Beguiled Again: A Romantic Comedy

by Patricia Burroughs

  Jeff sighed, wiping his hands on his handkerchief. “When Uncle Harry asked me to take care of Toulouse, I didn’t realize how much trouble a bird could be.” His laugh was wry. “I can’t imagine anyone else putting up with him for long.”

  “I can’t imagine you putting up with him at all.” Cecilia’s gaze swept the room. “Especially you.”

  “Brazen hussy!” Toulouse squawked.

  “You know, my uncle didn’t like females in general. So I’m thinking this isn’t about you personally, but about you being a woman.”

  “I can’t tell you how relieved I am,” Cecilia said, straight-faced. “What are you, a student of bird psychology, or something?”

  “When I inherited him I read a lot about Amazon parrots.” Jeff opened the door of a teakwood cabinet. At least a dozen books on parrots, particularly double yellow heads, were neatly arranged. “When this type of parrot is raised exclusively by one person, they can get rather hostile toward other people, especially those of the opposite sex. Uncle Harry lived alone, so...”

  “Give ’em hell!”

  “Rather hostile, you say.” Cecilia sniffed.

  “Why don’t we leave him alone until he calms down?”

  “Why don’t we just leave him alone indefinitely.”

  “Why, Cecil, I believe you’re afraid of him.” Jeff was clearly amused.

  “He has a beak that would puncture an armored tank and talons like razors, all of which he’d like to sink into me. Why should I be afraid?”

  Jeff led her into a dining area and sat her down in front of the table where he’d spread a selection of take-out Chinese food.

  “Open your mouth and eat,” Jeff ordered sternly, then softened it with a grin. He popped open two cans of soda and slid one across the table to her.

  At this late hour they were both too hungry to chat at first. After finishing off her fried rice, Cecilia paused, a shrimp dripping sweet-and-sour sauce halfway to her mouth. “No candles, no seductive music, no booze. What kind of bachelor are you?”

  “The kind who’s trying very hard not to scare you off.”

  A piece of shrimp lodged in her throat. She choked and sputtered, “Oh, my.”

  “I’d rather not scare myself off, either, if you’d like to know the truth,” he admitted over the top of his soda can. “So, tonight, let’s just be old friends.”

  “Oh. Old friends.” She sipped from her can. “That’s fair enough.” So why did the flutterings in her stomach suddenly quiet into a disappointed lump? She slid a glance around the room. “I would like some music, though.”

  “I should think you’d be tired of it.”

  “Tired of Mitch Delaney’s shenanigans, yes. Tired of music? Never.”

  “I am totally amazed by the way you can sing.”

  Cecilia chewed her food deliberately.

  “How do you do it? All those songs were so different— and so were you, for each one.”

  “You’ve heard of being multilingual? Well, I’m multi-singual. You name it, I do it. I twang, I grate, I croon, I swoon, I can choke back a sob or grind out a threat, all in perfect pitch.” She smiled, quite unabashed at her own boastfulness. “It’s what makes me such a valuable commodity.”

  “Valuable?”

  “Sure. A commercial singer has to be versatile above all.”

  “And a damned good singer.”

  She shrugged. “That goes without saying. But my point is, there are a lot of damned good singers out there who couldn’t last an hour in a commercial jingle studio because they lack the range. I just happen to be someone who can.”

  “And it’s steady?”

  “Getting steadier all the time.” Cecilia toyed with a barbecued rib. “The elite in our business make six figures, easy.”

  “Good grief!” Jeff almost sputtered his cola, but managed to get control of himself. “And you... you’re in that category?”

  She shook her head. “Nope. Not yet. But I plan to get there.”

  “That should take care of your bouncing checks?” he teased, eyes dancing.

  “Jeff, my checks didn’t bounce because I overspent. I’m just a haphazard bookkeeper. And my checking account runs low because I keep stashing money in savings for my education.”

  Jeff set down his glass thoughtfully “You know, for someone who’s planning a career in education, you certainly have a talent for postponing it. You haven’t taken a single class in... how many years?”

