Awakened by His Touch (10 page)

‘Right, then.’ But the hint of a sound drifted over the ocean to her ears. ‘Are you...
laughing
?’

‘Of course I’m laughing. This is crazy.’

‘Why is it crazy?’

‘Because
of course
parasailing is a date, and
of course
I’m going to kiss you afterwards. I just wanted to give you some time to get used to the idea instead of mauling you when you can’t run away without plunging to your death.’

A totally foreign kind of light-headedness washed over her. How bad could she have been if he wanted to kiss her again? And how was she going to endure seven days before it happened, now that she knew how good he tasted.

‘I didn’t kiss you because I felt obligated, Elliott,’ she confessed. ‘I really wanted to know what it would be like.’

‘My robust ego is very happy to hear it.’

And then there didn’t seem much more to be said about it. Elliott Garvey wasn’t like those other men—man-boys, really—that she’d dated. He wasn’t pitying her or objectifying her or out for any kind of social kudos. He just wanted to kiss her.

Simple as that.

‘You’re smiling.’

Yeah, she was. She was happy. But she wasn’t about to let him know that. ‘It’s an awkward smile. I don’t know what to do now.’

‘You don’t have to do anything. Just enjoy the sun.’

Really? The sun was shining? Impossible to see it past the honking great
glow
that was Elliott in her awareness. He pulsed, thick and strong, right at the front of her brain.

Silence descended—as uncomfortable and un-ignorable as Elliott seemed to think it
wasn’t
.

Until he broke it.

‘More cheese?’

* * *

Stupid how he busied himself refilling her plate to disguise the tremor in hands Laney couldn’t even see, but the simple chore helped him to focus and regroup. That and a decent whack of deep breathing.

Kissing had not been on his radar for this afternoon, though the residual tension in his body following the honey-sucking incident was very happy that it had eventuated. The only thing he’d been expecting—planning—was to get to know Laney better. To address some question marks. He just hadn’t realised that
What does she taste like?
was one of his questions.

Though now that he had an answer he could see how very clearly it had been. Since the whole dancing on the beach thing, if he was honest.

He blew out a silent fortifying breath.

He’d had to use all his corporate skills to gather his scattered wits and reassemble them so that he could speak with even the slightest wit after his lips had touched hers. He’d kissed a lot of women—countless—but they didn’t usually render him mute the way her soft, tentative exploration had.

Maybe that was it. Maybe he was just used to kisses being more forthright. Kisses usually came sure and easy, because he gravitated towards women who were guaranteed to be interested. Women who were into money. Women who were into him.

Who knew that all this time he should have been kissing women who
weren’t
into him?

Though the idea that Laney Morgan might not be into him bordered on the edge of alarming. Which was disturbing in itself.

And he didn’t
do
disturbing. No more than he did
need
. In fact he didn’t do anything in which the outcome wasn’t reasonably assured. Even in business he did his due diligence and only went after the sure-thing clients. Life was just safer that way.

He’d assumed a small outfit like Morgan’s would jump at the chance for some guided development into the global sphere, and he didn’t understand Laney’s reticence any more than he understood what she did to him.

Correction: he understood very well
what
she did to him, but he didn’t understand why. Or how. She wasn’t even trying. Yet with no apparent effort on her part she’d captivated him as surely as any of the bees in her hives. They thought they were free to come and go, too. But they weren’t—not really.

It was kind of insidious now that he thought about it.

Still...knowledge was power. There was no reason he shouldn’t continue to explore whatever this was between them now that he knew how Laney worked. And how well
innocent
and
passionate
worked on
him
, particularly.

Two things he hadn’t been for a really long time. If he ever had.

He tried to trace the emptiness inside him back to a time when it had never existed but failed. It was something he’d carried around with him always. When he was younger he’d used it to keep all his adolescent angst in, then later he filled it with his relentless globetrotting adventures, and now it was a handy repository for all his corporate ambition.

He’d once been stupid enough to do his own packing when moving apartment, and he knew exactly how many newspapers he’d balled up to pack into the empty spaces around his many belongings. They did the job, but ultimately they ended up in the recycling.

