the safety net he’d employed for a decade and a half and avoided looking directly at her. Instead, he stared into his scotch, nodding along with whatever she was saying, grunting a response every now and again, and pretending he wasn’t imagining birds, bunnies, and other small woodland creatures helping her dress. And undress.

He tossed back his drink and signaled the bartender for another round, letting her go on, listening to her trample all over the only common ground they had. Still, her shocking cynicism gave him hope. He wasn’t buying into it, but he’d go along if it got him what he wanted. And maybe, if she could cling to that tiny spark of skepticism, maybe it could work between them. At least, for a little while. She couldn’t be as good as she seemed. Any woman who exuded such raw, earthy sensuality had to be at least a little bad. And he wanted her bad. Really bad.

He scowled at the tragically misplaced canister lighting above the bar, forcing a slight smile when the bartender replaced their empty glasses with another hit of liquid courage. He reached for his glass, surreptitiously nudging the votive on the bar a little closer to Maggie.

“I just…I don’t know…” She trailed off, reaching for her wine glass.

The desolation in her voice snagged his attention. He yanked his gaze from the delicate hand cradling the oversized bowl of the glass and focused on her profile. Bingo. Candlelight played over her features, warming cool, creamy skin and picking up pale freckles dancing across her nose. Her hair outshone the cabernet she sipped. Blackened lashes brushed ginger brows when she turned to face him.

“You don’t know what? Did Tracy say something?” The question popped out of his mouth before he could cloak the demand in a more palatable tone. Her eyes widened and he winced, cursing the years he’d spent dredging the truth from recalcitrant spouses and their counsel. “I mean, Sean still seems a little hopeful,” he offered, hoping it would soften her up enough to spill.

“Tracy didn’t say anything other than she was unhappy.” She swirled the rich red wine in her glass. The corners of her mouth twisted into a wry smile. She toasted him with the glass then raised it to her lips. “Proving you can’t really have it all,” she mumbled into her wine.

A frown tugged at his brows. Her remark should have soothed him like a balm. Instead, it rankled. “Maybe it’s just a rough patch. Maybe they’ll get past it,” he said, trying to inject more hope into his tone than he held in his heart.

She snorted softly and fixed him with a bland stare. “She told me they haven’t had sex in over two years.”

His wince bloomed into a full-blown grimace. “Did
not
need to know that.”

Oh hell.
Frickin
’ Snow White was sitting next to him boiling sixteen years of marriage down to that one cold, hard fact. Her conclusion was so much like his own it scared him. Like watching Glenn Close preparing poached Easter Bunny.

But she was right. It was inevitable. The only way any marriage lasts is mutual apathy. Flames burned down. Some people could rouse the embers, but others let them turn to ash. Some were okay with that and others weren’t. A giant fist squeezed his heart. He ran a hand down his left arm, checking for telltale tingles. He blew out a breath when he concluded he’d live to see another day.

It’s not like he believed in happily ever after. Life didn’t work that way. People lie, cheat, steal, and leave. He learned that lesson at ten, and his beliefs were shored up every day he stepped foot into his office. But women like Maggie were meant to wear aprons and pearls and vacuum in high heels. They weren’t supposed to run a background check on Prince Charming. They shouldn’t expect the villain to win. She shouldn’t be like him.

This was bad. Very bad.

Mustering every skill he’d honed in courtrooms and Friday night poker games, he wiped all expression from his face, raised his glass to take another pull, and drained the fiery contents in one long gulp.

****

His lips pressed against the rim of the glass and a hot surge of lust nearly choked her. She swallowed it, forcing the heat into her belly. The tip of his tongue picked up a stray drop and the heat wave rolled steadily southward. She shifted on her stool, trying to wiggle away the sensation.

He turned toward her, his knee brushing hers under the bar. The warmth of his skin seeped through the fabric of his pants. Before he could pull away, she turned too. “Let’s talk about something else. Anything else.”

“God, you’re beautiful.”

His voice came in a low, husky rasp and she met his gaze, an amused smile curving her lips. “Are you drunk?”

“No,” he answered too quickly. Her smile widened and he shook his head. “Not that drunk.”

She held her thumb and forefinger a centimeter apart. “Just a little drunk?”

He laughed and nudged her fingers a little further apart, a boyish smile transforming the hard lines of his face. Maggie bit her lip and rocked back, putting what she hoped would be a safe distance between them. She reached for her glass and shot him a bright smile she hoped covered the singing of her nerves.

“You look like Patrick when you laugh,” she observed, referring to his eldest nephew.

Undistracted, he reached for her. His hand cupped the nape of her neck, crushing the bow that held her dress in place. She felt him tug one of the pins holding her hair. “Beautiful, dangerous Maggie McCann.”

“Tom…” She caught his hand before he could work the pin loose. Pulling his hand into her lap, she gave his fingers a gentle squeeze before releasing them. “Maybe we should get you a cab.”

His hand closed over her thigh. The heat of his palm threatened to singe the satin of her dress. “Are you coming with me?”

Maggie sniffed, checking the air for smoke but coming up with scotch. She deftly removed his hand from her thigh. “I’m too old for you, Tom.”

His eyebrows shot up in surprise then collapsed into a frown. “You aren’t older than me,” he said, clearly puzzled.

“No, but I’m a
helluva
lot older than most of your girls.”

A roguish smile curved those sculpted lips. Heat tingled in her cheeks. Her breath caught in her chest. Her nipples beaded as temptation arrowed straight to the empty, aching spot between her legs. Maggie closed her eyes and allowed herself just one moment to wallow in the wine and want swirling in her belly. It clouded her mind, blurring the sharp edges of reality. The wicked promise she saw in his eyes beckoned to her. He was everything she’d spent a lifetime avoiding.

She clamped down on her lip and raised her eyebrows. He matched her accusing stare with such bland innocence she threw her head back and laughed.

He moved in again. This time his hand closed over her knee. His thumb traced lazy circles on slippery fabric. The crinoline sewn into the dress teased the sensitive crease at the back of her leg. “How do you know anything about most of my girls?”

“I own a spa and salon.” Hating the breathlessness she heard in her own voice, she swallowed hard and pinned him with a glare. “Women talk. How does it feel to be the Corbin
Bernsen
of Chicago law?”

He chuckled and shook his head. “First, I have a lot more hair, and second, I don’t Arnie Becker my clients.”

“You have to admit, it’s a pretty good comparison.”

Tom shook his head more adamantly. “No, I don’t have to admit anything.”