Sweet as Honey (The Seven Sisters) (25 page)

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. I
f 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.