“Do you know how many different kisses there are?” Sean asked.

“Two. French and everything else.” Cleo hadn’t been big on kissing because it never failed—she’d be in the middle of some lothario’s embrace, and her mind would be racing ahead to the next day’s to-do list. Nope. At least with sex, there was serious action. Now that, she could handle.

“There are forty-three different kinds of kisses,” he told her. “Now, I know you’re thinking that I’m coming onto you here, and I am, but I have a more altruistic motive. You really need to learn how to kiss.”

Cleo pushed the hair back from her eyes and polished off her martini. Time to lay her cards on the table and correct his misguided notions. “Look, I know you want to have sex with me, and I want to have sex with you, so you don’t need to waste a lot of oxygen on getting me ready.”

He looked at her, his gaze dark and intense, full of all those things she wanted to taste, but then it faded. Gone in an instant. “You are such a virgin,” he quipped.

“Try me.” Her voice was a whisper. Husky and rough. She didn’t want his jokes. She wanted his hands on her. He wanted his hands on her. It was there in his face, his eyes, the hard line twisting his mouth, the hard line tenting his slacks.

Breathless, she waited, and he leaned in…

Available in October 2009 from Mills & Boon® Blaze®

BLAZE 2-IN-1

Dead Sexy by Kimberly Raye & Heated Rush by Leslie Kelly

All or Nothing by Debbi Rawlins

Nightcap by Kathleen O’Reilly

Kathleen O’Reilly is an award-winning author of several romance novels, pursuing her life-long goal of sleeping late, creating a panty-hose-free work environment, and entertaining readers all over the world. She lives in New York with her husband, two children and one rabbit. She loves to hear from her readers via www.kathleenoreilly.com or by mail at PO Box 312, Nyack, NY 10960, USA.

NIGHTCAP
BY
KATHLEEN O’REILLY

MILLS & BOON®

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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1

CLEO HOLLINGS, DEPUTY MAYOR of New York City, glanced at her watch and groaned. Six o’clock. She needed sleep, needed sleep desperately. The city’s transit strike was wearing her down, her mind manically bouncing from stalled wage negotiations to her stalled love life, and she didn’t need to be thinking about her stalled love life. She needed sleep. Four days without it would cause anyone to get a little loopy. Only a few minutes, what would it hurt?

Gently Cleo nudged aside the massive piles of paperwork, lowering her head, her cheek nuzzling against the desk. Slowly she was lost in the sleep she so desperately desired, lost in her dreams where the impossible became possible, and the men were the stuff of legends….

THE DESERT SUN BURNED high in the sky, but here inside the great marbled walls of City Hall, she was comfortably cool. Her loyal guards waved their palm fronds and took turns offering her sips of water from diamond-encrusted goblets and feeding her the sweetest grapes on the eastern coast. Alas, her respite was soon over, and it was time for the duties that were demanded of the Empress of the East River. Majestically the trumpets’ fanfare echoed as Cleo walked to the throne. As always, the needs of the city beckoned, and it was time to attend her subjects.

Her guards were ten thousand strong. Their blue transit worker uniforms a testament to their loyalty to their ruler and their city. Reverently they parted, letting her pass, and her eyes noted a newcomer’s arrival with interest.

This one was worthy.

She knew it by the challenge in his mocking eyes. The man believed he could tame her—she, who ruled all of New York.

There were few men in the world that could satisfy her; however, she greeted each day with fresh optimism. When your name was Cleopatra, expectations were understandably high.

Slowly he advanced toward her throne, stalking her as effortlessly as a lion seeks prey, his bare feet making no sound in the great room. His eyes were deep-brown pools that dared her to run, but surely he knew better. Cleo never ran. Gracefully, he knelt before her with athletic ease, but he didn’t lower his head in homage as men always did. Rather, his gaze never left her face, and promised her the world.

Many men had already come and tried to woo her. Their pretty words were nothing but broken promises. Their token greeting cards were trite and flowery. They plied her with the nectar from fermented grapes, but she knew those games. This…this arrogance, this power was new.

Cleo was intrigued.

She stood slowly, rising over him, letting him know his place in her world.

His coiled strength was unmistakable while he remained on bended knee. The hard muscles of his shoulders were tantalizingly displayed beneath the thin cloth of his toga. Strong, potent thighs supported his weight as he knelt, the tendons tight, drawing her eyes. Her fingers stirred, eager to touch. Yet Cleo stayed immobile. This was her palace, her city, her country, and she ruled them with an iron hand that never showed weakness or mercy.

His hand reached out, as if daring to touch her, and one of her guards leaped forward, lethal spear at the ready. To touch her without invitation meant certain death, but she could not kill such a magnificent animal. Rashly, she dismissed the guards, ten thousand men who obeyed her every command. They turned to depart, their booted heels echoed in unison. As they were marching out, she admired this one’s dark head, noting the silken hair and the tantalizing aroma of…Issey Miyake cologne. It was her favorite, never failing to kindle her desires.

Even while supplicated before her, his arrogant mouth inched up at the corner.

The dastardly man knew.

Once the last of the guards disappeared, the hall stood empty and they were alone. His mouth inched up even higher, yet he did not rise. Boldly, his hand slipped through the slit in her gown, and moved to her thigh, not asking for permission or approval, taking. The slight touch burned through her veins, searing her blood. His fingers were hard, rough but well schooled in the art of pleasure, stroking her like a cat, arousing a purr that rumbled through her nerves like the Seventh Avenue subway at rush hour. Cleo was pleased, relaxed and most of all, happy.

Men brought her gifts. No man brought her happiness.

For that alone, she would let him live.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“A common peasant,” he answered, continuing the blissful caress, exploring her strong thighs, sliding up her leg, taking an inch higher with each tantalizing stroke.

“Why are you here?” she asked, her voice catching slightly, yet enough for him to notice, damn his impudence. His eyes darkened, and she found his impudence—tempting.

“I beg your indulgence, Excellency.”

“You beg quite nicely,” she offered, and he acknowledged her own impudence with a caress that was no longer flirting, but insolent indeed. Cleo swallowed, her knees weakening, and she hated that he knew her weakness, saw it, felt it inside her. Her body betrayed her, her legs parting, and as his fingers touched her, she could feel her womanly flesh swell, eager to feel his touch again. This time, the queen became his pawn.

Pawn? She would beg for no man, she was Cleopatra, ruler of all she surveyed. She would writhe for no man, she would moan for no man. Ruthlessly, she pushed his hand away. “We are done with playing. Come, before you grace me with your request. You will serve me in earnest. If you please me, perhaps you shall be rewarded.”

He rose. He was a tall man, taller than she, stronger than she, but there was weakness in his eyes because of her. Cleo smiled. He thought he controlled her, he thought he ruled her. He was wrong.

No man messed with Cleo.

Insolently he pulled her into his lap, stealing her throne, setting her body on fire. “You are more than any man can resist.”

“You dare,” she cried, struggling to free herself, ready to call for the guards. Heedless of her protests, he turned her to straddle him and took her lips in a forceful kiss, taking what no man had taken before. Cleo fought even harder, but she could feel his hardened staff pressing against her womb and her flesh was weak, eager, waiting to be consumed.

“I dare,” he whispered against her lips, impaling her on him with one fluid stroke.

Cleo gasped.

He was so large, stallion large, so thick, stretching her body, almost painfully. Surely no man could be so wellendowed. The muscles in her legs were painfully tight, but she would not give him the satisfaction he craved, the satisfaction that she craved until he was the conquered. One inch farther, and she wanted to sigh. His lids shuttered lower, nearly masking his eyes, but not hiding the need.

He took her mouth, his tongue demanding entrance. Weakly she opened her lips to him, opened her body to him, feeling his potency inside her. She had had lovers before, but none such as this, none so…virile.

As he moved within her, his hips slow and forceful, she forgot that he had usurped her throne, she forgot that he was a mere mortal in her realm. She forgot all but this blessed fullness inside her, the void that this man could fill.

