The From Paris With Love And Regency Season Of Secrets Ultimate Collection. Кэрол Мортимер

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      Charlotte had never once pictured Gil in the kitchen. Certainly not in a ship’s galley. Nor had Gil ever been quite so delectably dressed.

      ‘You’re smiling,’ Grey murmured.

      ‘I know.’ She set her wine on the bench and flowed into Greyson’s arms, burrowing beneath his open shirt in search of warm skin over rippling muscle. She touched the tip of her tongue to his collarbone and tasted salt. He put his hand to her head and held her there for a moment, breathing in deep, before tilting her head back and covering her lips with his own in a kiss that spoke of welcome, and wanting, and a man who intended to savour every moment of this particular journey.

      ‘Miss me?’ he whispered, between kisses.

      ‘It’s really not part of the plan,’ she countered and kissed him again. She didn’t tell him that sinking into his kisses felt a lot like coming home. She didn’t say that she’d thought about him far more than she’d wanted to this past week. That she’d envied him his overprotective mother and his lovely ex-fiancée, the work that was his passion, and the surety with which he moved through life. A smart and sexy man who knew exactly what he wanted was a very attractive proposition for a woman who did not.

      He filled a gap, as Gil had filled a gap. He fed a need Charlotte hadn’t known existed.

      ‘I think I’m using you,’ she murmured.

      ‘That’s okay.’ He kissed her again. This time she moaned her approval. ‘Blame it on the endorphins.’

      ‘You don’t recommend that I take at least some responsibility for my behaviour?’

      ‘We have a short-term liaison agreement, remember? Your behaviour is entirely appropriate. You could even—just a suggestion—increase your enthusiasm for my company.’

      ‘You called, I came,’ she countered, stepping out of his embrace and retrieving her wine. ‘Undress me, make love to me, and I guarantee I’ll come some more. How much more enthusiasm do you want?’

      ‘Maybe enthusiasm wasn’t quite the right word,’ Greyson said smoothly. ‘Never mind.’

      He reached for his beer, leaned back against the tiny galley sink, and studied her intently. ‘My mother phoned this evening to ask me what I was doing this weekend. I told her I was spending it with you. She wants you over for dinner again, some time. Just the four of us, my father included.’

      ‘Why?’ asked Charlotte warily.

      ‘Perhaps she feels that she didn’t give you a chance.’

      ‘She doesn’t have to.’

      ‘Alas, she doesn’t know that.’ Grey studied her some more. ‘I’ll tell her you’re busy.’

      Charlotte lowered her gaze. Had she really been involved with Greyson, she’d have grasped the olive branch extended. As it was … he could tell his mother whatever he liked.

      ‘It’s one of the drawbacks of having a nosey family,’ he said next. ‘My mother’s been after grandchildren for years.’

      ‘Grandchildren?’

      ‘What’s your position on that?’ he asked and Charlotte glanced back towards him to find his gaze more intent than ever.

      ‘On grandchildren?’ she said lightly. ‘I can see the appeal.’

      ‘On children,’ he said. ‘And you having them.’

      ‘Yours?’

      ‘Anyone’s.’

      ‘Again, I can see the appeal,’ she said. ‘And were I in a loving and stable relationship, I might consider children an option.’

      ‘What if your partner had a vocation that required travel? Would you consider joining him on his travels? You and the children?’

      ‘Are we talking about a partner much like yourself?’

      ‘Let’s assume yes,’ he said.

      ‘It’s not a question I’ve given much thought to,’ she said. ‘Mainly because the plan is to avoid becoming involved with such a man. I’ve a lot of experience when it comes to unorthodox childhoods, Greyson. I know what worked for me, and what didn’t. I’ll not be repeating what didn’t.’

      ‘Wouldn’t that make you the perfect partner for such a man?’ he said silkily.

      ‘That would depend on his ability to forfeit his needs and desires for the greater good of his family when the time came for him to do so,’ she said, equally silkily. ‘Could you?’

      ‘Good question,’ he said blandly and peeked into the oven. ‘I think they’re done.’

      They ate on deck, bypassing the perfectly prepared table in favour of a starry sky, a playful breeze, and balancing their plates on their knees. It fed Greyson’s need for freedom and Charlotte’s need for escape from difficult questions and impossible compromises. When they were done with the food she relaxed back against the moulded bench seating and stared at the sky. You couldn’t see the stars from where she was in Sydney. Not many, at any rate, and not often. ‘I’m not against travel,’ she murmured. ‘I’m very fond of new horizons and experiences.’

      ‘I see that,’ he murmured.

      ‘Just not as an ongoing way of life.’

      ‘Have you ever made love beneath the stars?’ he murmured.

      ‘Are you changing the subject?’

      ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’ve had enough of the old subject. I’m hunting a new one. Have you ever made love outside, under the stars?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘Want to?’

      She rose and straddled him, pushing his shirt from his shoulders as she’d wanted to do all evening, glorying in his size and his strength and the lazy intensity he could bring to a moment. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I do.’

      He didn’t mean to devour her. He hadn’t meant to bring up his mother’s dinner invitation or the subject of children either. Hadn’t meant to make love to her half the night and then again come sunrise because he couldn’t get enough of her. But he did all those things to Charlotte Greenstone and she matched him, passion for passion, and warned him that last time, before her eyes had fluttered closed, that if he didn’t want her committing mutiny, her breakfast had better be bountiful and could he please serve it some time after ten.

      ‘What did your last Sherpa die of?’ he’d muttered.

      ‘Boredom,’ she’d mumbled and promptly fallen asleep.

      Greyson wasn’t bored.

      Exasperated, at times. Astonished by the sexual pleasure he found in Charlotte’s embrace. But not bored.

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