The Rules of Engagement Read online

  Sliding his hand around her neck, he leaned over, kissing her gently. Intending to mark his place, to light the spark that would flame long into the night if he had any say in the matter. But when she opened her mouth and slid her hands into his hair, he was on top of her in a red-hot second.

  Such soft hair, soft lips, soft curves, soft moans.

  Her legs wrapped about him, pulling him close, making him curse his clothes and hers. Making him want to give Jerry a bonus for not sending them sprawling into the leg space each time he turned a brilliantly smooth corner.

  All too soon the car pulled to a halt. Dax looked up, frowning, to discover they’d pulled up in front of a neat, sprawling, rendered apartment building.

  He looked back at Caitlyn, who was watching him, eyes heavy with desire, a self-satisfied smile warming her face, more silky auburn strands tumbling from her hair. Never in his life had he met a woman who looked so delicious when dishevelled.

  Jerry, pro that he was, refrained from opening the car door for them, leaving Dax to do the honours as he and Caitlyn tumbled on less than able legs onto the pavement. Jerry then pulled away discreetly and found a park down the block, leaving Dax to walk behind Caitlyn as she sashayed through her front gate and inside the building.

  Somehow they managed to keep their hands off one another in the short lift ride to her floor. Having her so close and not touching her only turned the heat up more.

  At her apartment door she said, ‘Franny, my flatmate, isn’t home.’

  ‘No?’ Dax asked, fighting back a smile.

  ‘She’s a flight attendant. Away a lot.’

  ‘I like her already,’ Dax said, after which he tumbled Caitlyn inside, kissing away anything else either of them possibly wanted to say.

  * * *

  Much later, when the world was still dark, and the first birds heralded the coming of the sun, Dax woke Caitlyn with a kiss. She slid a hand into his hair as she kissed him back.

  ‘Caitlyn,’ he said, his voice hoarse with the need to leave and not to disentangle her warm naked body from her sheets.

  ‘Mmm?’

  ‘Where’s your mobile?’

  She waved a hand towards her night stand. He found her phone—white with red butterflies dancing across the back— figured out the menu, jabbed in several numbers and placed it in her open hand. Propped up on an elbow now, lids heavy with sleep, she slowly realised what he’d done.

  ‘Is that your number?’ she asked, sitting up higher so that the sheet slid from her back, revealing the top of her perfect creamy bottom. ‘Your special secret bat-phone number?’

  He dragged his eyes back to her face. ‘I didn’t want you mistaking me for a telemarketer and not answering when I call.’

  The hesitant smile that hovered on her face gave him the strangest feeling in the pit of his stomach.

  ‘And I will call,’ he added. ‘Casually, of course.’

  She shook her hair from her face, and gave a good impression of nonchalance. If only she didn’t look so well tumbled she might have pulled it off. ‘I can’t stop you calling. But at least this way if I don’t answer you’ll know it’s because I don’t want to talk to you.’

  He felt himself grinning.

  She lifted her phone, pointed it at him, then the click of the camera function split the quiet air. Her eyes slid from the phone back to him, her cheeks blushing pink. In that moment she seemed so soft and vulnerable he had to curl his fingernails into the pads of his palm so as not to wrap his hands about her face and kiss her until morning.

  It was enough to have him taking a determined step back. Then with a sharp salute he walked away.

  For now.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ‘I’VE barely seen you the last couple of weeks,’ Franny said as together she and Caitlyn collected yoga mats, blankets, straps, and blocks from the box at the back of the Hawthorn Hatha Yoga studio. ‘Whatcha been up to?’

  ‘Work, you know.’ Caitlyn scoped out a spot near the back and slightly behind someone so the yoga instructor wouldn’t pick up on her wandering lunges again.

  ‘All work? No play?’

  Caitlyn slid a glance sideways, then concentrated on unfurling her yoga mat. ‘Some play.’

  ‘I knew it! You and Dax are so a thing, aren’t you?’

  ‘God, no! Not in the least. In fact we’ve been very grown up about it all and agreed that we’re going to be totally casual. In fact since dinner last week we’ve had lunch once.’

