Kitabı oku: «From Sydney With Love», sayfa 4

His mother remained aloof, never mind Charlotte’s many attempts to initiate conversation and find common ground.

Chillingly, publicly unimpressed.

The meal came and went and the hours ground by. People began to make noises about leaving. Charlotte asked if there was anything she could do when it came to the clearing of tables or general tidying up. Grey frowned as Sarah immediately stepped in and began clearing and Olivia waved Charlotte away, telling her to sit and relax and continue telling tales.

Telling tales …

As if nothing she’d said so far could be trusted.

Charlotte smiled politely. She didn’t so much as flinch as she settled back into playing the role of carefree companion and confident lover, and doing herself a disservice in the process, for there was more to her than that. Far more depth than he’d ever suspected.

Maybe it was time to leave.

Grey eased Charlotte away from the other guests until they reached the deck railing. He pointed out the various landmarks and she leaned her shoulder against his and showed every indication of hanging on his every word. He hadn’t touched her since their earlier kiss. He hadn’t been game. Now he turned his back on the view and spread his arms along the railing. Not quite an embrace, but an invitation for Charlotte to take what she would from him. Shelter, if she wanted it. Protection if she felt the need. Or anything else she might want to avail herself of.

Charlotte traced her fingers along the inside of his arm, up to his elbow and back, and when she reached his hand she covered it with her own, so soft and slim against the rough squareness of his. He liked the contrast. He liked a lot of things about this woman.

‘Ready to go?’ he murmured.

Relief crossed her face and was gone in an instant but this time he saw it. Charlotte Greenstone was more than ready to leave the family embrace and probably had been for hours.

‘Yes.’

‘C’mere,’ he murmured and drew her towards him, touching his lips to her hair as she nestled against him as if she’d been there a thousand times and would be there a thousand more before they were through. ‘You should have said.’

‘It’s your show.’

Yes, but it was her identity that was taking the battering.

They made their farewells after that. Sarah receiving Grey’s guarded goodbye with a tight-lipped smile and eyes that wished him to hell. He hadn’t encouraged Sarah’s attentions over the course of the afternoon. Sarah hadn’t given chase, hadn’t made a scene, hadn’t singled out Charlotte again. Sarah waited, that was all, and Grey wished to hell she wouldn’t.

‘Where to next with your work?’ asked his father as he and Olivia saw them to the door.

‘Could be Borneo,’ said Grey. ‘Could stay here a while. Plans are pretty fluid at the moment.’ He slid Charlotte a quick glance. Charlotte picked it up and responded with a smile.

‘Borneo’s lovely,’ she enthused, playing the Boheme and playing it well. ‘Wonderful place to visit and to work. My godmother and I spent half a year there once, when I was a child. Think of the history.’

‘Think of the malaria,’ said Olivia dryly. ‘What were you and your godmother doing there?’

‘Just looking,’ said Charlotte. ‘We did that a lot. Thank you for having me to lunch.’ She didn’t say she enjoyed it. Olivia didn’t say, ‘Do come again.’

Women.

Grey wasn’t used to a pensive Charlotte Greenstone. A woman who wore her beauty effortlessly, almost unconsciously, but who’d grown quieter and more reflective with every passing kilometre. As if lunch with his parents and Sarah and all the rest had drained her dry.

‘I’m sorry about my mother,’ he said, after another fifteen kilometres of silence.

‘Mothers are protective of their young,’ she said quietly. ‘You don’t have to be a biology major to get that. Anyway, it’s not as if I’ll be seeing her again.’ Charlotte closed her eyes as if to shut out reality. ‘May I offer up a little bit of advice?’

‘Go ahead.’

‘When you do find a woman who interests you, introduce her to your family gradually. Try one limb at a time; or one family member at a time. Don’t involve Sarah, not at the start. It does no one any favours.’

‘Noted,’ he murmured. ‘And thank you.’ He’d do well to keep his eyes on the road and off his companion. His wildly beautiful companion with hidden depths. ‘Are you hungry? We could stop somewhere on the way home. I did promise you dinner.’

‘I can’t eat any more today,’ she said. ‘Your mother sets a fine table.’