Laney was just balled newspaper. This fascination he had for her—the fullness he felt when he was with her—it was all just incredibly attractive, stimulating, emotional stuffing. It took the edge off the gnawing hollow, but it wouldn’t take much to send it tumbling back out onto the floor.

It wouldn’t last. Nothing ever did, in his experience. The one favour his mother had done for him was to instil in him, early on, an acceptance of the disappointments of life. It took a lot to crush him these days, because he didn’t let himself count on anything.

Or anyone.

The void was so much a part of him it was impossible to imagine being the man he was without it. Or to imagine what other people kept in theirs. It was tempting to ask Laney, because surely the most fulfilled woman he’d ever known would have to have the answer.

Or maybe he could mine the answer for himself if he just spent more time with her. Really got under her skin.

His whole body high-fived that notion. Even if it was ultimately doomed.

Even if it did nothing more than highlight how big his void had become while he was ignoring it.

Really, what were the chances he
wouldn’t
support any plan that ended in him spending more time with Laney Morgan?

CHAPTER SEVEN

L
UCKY
SHE
WAS
a country girl, so being dropped at Mitchell’s Cliff train station at five a.m. by her father hadn’t felt too unusual. Well, the time hadn’t felt odd. Being on a train alone for the first time ever kind of did, but she hunkered down in her comfortable seat, squeezed her earbuds in and cranked up her audiobook for the ninety-minute journey north to the big smoke, doing her best not to think about how out of her comfort zone she was.

Alone on a train without Wilbur, whose last city-guiding experience had been thirteen years ago.

But wasn’t that the point? Parasailing wasn’t exactly in her comfort zone either, but she was super-keen to try that. So why would being on a train freak her out? All around her passengers commuted to the city—some every morning and evening for work—and they managed.

So would she.

She had her stick. She’d be fine.

Yet as she rested her hand lightly on the forearm of the train security guard ninety minutes later, as he led her towards the exit, she was super-glad that Elliott would be meeting her on the platform. Because although she knew that she would be able to ask her way to the taxi rank and a driver who would get her easily to Elliott’s house, there was something extra comforting about knowing he’d be waiting right there for her.

Comforting and welcoming.

And not just because he was Elliott.

‘Uneventful journey, Laney?’

His deep voice sounded from directly behind her as the security guard released her on the city platform. Her small thanks were totally lost in the ambient noise on the platform, much higher than she was used to, and all the different smells practically assaulting her nostrils with their diversity. Even the underfoot vibrations caused by so many trains coming in and out of the station made her feel less certain of any step she took.

It made her wonder what city folk
did
with all that sensory input.

She was too rattled by the unfamiliarity of the journey and the stimulus here in the station to remember to be rattled by
him
. By what they’d shared just a few short days ago. Or by what he’d effectively promised they would share again today.

That was something to worry about when they got somewhere quiet.

‘Elliott. Hi.’

It took him just moments to guide her out of the station to his waiting car, and she broke her own rule by gripping his forearm rather than just resting her own on top of it.

This was a grippy kind of day.

At last she sank into the luxurious comfort of deep leather seats and the expensive seals on the door blocked out the city.

She turned to him and breathed out her relief on an extended greeting—another one—flexing the kinks out of her fingers. Okay, so maybe her grip
was
a bit tight.

‘You okay?’ Elliott asked.

‘New places are always that bit more stressful. I’ll be fine now that I’m here.’ She fought her subconscious’ great desire to say
with you
.

‘Have you had breakfast?’

No. Because she’d been too nervous. ‘Just coffee.’

‘That might work for you in the country, but here a coffee doesn’t fuel you until morning tea. Not with what we’ll be doing today.’

She was as intrigued by the idea of a day full of activity as she was by the fact he’d remembered her words, almost verbatim, from a full week ago.

‘You’re going to be towing me behind your speedboat. I don’t want to revisit that breakfast at an inopportune moment.’

His chuckle blended perfectly with the purr that was his car ignition. ‘We’re not going out for a few hours. You’ll have plenty of time to digest.’

She’d forgotten that it was not yet seven a.m. ‘What will we do until then?’

‘I had a chat with the team from VisApis. They’re in their lab today and have offered to show us around at nine. So we’ve got time for something a bit more substantial than just coffee.’