There was a ruthlessness inside him, a hunger that equaled her own, and she sensed it, felt it in the steely control of his movements, his body, all that powerful strength. All at her command.

“What is your name?” she asked, because she had to know his name. He would be her favored one. She would appoint him to a position of power, give him a country, or a borough of his own to lord over.

“Mark,” he told her.

“Mark,” she whispered, and their bodies mated together, and with each powerful thrust, she knew she must keep him. He made her happy. “Mark,” she whispered again. “Mark, Mark, Mark…”

AFTER TALKING HIS WAY past two security guards, and bribing another three assistants, Sean O’Sullivan stood in the office of Cleo Hollings, trying to figure out what to do now. This was the one scenario he hadn’t prepared for. The Deputy Mayor of New York City was asleep at her desk and calling for some guy named Mark.

Lucky man.

The Deputy Mayor was hot. Even asleep with a ballpoint pen sticking to her cheek, she was still smoking. Sean checked the clock on her desk, which read almost eight o’clock. Her office would be filling up soon, and with the transit strike in progress, all hands would be needed. This was his one shot, and it wouldn’t be smart to stand here waiting to see how far this dream was going to take her. Not that he wasn’t exceptionally interested.

With a regretful sigh, Sean put a hand on her shoulder and shook gently, the long, red fall of her hair spilling over his fingers. Tempting. Very, very tempting.

Her head snapped up, dark lashes opening, and she stared at Sean with amber eyes that were sleep fogged, and passion fogged still. That must have been some dream. He wanted to be in that dream.

She blinked. “Mark?”

And stone-cold reality. Sean shook his head. “No, not Mark. Sean O’Sullivan.”

He smiled at her, and the passion faded from her expression, the sleep faded, and the amber eyes narrowed dangerously. “Why are you in my office? Are you here about the strike?”

This was the Deputy Mayor of administration that he had heard about. Cleo Hollings, the Wicked Witch of Murray Street. She oversaw the fire department, the police department, the transit workers that were currently giving the city fits, the speechwriters, the sanitation department and the courts. She ruled it all with an iron hand.

Cleo wasn’t the best choice for what Sean needed, but after he’d seen her picture, well, there wasn’t much doubt who’d he go to after that. She had a body that men died for and the mouth that cleaved them in two. She was a challenge and Sean lived for challenges. The more impossible, the happier he was.

“I need to talk to you,” he said.

“Excuse me? There are eight million commuters trying to get to work, and there’s no buses, no subways. This is day four of the strike. Negotiations are restarting in—” she looked at the clock “—oh, no—an hour in midtown. I have to go.” She made an attempt to leave, but Sean put a hand on her arm. Underneath the wool blazer, he felt the steel. A face like a china doll, a body like…no, Sean. Not now.

“Wait,” he managed to say. “Please. I won’t be long. Two minutes tops.”

She stood frozen under his hand, her eyes staring at where he touched her. “You dare,” she whispered.

Okay, that was just weird, but Sean was good at thinking on his feet. “Please. I’m begging here. You’re pretty much my last chance.”

Finally she shook her head, probably working off the last of sleep, the last of her dream. He noted the circles under her eyes. “How much sleep have you had?”

“Not enough. Tell me what you need.”

“It’s about a bar,” he replied, regretfully removing his hand.

“A bar? You must be kidding. Tell me you’re kidding.”

All that angry fire, all that bottled passion. He could imagine what she was like in bed, a flash of red hair, her body coiled around his, arched and ready, blazing hot…. For a long, healthy moment, Sean got caught up in the idea.

“Hello? Bar?”

Jeez, he needed to stop. Mentally he yanked his libido back on the leash. Sean put on his lawyer face. Much better. Almost enough to forget…“Someone in the mayor’s office is messing with my brother’s bar. I need to stop it.” It was true. For the past two years, Gabe’s bar had been cited for health violations, electrical problems, street problems and pretty much anything that a creative person could imagine. All citations without cause. Sean had fought the battles he could, but this last form letter was the bureaucratic breach heard round the world.

Sean was declaring war on City Hall.

Nearby, he could hear the rustling sounds of the office waking up. He needed to work fast. The clock was ticking. Literally. She rubbed at her neck, fingers diving into kinked muscle. Sleeping at a desk was never a good idea. He’d done it. He’d regretted it.

“You want me to fix that for you?” he asked, contemplating the smooth skin she was kneading, rashly ignoring the ticking clock. Mainly he wanted to touch her again. Her skin was fair, porcelain white, making a man imagine her without the exquisitely fitted suit.

Not now.

“What?” she asked, returning to look at him with steamy, caramel eyes that still weren’t quite awake. Lust spiked straight to his cock. Sean didn’t know Mark, didn’t care, but right now, he hated the man. The photo in the newspaper had missed all her good parts, and Cleo Hollings had good parts in spades. The lethal strength inside her. All that emotion simmering, pressure building, waiting for the right spark to explode.

Wisely he kept that thought from his face. She knew her own appeal. Men fell all over her and she didn’t tolerate it. He’d heard the stories. Some approaching mythic proportions.

“Your neck. I can rub the kink out if you want.” He glanced at the clock, heard voices outside. Ignored them.

“Don’t even think of touching me. What’s the name of the bar?”

“Prime. There’s an outline of the whole mess on your desk. It’s short. I know you’re busy. I need help.”

“I’ll check into it,” she promised, then moved to leave.

Sean grabbed her arm again. Not exactly smart, but he liked feeling the current shoot through him. As a kid, he had stuck his finger in a light socket and lived to tell about it. There were certain parallels. “Why don’t you let me take you out for dinner?” he asked.

With efficiency she shrugged into her coat, the black leather skimming her body, her breasts, her hips, riding down to toned thighs. “You’re coming on to me, aren’t you? It’s not even eight o’clock, and we’re running through every move in the playbook.”

Well, duh. Did he look stupid? “Absolutely, I’m coming on to you. Men are very visual, simplistic creatures. Give us something to look at, and we’re happy. I’d be some eunuch-man if I didn’t come on to you, and I’m not a eunuch.”

“No. I didn’t think you were,” Cleo murmured. “I’m not having dinner with you. Too busy.”

It’d take more than a transit strike to keep Sean from what he wanted. “You don’t eat?” he persisted.

“We’ve ordered in for the past four days. Deli food.”

“You’re disappointing me,” he said, simply content to stare at her. He’d recite the entire New York State case law if he could stay here, staring, breathing. She was different, so different from anyone else. The tension crackled through her, tempting him all over again.

“Life’s full of disappointments. I bet you’ll survive,” she told him, and yeah, he would, but if she thought he was giving up, uh, that was a big no. “Speaking of work. Need to get back to it. I’m sure you’ll understand. Eight million commuters and all that…”

“I’ll check in with you in a couple of days—”

She tightened her jaw, as if ready to correct him. Sean jumped in before she could.

“—of course, that’s assuming you can resolve the strike in a couple of days.”

It was an inflammatory comment, designed for one purpose only. To get her as worked up as he was, to see her eyes shoot flames. Not pretty, but Sean was driven by simple needs.

She quirked one brow, high and full of contempt. “Are you doubting my ability to whip ten thousand unionized transit workers into line?”

Entranced, Sean stared at her. “There was never one second of doubt in my brain that you could whip a whole army of men into line. Unionized transit workers or not.”

She nearly smiled. He saw it. “Don’t make me like you. I don’t like people. Especially non-eunuch-men who need things from me.”

He shrugged helplessly. “I have to. It’s who I am.”

Cleo headed for the door and he followed, down the stairs, out the building. The entire way he fought the urge to touch her. He wanted to feel that surge again. At the front gate, she paused where her driver was waiting.

“Hey,” Sean called out and she turned.

“What?”

“Who’s Mark?”

She tensed, those magnificent amber eyes lasering in on him. “I don’t know a Mark. I don’t want to know a Mark. There are no Marks. None. No. Marks. Ever.”

