Wedding Belles

by Beth Albright

  “I see that and I like it, handsome.” I beckoned him closer, wrapped my arms around him and walked him backward to my office. I locked the door behind us, then kissed him all over his face. All my pent-up passion from earlier in the day at the dedication let loose.

  “Oh, my, did you miss me or what?” Sonny asked, enjoying the heat of my excitement.

  “No, not at all,” I said nonchalantly. “I’m like this all the time.”

  I was biting him lightly on the neck, reveling in the powerful surge of my emotions, when something inside me just snapped. Suddenly, I was out of my mind with cravings for him, filled with a lust and passion I’d never felt before with anyone. I grabbed his belt and tugged him against me.

  Sonny responded like a force of nature. With one hand, he was trying to take his jacket off, while his other hand wandered down the back of my skirt. We reached my desk, and I raked my arm across the surface of it. Everything fell to the floor.

  “I wanna eat you alive right now.” Sonny pushed my skirt to my hips before lifting me up and settling me on the smooth surface. He slipped his fingers under my panties, hooking them in the crook of his finger, then slipped them down my bare legs and right off. He unbelted his pants with one hand, allowing the other to pull me even closer.

  This was a different Sonny than I’d seen in the few times we had made love before. He was fierce, wild and white-hot in the moment.

  He didn’t take the time to unbutton my sleeveless blouse. He untucked it from my skirt and lifted it over my head, exposing my lacy white demi-bra. In seconds, he’d slipped the straps from my shoulders and pulled the bra down, my breasts now fully out and pressed against him.

  Sonny yanked his still-buttoned shirt over his head, followed by his white T-shirt. He devoured me, licking my breasts, his hands all over my bare rear, caressing my inner thighs, then positioning himself between my legs. He was on fire, fast, furious and hungry for me, and I let him have his way.

  He picked me up off my desk, my high heels still on and dangling, and I wrapped my legs around his waist as he thrust inside me. Then he set me back on the desk, his hands gripping my waist as he found a steady rhythm.

  He never stopped consuming me, inhaling me. His touch was genius. He reached over and closed the blinds behind me without breaking his steady movements within me. It was like he had been living for this moment his whole life. It was the hottest lovemaking I had ever known. In fact, I had never known anything like this.

  I had never seen Sonny so out of control. I felt like he was the most masculine person in the history of life. He was so big, overpowering me in the best way possible. He was breathing heavily as he worked toward his passionate release.

  I was like an animal. He brought out something in me that I had no idea was even there. We reached that moment of bliss together and I found myself yelling out and digging my nails into the flesh of his back.

  Sonny groaned, throwing his head back in ecstasy. When he finished, he looked into my eyes, little beads of sweat running down his forehead, his chest heaving up and down. “I love you, Blake—I do. God, you are so beautiful.”

  I held him to my naked breasts. It was the most emotionally charged moment I could ever remember. It was a huge release on so many levels. “I love you, too, Sonny. So much. Oh, my God, I have needed everything about you for so long.”

  He stood in front of me, and we held the embrace for a minute—until we heard a car pull up in front of the building.

  Both of us looked bug-eyed at each other. Then Sonny scurried to put his pants back on, hopping around the room on one foot and grabbing his shirt. He reached back over, kissed me on the lips, and then ran from my office, disappearing out the back door, still half-dressed, like the superhero of passion. I could barely wrap my head around what had just happened. Or what was likely to happen any minute.

  I slammed my door shut and pulled my skirt back down, pulled my bra back up and quickly threw my shirt over my head, tucking it in as I heard keys opening the front door of the building.

  Shit! I thought, realizing it must be Harry.

  “Blake, you here?” he called out. I grabbed my powder and lipstick from my purse and straightened out my makeup. I put my hair back into a ponytail, hoping I could pull off an end-of–the-workday look, not an I-just-had-the-hottest–sex-of–my-life look.