The queasy void in her belly was rapidly closing over just at being back in the familiar warmth of Elliott’s company. The glow was fully back in residence, too, and this time it had brought its good friend, tingles. They skittered up and down her limbs.

‘Okay. I could definitely eat.’

But just because she
could
eat a full country breakfast didn’t mean she wanted to. She still had the niggling concern that she might not take to flight quite as naturally as she secretly dreamed. But organic muesli wasn’t too much of a risk and was pretty quickly digested. And she only had a small portion. Elliott had himself a poached egg on a bagel and a gorgeous-smelling coffee, which meant they were easily done in time to drive over to the university and meet with the VisApis crew by nine.

Elliott gave her mother a run for her money as chief scene-setter, describing everything as he drove along the foreshore of the city and followed the river around to one of the established leafy suburbs to its west. Laney was fascinated by his mixed descriptions of the architecture in the suburb, or the odd statues mounted out in the river itself, the portly pelicans roosting on posts along the way, until finally they pulled up at the base of one of the old limestone campus buildings he’d been describing.

‘Okay, here we are.’

VisApis’s research labs. The place where the studies they undertook at Morgan’s had
triggered more study on the ability of bees to map the features of human faces.

‘The theory is that they use the same ability they use on flowers to discriminate between human faces,’ she continued on as Elliott helped her out of his car..

‘And you’re a favoured flower?’

‘They clearly appreciate my extra-gentle handling.’

‘So you’re in on the ground level with a potentially lucrative discovery?’

She shrugged. ‘I just wanted to understand more about the bees.’

‘And Edison just wanted to know how to make a lightbulb last longer,’ Elliott said, guiding her up a short staircase. ‘All innovation begins with a simple question.’

‘You’re not suggesting the two are even remotely on the same scale?’

‘I guess it depends what it leads to in the future. VisApis are claiming their work will revolutionise facial recognition.’

‘
Their
work...’ she reinforced. ‘I’m sure they were glad for the lead study, but I can’t imagine they’ve spared much of a thought for me or the original bunch of bees since.’

‘That’s why they jumped at the chance to meet you today.’

She hadn’t thought about how he might have asked. ‘Oh, I hope this isn’t awkward,’ she said.

‘Only one way to find out.’

* * *

Ordinarily Elliott wouldn’t get quite so hands-on with a client—a woman—but Laney’s lack of sight gave him the perfect excuse to touch her. He rested his hand at her lower back and kept the contact up as she negotiated the entry to the building with her cane. It was a greedy pleasure that he felt vaguely ashamed of.

A research assistant greeted them with a smile just inside the entrance.

‘Ms Morgan,’ the young man practically gushed. ‘It’s a real pleasure.’

Two extra lines appeared between Laney’s brows, but she didn’t voice whatever question she’d developed, instead smiling at the man and turning in the direction of his voice to follow him down the hall. Elliott stepped up close behind her so she knew he was still there.

It only took him a few minutes in the lab to understand the reverence, though.

Everywhere he looked computers belonging to the personnel who weren’t at work on a Saturday flashed a single word and logo in syncopated order across their dormant screensavers—HELENA. The six letters were stylishly designed along with a close-up illustrated version of one of her eyes. He’d know that grey anywhere.

They’d named their software after her.

‘Ms Morgan—at last.’ A more senior man in a crisp lab coat introduced himself to her as the project leader.

Laney’s soft hair shifted with the tilt of her head. ‘Are we late?’

‘I’m sorry, no.’ The man’s laugh boomed. ‘I meant it’s a pleasure to meet you after all this time. Those of us who have been working on Helena for two years wondered if we’d ever get the pleasure.’

Elliott held his breath. This could end badly.

‘You...’ Her frown was very definitely real this time. ‘You named your project after me?’

Another thing he really liked about her. She didn’t waste anyone’s time with fake humility.

‘To the rest of the world this project is VisApis 439, but we know it affectionately as Helena. And, yes, we named it for you, since it was born out of the research you commissioned.’

Standing this close behind her, Elliott knew the moment she stiffened like an old lock.

‘Morgan’s commissioned it.’

‘But it was
your
experiences that led us to the software breakthrough we’d been chasing for a decade. If not for your experiences we never would have looked at bees.’