Sean watched her leave, and then kicked up the leaves that were littered along the pavement. He didn’t care who Mark was. He’d made up his mind.

Sean was going to have her.

All he had to do was figure out how.

CLEO STARED AT HER NOTES and tried to concentrate, but as her driver maneuvered through the thick traffic, she was still feeling defensive, which was never a good thing. Especially now. Union negotiators weren’t Little Bo Peeps. If they smelled blood in the water, she’d be hitting the streets tomorrow, looking for a new job, and that was an option she couldn’t afford.

It was all Sean O’Sullivan’s fault. She knew his type. Hot, arrogant, used to getting what he wanted. Used to wrapping women around his finger, wrapping women around other parts of him.

No, all she had to do was remember that she’d been cruising on four hours’ sleep for the past four days, that the media was hammering the mayor’s office, blaming her for the slow resolution (did they think the city printed money in its spare time?), that she hadn’t had sex in over eight months and—no, strike that—inappropriate.

Her secretary called, reminded her of the press conference at noon. Cleo thanked her and hung up, focusing on the scenery of New York at a standstill. The transit workers walked the picket line outside a bus depot. Red brake lights crawled along Broadway.

It didn’t help.

The idea that somebody had watched while she slept rankled her, especially because of that dream. Normally her dreams weren’t that explicit. Normally when she fell into bed, there was no time for dreaming, much less anything else. Usually that didn’t bother her, but today, she felt that loss in every lonely inch of her skin, her brain, her nerves.

She wanted to blame it on Mark Anthony and the Nile, but that wasn’t the entire truth. No, Sean O’Sullivan was partly to blame. Mostly. Completely. With his dark eyes, that silky brown hair and the musky cologne that tickled her nose—among other places. He was a walking, talking, live-action orgasm.

The suit had been tailored. She had noticed it along with the broad shoulders and the killer thighs. Cleo had a fatal weakness for killer thighs. Helplessly she licked parched, Sahara-dry lips.

“Miss Hollings? We’ll be there in ten.”

“Thanks, Chris.”

Her phone rang. The mayor, Bobby McNamara, i.e., her boss.

“Yeah?”

“You’ve talked to the transit authority negotiators, right? We can fix this?”

“Of course,” she answered, shocked that he was doubting her skills. She, Cleo Hollings, who had worked one term under the current administration, one term under the previous administration and, before that, had worked her way up through the office of public housing. Cleo had earned her stripes at an early age and knew how to yell.

“I’ll take care of it, boss. We’re golden.”

She hung up, looked out at thousands of cars trapped in bumper to bumper traffic and sighed wistfully. Union strikes did that to her. Frayed nerves or not, she needed no man.

Cleo Hollings, Wicked Witch of Murray Street, was back. No one, absolutely no one, would ever know she’d been gone.

THE LAW OFFICES OF McFadden Burnett were the largest in New York. Fourteen stories of attorneys, all in one building. It should have been a bad lawyer joke, but lawyers weren’t very good at making fun of themselves. Within the walls of the 1937 art deco building worked old lawyers, new lawyers, fat lawyers, skinny lawyers, neat lawyers, schlub lawyers, men lawyers and women lawyers, but they all had one thing in common no matter their differences: the responsibility to do whatever it took to zealously defend their clients to the fullest extent of the law.

Sometimes that mandate was easy because their clients shouldn’t be held liable. Sometimes not so much. As a lawyer, and as a human being, Sean O’Sullivan had learned to keep his judgments to himself.

The seventh floor was Sean’s floor. Medical malpractice. Since New York was the medical capital of the world, it followed that it was also the medical malpractice capital of the world, as well. Sean didn’t mind, the more the better. He loved the law. Loved the creativity of it, loved the structure of it, loved the fairness of it, as well as the unfairness of it. That was his job.

After he got into the office, he wheeled around the corner, and slid a mug of coffee onto Maureen’s desk. “You got the Cannery deposition for me?”

“Digested, indexed and in the database, Sean, just like you asked.” Maureen was a paralegal who had been at the firm for the last thirty-five years. With a diamond choker that must have cost a fortune, and elegant white hair that was styled at one of New York’s best salons, she probably didn’t need to work, but Maureen did, and Sean thanked her every day, because Maureen always knew what needed to be done and, even better, you could always count on her to deliver.

As such, Sean brought her coffee every morning and every afternoon. Two sugars. No cream, and a sprinkle of cinnamon on top. She took a sip and closed her eyes, obviously letting the caffeine rip through her veins. Then, when the ten-second break was over, she pulled out her pad and relayed the neatly stenographed messages.

“Katy called from the Environmental Fund, but the bossman heard the call come through, and he said that you’re not to call her back because he wants the last of Dr. Winetrapp’s affidavits completed and on his desk before lunchtime.”

“Anything else?”

“He wanted to remind you about the two internal medicine docs from Mt. Sinai that you’re supposed to schedule an interview for.”

“Next?”

“Wilson called about the Cornell case, I asked him if this was regarding a settlement offer, he wouldn’t tell me if it was regarding a settlement, but I knew it was regarding a settlement offer.”

Sean nodded with satisfaction. The Cornell case was next up after his current trial was over. It was a botched surgery that if the plaintiff had a better lawyer than Wilson they’d win. A fat settlement was the way to go for Wilson, and Sean was glad the man could read the writing on the wall.

Speaking of the wall, Sean checked the clock there. Nearly eleven. His boss, Bruce, would be pulling paper clips from his teeth, but Sean didn’t mind. The morning had been worth it. Getting up at the crack of dawn to watch Cleo Hollings have sex dreams, and then two hours talking to the lawyers at the hospital. Not as stimulating as Cleo, but productive nonetheless.

His brother’s bar would be back in order soon. Cleo Hollings looked like she worked harder than anyone. She would fix it, although he’d have to stay on her case until she did. Not that that was going to be a problem. Staying on her case, riding her until she cracked.

Man, he had always had a thing for redheads. But redheads that barked like drill sergeants? He was still carrying the extra four inches in his shorts from when she glared at him. She had the sexiest eyes.

Maureen waved a hand in front of his face and brought his attention back to the present. “Bruce wanted to know why you’re late, but I told him you called and said the transit strike was causing problems.”

“I love you, Maureen. What did the Environmental Fund want?”

“You don’t want to know.”

He slid a hip against her desk. “I want to know, Maureen.”

“Bruce will be furious. He’s your boss. Fury is not a good thing for a boss.”

“I want to know, Maureen.”

“I can’t tell you.”

“You can tell me.”

“I shouldn’t tell you.”

“You should tell me.”

“Bruce will kill me.”

“I won’t let him. You’re my favorite.”

“He’ll make my life miserable.”

“I’ll bring you Godiva every day,” he bribed.

“The little mocha truffles?”

Sean nodded.

“Now, see, why can’t all the lawyers be like you?”

“That’s a rhetorical question, Maureen, so what did the Environmental Fund want?”

Maureen pulled her glasses from her head and read the pink message slip. “The West Side Ladies Botanical Preservation Group is trying to convert the half lot on 34th street into a park. The city has different ideas. They specifically requested you for representation, no surprise. I think Mrs. Ward who heads the society has a thing for you.”

“She’s nearly eighty.”

“Mrs. Ward told me she has a thing for younger men,” Maureen told him with a knowing glance.

Sean frowned. “I’ll call Katy back.” He wasn’t nearly so enthusiastic anymore. Oh, well.

Maureen wagged a finger at him. “Don’t forget. Little mocha truffles.”

Sean tapped a finger to his brain. “Like a steel trap. No worries.”

There were seventeen e-mails in his in-box. All from Bruce. All reflecting various stages of anxiety and neurosis. Everyone on the fourteenth floor called Bruce the Tin Man because he had no heart. Both literally and figuratively. Bruce was pushing sixty, had high blood pressure, high cholesterol and high anxiety, so four years ago, the talented surgeons at New York-Presby (McFadden Burnett clients) had given him an artificial heart. After the surgery, nobody at the firm could tell the difference.

