Brent said, “And I’d been turned down once before, if you remember.”
Honey blinked. Somehow that had never occurred to her. Well, it had. Often. But not as a reason for him avoid proposing to her.
“But that was Pippa,” Honey said, as if that would explain why he was being so ridiculous. “She was right to turn you down.”
“Thanks.” He laughed, but with not a flinch of hurt. So much quiet confidence, she thought. After his struggles through emotional quicksand. It was still there. It always had been.
“You know what I mean,” said Honey. “We both loved her, were both devastated when she left, but she was always bigger than Bellefleur. While this town is so much a part of us both, its lifeblood is our lifeblood.”
Brent’s eyes gleamed, in that way that made her feel as if she’d said something very, very right without having a clue what that thing was. She put it down to years of elocution classes. And the times she and Nina had eavesdropped at the library door when Daddy and his cronies had taken to their whiskey after dinner parties.
At the seriousness in Brent’s eyes, Honey swallowed. He was leading to something big. And she’d better be prepared for it. For better or for worse.
“I knew you were the one for me the first moment I kissed you, Hon. After Pippa walked out, I took to you out of anger and frustration, I think we both did that night, but when I woke up in your arms, I knew. It was where I was meant to be. I’ve never changed my mind. Not for a second. I can only hope you feel the same way.”
“I do,” she said, suddenly remembering with 3-D Technicolor clarity the moment she’d looked into his eyes and said those same prophetic words in front of the whole town hours before. She’d meant them then. She meant them now.
“Well then, that’s that. You and me. A team. And a formidable one, at that. I’m all head, you’re all heart, and together that makes us unstoppable.”
He seemed so pleased with himself, and with her, that Honey bit her tongue. So she might be a tad more dramatic by nature than he. But that was only because the details mattered to her. While he, sweet guy, trusted that so long as he was a good man and worked hard and did right by people, everything would work out as it should.
He was good, hopeful, optimistic. The romantic. And the heart.
She was the realist. Always too much inside her head. A scrapper, a fighter, and ferocious with it, especially when it came to the people she loved. And she loved Brent more than anything else on earth.
But if it made Brent happy to think the opposite, then she’d let him. A few little secrets between husbands and wives were just fine.
See now, she was getting the hang of this wife thing quickly!
And one part of the wife thing she knew she did well… She took Brent’s arm away from her shoulder and straddled him.
His eyes widened a fraction before easing into delicious dark intensity. Hands at her hips, he pulled her against him, against his fast-thickening length, showing her the part of being a husband he knew he was great at.
“How long until we reach the Villemont?” she asked.
“We got there five minutes ago.”
Honey stilled, flicking her gaze to the deeply-tinted window to find they were inside a parking garage. “But how—?”
“I pressed the privacy button a while back. I’ll press it again when we’re…done.”
“Wow, I didn’t know that came with the ride.”
“It’s the kind of thing a groom takes care of.”
“Oh,” she said, touched to find he’d put his mark on the day after all. Even if it was not the kind of story she’d be sharing at anniversary dinners with their folks in the future.
“So we’re parking, are we?” she said, rolling against him until he sucked air between his teeth. “Seems a little redundant when we have a whole honeymoon suite awaiting us.”
“Honey,” he growled, his big hand sliding down her chest, over the mound of one straining breast, down the sensitive plane of her stomach. “Ice sculptures and enough honeysuckle to make a man’s eyes water were all fine, but for tonight I couldn’t give a hoot about rose petals and candles. I’ve got what I need right here.”
On the last word his hand slid between them, cupping her, stroking her until she lifted onto her knees. He held her close, his tongue dipping into her navel, his teeth scraping the jut of her hip bone as his fingers worked their magic.
Fireworks, she thought, as a shower of heat poured through her. Ten years with the guy, and he still gives me fireworks. She’d just been so tunnel-visioned by the wedding that she’d somehow let herself forget this. The conversation. The chemistry. The closeness.
Then, right when her whole body was vibrating and soaked in pleasure, his hand slipped away. She groaned in desperation as her eyes shot open to find a wolfish smile on his beautiful face. Uh-oh, she thought.
“Hummingbirds?” he finally said. “Honestly?” His eyebrow arched, a glint in the eye as if he had no idea what he was doing to her. But the tightness of his jaw gave him away.
Honey slowly slid her knees apart, lowering herself inch by inch. “I went a little crazy. I know. But I was half hoping you’d stop me, and you never did.”
“Why would I?” he said, his voice deep and raw, his hands sliding around her to take hold of her backside as he pressed himself back. “It’s my duty to make sure you have everything you want in this life. It’s my mission to make you happy.”
“Happy wife, happy life?” she asked, her head rocking back on her neck as he pulled himself free and brought her down upon him until he filled her up.
“Happy Honey,” he said, finding the friction, the angle, the pace he knew she liked best of all, “happy Brent.”
As Honey proceeded to make them both very happy, she thought about his words. Simple, uncomplicated. It would pay to remember that in future, when she next got in a tizzy. Because she no doubt would. She was a complicated woman, after all.
But for the moment she was simply a woman who loved her man. She loved his ambition, and his sweetness. His steadfastness. A serious man, with a serious future in his sights.
And as she rocked against him, heat building inside of her even while it scorched her skin pink and slick, he looked at her like he’d never been more serious in his entire life.
“Love you to pieces, sweet girl,” he said, his voice like gravel.
“Right on back, gorgeous boy,” said Honey, who didn’t even realize she was crying until she tasted salt in her mouth.
And he did love her. All of her. He loved the basket case and the ambitious go-getter. She got that now. Honestly, what man would marry a woman who’d commissioned Clint Black to write a love song about them for their wedding dance unless he seriously wanted to?
…
And that’s how, a half an hour later, the future Senator for Louisiana, Brent Delacroix, walked into the elegant Villemont Hotel, Baton Rouge, sporting the makings of a black eye, while his new bride, Honey Moreau, snuggled against him in silk stockings, lace garter belts and her new husband’s tuxedo jacket.
Honey Delacroix, Brent corrected, liking the sound of that very much.
About the Author
Australian writer Ally Blake is a redhead, a footy fan, a devotee of the language of Aaron Sorkin; she is addicted to stationery and M&Ms, weak in the face of Italians and firefighters, married to a spectacular and ever-patient man, mum to three beings of pure delight, and a firm believer in love, luck, and fairies.
She is also a best-selling author with more than twenty-five fun, flirty romance novels under her belt with over three million copies of her books sold worldwide.
For Ally’s take on life, writing, and other fancy stuff, head to www.allyblake.com.
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When Honey Got Married Page 24