For the first and only time he was grateful for Laney’s lack of sight. Lord only knew what she’d make of her name splashed across their whole lab. Affectionate or otherwise... And then as he looked around the lab he saw all the evidence of how they’d planned for her visit.

Every chair was pushed in at every computer terminal, every bin had been lifted onto the empty desktops. Every obstacle had been kindly and carefully cleared.

‘We’re looking forward to learning more about your project,’ Elliott broke in, intentionally leaning on the word ‘your’. He wanted today to go well—all of it—and this fawning over Laney wasn’t the fastest path there.

Fortunately the guy wasn’t just engineer-smart. He picked up on Elliott’s subtle cue and moved smoothly on to a civilian version of how the software worked and what they were already able to do with it. Elliott used the time well to surreptitiously pull out a chair or two specifically for Laney to negotiate. She did her part by nudging them with her cane and neatly sidestepping them.

It was nearly ninety minutes before they’d seen all the progress the team had made and Laney had answered the many questions the project director had about her observations on bees—and he hers—but finally Elliott gave her his arm to manage the exit.

‘I liked them,’ she announced, halfway down the steps.

‘I’d say the feeling was mutual.’

‘They didn’t Laney-proof their entire office.’

Any residual guilt he’d felt at littering the office with obstacles evaporated. ‘That’s important to you?’

‘I hate being catered for. I don’t expect it and I don’t enjoy it.’

Something she’d said once before echoed again. That her father had pushed constantly for others to make allowances for his little girl.

‘I like that my sight is the least interesting part of the process for them.’

Two thoughts collided then. First that their choice of name for the software suggested that wasn’t at all true, and second—strong and dominant—that he didn’t want Laney heaping gratitude on any man other than him.

A nicely prehistoric little sentiment.

He’d been going out of his way to treat her just like anyone else. He’d been suppressing his own masculine instincts to rescue her every five minutes. It rankled that the white coats had earned her respect so easily—and so quickly—when she seemed to give respect away so sparingly.

Right behind that he realised how important her good opinion was to him.

And right behind
that
he realised that he was still sixteen emotionally.

Come on, Garvey. Man up.

He forced the conversation back on track. ‘What did you think of their progress?’

‘I think it’s exciting. And amazing. I look forward to when it’s finished.’

‘How do you feel about them naming it after you?’

‘Their choice, I guess.’

‘It’s not an honour?’

‘It’ll be good for Morgan’s to be associated with the research,’ she hedged.

Morgan’s again. Never Laney. A big part of him wanted her to know that was
her name
emblazoned across their lab. Hers, not her family’s. But that wouldn’t be helpful to his cause.

‘Well, thanks for indulging the detour,’ he said, settling her back into the passenger seat. ‘It really helped me to understand the project. And the potential.’

‘I’d have thought this sort of thing was too random to reliably count as potential.’

‘The specifics, maybe. But research could be a good sideline for Morgan’s. You can only accommodate so many bees in labs, and Morgan’s can offer researchers the kind of sample sizes they need to get verifiable results. Tens of thousands. Maybe there are other partnerships like this one you can form in the future.’

Tiny creases appeared between her brows.

‘That worries you?’

‘I just like the...the organic nature of our business. No pun intended.’

‘You get less joy out of things that are planned?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Are you looking forward to today?’

Her head turned to him, though it didn’t need to. ‘Parasailing? Yes, very much.’

‘We planned that.’

‘Yeah, but can you imagine how much more exciting it would have been if you’d said to me up at the bluff, “
Come on, Laney, whack on this harness. We’re jumping from the cliff right now”
.’

‘But then you’d miss out on all the anticipation. The build-up.’

‘Build-up matters?’

‘Laney... Build-up is the best bit.’ His car purred to life at the press of a button. ‘Didn’t you have to plan things out growing up?’

She didn’t answer and a lightbulb flashed on above his head, bright and obvious.

That’s exactly why she prefers spontaneity, moron.

He paused just before clicking his seatbelt into place and leaned over her before he thought better of it. She stiffened slightly with surprise, but didn’t push him away when he brushed his lips over hers.

‘What was that for?’

The warm caress of her breath on his lips teased them to life even more. ‘I was being spontaneous.’

‘By kissing me?’

‘You were probably expecting it at the end of the day.’