“Bruuuuuuuuuuce,” called Sean, cruising into his office.

“It’s about time. Why aren’t you answering your cell?”

Sean pulled his phone out of his pocket. “You called? What the—?”

“Come on, O’Sullivan, where are we at?” Bruce called everyone by their last name. Apparently, calling employees by their first names indicated some semblance of humanity and a caring, giving spirit. All of Bruce’s employees understood. You could only expect so much from an artificial heart.

Bruce, his face flushed and nervous, waved Sean in. The cause for Bruce’s anxiety was the thirty-five-million-dollar lawsuit Davies, Mutual Insurance v. New York General, the individual doctors and their dogs and cats.

The hospital was part of America’s third largest hospital chain, and one of McFadden Burnett’s ka-ching-iest clients. The insurance company hadn’t wanted to pay for a kidney transplant, saying that dialysis was all that was necessary for the patient. After the patient didn’t recover, the insurance company was siding with the patient’s estate, blaming the hospital for the wrong treatment that had affected the outcome. Sometimes that was truly the case, but right now, the insurance company had got caught being cheap, and they didn’t like it.

That was the beauty of the legal system. One day, the bad guys were on one side, the good guys on the other, and the next, somebody had rolled the dice, messed up the board, and though the game stayed the same, the players had all traded places.

“Depositions are done. I got the medical report from the lead physician, and found a doc from Indiana who is a trial virgin, completely untouched and uncorrupted by the U.S. judicial system. He’ll be perfect for court. My team’s been prepping him. We’re ready for trial. The insurance company is dog-meat.”

Bruce took a deep breath, and popped another bloodpressure pill. “Your brother called.”

“Why are you answering phones?”

“I thought it was you,” said Bruce in his needy voice.

“Which brother?”

“The bar owner. He left messages for you on your phone.”

Sean pulled his phone from his pocket, noted the absence of coverage and swore. He headed for his office phone and dialed Gabe’s cell.

“What?”

“They shut Prime down, Sean. What the hell did you do? You were supposed to fix this problem, not make it worse. For the past two years I’ve been fighting with the health department, the building department, the liquor board and the gas company, but nobody’s ever shut the place down before. And do you know what today is? It’s Thursday and tomorrow is Friday. Do you know what people like to do on Friday? Drink.”

Sean frowned. This was supposed to be fixed. “Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Who shut it down?”

“Some pencilhead from the mayor’s office. Along with the health department. Along with the historical society. Along with the state liquor authority. It was a huge party. You should have been there.”

No way. No freaking way that Cleo Hollings had done this. She was at the bargaining table. She couldn’t have done it. Women didn’t pull this crap on Sean. Ever.

“The mayor’s office? You’re sure?” he asked enunciating carefully, wanting to know exactly where the blame belonged. It would only take one short phone call from her. Thirty seconds or less. Yeah, she could have done it. And she had been mad. Tired, cranky…frustrated. He remembered those sleepy eyes and got himself aroused once again, which only made him madder. So Cleo Hollings really wanted to go head-to-head with him? Fine.

“Posted a notice on the door, it’s all here in black and white. Not serving drinks tomorrow, Sean.”

“I’ll take care of it,” he answered tightly. “We’ll have you opened before happy hour.”

“Are you sure?”

Sean’s smile wasn’t nice. “Nothing I can’t handle.”

2

STRIKE NEGOTIATIONS were stalled, and Cleo came back to her office in a foul mood. The lead negotiator had started by yelling at her, Cleo had yelled back, and things went downhill from there. When she returned to the bull pen where her offices were, Sean O’Sullivan was there waiting. He looked flushed, heated with anger and…yes, even then, resembling Mark Anthony.

This no-life stuff was starting to fry her brain.

“You had one of your little flying monkeys shut down the bar, didn’t you?” he ranted, striding into her office, daring to read her the riot act—her—in her own office. Suddenly his hotness factor didn’t matter so much, although he did have a great angry voice. Good tone, a lot of malevolence and that trace of New York that made most people fear for their lives.

Belinda, one of her interns, came and stood in the doorway. “We tried to stop him, but he knows the security guards. I’m sorry.”

Cleo looked at Belinda, looked at the man. Pointed to Belinda. “I’ll handle this.” Belinda didn’t look happy, she never looked happy, but she obeyed.

And then Cleo turned to the matter at hand. Sean O’Sullivan. “We’re in the middle of a strike and I’m supposed to be running point with the transit authority. Do you honestly believe I have time to mess with you?”

“Somebody did.”

“Not me,” she said, defending herself because she was tired of everybody accusing her of everything. Undeservedly. Sometimes she deserved it, but not today, and especially not this.

He held up his hand, his eyes puzzled. “You didn’t do this?”

“Nor did any of my little flying monkeys, either,” she said, with a tight smile.

The man took a long breath and stuffed his hands in his pockets, but not before she noticed the fists. Somebody had a temper.

“Someone from this office shut the bar down.”

Tony, intern number two, appeared in the doorway, and asked, “Need help, Miss Hollings? I know your meeting with the mayor is coming up. I can kick this guy out,” he said, ignoring the fact that this guy could take him down in ten seconds or less. Tony was like that—loyal, yet short on brains. He’d go far in city government.

“It’s a bit late for that, Tony. I’ll look after it, thank you for trying.” Tony gave Sean one more look and then left the office.

Cleo glanced at her watch. Tony was right about one thing, the mayor was going to be here any second, waiting for an update. “You will leave. Now is good.”

The stranger slammed her door shut, and settled himself on her couch as if he planned to stay. He looked around the room, the picture of casual indulgence. “I don’t care if you have time or not. Somebody in this office is screwing up my brother’s life and I’m not happy about it.”

“Nobody from this office is interested in your bar. I have a meeting with the mayor.”

“Still haven’t fixed that strike yet?” he asked, and this time, it was her hands that fisted.

Jackass. Mark Anthony? Fat chance of that. Mark Anthony would never question her governing skills, not even if he thought that Cleopatra had sabotaged his fiefdom. Okay, maybe then.

“So if there is a strike that’s keeping everybody so busy,” he continued, “how come someone from this office, someone from the health department, someone from the historical society and somebody from the state liquor authority are all out posting a notice on the door at my brother’s bar?”

Cleo’s eyes narrowed at that. Out of habit, she turned her angry voice into her soothing constituent voice. It wasn’t easy, but a necessary job requirement. “I can’t do this at the moment, but I promise that I’ll look into it as soon as the strike is over.”

“Gee, now I think I’ll sleep better,” he snapped back, seeing her soothing constituent voice for what is was. A sham.

“I like you better when you’re nice,” she ventured, which was a half truth. She liked him better when he was nice, but he got her insides all tight and humming when he wasn’t. Disturbing, yet true.

“Most people do,” he responded, and then pulled out a phone in the middle of her office, as if he owned the joint.

Cleo pointed at the door. The man smiled back.

Jackass.

“Mike. It’s Sean O’Sullivan. How you doing? How’s the wife? Really, what is this, number four? Getting busy, aren’t you? So listen, talk to me here. I’m running down to the station at Prince Street, late for court, you know how it goes, and I race down the stairs, and when I get to the bottom, it’s all empty, so I whap myself on the head for being such an idiot that I forgot about the strike. You guys are killing me here. You know what you’re doing to my career, and don’t laugh….”

Cleo watched him. Fascinated. He was a lawyer. It explained much. But who was Mike?

“I know you don’t have anything to do with it, but what’s the real holdup on the strike?”

“Yeah, mayor’s a dickhead, I know, I know. I didn’t vote for him.”

Sean stood up, and began pacing around the office as he talked, completely taking over the place. He ignored her Rutgers diploma on the wall, ignored the press pictures next to it, ignored the picture of Bobby McNamara at his inauguration and even ignored the half-knitted afghan that she hadn’t stitched on in ten years, but still kept her warm when absolutely necessary. He ignored everything, including Cleo.