  “Blake, where are you?” he called as he made his way to my office door. “I saw your car outside.” His voice sounded strained.

  “In here, Harry,” I called back.

  He jiggled the handle. “Why is your door locked?”

  Oh, my God, I forgot the door. I hurried around the desk before he came in with his own key, picking things up and trying to throw them into my closet and drawers, now regretting having tossed the entire contents of my desk onto the floor.

  Finally, I unlocked the door and opened it.

  Harry walked in and looked around. He was standing right where Sonny had been standing, pantless, minutes ago.

  “The door must’ve gotten locked when Wanda Jo left. I was on the phone so she shut it.”

  He just looked at me.

  “I heard you and Lewis talked today. He asked you to be his best man?” I said, nervously trying to change the subject.

  “He did and I accepted,” Harry said, still not smiling.

  “Well, it was good timing, too. I mean Lewis had a great day and all.”

  Harry bent over and picked up my tape holder and my stapler from the floor.

  “Here,” he said, handing me the telltale items. “There are a few pens under the chair, too. Your desk looks remarkably clean.”

  I grabbed the supplies and set them down on my desk, smiling, but inside I was shaking. “Thank you, Harry. I’ve been clearing out files and wanted a nice clean surface to work on. Are you staying here to work?”

  “No. I have a fund-raiser meeting with Jane and Dan tonight. I’ll say you’re working on a case.” Bitterness tinged his words. “It’s what I always say.”

  “Harry, surely you don’t want me there tonight, especially with Jane going.” Jane was the judge who had almost ruled to bulldoze the Brooks Mansion to make room for a shopping mall—and Harry had committed the final sin in our marriage when he sided with her to earn her election vote rather than sticking by me in my attempt to save the historic building.

  “I’m not seeing Jane on a personal level. It’s all business, unlike you and Sonny.”

  My breath stuck in my throat.

  “Tell that cop of yours to be more careful crossing the street next time. A car nearly hit him as he ran from our back door. I’m running for senator in case you forgot, and you messing around with that cop right here in my own office is pretty sloppy of you.”

  “Your office?” I said, forgetting my blunder for the moment. “Since when have you darkened these doors to work on anything with me in months? This place is more like a closet to you. It’s certainly not where you spend your workdays.”

  “What does it matter that I’m not around the office? You were the one that was so quick to move out of our house,” he said. “Maybe if you waited till the election was over, we might have worked it all out.”

  “Maybe if you kept Dallas’s breast out of your mouth, I might feel more guilty.”

  Harry was more than upset now. “Other than that, what have I ever done to you?”

  “Are you kidding me? You went behind my back and voted for Jane’s zoning change, as a political favor, against the very case I was working on.”

  “It was my job.”

  “Your job? You knew how important the Brooks Mansion was to me and you took the favor—and Jane’s money and support—and went against your own wife! Our marriage was struggling before, but that was the shot that killed it. You showed me your main priority, and it wasn’t me.”
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br />   “You know what? Maybe I was right all those years. Maybe you should have just married your cop. Fine, go for it. But do me one favor and please keep your clothes on till after November.” He turned and slammed my door shut behind him. I could hear him stomping down the hall and, a moment later, the front door slammed, too.

  Shaking, I watched him leave. I peered out the front window, watching as he slid into the driver’s seat of his silver Mercedes, slipped on his wire-framed sunglasses, started the car and drove away. Was he right? Should I have waited until after the election? This fight left me feeling confused and guilty.

  But what about the day I caught him with Dallas in my backyard? And there was no way I believed that he and Jane were platonic. I’d caught more than one suspicious look between them over the past few weeks.

  Okay, no more confusion, I told myself. It was all right for him to run around, but I had to remain celibate? He was expecting me to just keep right on being the good girl and take all his crap. It wasn’t going to happen. He couldn’t control me anymore. Maybe the bad girl in me was finally stronger than the good girl. I was starting to like her.