‘You have to eat something later on.’

‘I might have a cognac nightcap.’

‘That’s not food.’

‘Want to bet?’

They drove in silence after that, apart from a murmured comment here and there. When they got to the outskirts of Sydney, Charlotte surprised him yet again by requesting that he drop her at an inner city Rocks address rather than the one he’d picked her up from.

She directed him into a steeply descending driveway, dug a set of keys from her handbag, and pressed a remote switch attached to the key ring. The eight-foot wrought-iron driveway gates began to ease open. A heavy-duty garage Roll-A-Door began to open further down the drive. ‘Who lives here?’

‘Me,’ she said as Grey drove down into a spacious underground car park with room for a dozen or so vehicles. ‘The house at Double Bay belongs to Aurora. At least, it did. Now it’s mine, only I couldn’t face going there tonight. She’d have been disappointed in me today, I think. In the hurt I caused, no matter how much better off Sarah’s going to be without you. Too many lies. Far too many lies of late, and they just keep getting bigger. You can park there.’

He did as suggested, brooding over her remarks as he strode around the car to open the door for her.

She smiled, briefly, as she got out of the car and he closed the door behind her, but there was no leaning into him as there had been for his parents’ benefit. No playing of power games.

‘I’m sorry about today,’ he said gruffly. ‘I shouldn’t have dragged you into this.’

‘You didn’t. We had a deal. A good deal—one I entered into willingly.’ She offered up a small smile. ‘Don’t mind me if I seem a bit morose. It’ll pass.’

He hoped so.

‘Would you care to come up for a coffee?’ she said next. ‘I’ve no agenda, no ulterior motive other than I don’t think much of my own company these days and I do my best to avoid it. You could tell me about your research. About what you hope to find in Borneo.’

Grey hesitated.

‘Never mind,’ she said quietly. ‘It’s not mandatory. We’re square now. And you probably have other places to be.’

Somewhere between this morning and now, Charlotte’s confidence had taken a hammering and self-derision had found purchase. His doing, not hers, and he cursed himself for not seeing, not giving any thought whatsoever to Charlotte’s feelings about the role he’d asked her to play and the hits she would take on his behalf.

‘You should know that a research scientist never misses an opportunity to expound on his work,’ he offered gravely. ‘You don’t even have to be an appreciative audience. You just have to be awake. And, yes, I’ll join you for coffee.’

They stepped into a lift and went up a few floors and came out onto a landing with only two doors leading from it, one of which was labelled ‘Fire Escape.’

Charlotte’s penthouse apartment boasted a million-dollar close-up view of Sydney Harbour Bridge, framed by enormous, double—or triple—glazed tinted windows. White was the predominant colour in the apartment; white walls and ceilings, white marble floors, white kitchen fixtures and benches and a snow-white leather lounge. And then, as if someone had taken exception to the designer palate and vowed to melt it down, an eclectic array of paintings, sculptures, books, tapestries and floor rugs in every imaginable colour and from every imaginable historical period had been added to the mix.

He stopped in front of a painting formed entirely of various coloured oil paints dripped onto a canvas in no particular order.

‘Do you like it?’ she said.

‘What is it?’

‘Abstract art. Jackson Pollock’s finest. It’s whatever you want it to be.’

‘Handy,’ he murmured. ‘You own this?’

Charlotte nodded. ‘It was my grandmother’s.

Lots of rumours about how she came to own it. My favourite one is that she and Pollock were friends and that she won it from him in a card game. Rumour has it they were initially playing with coins from the Roman Empire. As the stakes got higher, the currency of the realm went twentieth century.’

‘What exactly does a person throw in the pot to match a Jackson Pollock painting?’ he asked.

‘Could have been the Dali,’ she said.

Of course. The Dali. ‘Family wealth, you said. Just how much family wealth is there?’

‘Plenty,’ she said dryly. ‘My great grandfather was in shipping. My grandmother added luxury liners to the mix and then divested herself of the lot when she hit her fifties. Said it had sapped the life out of her. She turned philanthropist, gave a lot of her possessions away, but she still left my mother extremely well provided for. She urged my mother to follow her heart. My mother took her advice, chose my father and archaeology, and by all accounts was ecstatically happy with both. My parents died in a light aircraft crash in Peru when I was five.’