  Lunch being a bowl of chocolate-covered strawberries in bed as delivered by room service of a gorgeous boutique hotel exactly halfway between Dax’s office and hers. Just thinking about it made her knees quiver more than even the hardest yoga standing postures did.

  ‘On your backs,’ the instructor called out as soothingly as she could in a room the size of a basketball court. The lights were dimmed and relaxing eastern music played over the speakers. ‘Eyes closed. Clear your minds.’

  ‘On your back, eyes closed, dim lights,’ Franny whispered. ‘Sounds like anyone you know?’

  Caitlyn threw a sock at her.

  After snoring loudly through the breathing practice, Franny perked up when they began their floor postures. ‘Please tell me there has been lots and lots of athletic love-making.’

  ‘I’m telling you no such thing,’ Caitlyn said on an outward breath as she touched her toes to the floor over her head.

  ‘Turn on your core!’ the instructor called out.

  Caitlyn did as she was told, or as close as possible when not exactly certain where her core was.

  ‘Then tell me this,’ Franny said. ‘Is the gelato sex working?’

  ‘Sorbet sex. And yeah, crazily enough, I think it is.’

  She realised then, with a stab of something that felt a lot like guilt, that she’d barely thought about George, or any of her other dud relationships, in days.

  But no wonder. It was as though Dax had imprinted himself on her as no other man had. Even when she wasn’t with him, she could feel him as if it had been mere minutes rather than days since they’d last touched. As if her muscle memory were permanently primed, just waiting for the moment it could give into him once again. In the face of all that heat, there was simply no room for depressing thought.

  ‘So you’re really not an item?’

  ‘We’re really not.’ If she’d needed any proof of that it had been how hard finding time to get together had been. She was used to being pursued, but Dax’s schedule—and greater self-control than hers—made it hard to pin him down. He hadn’t come running at every crook of her finger, which was new. New, and actually kind of provocative.

  ‘And you’re honestly okay with that?’

  ‘Honestly I am. I’m thrilled. It’s so liberating. The pressure’s off. I can just have fun. And he’s perfectly happy to keep things casual too.’

  Franny snorted. ‘Well, of course he is. He’s a man. He probably thinks he’s found the Holy Grail.’

  ‘Maybe we both have.’

  While Franny mmmed and pffted, clearly not so convinced, Caitlyn closed her eyes and pretended to be thinking about her breathing and nothing else, when really she was thinking so specifically of something else she could literally taste chocolate-covered strawberries. And soon she began to ache for Dax in a way that even the deepest yogic meditation wasn’t going to fix.

  ‘Now on your knees and into extended child pose,’ the instructor called. ‘Lengthen your spine on the in breath; push your chest forward on the out breath.’

  Head on the floor, arms stretched over her head, Caitlyn glanced through the gap underneath her underarm and stage-whispered, ‘I’m seeing him this weekend and I’m telling you now there’ll be more casual athletic sorbet sex than even you can imagine.’

  Franny peeked from beneath her underarm and grinned. ‘That’s my girl.’

  She wasn’t, in fact, seeing Dax that weekend. Not officially. Not yet. But the apartment was all hers that weekend as Franny had a layover
in Perth and she thought it was about time to send him links to the pictures he hadn’t bothered to Google. Bikinis and coconut oil were involved and she’d had a horrible stomach flu that summer and had never looked better.

  A thrill skittered through her at the thought of having his hands on her again so soon. Not soon enough. It filled her ’til she felt tight from the top of her thighs to her belly button, ’til she could fill her lungs so far as her upper chest.

  Ah! she thought suddenly, holding her position. So that’s what turning on my core feels like!

  Who needed yoga when you had Dax Bainbridge?

  * * *

  It had been one hell of a week.

  Rumours of more embezzlement within the foundation were beginning to get a grip. With over five hundred employees around the world, it was going to take an investigation and a half to even hope to smoke the culprits out.

  If Dax had made plans to be any other place, he would have cancelled in a heartbeat, instead chaining himself to his desk another night if that was what it took to yank the company back to submission.