  13

  I called Sonny from my office as I was gathering my things. “It was Harry,” I told him. “But he left.” I didn’t mention that Harry had seen him. It would embarrass him. “Oh, and don’t forget about supper at the big house tonight. Bonita will be there, and Lewis is bringing Vivi a big surprise. You think you can still come?”

  “Sure,” he said. “But I’ll drive my car and meet you there. That way I can get home and no one will say anything ’bout you driving me home late at night.”

  He was thinking and doing everything he could to help me in this little situation I was currently in.

  “Great. See you there.”

  “I’ll be right behind you, and I believe that could be a very nice place to be. Later, sugar.” He hung up, laughing.

  I locked everything up one last time, then went out back to my car and drove straight to Vivi’s. Sonny was right where he said he’d be, in my rearview mirror. I couldn’t help but smile. We parked on the circle drive out near the fountain, Sonny pulling in behind me. I caught the glint in his eye and knew he was thinking of his earlier risqué comment, too.

  The sunset splashed the sky with orange sherbet and turquoise watercolors. It cast a glow over us as we got out of our cars and walked over to hug each other.

  “This is the magic hour,” I said. “It’s the moment just after the sun sets and there is still light in the sky. I read about it in a movie magazine.”

  “All my hours with you are magic,” Sonny said, kissing my forehead. I snuggled into his neck and turned to watch the final glimmers of the day pass over the edge of the horizon.

  Vivi appeared on the front porch of her plantation home. “Hey, y’all. So glad you could come, Sonny. Bonita is on her way. And Lewis stopped by someplace to pick up this surprise he says he has for me. Lord, what in the world is he doing? It almost has me nervous. Y’all come on in and have some iced tea.”

  Sonny and I walked up the stairs and the scrumptious aroma of fresh biscuits floated under my nose and led me to the kitchen. I arrived in the doorway and saw Vivi had painted her kitchen walls a buttercream-yellow.

  The huge, oversized long wooden table took up most of the center of the room. Eight chairs with sky-blue plaid cushions and high ladder backs surrounded the table. Over the table hung a big, cream-colored chandelier that Vivi had flown in from an antiques dealer in France.

  In fact, her whole house was done in Country French, every single room in festive colors, lots of pattern and textures, stripes and plaids. But the scene in the kitchen tonight would forever stay in my memory. Arthur at the stove, with his full chef apron on, humming to himself. Vivi washing vegetables at the sink. Her pastel blue chef’s apron covered with prints of big yellow peonies and tied above her baby bump like a protective shield.

  Arthur was just taking the biscuits from the oven, and the creamed corn, green beans and black-eyed peas were already sitting on the table, steam rising above the antique French bowls.

  Some people have that ability to make a house a real home. To become the go-to place for the family for all the holidays. For my family, it had always been my grandmother Meridee’s house. “Mother’s,” as it was known, was our command center, the sun of our little universe. Meridee was always cooking and singing, and everyone felt welcome to just come in and sit at the kitchen table and be in the moment with her.

  Vivi, I could see now, had that same ability, that special spark that drew people in. I had always wanted to have it, too, but in this moment, I felt the shift. Having this baby and getting ready to marry Lewis had made her feel settled and comfortable. Her happiness literally made her glisten.

  Vivi’s house would be next in line to the throne. It was her nature to always be real, to never put on airs. Like it or not, she was always herself and had always been comfortable in her own skin. That was the magic. And she was just like Meridee in that way.

  I wondered if I could ever be that way, have a place like that. I hoped so.

  Sonny and I entered the busy, delicious room. “Oh, it smells so good in here. I can’t wait to dig in.”

  “Me, either,” Sonny said. “Been a long time since I had some good home cooking.”

  Note to self—learn to cook...anything.

  Just as we sat down at the table, Bonita walked in and went straight over to Arthur and kissed his cheek. “Hey, sugar, how’s my man?”

