With This Fling... (9 page)

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.

‘Why the disguise?’ he asked finally as she set his coffee in front of him, finished her grapes, and began smoothing back her wayward hair in readiness for a hairclip.

‘Who says it’s a disguise?’ she murmured.

‘Seems a little Plain Jane for you,’ he said with a shrug. ‘Correct me if I’m wrong.’

‘I’m a relatively youthful female giving undergraduate lectures and gunning for tenure within an antiquated and patriarchal employment system,’ she said with a shrug. ‘Respect comes a little easier to some if I look the part.’

‘What do you do about the ones who don’t respect your abilities, no matter how you dress?’

‘They get to learn the hard way.’

Now she’d amused him.

‘What?’ she snapped. ‘Over twenty years of hands-on fieldwork and analysis not enough? Get back in the field, Charlotte, before your godmother’s contacts forget you,’ she mimicked grimly. ‘We wouldn’t want you to lose those, now, would we? Or the goodwill that comes with your family name. You are aware, Charlotte,
that your ability to pull more funding than the rest of us put together has nothing to do with any actual talent for bringing particular projects and interested parties together? You have a brand name that implies excellent connections, inspired thinking, quality work, and exceptional results, that’s all. Don’t you be thinking that your success has anything to do with
you.’

Greyson said nothing.

‘You want to know the sad thing about it all?’ she said with a frustrated sigh. ‘They’re not entirely wrong. And now that Aurora’s dead, the naysayers are just
waiting
to see how much goodwill towards me died with her.’

‘How much goodwill towards you do
you
think died with her?’

‘I don’t know.’ Charlotte wouldn’t meet his eyes. ‘A lot of these people have known me since I was a baby. They knew my parents. Many of them tutored me in their various areas of expertise. They’ve followed my career, smoothed the way for me many times over. Because of the brand or because of me or because Aurora called in favours, who knows? I certainly don’t. And you really don’t need to hear any of this,’ she finished with a grimace. ‘Sorry. Touchy subject.’

‘So who
do
you run all this stuff by?’ he asked mildly.

‘Well … Gil happened to be a
very
good listener,’ she offered, which earned her one of
those
looks.

‘Would you like some advice?’

‘I’m not sure,’ she said warily. ‘I might.’

‘Don’t let anyone tell you that your success is due to your birthright or a brand you have no influence over. Yes, you had a head start, your upbringing saw to that. But your parents have been dead for, what, twenty years or so? And your godmother was retired for the last five?’

‘Something like that,’ she murmured.

‘And the funding for the projects just keeps coming?’

Charlotte nodded.

‘Figured as much.’ He sipped his coffee. He kept her waiting. Charlotte hated waiting. She had a sneaking suspicion that Greyson knew it. ‘The way I see it, Professor, you
are
the brand and have been for some time,’ he said at last. ‘Your godmother knew it. I dare say she traded on it, added her own to it, taught you how to build it. And you have. Get back out in the field if you want to—if that’s where you want to keep your brand based. If you’d rather stay put, all you need do is continue to grow your
brand at the management and funding level. It’s
your
brand, Charlotte, your life, and you’re in the enviable position of being able to choose exactly how you live it. Tell your naysayers to look to their own effectiveness, not yours.’

‘You want to know something?’ said Charlotte as his words put another chink in her carefully constructed armour.

‘I’m not sure,’ he offered dryly. ‘I might.’

‘You’re much better at giving advice than Gil.’ She glanced at the kitchen clock. ‘And I have to get to work. You want to let yourself out? There’s a spare set of driveway keys around here somewhere.’

But to that, he shook his head. ‘I’ll follow you out.’

‘Will you call me?’ she asked tentatively. ‘Or are we done here?’

Greyson got to his feet. Charlotte adjusted her gaze skywards. He looked even bigger than he had last night and a whole lot more lethal. Maybe it was because he hadn’t shaved. Maybe she was simply applying her newfound knowledge of how this man thought and what made him tick. What he was capable of giving to a woman by way of encouragement and support. And pleasure.

A shudder ripped through her and it felt like a warning. Just how was she supposed to keep
this liaison carefree and temporary when every move he made and word he spoke brought him closer?

‘We’re not done yet, Charlotte.’ Greyson eyed her a little too grimly for comfort. Call it a hunch, but he didn’t seem to be embracing their temporary liaison with a whole lot of lightness and joy either. ‘You can expect me to call.’

He probably hadn’t meant to make it sound like a warning.

Or maybe he had.

‘I tried calling you yesterday afternoon to see if you wanted to go to the movies,’ said Millie at morning tea time as they raided the biscuit tin for biscuits that weren’t a hundred years old. ‘Couldn’t get through to you though.’

‘What did you go and see?’

‘I didn’t see anything,’ said Millie. ‘The offer’s still open for tomorrow night.’

‘Done,’ said Charlotte, never mind what films might be playing.

‘It’s fine if you want to bring someone else along too,’ said Millie.

Charlotte shook her head and smiled.

Millie sighed heavily.

‘Subtlety will get you nowhere,’ said Charlotte archly. ‘Ask.’

‘Thank you,’ said the long suffering Millie. ‘What’s going on with you and Gil?’

‘He’s hoping to go and work in Borneo soon. We’ve ended our engagement. It was a mutual decision based on many factors.’

‘Fool,’ muttered Millie. ‘Have you seen him lately?’

‘I have.’

‘Sexy as ever?’

‘Alas, yes.’

‘Attentive?’

Charlotte felt her face start to heat.

‘Feel free to enlighten me,’ said Millie. ‘Really. I mean it.’

Charlotte smiled again; it was that kind of day. Blue skies above, body sated, mind still trying to work its way through the sensual haze Greyson’s lovemaking had left her with. Hard to concentrate on the bigger picture, namely Greyson’s—no,
Gil’s
—impending exit from her life and from her co-workers’ consciousnesses. ‘He’ll be gone again soon, and that’ll be the end of it. Really. It’s for the best.’

‘What’s Borneo got that you haven’t?’ said Millie.

‘Novelty value. Research possibilities. The call of the wild.’ Charlotte reeled off the attractions. ‘Rainforests. Temples. Orangutangs.’

‘Trifles,’ said Mille. ‘Though I will confess a
fondness for orangutangs. Have you considered going with him?’

‘No,’ said Charlotte, and a little bit of brightness went out of her day. ‘That’s really not an option.’

‘Why not? There are opportunities for archaeologists in Borneo. You’re wasted here, Charlotte. You know you are. The Mead dangles tenureship in front of you and turns you into his lackey. Carlysle and Steadfellow mine your knowledge and then try and take the credit for it. You could do such brilliant work but you don’t. You could tie yourself so lightly to this place and go anywhere. Everywhere.’

‘Everywhere’s overrated,’ said Charlotte lightly, and suffered Millie’s puzzled glance.

‘I thought it was your godmother’s failing health that kept you here,’ said Millie. ‘But that wasn’t it, was it? There’s something else. Something bigger than Gil, bigger than love, only I don’t know what it is.’

‘It’s hard to explain,’ said Charlotte.

‘Try.’

So Charlotte tried. ‘I like stability. I like the connections I’ve made here. I feel like I’m part of something, even when I’m being used up.’