  Hell, if he were any other man he’d probably have limped home, kicked off his shoes, grabbed himself a cold beer, and fallen asleep on the couch in front of the footy.

  But he was who he was, and as such believed his responsibilities to his sister, his employees, the shareholders, to restoring the family name were too great. That might have daunted another man. He merely broadened his shoulders and got on with things.

  But for whatever reason, maybe the extra pressure of the week, or maybe the destination itself, he’d decided to give himself a rare break.

  He stood at Caitlyn’s security gate, his eyes grazing the brickwork until he found the warm light of her window. No dinner plans. No drinks first. No stolen half-hour and rush back to work. Just her. And an empty apartment.

  He buzzed the bell with purpose in his finger.

  ‘Dax? You’re early! Or am I late?’ her bright voice hummed through the speaker.

  Despite himself he smiled. ‘Would you prefer I take a lap around the block?’

  Her answer came in the buzzing sound that heralded the unlocking of the gate.

  When he finally knocked on her apartment door, it took a few seconds before it opened with a flourish.

  ‘You’re definitely early,’ Caitlyn said again, pressing a hand to one pink cheek. Her voice was breathy. Her auburn hair tied in a loose knot atop her head. Her jeans tight. Her top soft and loose. White powder streaked across her other cheek. Her feet were bare bar pale pink polish, which twinkled up at him.

  She looked so fresh, so wholesome, desire coiled deep through his middle, and the only word that spun from the thick foggy swirl of his sub-conscious to mind was a long, slow, Da-a-amn.

  ‘Everything okay?’ she asked, brow furrowed.

  He nodded, speechless, Cro-Magnon Man incarnate. At the rise of his caveman instincts all he wanted to do was touch her, to hold her, to allow her natural warmth to wash away the detritus of his week. He moved to take her. The couch looked comfortable enough, even if a little small—

  A loud beeping echoed through the apartment.

  Then Caitlyn was off, disappearing through a pair of white-panelled saloon doors into a room he assumed was the kitchen.

  He took a step inside, squinting against the late spring sunshine streaming through the gauzy curtains onto the pale yellow walls and cosy furniture. Rugs you could slide your toes through. Couches so soft you’d sink into them and struggle to get back out. A floral padded window seat was covered in a haphazard array of magazines. A vase of daisies that had seen better days sat askew on a sideboard above which rested a mirror that boasted photos of Caitlyn and friends poking haphazardly out of its frame.

  The place was charming and warm. Her. As he’d unconsciously known he would, he slowly felt himself relax.

  ‘I’m sorry I’m running so late,’ her disembodied voice called from the other room. ‘I forgot I had to make cupcakes!’

  ‘For dinner?’

  ‘Alas no. One of the guys at work’s wife had a baby last week and it’s his toddler’s birthday this week so I’m helping a tiny bit.’

  He shucked off his jacket and tie, laying them over the back of a dining chair.

  She poked her head over the saloon doors. Strands of straight auburn hair fell down her cheeks. ‘Want a glass of wine while you wait?’

  ‘Thanks,’ he managed. Though awareness of what he was waiting for tightened his throat ’til he could barely swallow.

  A minute later she pushed the doors open with her backside and padded into the lounge. They said high heels did things to a woman’s hips as they walked. But watching Caitlyn pad across the carpet in bare feet, two generous glasses of red in her hands, he wasn’t sure he’d ever seen anything sexier.

  She slid a foot to her calf as she leant against the back of a couch. Then in silence, they watched one another over their untouched glasses of wine. The heat from the kitchen had nothing on the way they built the temperature in that room all on their own.

  He wondered exactly when his need to grow the family business had become such an inordinate obsession that he let it keep him from this, from her, from indulging in such a basic human need, when it was there for the taking. There had been moments, more than he could count, when he’d felt less than amorous towards the work he did, but in that moment, with all that lusciousness within such easy reach, he cursed it with a passion he hadn’t known he possessed.

