He looked fantastic that evening. He wore a dark tux and a lavender-coloured waistcoat and tie, and he’d tamed his unruly brown hair into a respectable style. With the ever-present naughty glint in his eye, he looked like a 1920’s gangster, suave and wicked, so much so that she half expected him to start talking about prohibition. And now he’d taken off his jacket, and his shirt sleeves stretched over his impressive biceps, hiding his glorious tattoo, the one she used to lie in bed and trace her fingers over.
He put the drink he was holding on the nearest table and turned and looked at her. His brown eyes looked black in the low lighting, and to her surprise they weren’t filled with his usual good humour but instead surveyed her steadily, dark with an emotion she couldn’t identify.
“Dance with me,” he said, holding out his hand.
It sounded like a statement rather than an invitation. Normally, that would have made her bristle, but she was lonely and cross with Reuben for abandoning her, so she put down her glass meekly and followed Chase onto the dance floor.
He turned her to face him and rested his right hand on her waist, and she placed her left on his shoulder. With three or four inches separating them, they began to move.
It must have looked very respectable, Daisy thought wildly, two old friends having a final dance together, but what nobody else could see was the hot desire in Chase’s eyes, and the invisible, chemical reaction that was occurring between them. The warmth of the room caused the faint smell of his aftershave to rise off his skin, and the muscles in his shoulder and upper arm were firm beneath her fingertips. His hand was warm in hers. Her body responded to him of its own accord, tightening, aching, moistening at the thought of his hands on her.
Without another word, the hand resting on her hip slid to the small of her back and pulled her closer, and she let him, heart pounding at the nearness of him, so familiar and yet so different at the same time. Her cheek rested against his chin, and his faint stubble rasped against her skin. Reuben shaved morning and night, hating bristles, and very rarely had a five o’clock shadow. She’d forgotten how it felt, how utterly masculine it was.
Apart from subtly pulling her closer, Chase did nothing else untoward. He didn’t try to kiss her, his hand stayed politely on her back and neither did he say anything else, for once not trying to persuade her to go out with him. But his unspoken seduction was all the more powerful for that. Never had she felt more wanted, more desired than for the duration of that song. The music thrummed in her blood, echoing her thundering heartbeat. She hungered for him, wanted him inside her more than she’d ever wanted Reuben in the months they’d been together. She missed Chase so much it hurt.
And then the song ended and he pulled back.
She thought he was going to say thanks for the dance, but to her surprise he cupped her face in his hands and stared into her eyes. She stared back, breathless, captivated by his blatant desire, his overwhelming need for her.
“Come back to my room with me,” he said huskily. His lips hovered inches from hers, so near and yet so far, luscious, tempting.
She wavered, so close to giving in. He’d been so good in bed. Reuben made love like preparing a document for distribution, methodical, perfunctory and precise, and although he always made sure she enjoyed it, she half expected him to flick on his BlackBerry and cross “Do Daisy” off his list afterwards.
Chase had been completely the opposite to Reuben—wild, abandoned, uncaring about anything except taking his pleasure from her and returning it tenfold. Reuben disliked having sex outside the bedroom, preferring the luxury and privacy of bed to the fear of being seen outdoors or the lack of comfort involved in trying out other places in the house. But Chase had been insatiable pretty much everywhere, hadn’t given a hoot about carpet burns or grass stains or hard surfaces, had even swept the entire contents of the living room coffee table to the floor once—including a laptop, a plate of biscuits and half a dozen other knickknacks—just so he could have her there, unhindered.
His recklessness had been the thing she’d loved most about him, but equally the thing she’d hated most too. Gradually, the fact that he didn’t care about the things that mattered to her—namely earning and saving money to enable her to have the lifestyle she wanted—came between them, and eventually she’d grown to loathe his carelessness and his apathy, as well as his insane self-belief that someone would somehow recognise his writing ability and turn up on his doorstep offering to publish his book for millions of dollars.
To give in now, with Reuben upstairs in their bed, would be wrong, foolish, immature and even a little pathetic.
