Even the spacious sitting area in the stretch limo proved cozy with the voluminous skirt of my wedding dress but Brandon didn’t seem to care as he slid in and settled me on his lap. It seemed like we were both floating on white, foamy clouds flecked with tiny white petals.
“How are you feeling, baby?” Brandon asked as the limo started to go, the light dimming in the back seat and the panel that provided us privacy from the chauffeur sliding up in place.
“Tired and aching,” I answered, leaning my head against his shoulder. “And as stiff as beef jerky.”
A brief shudder vibrated through Brandon and I could hear him chuckling. “Nothing sexier than a wife feeling like beef jerky on your wedding night.”
Wife. Holy crap. We really did it.
The truth hit me again, the slight fog of alcohol and painkillers doing nothing to cushion its impact.
I was sitting cradled on my husband’s lap in the backseat of a limo, on our way to spend our wedding night together.
A very different ache shot through me.
With the flurry of activities that happened in the last couple of days, the thought of my wedding night with Brandon didn’t really register.
Not that it should’ve. Your original agreement still stands. You’re not having sex with Brandon.
If only I didn’t feel like crawling up on my knees and straddling his lap right now, suddenly desperate to get as close to him as I could without the layers of tulle and silk between us.
I wanted to feel the warm, smooth glide of his skin on his muscled shoulders and chest, the weight of his tall, broad form over my body, and that intimate invasion that would leave me no doubt I was completely and irrevocably his.
I bit the inside of cheek to jerk my thoughts back to reality—my reality—where I didn’t have those kinds of privileges.
If Brandon had the slightest idea of my carnal thoughts, he didn’t show.
He had a soft smile on his face, his hazel eyes luminous every time the light of the street lamps caught them in a certain angle.
“Why are you suddenly so quiet?” he prompted.
Since I couldn’t very well tell him what I was thinking, I took my usual route. “It’s not every day a girl finds herself married. Give me some time to recuperate.”
His brows furrowed. “You make it sound like a blasted disease.”
“Only if you’re married to the wrong guy,” I said with a laugh. “Whether you are or not is still up for debate.”
A fierce light entered his eyes, his arms tightening around my hips. “You’ll never find a more generous, protective husband, Charlotte. I won’t be perfect but don’t ever doubt that I’ll take care of you.”
I was tempted to say something sardonic because the very core of our marriage was a lie which therefore exempted him from the usual expectations of husbands but the intensity in his expression stopped me.
He meant what he said and although I should take it with a grain of salt—a whole bucketload if you ask me—I couldn’t help the sudden pounding of my heart.
He wasn’t the only one with obligations in this marriage—I did too and I wanted to give him as much as he wanted to give me. I would give more but I worried that I would pay a price too high for the both of us.
“But will you let me take care of you too?” I asked, my words catching as I struggled to swallow the lump in my throat. “I will be far from the perfect wife you first required—and I know you know this—but I can take care of you, Brand. I can look after you, keep you company, smack you silly when you’re being too serious, bake you cookies—I can do these things for you if you'll let me.”
His mouth softened into a slow, sexy smile. “Have I been stopping you at all, Charlotte?”
I scrunched up my nose in mock-serious deliberation of his question. “Hmm... Just the smacking you silly part, I think. You don’t let me do it often enough.”
He grinned. “I’m saving that for when I really deserve it—which I hope wouldn’t be often.”
“If smacking is all you think you’re in for when you really do something stupid, then I feel bad for you, dear husband,” I said with a devilish smile. “I had a girl-to-girl talk with the others before the wedding, you know? Clyde told me to to punish with pleasure and not pain. It’s a much more effective torture.”
Brandon groaned, running a hand down his face. “First of all, Clyde is not a girl and two, what has he been telling you? Every time you say something that makes me choke on my own tongue, it’s usually something you picked up from him.”
I rolled my eyes. “Brand, I have no mother figure. I’ll take whatever advice people volunteer to me—except maybe the whole handcuffs thing—and since most of the girls in my current inner circle are either related to you by blood, or single and not at all slutty, only Clyde’s advice has been available for my reference. It’s not my fault he’s particularly kinky.”
Brandon looked up heavenward as if he were in pain and meditating for some cure. “The last thing I want to imagine on our wedding night is someone else’s kinky sex life—much less Clyde’s.”
“Would you rather think about our sex life, kinky or otherwise?”
If there were any hard surfaces within reach that didn’t include any of Brandon’s anatomy, I would’ve smacked my head against it.
You really need a brain-to-mouth filter. Too bad Home Depot doesn’t sell it.
Brandon’s eyes flickered in the shadows. “I don’t know that I’d rather when I already think about it all the time.”
“You do?” My voice came out as a squeak.
He gave me an are-you-serious look. "I'm a healthy male in my prime constantly teased by a young, perfectly-formed woman with drugs for kisses and artless seduction for sport and who had also been sharing a bed with me in the last couple of days. I'd have to be a stone statue not to be affected."
A giddy shiver went down my spine at his words and the slightly husky voice he said them with but like I always did when I was awkwardly coping with a situation, I let my mouth run off with me.