  “I’m going to,” she began defensively. Hadn’t she been through the same hassle with Robert? “I’ve just been too busy.”

  “And profitably so, it would seem.”

  “Well... yes,” she admitted, mollified.

  “Cecilia, tell me the truth. Do you even went to be a music teacher?”

  “I love kids. I would be very good at it.”

  “That’s not what I asked.”

  Damn him. She met his gaze head-on, and was furious at him for asking the single question nobody else had asked. “It’s not exactly what I want, but I love music, and I think I’d be very happy teaching. Plus it’s very practical. I’d work the same hours and have the same holidays as the kids, and—”

  “Cecilia Evans, I’m ashamed of you.”

  She gasped, too startled to speak.

  “For deluding yourself so totally.” Jeff shook his head in wonderment. “Since when has practicality been your motive for anything?”

  “But it makes so much more sense than—”

  “Than continuing in a career that could prove so financially rewarding?” He reached across the table and covered her hand with his, and she couldn’t move, could only stare at him. “And even more important, a career that you love?”

  “I—I don’t know.”

  “I think you’ve been listening to the wrong advice, Cecil.”

  She closed her eyes, wondering if he realized how close he’d called it. Robert was the one hounding her to get on with her plans, to go back to school, to be realistic, to be practical.

  She felt a tremor of distaste and rebellion. Was she still under Robert’s influence—he who always knew what was best for everybody—without realizing it?

  She jerked her hand away and laughed nervously. “How did we get on this subject? Oh, I remember,” she rushed on. “I was asking for music.”

  “The stereo system’s in the living room. I suppose we could—”

  Her eyes widened at the thought of his ill-natured parrot. “Never mind. Forget it.”

  “There is another option.”

  Cecilia put down her glass. “Such as?”

  He seemed to reconsider, then finally pushed away from the table. “Come with me.”

  She skipped to keep up with his long-legged stride as he dragged her across the entry way, up the narrow stairs, toward a closed doorway. He opened the door and flipped on the light. “Excuse the mess,” he said. “I never use this room, so it just catches things.”

  Cecilia glanced around. What mess? A few cartons stacked neatly, yes. Odds and ends of furniture arranged systematically, yes. And oddly out of place, a battered old upright piano, its warm oak veneer cracked with age.

  Jeff pulled the old-fashioned stool out and took his place on it. “Voilà. Music.”

  “I just sing. I don’t play.”

  “But I do.” Jeff rippled a twangy, off-key scale from bottom to top. He winced. “I didn’t realize it needed tuning so badly.”

  “You… play the piano.” She sat on the corner of a cracked leather ottoman, processing that unexpected bit of information.

  “By the time I was in high school, I’d managed to bury that character flaw in my deep, dark past.”

  “Character flaw?” she demanded.

  “I hated every minute I ever spent playing the piano.” He ran another scale up the keyboard.

  “This piano?” she asked.

  “No. This was Uncle Harry’s. He loved music.”

  “Too bad he didn’t love canaries,” she muttered
. “You’ve kept his bird, which is disgusting, and his piano, which you hate. You must have loved him very much.”

  Jeff seemed to concentrate on his hands as they slowed. “Uncle Harry wasn’t very lovable—at least, I didn’t think so when I was a kid. But as I got older, and at the end when he was so sick...” He shrugged. “I think he was just lonely and didn’t know how to let people know he cared.” He grew still for a moment, then continued, “So I keep Toulouse and the piano to remind me of the kind of man I don’t want to be.” He swiveled on the squeaky stool and faced her, his eyes shadowed.

  She wanted to touch the corners of his eyes, make them crinkle the way they did when he smiled, to wipe away the emptiness. “I think that’s very sad.”

  He stared at his hands. “That he died a lonely old man?”

  “No.” She stood, forcing lightness into her tone. “That you spent so many hours hating music. If I had known all this in high school, I would have washed my hands of you.”

  “You mean, I could have gotten rid of you that easily?”