‘Long time ago,’ he murmured.

‘So it was. I usually went everywhere with them but that day they decided to leave me at the hotel with Aurora.’

‘This is the Aurora who died recently? Your godmother? The one you invented a fiancé for?’

Charlotte nodded. ‘Aurora was an archaeologist like my parents. Fortunately for me, they’d also named her as my guardian in their wills. From then on, I went where Aurora went and that was everywhere. You take milk in your coffee?’

‘No, thanks,’ he said. ‘How long have you worked at Sydney Uni?’

‘Five years.’

‘And this associate professorship, it allows for the kind of travel you’re used to?’

‘No, it’s a desk job.’

‘And you’re not fed up with that?’

‘Not yet.’ She set spoons and a bowl of sugar on the counter. A pewter sugar bowl with dragonfly handles. ‘I like the stability. I like the people I work closely with. I even like the routine, and I can usually tolerate the politics. And what with communications these days, field teams can get photos and data to me and I can make comment within minutes if required.’

‘You wouldn’t rather be there?’

‘I’ve been there,’ she murmured. ‘I travelled that road for twenty-three years. When Aurora retired, I lost enthusiasm for it. It just wasn’t the same without her and I didn’t want to continue on alone. I hate being alone.’ Charlotte absent-mindedly brushed dark curls from her face. ‘I can play your free-spirited bohemian friend to perfection, Greyson. I have many role models I can look to for inspiration. Heaven knows, my boss would be ecstatic if I went back out into the field for a while. Problem is, I’m very fond of my settled existence. Of being among familiar faces. I think that in the absence of family I look to the community for a sense of belonging. Of place. I need to feel connected to something, whereas you … you need to be free. It’s why we’d never gel in real life. It’s why, deep down inside, I’m no better suited to you than Sarah is.’

‘Thanks for the warning.’

‘My pleasure,’ she said gravely. ‘Doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy your company. Doesn’t mean that when it comes to a short-term liaison I couldn’t be tempted to take my fill of you. You are a spectacularly beautiful specimen and you have some very fine qualities.’

Charlotte murmured something else but Grey’s brain had ceased functioning the moment she’d mentioned the words short-term liaison and tempted.

He tracked Charlotte’s every move as she set the coffee machine to working. Moments later a steaming cup of fragrant coffee-beaned joy sat on the gleaming granite-topped kitchen counter in front of him. Too hot for drinking, so he added sugar and stirred and Charlotte did the same to hers. The porcelain teaspoons had porcelain ladybirds on them.

‘So, Borneo next,’ she said eventually.

‘Maybe. There’s write-up work to do on the PNG project first. Reports. Papers. Probably some presentation work.’

‘Ah, yes. The Glory,’ she murmured. ‘A scientist’s pleasure.’

There were other types of pleasure.

‘About your thoughts on short-term liaisons,’ he muttered, and suffered her knowing gaze and her delicately raised eyebrow with dogged determination. ‘What are they?’

‘Would you like an in-depth analysis or just the summary?’ she enquired sweetly.

‘Just the summary.’

‘Okay. Assuming that both participants are free from all other romantic entanglements, I’m reasonably in favour of flings as a legitimate means of providing temporary companionship and sexual satisfaction.’

‘That’s a very bohemian outlook for a woman who eschews a carefree life.’

‘If you say so. Of course, even a temporary partner has to fit certain criteria. A different set of criteria from that expected of a life partner.’

‘Of course,’ murmured Grey. ‘Do you have a list?’

‘Of course.’ She didn’t elaborate, just smiled. Charlotte Greenstone knew how to make a man work for what he wanted.

‘Let me guess,’ he murmured as he set his coffee aside and leaned over the counter towards her, his mouth mere inches from her own. ‘You need to be attracted to him.’

‘Well, naturally.’

‘He needs to satisfy you sexually.’

‘Goes without saying.’ Her gaze had settled on his lips. ‘I’m thinking we’d be good to go in that respect.’

‘Does he need to be wealthier than you?’