“Pay raise of ten percent? That’s nutso in this day and age, Mike. Why don’t your guys take something less? I don’t know. Five seems reasonable to me.”

Two seemed reasonable to Cleo, but she started to pay closer attention. Mike, whoever he was, seemed to know things.

Sean nodded, stopping a moment to tap the mayor’s bobblehead on her desk, which nodded back. “They’re holding out for seven?”

Hell would freeze first. A seven percent raise? Was everyone in this town insane? Probably. Including her.

But she wasn’t stupid. She scribbled a note and shoved it at him.

Pension?

He took it. Nodded. “Okay, so what about the pension stuff? What if the transit authority pulled a Detroit, and put some money into a kitty, letting the unions fund it after that?”

Establishing a trust? Oh, creativity. Cunning. And it would save billions in the long run. Cleo liked that. She really, really liked that.

She scribbled a number on the paper and Sean jacked his thumb higher.

Cleo motioned her thumb down.

Sean scribbled a counter number on the paper, and Cleo pulled out her calculator and started running numbers. This could work. She looked at him with surprise. He noticed and flashed a cocky grin as if she should have never doubted him.

“I know, I know, the transit guys are whackjobs, too, but you think they’d bite? They should bite on that. I want to ride the subway again, Mike. It ticks me off. This is my city. Besides that, we’re a few weeks away from Thanksgiving. You got all those kids wanting to see the parade, the giant balloons, Santa Claus. Come on, Mike, those guys can’t disappoint the kids. Santa Claus uses the subway, too, and the kids know it.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m a dreamer. Anyway, just wanted to put a bug in your ear. You know me, always ready to whine about something. Listen. We’ll have to go out to dinner. You and Peggy and the rug rats…

“Nobody special here. Same old, same old, whoever’s on speed dial is good enough for me.

“Yeah, yeah, don’t think hell’s freezing anytime soon…. Uh-oh, boss is yelling. Bad news. Gotta go. Thanks, Mike.”

Sean hung up the phone and looked at Cleo, not missing a beat. “Can you do it?”

“I can’t do it,” she said, only to be contrary, because she was back to being aroused, and it ticked her off that union negotiations could affect her like that. The transit authority could fund the trust, and possibly stave off a fare hike until 2012. The mayor would be a hero.

“I bet you can do it. The city would be stupid not to put it out there. They’ll save millions in the long run.” He collapsed on her couch, again like he owned the place.

“Who’s Mike?” she asked.

“Mike Flaherty. Legal representation for the national transit union in their civil rights cases. We went to Penn State together. And the transit authority was once a client of the firm. Not my area, but I know Mike. He’s a good guy. Peg’s really great.” He talked like he knew everybody in New York, and she began to wonder if he did.

“Who are you?”

“Sean O’Sullivan.”

“I remember your name. Who are you?”

“Lawyer. McFadden Burnett.”

“What do you practice?” she asked, hoping he was contract negotiations. Boring, by the book, pansy-ass contract negotiations.

“Medical malpractice defense.”

Medical malpractice defense? In the jungle of law, med-mal defense lawyers were the carnivores. The ones with sharp teeth and a bloodthirsty mind. Oh, it would be a sick, misanthropic woman to have that depraved factoid twist her panties in a knot. A very tight, pressurized knot. Very, very sick.

Unfortunately, all she could think about was Sean leaning over the conference room table, taking a deposition, hammering away at the witness, over and over, pounding, pounding until they were weeping for him to stop…

Very, very sick.

“You sure he can follow through?” she asked, calling upon every inch of her humanity, and methodically untwisting her panties.

Sean shrugged. “He doesn’t have any reason to lie to me. Try it and see. It’s a starting point for negotiations, since whatever you’re doing isn’t working. And don’t go over five-and-a-half percent on the wage increase. Mike was saying seven, but he always shoots high by a couple of points. I played poker with him a few times. Not pretty, especially after he’s had too much to drink.”

“I’m going to owe you for this, aren’t I?” she asked. She didn’t have debts, not even a mortgage. She hated owing favors, she hated payback, but she had a feeling that Sean O’Sullivan was hard-core about payback, demanding his pound of flesh, pounding away until she was weeping….

Oh, gawd. This was only, only from lack of sleep. And possibly lack of sex, because the hallway quickie at last year’s Christmas party with George from media relations did not even count in the big scheme of things. And it certainly was right up in there in Cleo’s “mistakes that I won’t make again” file.

Sean O’Sullivan smiled at her, with a slow show of teeth, and a look in his eyes that said, “I don’t do quickies.” Cleo shivered. “You’ll owe me, but only if you think you can get ten thousand unionized transit workers in line in the next twenty-four hours.”

She could feel the hot flash in her blood. Medical malpractice, she reminded herself, trying to stop the bubbling in her veins. It didn’t help. “I can have them crying for mercy in two.”

“Dinner tonight. And you’re going to listen to me about Prime.”

“Negotiations,” she shot back.

“A drink, then,” he countered. “After the talks.”

She looked at him, studied that squared, stubborn jaw, considered the shadowed, take-no-prisoners gaze and scrutinized the nose that had probably been broken twice. She understood why.

“All right,” she replied, against her own better judgment. She would be needed at home, and probably had only about an extra thirty minutes to herself, but that was more than enough time. In her world of transit workers, wastewater, taxation and permits, it wasn’t often that a Sean O’Sullivan walked in. Nope, he was her orgasm, and she was going for it before he walked out again. “It might be late before the talks wind up,” she warned.

“The later the better,” he replied, tossing his card on the desk, causing the mayor’s bobblehead to shake with disapproval.

In the upper cavity of her chest, there was a strange thudding, a chamber long forgotten. Sean O’Sullivan was a player, she reminded herself. A walking orgasm and nothing more. Thirty minutes and out. And hopefully, the thirty minutes would be well worth it.

Cleo took the card in her fingers, knowing it was better to get things over with, repay the favors and get back to the chaos of her own life.

BOBBY MCNAMARA, THE MAYOR OF New York City, was in his first term, a lifelong liberal, yet he had the magical ability to attract the money-backed vote of the Wall Street Republicans. The crime rate was down, unemployment was down, tax revenues were flowing like New York’s finest Finger Lakes wine, and the housing bust had yet to quash the Manhattan real estate market. In the five boroughs of New York, times were definitely good. The McNamara administration had been a tremendous success, in no small part due to Cleo’s long hours and hard work.

The mayor was a good-looking man, distinguished, in that fifty-year-old, news anchor way, with a gravelly voice that matched his appearance. Bobby had the usual politician’s eye for the ladies, but he never stepped out of bounds, which is why he and Cleo worked together so well. There was lots of gossip over the years, but Cleo kept her nose down, Bobby kept his nose clean, and without any smoke to fuel the fire, the gossip always died away.

However, whenever Bobby was nervous, the fingers on his left hand played in the air, never staying still. Right now, Bobby seemed to be typing out War and Peace.

“We’re getting killed, Cleo,” he said, taking a moment to reread the latest headline about the strike, “STALLED,” and then grimaced painfully. “Tell me you can work a miracle.”

“I can work a miracle,” Cleo assured.

“Really?” he asked.

“Yeah. Trust me, boss. We’re fine.” Okay, that was cocky, possibly stupid because she didn’t know if Sean’s insider info would amount to anything or not; however, he had been sure of himself. Arrogant. Confident. Attitudes like that didn’t come from delusions, they were earned.

The talks were in a midtown hotel, and before Cleo left her office, she showered, changed, and yes, the green cashmere was the best date dress she kept in her office, and no, she did not pull her hair back into a ponytail because it flattered her cheekbones. It was because she needed to keep her hair out of her eyes while she ran numbers during the talks.

Happily, a mere two hours later, Cleo knew that Sean O’Sullivan had been right. The city’s chief negotiator and the transit union boss were sorting out the final details of the agreement, and Cleo walked from the room, nearly dancing with the power of it.

Her first call? That was easy. A heads-up to the mayor to shave and wear the Brooks Brothers jacket in navy that matched his eyes and showed up well on television because the strike was nearly over.