Still, she was tempted, just to taste that passion, that wildness, one last time.
But Chase must have seen the hesitation in her eyes. He dropped his hands, picked up his wine glass, finished off his wine. Gave her one last, regretful, hungry look. Placed the empty glass back on the table, and left the room, heading for the elevator.
Tears stung her eyes. It would never have worked, she told herself as she started to collect her wrap and bag, ready to return to Reuben.
You’ve done the right thing.
So why did it feel so wrong?
Read the rest of Daisy’s story in Daisy Chains (The Seven Sisters: Book 2)
Due for publication in September 2013
Caitlyn Robertson
http://www.caitlynrobertson.com
Caitlyn Robertson also writes racier romance as Serenity Woods. If you enjoyed Sweet as Honey, you might also enjoy His Christmas Present by Serenity.
Megan Green fell in love with Dion Wallace when she was nine years old, but she hasn’t seen him since she was fifteen when he moved from New Zealand to the UK to be with his father. Meeting up with him in Prague eight years later is both a surprise and a relief when he rescues her during one of her panic attacks. On the rebound after a breakup, she turns to Dion for comfort and some hot sex, and he’s happy to oblige. But when the night ends, they’re both certain it’s the last time they’ll ever see each other.
A year later, however, Dion’s life is falling apart. After a decade of hard work, he thought he was next in line to be CEO of the family company, but his father surprises everyone by giving the job to one of his half-brothers. Angry and hurt by his dad’s betrayal, Dion books the first available flight to New Zealand, hoping a few weeks away might give him some perspective. And if he manages to hook up with Megan again while he’s there, he figures that might be the medicine he needs.
Megan’s brother—and Dion’s best mate when they were young—hasn’t told her Dion’s coming. It’s not clear who’s the most shocked when they finally meet. Megan isn’t expecting to see the father of her new baby quite so soon, and Dion certainly wasn’t expecting such a big Christmas present. Angry that his life seems out of his control and that she didn’t tell him she was pregnant, Dion refuses to acknowledge the baby. It’s only when he finds out that his father wanted him to put love above business, and after he reconnects with Megan on Christmas night, that he finally comes to term with having a son and realises that it’s Megan he’s wanted all along.
Excerpt:
It was the nineteenth of December and eighty degrees in the shade.
After years of living through cold northern hemisphere Christmases, Dion’s brain struggled to compute the bizarreness of his new surroundings. The tarmac on the road shimmered in the hot sunshine, and Sean had switched on the car’s air con to combat the high humidity. In December! It just didn’t make sense.
Also, while flying from one side of the world to the other, Dion had crossed the International Date Line and somehow lost an entire day. How the hell had that happened? Had he actually travelled back in time?
Sean signalled and took the road to the town centre before glancing across at him. “My mother would say ‘if the wind changes, your face will stay like that.’”
Dion continued to frown as he stared out of the side window at the lush, sub-tropical landscape of the Northland of New Zealand
. “It looks so alien,” he murmured, studying the arching palms and large, vibrant flowers. How odd that it appeared so unfamiliar considering he’d lived there from the ages of eight to eighteen. He remembered collapsing in bed late on Christmas Eve as a teenager, listening to the sound of cicadas outside his window, his skin hot and crisp from a day spent in the sun and surf. “I thought it would feel like coming home. But it doesn’t. It feels weird.”
“You’ve been gone nearly a decade,” Sean observed. “It’s not surprising it seems strange. And you’re not a Kiwi anymore. You’ve lost your accent and sound all flash now.”
Dion smiled wryly. His father had taken great pains to teach him how to speak ‘properly’ before he went to Cambridge. He’d thought his Kiwi lilt still replaced the upper class twang when he left the office, but obviously not as much as he’d assumed.
He fixed his gaze on the shops lining the new one-way road system. The streets were wide and the cafés spilled tables and chairs onto the pavements. People lazed under big umbrellas that shaded them from the hot sun, drinking coffee while a busker entertained them with folksy jazz on a guitar.