‘No, but he does need to feel secure enough in his circumstances for my wealth not to intimidate him. I don’t need to dine at the most expensive restaurant in the city. I don’t need to be lavished with expensive gifts. What I do expect, when a temporary liaison invites me out to dinner or drinks or a show, is that he pays for it. When I do the inviting, payment will naturally fall to me.’

‘Sounds very fair-minded for a woman who insists on having her car door opened for her.’

‘I’m a woman of contrasts,’ she said. ‘Also a big fan of gentlemanly manners. A short-term liaison candidate would require those too, or at least be willing to learn some.’

‘Anything else?’ he asked silkily.

‘Yes. A temporary lover would have limited input when it comes to my long-term plans and how I choose to live my life. There’d be no trying to turn me to his way of thinking. No major compromises required. Asking for such would almost certainly signal the end of the liaison.’

‘Have you a position on time limits for such an association?’ he asked. He’d never met a woman quite so fond of rules and regulations when it came to personal interaction. The scientist in him was intrigued by the need for such protective barriers. The suitor in him regarded it as a challenge.

‘How long they’re going to be in the area usually dictates the length of the association,’ she murmured. ‘I don’t encourage long distance relationships, temporary or otherwise.’

‘Yet you still invented long-distance Gil.’

‘Well, I could hardly invent a fiancé who lived in Sydney. I’d have had to produce him. And lest you get the impression that I enter into temporary liaisons lightly and without careful forethought, I don’t.’

‘I’m getting that,’ he said dryly.

‘So what about you?’ she said. ‘What do you look for in a fling?’

‘Well, I need to be attracted to her,’ he said.

‘And?’

‘And what? That’s it.’

CHAPTER FIVE

GREYSON TYLER didn’t strike Charlotte as a particularly cavalier individual. Not when it came to his research. Not when it came to his relationships. He was, however, male—which probably went some way towards explaining his limited thought processes when it came to bedding a woman and walking away.

‘Are you attracted to me, Greyson?’

His gaze locked with hers, boldly direct. ‘Yes.’

‘Do you respect me?’

‘Is this another one of your fling criteria?’ he murmured.

Charlotte narrowed her gaze.

A hint of a smile tilted Greyson’s extremely kissable lips.

‘For what it’s worth, I have a great deal of respect for the way you conducted yourself at my parents’ this afternoon. You did the job I asked of you. You withstood my mother’s disapproval with dignity and grace. You were gentle with Sarah. I’m grateful. And I’m impressed.’ He set his coffee on the counter, out of harm’s way. ‘So, do I qualify for a fling? Do I meet your criteria? Because from where I’m standing, I think I do.’

‘Modesty’s not really one of your strengths,’ she murmured.

‘No.’ Those dark brown eyes lightened a little. ‘But then, you didn’t specify the need for it.’

‘Gilbert was very modest,’ she said on a sigh.

‘Gilbert was a figment of your imagination,’ he reminded her. ‘I think you’ll find me far more satisfying in any number of ways.’

‘You really want to do this?’ she murmured.

‘Yes.’ Not an indecisive bone in this man’s superbly sculpted body. ‘Do you?’

Did she? Would a night spent in the arms of a man she barely knew chase her loneliness away, even if only for a little while? A man who made her feel warm and protected. One who, for a moment there, back on that deck overlooking the water, made her feel valued and loved. ‘Yes.’

His smile came slow and warm. ‘As in now?’

‘Yes.’

‘Noted,’ he said silkily. ‘But if you don’t mind, I might wait a while. What with all this arranging of events, we seem to have lost a bit of spontaneity. I do enjoy spontaneity within lovemaking.’

‘You should have said,’ she murmured. ‘I’d have left the slave bracelets off.’

‘Slave bracelets?’ His gaze cut to the bracelets at her wrist, and that big body of his became unnaturally still.

‘Oh, yes. Did I not mention them? I’m pretty sure I mentioned them to everyone else at the barbecue. The slave bracelets, that is. Signalling possession and worth. A certain willingness to oblige.’ Challenge, not submission, and Greyson responded, as Charlotte knew he would, for this man fed on challenge and always would.