City Hall was empty except for the security guards. Somehow everyone knew the strike had been settled. The security guards waved as she walked alone to her office. Cleo was dead on her feet, but there was a smile on her face. The Wicked Witch of Murray Street was smiling. Anyone who knew her would call it job satisfaction. Sean O’Sullivan would call it anticipation. He would be right.

Once in her office, she checked for new messages. If there was an emergency at home, she had to call him and cancel. The chance would be gone because Cleo didn’t get chances like this often. She wanted to see him, wanted to feel his arms, his mouth. Wanted to feel those killer thighs wrapped around her, and feel her blood race. It had been so long since she felt like this, and it was selfish to want tonight. However, if they were fast, and she made it home before midnight, everything would work out fine.

There was only one message. It was from the mayor, telling her congratulations again, and asking her to set up a meeting with the Healthy New York committee first thing tomorrow morning. With the transit strike priority number one, they’d avoided the whole issue of Bobby’s brainchild, a free children’s clinic in Harlem and, in the mayor’s words, “time was wasting.”

Right.

Cleo took a deep breath and dialed.

“Yes?” Sean answered, knowing exactly who it was. Even over the phone, the sensual voice made her pulse beat faster.

“Tell me where to meet you.”

“There’s a place at the corner of Forty-seventh and Tenth. How long will it take you?”

Cleo peeked out the window at the streets. “Give me half an hour.”

“See you then.”

3

THE DRIVER DROPPED HER OFF at the address that Sean had given her, and Cleo stepped out of the Town Car.

“You need me to wait?” he asked. A congenial man, Thomas, Tommy, Stewart, Eric, something…

“No need.” In a few hours the transit workers would be drifting back to work and, worst case at this time of night, she could take a cab. The November wind was kicking up and Cleo pulled her black leather coat tight. Soon she would have to move from leather to wool, but she really liked her black leather. There was probably something subliminal in that, but Cleo chose not to analyze it.

Right now, she was here to listen to Sean O’Sullivan, try to fix his problem and sneak in a six-minute orgasm as a personal aside. She had forty-five minutes before she had to be home, so time was of the essence. As a master in productivity, Cleo could get to full climax in one hundred and forty seconds. Forty-five minutes was positively utopian.

With her schedule and her life, tonight was pretty much it for the next three months, and she was pinning all her hopes on Sean O’Sullivan. Hopefully in the full forty-five minutes he would give her enough memories to get her through the winter. She smiled to herself because she suspected he would.

Gingerly Cleo stepped up to the old wooden door of the bar and then stopped, shaking her head in disbelief. The city’s closure notice was nailed there prominently, and she realized exactly where he had directed her.

Prime.

She should have figured it out immediately and maybe if she was operating on more sleep, she would have.

Was it worth it to go above and beyond the call of duty, all for lust? Did she really need sex? Her womanly parts protested that it wasn’t merely a rhetorical question.

Ruthlessly she ignored them, studying the fine print on the notice on the door. It was by the book, offering no clues as to who was directing this little vendetta. People thought that bureaucracy was all cut and dried, computerized and inhumane, but that was a far cry from the sordid truth. Every single employee knew the exact steps to make someone’s life miserable. And that was the beauty of city government. So many opportunities for mayhem and havoc.

Not that Cleo spent her time working on petty schemes. No, she had a city that needed her 24/7. A city, and right now—a bar.

The place was definitely from another era. A green awning on the outside, a smoked glass window with oldfashioned beveling around the edges. She was admiring that beveling when Sean walked up behind her, still in the same suit that he’d been in earlier. This time, the trendy black tie had worked its way loose.

“Come on in,” he invited, his eyes skimming over her, and the black leather coat wasn’t enough to stop the shiver down her back. Anticipation. Ruthlessly she ignored that, too. This was business, at least for now. She stepped inside and it was as if she’d gone back in time. Three separate mahogany bars formed a U shape. The floor was oak, pockmocked from years of abuse. Even with all the imperfections it was still shiny and polished to a sparkling gleam. Pictures and even more pictures lined the wall, tacked together with tape, staples, nails and pins, and they were all pictures of people in the bar. New Yorkers over the years.

Oh, she didn’t want to like this. She didn’t want to like him too much. All she wanted was one orgasm, and to go back home to her nicely frantic life.

“Like it?” he asked, watching her face for clues.

Too much. “It’s nice. Like a thousand bars in the city. So, tell me what’s been happening.” Cleo frowned, a trademarked frown that had been known far and wide to strike fear in the hearts of city workers, and sometimes even her boss.

Sean didn’t even look fazed. He gestured for her to take a seat and then pulled up a stool next to her. “Two years ago, my brother Gabe bought up the space next door, and then started having some problems with the bar. Gabe, myself and my brother Daniel are on the deed, and we help out some, but it’s really Gabe’s bar. When it was a speakeasy back in the twenties, they called it O’Sullivans. Our great-grandfather opened the place, and over the years an O’Sullivan always ran it. It faded out and nobody really cared, and an uncle or cousin, somebody, I don’t know who, split it in two, and sold off the half next door. Gabe, he wanted to get it back, to restore the place to the way it was. Anyway, the problems started when he filed the building permit. They held it up until I got a friend in the building department to give us a pass, and then after that it was a health inspection, but then I had a friend in the health department, and she helped me straighten out that mess, although it wasn’t pretty. Then the pipes under the sidewalk outside needed work and they had to tear up the concrete and that lasted a month, and now we’re fighting the historical building designation, and somewhere along the way, the building department took back the building permit, so we’re stuck with a half-renovated bar.”

He pointed to the back wall, which wasn’t wood, but a canvas tarp.

Either the O’Sullivans were the unluckiest building owners in the tristate area, or else something dirty was going on—which was always a distinct possibility.

“You think this is all coming from the mayor’s office?” she asked.

“It’s the only place that has ties to all the agencies that have caused us problems.” He sat forward, his hands pressing on his thighs and she noticed a subtle shift in him. The eyes weren’t so sure anymore, not so cocky. Family. Nothing like family to shatter a normal person into little emotional pieces. “Can you do something?”

“Yes,” she promised, and she would. This was her job; this was what she lived for. Okay, the perks were nice, but fixing the city? That was even nicer. Tomorrow, Cleo would talk to the mayor’s secretary. It’d be a start.

“Then we toast,” he said, pulling out a bottle of champagne from behind the counter and pouring two flutes of bubbling, fizzing champagne that hurt just to look at it. “It’s my brother’s best. If you don’t tell him, I’ll replace it before he notices it.”

She lifted her glass, took the obligatory inhale, but it was him that kept drawing her senses. Champagne was for sissies.

Sean O’Sullivan was like a cauldron of steamy magic, calling her name. The intense heat warming her skin, the strong emotions tickling her nose and the taste…she couldn’t imagine the taste, but her mouth was watering for a taste.

“You’re being very nice about helping me out,” he told her, sounding disgustingly surprised.

Cleo sighed. “I should have known you’d be a chauvinist.”

The dark brows rose. “I thought I was giving you a compliment.”

“If there was no surprise in your voice, it’d be a compliment. With that tone, it’s a backhanded one at best. If I yell at people, if I make someone do their job, if I put huge demands on people, I’m, well…you know the word. It’s not my favorite. Put a man in my shoes, with my mouth, and he’d be a hero.”

“I read the article about you. Fascinating. The Wicked Witch of Murray Street. Is that why you got the nickname?”

It wasn’t a story that she told often, it definitely wasn’t the story she’d told the reporter, but she was tired, and she liked the way Sean’s eyes focused on her with such intensity, as if she was the only woman who existed. “Right out of college, I got a job in the city’s public housing office. It’s a total zoo there. When I started, I was a complete greenhorn. I said please and thank-you and told people how great they were doing. Management 101. Nothing ever got done, and my performance reviews sucked eggs. Finally, after eighteen months, one of my superiors—a woman—took me aside and told me that this was New York, not Buckingham Palace, and I needed to grow a pair and that people were going to walk all over me if I kept acting nice. So I stopped, and you know what? She was right. I yelled, I got problems solved. I perfected my snarl, and people did things outside the job description for the first time in their careers. I embraced my inner dictator, and lo and behold, I got noticed. Why do you think I’m the only female Deputy Mayor on his staff?”

