From Sydney With Love. Kelly Hunter

      ‘So you can convince me to come traipsing with you?’

      ‘Because I’m enjoying your company and I’m not quite ready to let you go.’ He gave her the truth of his thoughts in that he gave her what he thought she would bear. ‘A short term affair doesn’t by nature have to lack intensity.’

      ‘So I’m discovering,’ she murmured.

      ‘Will you stay on another night?’

      ‘Will you try and convince me to come travelling with you next week if I do?’

      ‘No.’ Greyson shook his head. ‘My offer stands but I’ll not badger you into accepting it. That’s not my way. I’m quite happy to leave the question hanging there if you are.’

      ‘The old elephant in the living room,’ she said with a wry smile.

      ‘Exactly.’

      ‘So what would we do with the day if I stayed on?’ she said at last, and watched Greyson’s eyes lighten and brighten with possibilities.

      ‘Wind’s picking up,’ he said. ‘Have you ever raced a cat under sail?’

      They raced the day away and made the most of the night.

      Greyson kept his word. He never once mentioned his offer. Instead he made love to her with a focus no other man had ever matched. Passion ruled him, ruled them both, along with greedy abandon in Charlotte’s case, liberally laced with desperation at the thought that this night might be their last.

      Morning came too soon for Charlotte but she savoured it regardless, delighting in being wooed awake by wicked promises and exceptionally good coffee. A woman could get used to such treatment, but only a foolish woman would allow herself to depend on it.

      She’d thought about joining Greyson in Borneo for the week. One week, what harm could it do? She had holiday time owing. Time her boss had urged her to take. She had no commitments to pets or to people—no responsibilities at all in that regard. She was a free agent and why shouldn’t she follow her heart—or at least her libido for a time—and see where it led?

      Tempting, so tempting, this man’s kisses, as she and Greyson stood on dry land later in the day, saying their farewells beside her baking hot car, and stealing kisses where they could. Charlotte stole a lot of them, a woman bent on gorging herself before a famine.

      ‘Safe travels, Greyson Tyler,’ she murmured, and if her heart felt as if it was breaking, well, perhaps it was. She stood back and took one last look at him, storing up the memories for later. A big beautiful man with tousled black hair, intelligent brown eyes, more charm than was good for him, and an air of command and purpose that clung to him like skin. ‘I’ll think of you with pleasure and I’ll think of you with regret, but I’ll not be going with you to Borneo.’

      ‘Why not?’ His turn to move forward, to reach for her and coax every last drop of pleasure from a kiss. ‘We’re good together, Charlotte. Better than good.’

      ‘I know. And maybe in another lifetime, one shaped by a different upbringing, I’d have followed you and never looked back.’ She stepped back, out of his arms and the solace she found there and regarded him pensively. ‘You think I don’t know my own mind or that you can change it. Somewhere along the way, I’ve given you the impression that I don’t know what I want from a partner or from this life, and maybe I don’t. Not fully, not with certainty. Thing is, no matter how often I examine the notion of travel or of being with a partner who travels, there’s a resistance there that runs soul deep.’

      ‘Call me,’ he said gruffly. ‘When I get back.’

      ‘Greyson.’ She looked away, down at the suddenly blurry steering wheel of her car, anywhere but at him. How had she come to care for him so much in such a short time? Two weeks. Less than half a dozen meetings, and already he was tearing her in two. ‘I can’t.’ Nothing more than a ragged plea for mercy, for he seemed bent on making this farewell so much harder than it should have been. ‘I can’t,’ she whispered again.

      ‘Then I’ll call you.’

      ‘Greyson, please …’ She pressed her lips to his, one final farewell. She stepped back and smiled through her tears. Time to go before she begged him to stay. ‘Don’t.’