He stalked around to her side of the bench and trapped her against it, his hands either side of her on the counter. Perhaps he’d decided not to take his time after all. Oh, well …

‘I’d ask for your thoughts on submission within lovemaking but I wouldn’t want to endanger the spontaneity. So …’ She deliberately leaned forward and let her chest brush against his; her nipples responding instantly to all that hardness and heat. He noticed. Charlotte breathed in deeply, savouring the scent of him. He noticed that, too.

‘What would you like to do while we wait?’ she asked in dulcet tones. ‘Would you care for a drink to go with your coffee? Cognac? Brandy liqueur?’

‘No.’ Greyson’s lips were at the spot on her neck, just below the base of her ear where a woman might put perfume only she hadn’t worn any perfume. Not today. Next time, if there was such a time, she would apply a scent this man would remember with a deep and abiding pleasure.

He touched the tip of his tongue to her skin next and she gasped her approval, arching her neck to allow him better access. Spontaneity was all well and good but when it came to the act of making love, she far preferred a man who was thorough. One who would not be rushed. One who knew how to take his time.

‘Scotch?’ she murmured.

‘Yes.’

‘Now? Or shall I wait for spontaneity to strike?’ That earned her a husky rumble that set her hands to his chest and his lips to curving, lips she couldn’t help but find with her own. The kiss started out as fleeting and rapidly grew ragged.

‘I like it neat, no ice.’ Greyson’s hands were at her waist. Wide warm palms and long strong fingers, he slid those hands down the sides of her body until he reached her thighs. When he slid his hands back up to her waist he dragged the fabric of her dress with him.

‘And the glass?’ She closed her eyes and shuddered as the hem of her frock inched higher. ‘Square or round?’

‘Round.’ He lifted her effortlessly and sat her on the bench, stepping in between her legs, forcing them open to accommodate him. The skirt of her dress pooled at her waist. His fingertips slid under it, while his thumbs traced slow circles against the tender flesh of her inner thighs.

‘You want that drink now?’ she whispered and stifled a gasp as a wayward thumb brushed against the delicate silk of her panties.

‘I’m a little busy right now,’ he murmured. ‘So are you.’ His fingers had reached the top of her panties but he didn’t try to ease them down her body, not Greyson. He liked his fingers right where they were, with his thumb at her centre, sliding over silk and over nerve endings already swollen and sensitive.

‘Aurora would have my hide for being a bad hostess,’ she whispered as she covered his wrist with her hand, unsure whether she intended to make him press down deeper or drag his hand away. In the end she did both, one first and then the other as she slid from the countertop, dug an unopened bottle of Scotch from the cupboard, linked fingers with Greyson and led him towards the couch.

Watching Greyson make himself comfortable on the pristine white couch, draping his arms along the back of it and owning the space so utterly, brought a smile to her face.

The swig of Scotch she took straight from the bottle before handing it over brought a smile to his.

He drank his fill and then tilted the bottle towards her. When she shook her head he leaned forward and set the bottle on the low table in front of the couch and reached for her again, drawing her down onto him. She went willingly, straddling his thighs, finding the hard ridge of his arousal and sinking down onto it with a gasp. Plenty to get excited about there. Just plenty as his fingers curled into her buttocks and positioned her for best effect.

Arousal bit deep as his lips parted beneath hers, whisky tinged and ravenous as she slid her fingers through his hair and gave herself over to that expert mouth.

Too many clothes and to hell with going slow. One could be both thorough and fast, Charlotte decided hastily. Grey’s shirt buttons came undone beneath her ministrations. A heartbeat later and the shirt was gone. Beautiful. So very, very beautiful, this man. Charlotte set her hands to his chest and afforded herself the pleasure of dragging them down over rippling muscles until she reached his belt buckle. She made short work of that, and the zipper too, and that which had been encased in denim jutted free.

She rose up onto her knees, rose because she knew exactly what she wanted to do with all that hardness and heat, but her movements put her breasts in line with Greyson’s mouth, and he knew what he wanted too. Within the space of a breath he’d eased the spaghetti straps from her shoulders, the silk covering from her breasts, and taken them in his mouth. Such a wicked, teasing mouth. She shuddered against him, straining, whimpering, and he suckled harder and sent a lightning stroke of desire straight to her loins.