“I heard he likes the ladies,” he remarked casually, those intense eyes focused on her mouth.

Quickly Cleo downed her champagne, feeling the buzz, but not from the alcohol. “Is that your not so subtle way of asking if I’m sleeping with him?”

“Yeah.”

“No.”

“I bet he’s disappointed,” he murmured, piercing eyes full of questions.

“I make him look good, he deals with the disappointment.”

“So is there somebody?” he asked, refilling her glass.

“Is there somebody I’m sleeping with?” she clarified, wondering if that would deter him. She didn’t think so. He looked like a man with one driving goal.

Her.

“Sleeping, not sleeping, dating, involved with, living with, etc. Any of the above.”

“There’s no one,” she told him, because she didn’t have space in her life for anyone.

“Good. Then who’s Mark?”

Cleo felt something warm her cheeks. Some people referred to it as ‘curl up and die’ embarrassment. There were things she would confess, but a ludicrous sexual fantasy where she was the ruler of the world was not one of them. “He’s nobody.”

“You can tell me,” Sean coaxed, his voice dripping with innuendo, like a man who knew she had sexual fantasies and wanted to hear them all—in explicit, step-by-step, nerve-shattering detail.

No.

“What if there is another man?” she shot back, deciding his ego was entirely too big.

He shrugged. “It’s a challenge. But not impossible.”

“You think you’re that good?” She arched a brow in what she hoped was patent disbelief, rather than hopeful enthusiasm.

“See, that’s a trap that a lot of people fall into. They think there’s some silver bullet to sex. But the truth is that every woman is unique and most men are too lazy to discover that all-important fact. Every woman has that one place on her skin that aches to be touched, and it’s a man’s job to find it. The one way of kissing her that makes her mouth hum. That one thing that she’s dying to do, but would never confess to anyone. Everything comes down to that moment when her eyes get hot and wild, and she’s not seeing anyone else but you.”

“And you know all that about me?” she asked, both terrified and aroused, her breath quickening with each slow and seductive word.

“Not yet,” he said, and he took her right hand, turned it over, and stroked his index finger over her palm. “A woman’s body is like a map. You start at one place. Then another. Then another and eventually you discover what she wants.”

Cleo struggled to breathe. That sounded like a helluva lot longer than forty-five minutes.

Discreetly she sneaked a look at her watch before she remembered. She didn’t have a lot longer than thirty minutes. She didn’t even have a little longer. All she had was what she had, and she knew that thirty minutes was never going to cut it.

He wasn’t the kind of man who did quickies, she recalled, cutting off the disappointment before it could start.

Time to leave. Time to cut her losses and scram. She kept telling herself that, but instead she sat, foolishly glued to the bar stool. Her hand was clutching his, as she fell into the dark, dangerous eyes.

“I have to leave,” she said, her voice weak with what sounded like longing.

Before she could move, before she could leave, before she could come to her senses, he had pulled her into his lap. His mouth came down on hers, and longing started in earnest.

Until now, Cleo had never been a fan of kissing. When your schedule was tight, foreplay was a waste of time, but Sean O’Sullivan’s kiss wasn’t foreplay. This was pure, electric sex. Mouth sex.

Her wayward hands crept up his chest, not wasting the time to explore. Instead, she locked him to her, fusing one powerful male chest to her two aching female breasts. Cleo’s world fell away, focusing on the feel of man-body surrounding her. A man’s mouth making love to her.

This was definite longing.

Hard thighs cradled her, deliciously hard thighs, but that wasn’t the best part. The best part was burning thick, throbbingly stiff against her rear, reminding her that no matter how she yelled, no matter how she swore, she was no man. At this exact moment, she’d never been happier of that fact in her life.

His hand gripped her jaw, his tongue stroking inside her mouth, so seductive, so coaxing, and she felt her mouth hum with pleasure, and her hips matched the rhythm of his tongue. Perfect, perfect rhythm. Cleo was hypnotized by the rhythm, caught up in a non-orgasmic orgasm of bliss.

A woman could get used to this bliss. A woman could turn all soft and yielding from all this bliss.

The rhythm had a sound, she could hear it in her head. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve.

The sound stopped.

The bliss stopped.

Cleo raised her head, stared at the ticking clock on the wall and swore.

She was late.

Sean was breathing fast, his eyes hot, filled with frustration.

“I have to go,” she said, struggling in his grasp.

For a moment, his arm wouldn’t let her go. “I’ll take you out tomorrow.”

“I can’t.”

“Mark?” he asked carelessly, and she blinked, wondering who the heck Mark was, and then she remembered and got furious at Sean because he’d made her forget. A figment of Mark Anthony was much more controllable than a living, breathing Sean O’Sullivan who made her blood steam, made her mouth hum and made her body ache for things that she didn’t have time for.

Anger was so much more comfortable for her than regret and she started to snap at him until she saw the mischief in his eyes. He was going to make this difficult, and here she was really beginning to like him. “It’s not that simple.”

Gently his hands pushed the hair from her face, his gaze luxuriously warm, and she wanted the predator back, she needed the predator back. Sean was much easier to deal with when they were quick-tempered peers. This tempting security made her long to relax and give in, if only for a few minutes. A few hours. “It is that simple,” he told her in a wonderfully soothing voice. “You say yes. I take you out for a drink. Dinner. Movie. Many options are available in Manhattan.”

Cleo averted her eyes because she couldn’t look at him and do this. “I’m booked up until spring.”

“Was that a joke?”

“Honestly—no.”

This time, her cell phone rang, reminding her that she was late.

“I have to go,” she said again, not willing to commit to anything.

“Monday,” he told her, pushing her out the door. “You can tell me what you’ve discovered about the bar.”

“Maybe nothing,” she answered, resisting the urge to touch her own mouth, feel the hum once again.

“Maybe something.”

“I have to go,” she repeated stupidly.

“I’ll see you on Monday.”

“What?” she asked, looking at him, puzzled.

“Go home. Sleep.”

And Cleo walked two blocks south before she realized that she was headed the wrong way.

CLEO LIVED IN A TOWN HOUSE on the Upper West Side. It was one of the old stone town houses that had been built in the 1800s with the pipes from the 1800s that clanked when hot water ran through them. In the 1970s, the air-conditioning units had been added through the wall so as to not block the light. In the process, they had to knock out some of the wood trim, but when the sweltering summer came, it was worth it. The floors were the originals, extravagantly polished parquet that always smelled like lemon. Flocked wallpaper, vaguely Kennedy-esque, covered the walls and the delicate antique furniture had been in the Hollings family for four generations.

Cleo had lived here for almost her entire life.

Almost. There had been three and half years at the dorm at Rutgers and then two years after college when she’d lived with three other roommates. Life had been one long, fun party. But when she was twenty-three, that all changed, and she moved back into her mother’s home.

“Mom?” she yelled, as she opened the door. Immediately she noticed the gray smoke and the burned smell in the air.

“Mom?” she asked again, feeling the panic inside her. She rushed inside and found the cause of the smells in the kitchen. A pan sat in the sink. The copper bottom burned black, steam still billowing into the room.

Cleo put a hand on the counter and calmed her breathing. Okay, not a disaster.

“Mrs. Cagle?” she called.

It wasn’t Mrs. Cagle who appeared, but Elliott Macguire, Cleo’s uncle, who lived on the floor below them and managed the apartments on the bottom two floors below that. “Elliott? Is Mom okay?”

“She’s sleeping.”

Cleo looked around and swore silently. Why was it that New York was so much easier to run than her own life? “What happened?”

“Rachel decided she wanted to cook, but she forgot.”