"Hmm, let me see," I said, reaching up and pressing my fingers along the rigid lines of his shoulders and arms. "You could be a stone statue. You’re rock hard."
His eyes glinted with dark, teasing humor. "Oh, I am."
He shifted his thighs under me and I instantly realized my error.
His shoulders and arms weren’t the only hard parts on him. Despite the volume of my skirt, I could feel his unabashed interest.
Heat bloomed on my cheeks and I buried my face in my hands, taking care not to move an inch.
“Brandon, get that thing out from under me!”
“Unfortunately, sweetheart, it’s attached to my body,” he replied in amusement.
I snapped my head back up to glare at him. “Do you want me to detach it then? I just might because I don’t relish being the bun to your bratwurst!”
Brandon tossed his head back and laughed out loud, his shoulders and chest shaking from it.
I was beyond mortified now and I tried sliding myself off forward but the weight of my skirt kept me in place—that and the circle of Brandon’s arms around my hips. I tried to shift backward, not caring whether I would land on my back and swing my feet up toward the ceiling of the car but there was enough friction between my skirt and Brandon’s dress pants to keep me from sliding down and off his lap completely.
All the while, I bore the unmistakable bulge between his legs with gritted teeth. It seemed to have become more pronounced with my efforts until Brandon finally groaned.
“If you’re trying to grind it off me, it’s not going to work,” he said in a hoarse voice, raising his legs up on his toes to tumble the rest of my weight from where I sat close to his knees to the dip that his hips and raised thighs now made.
I squeezed my eyes shut desperately. “Brandon. I can’t. We can’t.”
“You know I want you,” he murmured, his lips grazing the outer shell of my ear, his breath warm and feather-like ag
ainst my skin. “I said out loud what I wanted that day we met at my father’s house after the engagement party.”
Oh, yes. Live like a real married couple for a year. Fully exercise your marital privileges. Sleep together. Get exclusive. And then once everything’s going well and we’re perfectly happy with the way things are, hand me my last check, sign our divorce papers, and out the door I go.
I felt a rush of despair all of a sudden.
I shook my head sadly and gave him a tight smile. “I’d like that—share my husband’s bed, make love, talk and laugh and cuddle after, fall asleep in each other’s arms.”
His brows shot up. “You would?”
I nodded slowly, looking down to avoid his eyes. “Yes, I would. I’d like to do all of that with my husband—my real one—and not the one I’m getting paid a million dollars to marry.”
The backseat suddenly became filled with absolute silence that not even the traffic outside could penetrate.
I didn’t really know how we went from Brandon laughing his heart out to neither of us having nothing to say all of a sudden.
After an eternity passed, Brandon released a long, shaky breath.
When he spoke, he sounded deflated. “I won't resent your wish for the ideal, Charlotte, because you absolutely deserve it, but it frustrates me and that’s not your fault.”
“I’m sorry,” I said quietly, peeking at him from under my lashes.
“Don’t be,” he said gently, pressing a soft kiss on my cheek. “I know that whatever I signed up for the first time and what I’ve started to want lately aren’t the same things.”
I swallowed hard, pressing my cheek against his lips, my fingers fidgeting with one of the top buttons he’d popped open on his dress shirt after he took off his tie during the after-dinner party. “This lie is a living thing and it’s going to get bigger and bigger until neither of us can see the truth anymore.”
His hand came up to cradle the back of my head as he gently urged it down against his shoulder, my forehead pressing against the crook of his neck. “Maybe the lie will evolve into the truth and then it won’t matter what was there before it.”
I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply, burrowing my nose against the skin of his neck where I could smell his mild, clean scent that was as familiar to me as the pillows I’d laid my head on in the last couple of nights.
Yes, if there was a good time for the lies to become the truth, now would be it. Then nothing would stop me from brushing my lips against his skin and sinking deeper into his arms and straining my body through the contraption of a wedding dress I had on if it meant getting to him as close as I could until neither of us knew where I ended and where he began.
But you know that just because you can’t see the truth in the shadows, it doesn’t mean it’s not there. Can something really be beautiful between the two of you when it’s marred by a dirty little secret?
“We’re almost home, baby,” Brandon murmured against my forehead as he dropped a kiss on it, his arms tightening around me and his hand stroking up and down my bare arm in a soothing pattern that eased the adrenaline off my body. “Rest for a little bit. I’ll carry you up.”
“Carrying your bride over the threshold,” I said with a smirk, my eyes drifting close. “What a typical groom you are.”
I could neither see nor hear it but I knew he was smiling as he said, “Where you’re concerned, Charlotte, nothing I do anymore is typical.”
I smiled, giddy at the thought somehow, and promptly dozed off.
***
I stirred later when Brandon eased out of the car, holding me in his arms.
The exhaustion and the meds had definitely taken over and I felt very lethargic and a little bit out of it—okay, a lot out of it.
Opening my eyes a fraction, I saw that he was walking up the steps of Grand Hills. It was late, probably well past midnight, and there wasn’t a lot of activity by the front entrance. Either the city’s elite didn’t know how to party on a Saturday night or they did so well they wouldn’t crawl their way back home until practically before sunrise.