  She hitched the strap of her top, which had done a kamikaze over her shoulder, giving him a peekaboo glimpse of a dark pink bra strap, then said, ‘I had planned to answer the door looking way more glamorous. And wearing sexy underthings. So drink up, and give me two minutes to change. I’ll be a new woman.’

  The thing was he didn’t want a new woman. He wanted this one, every warm, sweet, honest bit of her, and he wasn’t willing to wait a minute longer, much less two.

  He took her wine glass from her hand and placed it, along with his, on the closest horizontal surface, and then he wrapped a hand around her wrist and pulled her to him with a tug. Her breath hitched as she tumbled against him, her fingers gripping his shirt, one of her knees sliding between his.

  ‘You’re not into sexy underthings?’ she asked, her voice husky with the same desire that swirled hot and deep in her molten honey eyes.

  ‘Not nearly so much as I’m interested in what you keep hidden beneath them.’

  His eyes slid to her mouth where a tiny speck of pale pink icing rested in the corner. Her tongue shot out to lick it away. She got it all. He pretended otherwise, reaching out his thumb to stroke her lip, bewitched by the pull of soft skin against the rough of his thumb pad. He then lifted his thumb and sucked the end, imagining the taste of her on his tongue.

  ‘But they’re really nice underthings. With lacy bits, and see-through bits, and bits that come apart just by looking at them,’ she said, her voice thick. ‘I promise. Two minutes.’

  ‘I’ve waited long enough.’

  With that he kissed her. The pent-up frustration that had built up within him after so much time without her touch, her taste, her warmth, spilt over until his need for her was no longer within his control.

  She whimpered as she kissed him back, her hands digging into his hair, her hips pressing into him, her back arching as she all but tried to climb inside him.

  When they’d kissed ’til he could barely feel his mouth any more, he pulled away. Her lips were pink and swollen, her eyes dark and drunk with desire. Without another word he swept her into his arms and carried her into her bedroom.

  Then his hands were at her hips, his mouth on hers. He’d never in his life tasted anything so sweet. Like sugar and berries and cream. He was sure he hadn’t eaten a cupcake since he was in primary school, but he knew he’d be rectifying that miserable truth as soon as humanly possible. But for now he had another conquest in mind.

  Caitlyn’s hands were tugging, tearing at his shirt
. Hating to leave those lips alone for any longer than necessary, he yanked it over his head and threw it to the floor and was back to kissing her again.

  She lifted her arms, so loose and lazy they might as well have been boneless, as he slid her diaphanous top away without impediment.

  They kissed like teenagers who’d just figured out how it was really done and saw no reason not to kiss like that for ever. Deep, wet, lush kisses that turned his brain to pulp.

  Then the rest of his body began to make itself known. To demand to be a part of the seduction. And in ways his teenaged self hadn’t even dreamt of.

  He pressed her back onto her bed, smoothly pinning her arms above her head. With his eyes he told her she wasn’t to move. The smile that bloomed at the corner of her mouth told him she was perfectly happy to do as she was told.

  She clung to the bedding, to the wrought-iron bed head, to him as she writhed blissfully beneath him as he made sure not one inch of her glorious body was left unadored.

  Her complete fearlessness made the entire experience exquisite. And as she came, again and again beneath his touch, her eyes clung to him, searing, stunned, leaving him feeling so strong in the face of the fragility he could bring out in her.

  Then, with trembling fingers, she put her hands to his cheeks and wrapped her legs about his hips. She drew him inside her; achingly slow, achingly deep.

  They said not a word. In fact they hadn’t said a single thing to one another since he’d first taken her hand. Yet he knew everything she was thinking, everything she was feeling, simply by looking into her eyes as he rocked above her.

  Pressure built on such waves of painful pleasure he just held on tight and rode them to their powerful crest. As he came he felt relief. Release. His muscles were loose. His nerves near numb. His mind a void. As he lay in her arms, breathing heavily, his slick hot limbs intertwined with hers, he had the vaguest sense that his mind was usually filled with concerns, anxieties, duties, only now there was nothing but a warm hum.