“Where’s Mrs. Cagle? She was supposed to be here. She’s supposed to watch for these things. I warned her. How hard is this?” Mrs. Cagle usually covered the late afternoon and evening shift until Cleo returned from work.

“She called me after she put out the fire. I told her to go home and I’d stay with Rachel.”

Cleo stared at the pan, helpless fear and anger battling inside her. Anger won. “I’m talking to the agency first thing in the morning. She’s not coming back here. Mom could have been hurt. I should have been here, Elliott. This sort of thing doesn’t happen when I’m here.”

“You can’t be here twenty-four hours a day. You’ve already fired four sitters, Cleo. Maybe it’s time to stop and think.”

No. She didn’t need to think. She should have been here earlier tonight. Cleo tried to speak, but guilt clogged her throat.

“We need to talk, Cleo.” Her uncle resembled his sister, a masculine, wiser version. The same blue eyes as Rachel Hollings and the red hair that had long faded to gray. He was the oldest sibling, the sensible one. Cleo shook her head.

“No. I don’t need to talk, Elliott. I’ve barely slept for the past four days, I’ve been trying to get the subways and the buses and the trains moving again. I can’t think very well at the moment.”

Actually, most of that was true, but the last part was a flat-out lie. She could think very well at the moment. She could think too well. She knew exactly what her choices were, and she wasn’t going to go there, but Elliott had a soft heart for his sister, and if she needed to take shameless advantage of it to keep up the status quo, then she’d do it, with no regrets.

His eyes looked at her sadly, and she didn’t want him to look at her sadly, but again—whatever it took. However, she did raise her head and inched back her shoulders.

“Thank you. I owe you for this.”

“I can’t do this, Cleo. Not anymore.”

She pinched two fingers against her forehead, closing her eyes, the perfect picture of a headache. Elliott took the hint.

“She’s my mother. She’s your sister. We’re all the family she has left. We do what we have to do.”

His face said he wasn’t happy, but he wasn’t going to argue, and Cleo would take whatever victories she could.

“I can take over from here, Elliott. Go home and get some sleep.”

“We’ll talk about this later, Cleo?”

“Of course,” she lied, and then closed the door behind him.

Before she took off her shoes, before she took off her watch, before she removed her makeup, she went in to check on her mother. She’d learned to do that one cold winter night a few years ago, when Cleo had come home, and immediately changed into her pajamas, only to discover that her mother wasn’t in her room where she was supposed to be. Precious seconds were lost when she had to change back into clothes and shoes in order to go outside in twenty degree weather to track down her lost mother. Cleo never made that mistake again.

Her mother’s room was the same way it had been when Cleo’s father was alive. The double bed with the old color television set sitting on the dresser, and a picture of the three members of the Hollings family in their Christmas best (Cleo had been eight, and still had freckles—the curse of red hair and milk-white skin).

Rachel Hollings had been a beautiful woman in 1983, with the red hair that Cleo had inherited from her, and glorious blue eyes that lit up when she was happy, which she usually was around Christmas time.

Cleo stood there for a moment, watching her sleep. And then her mother’s eyes opened, exposing gloriously happy blue eyes. “Margaret?”

“No, Mom. It’s Cleo. I’m your daughter. Aunt Margaret is your sister.” Aunt Margaret had died eight years ago, but Cleo didn’t tell her mother that.

Rachel Hollings blinked, some of the happiness fading. “I could have sworn that you were Margaret. You look just like her. Are you sure you’re not playing a trick on me? Margaret plays tricks on me.”

Cleo sat down on her mother’s bed, tucking the duvet around her. “No, Mom. Get some sleep.”

“Could I have some hot tea? And maybe some cookies? Sugar cookies.”

“I’m not sure that we have any.”

Then Rachel Hollings mouth pursed into a tight line, and Cleo shook her head in defeat.

“Give me a little bit of time, Mom, and I’ll make some for you,” she said. “Do you want to watch a movie while I make them for you?”

“That would be nice. Something cheery. Maybe Doris Day or Lauren Bacall. Did you know that Lauren Bacall lives down the block from me? Nice, nice, woman, always says hello when she gets her meat from the butcher.”

Cleo put on a DVD and went to the kitchen and made some cookies and tea for her mother. An hour and half later, they were done, her mother deeply engrossed in The Philadelphia Story.

While Katherine Hepburn was laughing it up onscreen, Cleo climbed in next to her mother and watched her drink her tea and happily munch on the sugar cookies, which Cleo had made exactly like her mother had taught her. One extra teaspoon of almond extract. The Hollings’s secret sugar cookie recipe.

At the end of the day, these few moments were what counted most to Cleo. When she sat here, in the faded shadow of her mother, it felt right and warm, and she wouldn’t let anyone take that away from her. Here, time was the enemy. No one could live forever. Gradually, her mother’s eyes turned drowsy.

“I love you, Cleo,” her mother told her, and Cleo felt her heart clutch, just like it always had from the time she was a little girl. Not many people loved Cleo, but her mother did, even when she couldn’t recognize her. Cleo had always been a little too focused, a little too hard, a little too strong, but her mother’s love was unconditional, even under the strain of Alzheimer’s. The heart always recognized what the head refused to acknowledge.

“I love you, Mom,” she told her, kissing her on the forehead. Finally, she changed into pajamas and set her alarm clock for seven. Five hours of sleep.

Five brief hours of dream-filled sleep, drifting in and out of consciousness. Cleo promised herself that when her eyes were closed and the moon was waxing low on the Hudson, they counted as dreams, uncontrollable dreams that couldn’t be prevented.

She wasn’t alone in her dreams. She wasn’t lonely in her dreams. She wasn’t even sleepy in her dreams. Wide awake, aware, waiting for him to touch her. He always watched her with dark eyes, heated dark eyes that made her wet with a look. His hands went to her shirt, flicking open the buttons there, and she wanted him to go faster, she insisted he go faster, but he put a finger against her lips, shushing her demands with soft laughter.

Such a cocky bastard, to mock her like that. He would pay, she thought, and lust stirred inside her at the idea of it.

She pulled his finger into her mouth and sucked hard. He stopped laughing, and dragged her closer, until they were chest to chest, her shirt hanging uselessly aside. She loved the feel of his chest against hers, chest hair rubbing against her nipples, so marvelously coarse, such delightful textures. The hard steel of muscle, the smooth, sleek skin.

His mouth covered hers, starting gently but exploring and tasting, his fingers tangling in her hair, fusing her mouth to his. He tasted like champagne. He always tasted like champagne, bubbling and going to her head. Cleo slid her hands down over him, sliding over the strong ridges of his back, down lower, over his butt, so taut, so perfect for her hands.

He moaned into her mouth, his hips locked to hers, and she could feel him between her legs. So large, so marvelously large. She rocked against him, purring as she moved, because soon, very very soon…He couldn’t wait long. The heavy weight that was pressing between her legs was testament to that fact.

His lips moved to her neck, over her shoulder, tempting her with a soft press, a languid lick. Cleo didn’t like languid, she wanted something much more tangible. “Take me,” she whispered. “Take. Me.”

For a moment, he raised his head, stared, and she could feel the heat emanating from him. He was burning up with it. “You’re not ready yet,” he whispered, lowering his head to her breasts. Tasting her with his mouth.

His mouth pulled at the tender flesh of her nipple, sucking there. At each pull of his mouth, an answering shock of heat fired between her legs, and she wanted to feel him there, not these transitory pulses that merely fueled her desire.

Her legs slid against the flannel sheets, back and forth, but it didn’t ease the ache inside her and when she heard the morning sounds of the city outside, she knew he was gone. It was a dream, unfulfilled wants conjuring up a trickster in her head. A man who teased, tormented and then disappeared before she had found her release.

So unfair.

Still, her sighs had been real. She had heard her own staggered breathing and if she tried hard, very hard, she could smell the shadow of his cologne. And in that moment, she believed.

Cleo opened her eyes, blinked against the darkness. She was alone.

Sure enough, it had been nothing more than a dream.

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