It could have been the Mediterranean—the south of France or Greece. Everyone looked as if they were on holiday, tanned and wearing shorts and T-shirts, Sean included. Dion felt overdressed in his shirt and chinos, hot in the thick material, his shirt damp against his back. Perhaps he should have worn something more casual. Did he have anything more casual in his suitcase? He’d forgotten how laid back the Kiwis were.
“What’s Christmas like in England?” Sean asked. “Is it all deep and crisp and even?”
“More mild and damp,” Dion said. “I’ve only seen snow on Christmas Day once. It usually rains. And it’s more commercialised than here. Adverts on the TV start in August. And the shop windows are full of fake snow with cheesy songs piped on a loop.”
“Sounds great.”
“You get used to it.” Even though he’d criticised it, he couldn’t stop the defensiveness creeping into his voice. He didn’t particularly love the festive season in the UK, but he’d made a life for himself there, and he wasn’t going to let Sean insinuate that his move to England had been a mistake.
He glanced across at his old friend. They’d kept in touch occasionally over the nine years since he moved away, on Facebook and via the odd email, but they’d mainly talked bloke talk, about rugby and politics and movies. He hadn’t been able to get any real sense of how Sean had changed since their teenage years.
He’d been relieved to still recognise his once-best mate. He’d spotted him immediately across the tarmac at the small Kerikeri airport. Sean had been leaning on the gate, waiting, and Dion had spotted his stocky frame, albeit layered with a few more pounds. His short blond hair had thinned on top, but it still stuck up in the same familiar way at the front.
They’d clasped hands and then bear-hugged, and for a brief moment emotion had swept over Dion. They’d been close when they were younger, and he would be forever grateful for the fact that Sean’s parents had taken him in for six months after his mother died, before he left for the UK.
But then Sean pulled away to help him with his luggage, and the moment passed. And perhaps he was imagining it, but after his initial pleasure at seeing his friend, Sean now seemed more reserved, cool even. Why would that be?
“So, how’s married life treating you?” Dion hoped to warm up the atmosphere by encouraging his mate to tell tales of family life. Married guys always seemed to want to extol the virtues of their partners, and he’d learned that it helped to get men to talk.
He’d seen the pictures of the wedding on Facebook four or five years ago. He didn’t know Sean’s wife, Gaby, but she’d looked stunning in her wedding dress. They’d sent him an invite, but it had coincided with an important meeting in Germany. Plus he wasn’t sure at the time that he wanted to revisit his old life, so he’d politely declined. He’d thought they’d be relieved to save some money on a place setting. Had they been upset instead?
“Great.” Sean’s face relaxed into a smile. He glanced across at Dion, looking a tad mischievous. “You should try it someday.”
Dion ignored the taunt. He was adept at steering conversation away from talk of settling down. “And two kids, eh? No hanging around then.” They were both only twenty-seven. To Dion it seemed a young age to already have your family done and dusted—unless…were they thinking about having more than two kids? Jeez, some folks were a glutton for punishment.
Sean shrugged, signalled left and took a new road Dion didn’t remember. It appeared to skirt the old Stone Store. He’d heard that the bridge across the inlet had become choked with debris and burst its banks during heavy rain, so they must have removed the bridge and diverted traffic away. Shame—he’d liked the old road past the historic buildings. They’d all had some good times in the river. He remembered the day Sean had pushed Megan in, and how outraged she’d been. She’d stood there with her hands on her hips and yelled at her brother, beautiful in spite of looking like a drowned rat.
“No point in waiting,” Sean said. “It’s good to have kids while you’ve still got the energy. I find it exhausting, even though Gaby does most of it.”
“I guess.” Dion knew nothing about having children. One of his half-brothers in the UK had a couple, but he’d never got involved with them. He tended to hold babies in front of him like a rugby ball, and when people saw how uncomfortable it made him, they stopped giving them to him. He wasn’t one of those jolly uncles who took the kids to the zoo and bought them sweets. The children steered clear of him now when his brother came to visit, and he was quite happy with that. “Are the kids at home with Gaby?”