His hands were beneath her dress, beneath her panties, testing for slickness and finding it. Only her panties in the way of him now but not for long, one side parting beneath his insistent tug, and then she was sinking down onto him, fast at first and then more slowly as she realised just how much of him she would have to accommodate.

‘Easy,’ he rumbled against her throat, and then again. ‘Easy.’ Right before his mouth captured hers for another of those all-consuming kisses.

He didn’t rush her. He let her take her time, and if his breathing came harsh and his hands went to the cushions on either side of him and stayed there, rigidly immobile so as not to hasten her along in any way, it was only to his credit.

‘Distract me,’ she murmured, fighting her body for every thick and pulsing inch of him. It had been so long for her. She was beginning to doubt her ability to accommodate him.

‘You don’t need distracting,’ he muttered, and brought the fingers of one hand to rest on her abdomen and set his thumb to her centre as he’d done once before. ‘You need focus.’

He started off with slow, lazy circles and she focused, heaven help her she did, and slowly, and with infinite patience on his part, she took all of him in.

She stilled his hand, holding onto his wrist with her eyes closed and her lower lip between her teeth as she adjusted to the fullness of him. ‘You should come with a warning,’ she muttered.

‘You should come,’ he whispered back, and set about making it happen.

He knew how to move inside a woman slow and easy, this man. He knew how to use the friction of penetration to drive her higher. He knew when to lave and he knew when to bite, and when she came for him and sweet moisture came with it he tumbled her onto her back on the floor and kept her there, his thrusts coming harder now because she wanted them harder, and faster, his every stroke a lesson in ecstasy as she crested around him for the second time in as many minutes.

Grey knew he was a tight fit for a small woman. Holding back was second nature to him, being patient, taking his time—it was the code he lived by, the rule he made love by. But when Charlotte clenched around him again, when her nails dug into his shoulders and she cried out and slammed against him, milking him, coming apart for him, he abandoned all thought of restraint and followed her willingly into madness.

They stayed joined together in the aftermath. Grey rolled to his side and brought Charlotte with him, still buried deep inside her, still trembling. He groaned as she moved but she was only throwing her leg across his hip to keep that connection in place as she eased her upper body back against his outstretched arm.

‘I’ve sworn off lying,’ she murmured, and the lazy satisfaction in that velvet voice of hers had his body twitching and threatening to go another round. ‘And it’s probably not quite the time for teasing either. Maybe later.’

‘Is there any particular point to this train of thought?’ he queried, and got a not quite accidental elbow in his solar plexus for his efforts.

‘Has anyone ever told you you’re a very impatient man?’

‘No,’ he said dryly. ‘Never.’

‘How unusual.’

‘Charlotte,’ he said evenly. ‘Get to the point.’

‘Oh. Right. The point.’ She brought her arms above her head and slid him a laughing glance, every bit the wanton gypsy she purported not to be. ‘Damn, that was good.’

Charlotte Greenstone had a God-given talent for understatement, decided Grey upon hearing her words. She also possessed a bone-deep sensuality that he wasn’t about to forget in a hurry. One could only hope that in offering him a taste of it, she hadn’t taken possession of him in the process.

He didn’t feel as if he’d just met his soul mate.

More as if he’d walked upon a precipice and slipped twenty metres down a hundred-metre cliff and was holding onto his current position by the tips of his bruised and bloodied fingers.

He didn’t think he was in love with Charlotte.

More like he’d been run over by a truck.

Nothing to worry about though. He’d be up and about again soon. Gone soon enough, as specified by their initial agreement regarding the nature and properties of temporary liaisons.

It occurred to him, fleetingly, that he might want to run.

And then Charlotte slid her hand up and over his chest and around his neck and urged his mouth down to meet hers for a kiss so intensely erotic and full of promise that he immediately fell another twenty metres down that cliff.

‘Greyson?’ she murmured, and there was absolutely no denying that the sound of his name on her lips was going to haunt him from here to eternity. ‘You want to do that again?’