My eyes had just drifted close again when flashes of light came out of nowhere.
“Dammit,” Brandon muttered under his breath as his arms tightened around me as if they would sufficiently conceal me from the small mob of paps waiting for us in the shadows.
I lifted my head, squinted my eyes against the light and saw two men snapping their cameras at us as fast as they could before Brandon’s chauffeur/bodyguard, Freddy, who was now striding in their direction, could reach them.
Too tired to react any other way, I gave them a quick wave with my fingers, smiling faintly, before I turned my face away and pressed it against Brandon’s chest as he ran up the steps like I weighed nothing—not even in my elaborate dress.
“They probably think we’re going to have a typical wedding night,” I murmured just as Brandon dashed into the elevator. “Clyde said that since I was marrying you, I’d need a wheelchair tomorrow."
Brandon faltered at my statement and his arms gave a little just as the elevator started its smooth, well-oiled ascent.
“Clyde’s going to have to stop having these inappropriate conversations with you,” he said with a loud sigh.
“He’s just trying to help,” I said before I gave a big, loud yawn, pressing the back of my hand to my mouth. “They’re all just trying to help. A virgin needs education."
I wasn’t sure how long Brandon stood there but I eventually heard the soft glide of the elevator doors opening. Why he was standing there, I wasn’t sure.
I peeled my eyes open to look at him.
He was gazing down at me, his eyes hooded and his expression inscrutable
“Are we playing elevator bingo or something?” I asked when he still didn’t budge.
The elevator doors started close but Brandon thrust a hand out to open them back again.
“You’re a virgin?” he finally said, his tone incredulous. Whether that was a good thing or not, I was yet to decide. “What do you mean you’re a virgin?”
I wasn’t sure why I blurted that out. A tiny bit of alcohol mixed with painkillers and my usual thoughtlessness did not make a good combination. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. I shouldn’t have taken the damn wine Anna offered.
I blew out a breath, sending some of my now wayward curls off my cheek. “I think it means, medically speaking, that I have never engaged in sexual intercourse resulting to my hymen being intact—”
“For God’s sakes, Charlotte!”
His disbelieving exclamation seemed to have prompted his legs to get moving because in a matter of seconds, he was striding into the penthouse, which I missed during the one day I was away.
It was quiet—since Brandon didn’t have a stay-in housekeeper; just one who checked in three times a week—but it didn’t feel empty.
"I'm pretty sure I already said something about being a virgin and all that before," I muttered under my breath.
"Sometimes, I can't tell if you're just being a tease."
"Ah, well. I am that too, much to many men's frustration," I confirmed with a giggle.
"Not only are you a threat to men's mental health," he grumbled. "You're also going to seriously damage a part of their anatomy from extreme frustration."
"What part?" I asked, frowning. "Oh. That part."
He deposited me unceremoniously on the bed in his room and I moaned loudly at the delicious feel of the soft, bouncy covers as soon as I let myself fall back and sink into the clean, luxurious sheets.
“Charlotte.” Brandon sounded hoarse but I just responded with another moan, rubbing my cheek against the silk covers. “Charlotte, if you wish to remain a virgin on our wedding night, please stop making those sounds.”
“What sounds?” I asked distractedly as I felt my toes around each other, trying to kick off my sneakers.
“Why do I bother?” he muttered to himself as he hunched down on his knees, his hands pushing the heavy he
m of my skirt up to hold my feet as he pulled my sneakers and socks off. “Never mind.”
Despite the protest of my weary, aching body, I propped myself up on my elbows to glare at him. “I told you I was a virgin and a tease—not deaf. What is wrong with you?”
“Nothing you don’t already know,” he said through clenched teeth.
I frowned at him, studying the intent knit on his brows as he fussed over my feet.
Through the haze, I got a vague idea of his grumpy mood, I think, which was a feat considering how foggy my head was.
You might have more than a vague idea, Charlotte. It’s his wedding night too.
That was just the problem, wasn’t it?
It was both our wedding night and we wanted the same thing but we each had different reasons for not going after it.
It was crazy how we shared a bed in the last couple of nights but now, after officially tying the knot, the expectations were suddenly hovering oppressively, worsening the temptation we were already struggling to fight.
“Brand,” I said softly, reaching out to stay his hand which had just pulled off the last sock I had on. “You can go. I don’t want to torture you any more than I want to torture myself.”
That line may have given away more than I’d like but it was too late to take it back now. Besides, I wanted him to know he wasn’t the only one having a difficult time with this. I owed him at least that.
He looked up, stormy hazel eyes searching mine. “I’ll be alright.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m not intentionally trying to tease you, you know? Not tonight, anyway.”
A half-smile curved on his mouth as he rose to his feet. “I know. Come on. Get up so I can help you out of your dress.”
Then what? You’ll help me out of everything else until I’m completely naked and stripped of my defenses? We’ll end up in bed together, doing more than sleep, before I could finish reciting my new full name.
“Don’t worry. I’ll manage it,” I assured him as I struggled to sit up properly so I could slide down the bed.
The Mischievous Mrs. Maxfield Page 30