  “Absolutely.” She spun him back to face the piano. “What do you remember?”

  “I don’t know.” He ran his fingers over the keyboard, then began a Bach fugue. “How’s this?”

  “Fine, if you’re dead. Let’s see...” She eyed the piano, a dilapidated collection of warped wood, rusty strings and chipped keys, and inspiration struck. “Do you know, 'Girls Just Want to Have Fun’?”

  Jeff shook his head. “Cyndi Lauper was not on my teacher’s radar. This is probably as good as it gets...” His fingers flew, and suddenly the piano seemed capable of making music. Even the occasional twang sounded appropriate as he played the beginning of “Alexander’s Ragtime Band.”

  “Okay, okay, I can work with this! Wait a minute!” Cecilia dragged the ottoman to the corner of the piano and with no thought to propriety or grace, boosted herself up and climbed atop the upright. “I’d better not get splinters,” she said, giggling, then let the music take over. “’Come on and play, Come on and play, Alexander’s Ragtime Band.’” Her voice was husky from too much singing already, but the music seemed to spring from her as she dangled the boa and tickled Jeff’s nose. “’It’s the best band in the land.'"

  He shook his head and laughed, filling in the melody with more fullness as he became more sure of himself.

  She stretched across the top of the piano and swung the boa as she tapped out the syncopation against the wall with her foot. She tossed her head back and laughed, full throated and jubilant. “Isn’t this grand?”

  “No, it’s an upright,” Jeff deadpanned.

  “Shoot the piano player,” she declared dramatically.

  “No, he’s doing—”

  “The best he can,” she said, finishing the quotation with him, then collapsing in a spate of giggles.

  “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were drunk.”

  “No.” And to prove it, she sobered immediately. “Just exhausted to the very core of my bones, and...” She held the word back, afraid to release it, lest he attach too much significance to it. But it came all the same. “Happy.”

  His gaze softened and the music slowed to a long chord. “I feel honored to have made you happy.”

  “You, the night, my god, even that darned old bird. But especially you.” She rolled onto her back, her legs dangling off the edge of the piano, and closed her eyes. “I can feel the music going right through me. I can’t explain it. It vibrates through me. Sometimes it happens when I’m not even around music. But this time the music’s real—thrumming right into my bones. I love it.”

  He changed the tempo and key. “How about this?”

  The old song gently worked its way into her, and she felt herself smiling. “Play it again, Sam.”

  “Wrong. The quote is, 'Play it. If she can stand it, I can.’”

  “That’s what the stupid bird said.”

  “I know. I taught him.”

  “I believe you actually like that disgusting old bird.”

  “Well,” he said thoughtfully, hitting a sour note and quickly correcting it, “you like Peter, so I guess we’re even.”

  Cecilia slashed the end of the boa at him.

  “I’m crushed.” He obviously wasn’t.

  “This is nice,” she murmured, relaxing again. “I could lie here all night, I think. It’s better than a lullaby.” The “all night” had slipped out without thinking, and she didn’t bother to retract it. Surely he knew what she meant. Old friends. There was a certain comfort in that, even if a part of her did long for...

  A warm hand closed over her swinging wrist. She rolled to face him. Their gazes locked. And still his right hand kept up the slow, sad melody. A kiss is just a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh...

  At first only their lips met. The melting started, spread slowly, gently through her body, until there wasn’t a joint that wouldn’t have considered jelly an improvement. Gracious, the man could kiss.

  And then, that wasn’t enough. She reached for him, twining her fingers into his hair, pulling him closer. Only one kiss, but this time she was going to make it last, make it go on forever. There was no harm in that. A forever kiss... one that couldn’t be forgotten, even after it ended. She stroked his lips with her tongue, felt them part, then felt his arms wrapping her in possessive strength as she explored the inner contours of his mouth, searching, charting for future memories.