“Nah, one of Gaby’s friends has them for a few hours,” Sean said. “They take turns to give each other a break.”
That didn’t surprise Dion. New Zealanders had always had the ‘number eight wire’ approach to life. When the first European immigrants arrived, thirteen thousand miles away from their homeland, they quickly learned to invent things they couldn’t easily obtain, and the number eight gauge of fencing wire was soon adapted for countless other uses in New Zealand farms, factories and homes. The phrase came to represent a Kiwi who could turn their hand to anything, and they were a people who reacted to problems by pulling together to help each other out.
The houses thinned, and as Sean took the road leading to Opito Bay, the countryside spread away from them, rising and falling in a series of emerald hills until it met the glittering sea on either side. The finger of land formed part of the sub-tropical paradise of the Bay of Islands.
Dion blew out a breath. “That’s quite a view.”
Sean smiled. “Yeah. I can think of worse scenery to look at on the way to work.”
Dion thought of the narrow, dirty streets of London, the crowded Underground, the smell and taste of the city, metallic and dusty. Like an old but revered actress, London was beautiful in its own way, and of course its history knocked New Zealand’s into a cocked hat, as the Cockneys would have said. But he’d forgotten the beauty of Aotearoa. How vast and high and blue the sky seemed.
“How’s the business going?” he asked. He knew Sean had joined his father’s building trade.
Sean gave him a strange look, but said, “Yeah, good. Things are picking up a bit after the recession. Lots of new houses being built.”
“Cool.” He tipped his head back on the headrest as a wave of tiredness hit him. Jet lag, no doubt. It couldn’t be the pace of life in the Northland. Even the staff at the tiny airport had been laid back, shrugging off the plane’s late arrival with typical Kiwi indifference. And Sean hardly seemed stressed, driving along happily at fifty in a hundred kph zone. What was that—about thirty miles an hour? Jeez. And there weren’t even any speed cameras to worry about.
What would it be like to get up every morning and know your day involved driving to a field somewhere and hammering nails into planks of wood until home time? No airports, taxis, extended lunches,
long business meetings in boardrooms, laptops, iPhones, annual reports. No air conditioning, stewed coffee, dry sandwiches, or the cloying smell of beeswax from the polished oak tables. No talking, talking, talking all day until he thought he’d used every word in his vocabulary and would never be able to utter anything ever again.
Actually, it sounded quite attractive now he thought about it.
Then he sighed. You’d soon get bored, he scolded himself. He was disillusioned and tired, stressed after the events of the past few months, maybe a bit burned out, and he needed a break. But he wasn’t due a mid-life crisis yet.
Sean glanced at him again.
Dion raised an eyebrow, sensing a question hovering in the wings. “What?”
Sean’s brow furrowed. “Are you really not going to ask after Megan?”
Dion blinked. He hadn’t asked about any of Sean’s family yet—there had hardly been time for that sort of conversation. He stared, surprised at Sean’s glare. And then realisation sank in.
Sean knew. Shit. It had only been the one night. They’d both agreed to keep it quiet. Why had she told her brother?
Guilt filtered through him, and he had to force himself not to squirm in his seat. He and Megan had had a fiery relationship from the first moment he met her when he was twelve and she was nine. Irritation and exasperation had eventually matured into a simmering sexual attraction throughout their teenage years, and even though he’d tried his hardest to remind himself that she was Sean’s little sister, he hadn’t been completely shocked—and he suspected she hadn’t either—that when they bumped into each other the previous Christmas, they’d ended up in bed.
Her passion and apparently genuine desire for him had both shocked and thrilled him. He liked to think himself fairly experienced in bed, but he could safely say that night had been the hottest, most erotic night of his life. They’d practically set the bed alight, and he suspected that if they’d lived in the same half of the world, it would have changed their relationship forever, an irreversible chemical reaction, like baking eggs and flour to make a cake. A hot, sexy, chocolate-covered and caramel-filled sumptuous delight of a cake, but changed nevertheless.
Sweet as Honey (The Seven Sisters) Page 18
