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‘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?’
CHAPTER SIX
WAKING up to a sleeping man in her bed wasn’t a regular occurrence for Charlotte. She knew his name and she knew where his parents lived. She knew he had a doctorate in botany and that he’d just returned from a three-year research stint in PNG. She knew he made love like a fiend and that she ached in places she’d never ached before. That was about it for what she knew about Greyson Tyler.
It didn’t seem enough.
Not for her to have allowed him the liberties she’d allowed him to take with her last night. Not that she remembered a conscious decision to allow him anything once the touching had started.
Spontaneous, that was the word she was looking for. Last night’s spontaneous lovemaking had been a revelation. What a woman should do with this new information regarding lovemaking and her own hitherto unknown capacity for abandon remained something of a mystery.
She spared a glance for her bed partner. Still sleeping, thank you God, because she could feel a blush coming on just looking at him. He slept on his stomach, with one hand beneath his pillow and the other reaching towards the bed head. He had one knee bent, and he looked for all the world as if he were trying to scale a mountainside. He seemed to take up an inordinate amount of space in her bed.
Charlotte slipped from the bed and reached silently for her robe. Butt naked was not a regular state of being for her, though she might have to get used to it with this man around. She risked a glance back at him, he was still sleeping so she allowed her gaze to linger on those broad bronzed shoulders and the way the muscles fitted together across his back and tapered down towards his waist. White cotton sheets covered the rest of him, possibly the best of him, but she’d seen it last night and the memory was engraved on her brain.
‘Morning,’ said a deep and sleepy voice from further up the mountainside and Charlotte dragged her gaze upwards to meet his eyes.
‘You’re thinking,’ he said next.
‘No, no, not at all. I think you’ll find that I’m just looking.’
‘Good,’ he said. ‘Come here.’
Charlotte raised a sceptical eyebrow.
‘Please.’
Much better. She crossed to the empty side of the bed and perched on it, grateful for her breakfast robe, a vivid red silk wrap with a golden dragon embroidered on the back. Kitschy and glorious, and very much her style.
Grey reached up and slid his hand around her neck and drew her down into a kiss that surprised her with its tenderness.
‘You okay?’ he asked.
‘Is this a regular morning-after question for you?’
‘Yes.’ Long and silky black lashes came down to curtain his eyes as he bussed her lips once more. ‘You could try answering it.’
‘I’m quite well,’ she murmured. ‘Possibly even invigorated. I’ll know more once I’ve showered.’
Greyson’s lashes came up and he regarded her warily. ‘I wasn’t always easy with you last night.’
‘No.’ Her turn to initiate the kissing this time. Her choice to linger. ‘You weren’t. Still … a woman might choose to be grateful for that fact.’
He didn’t look reassured. Charlotte stifled a sigh. Perhaps he wasn’t as confident in his size and sexuality as she expected him to be. Perhaps he hadn’t always … fitted in.
Perhaps a demonstration of her sincerity was in order.
She slid from the bed and headed for the bathroom suite, shedding her robe along the way. Bare butt and a tumble of waist-length tangled black curls—that was the view she afforded him. ‘Shower time.’ She glanced over her shoulder and offered up a siren’s smile. ‘It’s a big shower.’
She’d been under the spray for only a few minutes before he joined her. Long enough for her to get wet and soapy. Just long enough for her to start wondering if, when she stepped back out of the bathroom, she’d find him gone.
‘I’m not normally so careless,’ he said gruffly as she turned to face him.
‘By careless, do you mean passionate? Fevered? Lost?’
‘Yeah, that.’
A woman couldn’t help it if her smile turned somewhat smug.
‘I usually make a concerted effort to please,’ he said next.
‘Really?’ Now there was a pretty picture. ‘Do tell.’
‘Why don’t I just show you?’ he murmured.
Charlotte’s smile widened. ‘I want you to know that I really am doing my best to convey to you that last night was an intensely erotic and pleasurable experience for me, with absolutely no apology necessary on your part. Just so we’re clear on that point.’
‘Consider it clarified,’ he said. ‘Now turn around to face the tiles.’
‘Please.’
He smiled, but he didn’t say please. Just turned her gently around and then stepped in behind her and slid his hands down her arms and his fingers over hers before taking her hands and placing her palms against the tiles, shoulder height and body length apart. ‘Like this,’ he said.
‘Please.’
But he didn’t say please. Instead, he slid his hands down her body, down to where she was tender and swollen. He parted her legs, caressed her with knowing fingers. ‘You okay?’
Did a groan qualify as a yes?
He slid his hands around to her buttocks, filling his palms with them before sliding his hands up the length of her back in one long massaging caress. Arms next, out to her wrists, and then all the way back to where he started.
He kneed her legs open, she braced herself against the wall and stood on tiptoe, waiting for his entry. Expecting it.
‘Don’t move,’ he whispered.
‘Don’t move, please. Alternatively, you could say please don’t move. Do you have no manners at all?’
‘Sometimes, I do,’ he countered and there was laughter in that dark, delicious voice. ‘I’m very impressed by yours. But just in case you feel obliged to interrupt me any time soon, you can thank me later.’
And then he was kneeling down and wedging broad water-slicked shoulders between her legs and twisting his torso, one strong powerful hand at the small of her back, tilting her pelvis forward, his other hand high on her thigh, as he set his mouth to her centre and feasted.
Charlotte managed to keep her hands to the tiles.
She managed to keep all curses, pleas, and oaths to a minimum.
Later, much later, she remembered to thank him.
Breakfast wasn’t a leisurely affair. Charlotte ate grapes from one hand while setting the espresso machine to brewing with the other. She’d dressed for work in her usual working attire—smart trousers, plain shirt, boring shoes—and she’d kept the make-up light, aiming for elegant minimalism. Greyson had shrugged into his clothes of yesterday and followed the creation of Associate Professor Charlotte Greenstone with some bemusement.