  He groaned, one hand reaching up to catch the back of her head and pull her closer. She felt herself being lifted and fell into his arms, felt them both sinking, until the piano stool creaked beneath their weight, and still she didn’t break the contact that would end their precious kiss. Just one, he had promised. Nothing more.

  His hair was warm silk beneath her hands, thick and glossy, holding the warmth just for her pleasure. His ear, smooth and perfectly shaped, gave her tantalizing new territory to map with her fingertips. She must have tickled him, for he shuddered, and she dragged her hand across the roughness of his jaw, her thumb finding the corners of their mouths and tracing the feel of a perfect kiss... again, to remember. Always to remember... no harm in remembering.

  And then, like everything, it ended, not with a bang, but with a whimper that she couldn’t stop from escaping her lips.

  “Old friends,” he groaned.

  “Very old,” she murmured, resting her cheek against his neck.

  And then his mouth had captured hers again, silencing, demanding, almost punishing. She gave herself up to his kiss, letting the intensity of his feelings sweep her away. She could do that, she knew. Because beneath their ill-suppressed passion was the constant assurance that neither of them was willing to let their relationship go further.

  His hand slid beneath the satin skirt, covered her thigh, stroked and teased and skimmed the silky surface until the nylons ended. His hand stopped, explored the garter snap, then found the band of exposed skin.

  And still she didn’t panic. In fact, she felt ripples of pleasure as his lips skimmed down her neck and then kissed it at its base. She tilted her head back, giving him more neck to tantalize. “Jeff, I was just thinking,” she whispered. “We were never friends.”

  “What?” His gaze burned into her, not believing, afraid to believe, what she might be, shouldn’t be, yet definitely was saying.

  “You despised me,” she reminded him. “I adored you. But we were never, ever, friends.”

  “Cecil, you have a point.”

  A garter snap popped free, then another.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  JEFF LIFTED HER, and her world rocked gently. His lips found hers again, robbing her of reason, of thought. He tore himself away from her and grated, “You’ve tangled us in the boa.”

  And somehow she had. It curled around them, binding them together with wispy strength. Slowly, carefully, she began unwinding it. When her upper arm brushed his face, she felt his lips capture the soft flesh for a bare moment, and shivers skimmed over her. She dragged the b
oa free of his neck, and the way he closed his eyes and clenched his jaws and tensed made her do it again. Finally the boa was a snaky black coil at their feet. She felt herself easing down his body until she, too, was standing.

  A big mistake.

  They both knew it, and neither one was doing anything about it. She reached behind herself, but his hands were there first, dragging the zipper down, notch by slow notch. And then, before she could even slide the dress from her shoulders, she felt her bra released, and ignored the alarm jangling in her head. One time... to last forever.

  The satin dress, so carefully planned to be becoming yet nonrevealing, suddenly was gone, and revealed everything. She then caught his head and pulled it to her. “Please,” she whispered, guiding his lips to her breasts, arching in agonized pleasure when he captured their fullness in his hands, lifted them to taste, first with flicking touches of his lips, then with a deep, tugging suction as he worked first one, then the other to a glistening peak.

  His lips traveled down, his hands smoothing the wispy garter belt over the soft curve of her stomach, down her legs, and then they, too, were bare, exposed

  Do you have freckles everywhere?” he asked lightly, though the finger that traced across her thigh hinted that his question was loaded.

  “Just about,” she sighed, wishing he hadn’t pointed them out.

  “You must be very sweet,” he murmured.

  She shook her head, confused, as his finger dragged dangerously near the juncture of her thighs. She caught her lower lip with her teeth.

  “Freckles,” he said, “are angel kisses. Sweet angel kisses.” He lowered his head to her thigh and began nibbling a trail, from “kiss” to “kiss” to “kiss”—

  “I don’t have any there,” she gasped.

  She would have fallen had his hands not cupped her and held her erect, even as he tugged her silk thong out of his way. She grabbed his shoulders to push but couldn’t, only stood there, quaking under the expert assault of his breath blowing across moist flesh.

  His lips, teasing.

  His tongue, toying with her until she might just scream from frustration—