  Arthur’s big eyes lit up and he blushed. “I’m wonderful now.” Arthur and Bonita had met shortly after she accepted the position on Sonny’s investigative team. They’d clicked right off the bat, and it was clear that they were crazy about each other.

  “Not just now, honey.” She smiled at him. “This all just smells so fantastic. What can I do to help?”

  “Everything is all set. What’s in the bag you’re carryin’?”

  Bonita set a brown paper sack on the kitchen counter. “Just some good ol’-fashioned orange-pineapple ice cream.”

  “Oh, my word,” Vivi said. “Where in the world did you find that? I haven’t had a taste of that since Pure Process went out of business. Do tell.”

  “Well, if you must know, I made it myself,” Bonita said, obviously proud of her accomplishment.

  Arthur turned from the stove where he was frying the last of the chicken. “You are kiddin’ me?”

  “Nope, I kid you not. My daddy taught me how to make it years ago, before he passed. It’s an old family secret.”

  I looked over at Arthur the very minute Bonita said she made the ice cream herself. I knew what he was thinking. Vivi glanced at me. She knew, too. With Arthur opening his Moonwinx BBQ place out back in a few weeks, that ice cream would sell like crazy, since nobody could get that flavor around here anymore. This was a match made in barbecue business heaven.

  “Miss Bonita, you sweet thang,” Arthur said playfully. “What do I need to do to get you to share that recipe with me?”

  “Well, now, Mr. Arthur, that’s something we’ll have to discuss in private.” Bonita blew him a kiss. He pretended to catch it and put it in his pocket.

  They were so cute together, and so old-fashioned. Arthur was in his early fifties and Bonita was in her early forties, but they hit it off like high-school sweethearts.

  Arthur had graduated high school and even had a little college before Vivi’s daddy died years ago, and Arthur had come running back to care for Vivi and her mother. Arthur had been studying business at Alabama, and was in his second year when it happened.

  Arthur had lived on the plantation more like a relative most of his life. His mom died when he was about twelve. She had worked as a cook for the McFaddens for as long as I knew, and Arthur was her only child. I remember something about his dad
dying in the Vietnam war, but all I knew was that both of his parents were gone and he had a real close relationship with Vivi’s dad, Mr. McFadden. Arthur was living there even before Vivi was born.

  Vivi had money to survive on and tried to convince him to finish college, but he would hear nothing of it. He knew she needed him. Her mother was never a very good one, always a little on the crazy side and rather sickly. She was also very dependent and needy. Arthur felt he had to be there for Vivi. She was barely a teenager and he felt responsible for her upbringing.

  Bonita, meanwhile, was as smart as they came and highly opinionated. What she loved in Arthur was that he was an old-fashioned gentleman. That was a rare thing these days. She and Arthur were cute as could be...and it looked like they were fixin’ to have quite a business together.

  We all heard the front screen door slam, and Lewis’s booming voice shook the rafters. “Hey, Red, I’m home. Come see what Daddy brought for my babies.”

  With all the crashing and banging going on in the front hall, it sounded like he must have brought Vivi a bull. We all hurried from the kitchen and ran into the hall, then stopped dead in our tracks.

  Bouncing and jumping all over Lewis was a beautiful, rambunctious golden retriever. A dog. Lewis brought pregnant Vivi a dog.

  “I wanted to complete our family, and every family needs a dog.” Lewis was so grown-up and such a little boy all at the same time.

  “Oh, honey, I love him,” Vivi cooed. “He is just beautiful.”

  “I got him from a shelter after Cal, a frat buddy of mine, said he saw him there and thought I might like him. I always wanted a dog, and, Vivi, I know you said you did, too. So I ran by this morning and paid the fees and picked him up on the way home. What do ya think?”

  “I think you’re fabulous,” Vivi said. “He will be wonderful for the baby and I know he will be such good company for me, especially during football season. Thank you, baby.” She tippy-toed up and gave him a kiss.