When Honey Got Married

by Kimberly Lang

  Brent’s neck was pink from the wind. His Delacroix-blue eyes bright. Even as anxiety pummeled her every nerve, willing the numbness to abate and let in all the dammed-up feelings threatening to overwhelm her, nothing could neutralize her reaction to the guy.

  Her next breath in was long and deep as her eyes roved over skin brown against the snow white of his shirt, and over pressed black trousers that strained against the might of his left tackle’s thighs. He’d hooked his dinner jacket neatly over a hanger, and his bow tie hung loose at his strong neck.

  When her eyes found his, it was to find him watching her with a half-smile and laughter in his eyes.

  Despite the million reasons she had to doubt, her heart finally came to the party, flipping over in her chest at the sight of him, even after all those years. As when he looked at her like that, all quiet and focused and relaxed, it looked like love.

  Not that she was entirely sure what love looked like.

  Her parents loved each other. She got that. But you’d never see anything so gauche as a public display of affection from them. They took discreet to a whole new level. And as for the way her father had turned his back on her little sister, Nina, when she’d run away from home, so quick, so unforgiving… Was that love? One mistake, one disagreement, and it was gone? Was love worth risking your heart for if it was that easy to lose?

  “Whatcha thinking about all the way over there, wife?” Brent asked.

  Everything it is possible to think about and then some. “Nothing much.”

  “Hmmm,” he said, his eyes sliding to the privacy screen then back to her, the politician in him thinking about talking in front of an audience. He shuffled closer, his thigh brushing against hers. Or it might have if not for the acres of white tulle taking up half the seat. “I think you forget that I know you, Honore Moreau,” he said, his voice dropping a note. “Something’s rattling around inside that tangled old mind of yours. And you’d better tell me what or I’ll begin to worry we’ve run out of things to say.”

  Now that her heart was working again, it pumped harder than smart, but not in a hearts and flowers way. In the hope-her-new-husband-hadn’t-a-clue-what-she’d-been-thinking. She was the wife of a well-respected businessman now. A future senator for the great state of Louisiana. A woman in her position couldn’t be seen to have doubts. Fears. Moments.

  She knew. It had been bred into her since before she could walk.

  “I was thinking fireworks,” she said, sliding her hands over her hair, as if it might tidy the thoughts below. “Wondering if they might have been a bit much.”

  Ha! Said she who’d insisted on two bands, an ice sculpture of her and Brent celebrating the Bellefleur Pirates’ state final win senior year, and spun-glass bees and hummingbirds to hover over the de-stamened honeysuckle centerpieces like they were floating midair. And even that had been a hard compromise after discovering that real stuffed hummingbirds might contravene a law or two.

  Brent’s smile grew, his lone dimple flickering in his right cheek, and her heart raced just a little more. “Tell you the truth, Hon, at one point I wondered as much myself.”

  Honey’s next breath in stayed put. Pressing against her lungs until they burned.

  Then why hadn’t he said so? She’d been waiting for an opinion from him. Any opinion. Even a negative one would have gone a long way to satiating the craving for input. A sign that he was as invested in this marriage as she was. That it was what he wanted, not merely what was expected.

  “But you were right,” he said, smiling, dimpling, chucking her gently under the chin with a bent knuckle. “They were awesome. ’Til today, I’d thought you’d been fussin’ over party decorations, but the whole dang thing was spectacular. Nobody’ll be forgetting today for a long time. It’ll go down in Bellefleur folklore.” He held up his hand as if reading an old-time movie theatre tent. “When Honey Got Married…”

  Half-mortified at his fussin’ comment, half-elated at how happy he looked, Honey still backhanded him across the upper arm. He feigned great pain. And she couldn’t help but laugh. Then she couldn’t help but snuggle into his chest.

  At least she tried, only to find she couldn’t. Literally.

  Her dress was stuck in the door.

  Meaning that even when she wanted nothing more than to hold him, be held by him, she just had to sit there. With a breach between her husband and her as they drove into their future.

  Talk about a sign.

  “How long ’til we get to the Villemont, do you think?” she asked. It was either that or sob.

  “Ten minutes,” he said. “Fifteen at most. Excellent choice by the way. The incumbent gave a great speech about conservation of the bayou in the ballroom there when he was in the state legislature.”

  She knew. It was why she’d picked it.

  Oblivious, Brent stretched his long legs out in front of him and breathed deeply, his broad chest filling with air, pressing out the buttons of his vest until they looked ready to snap before letting out the breath on a long, contented sigh. Then he looked through the window as the pretty-as-a-picture buildings of Bellefleur’s long, wide Main Street flickered by.

  While Honey looked at him.

  She could still remember the first time she’d seen Brent Delacroix. The first day of preschool, he’d had his Stars and Stripes lunch box under his arm, his hair short and tidy, his jeans neatly pressed. She and Nina had always been boisterous creatures by nature, handfuls for their conservative parents who prayed for them to be well-bred southern misses. Brent, with his quiet confidence, had been like a revelation to her four-year-old self.

  To this day she felt the same awe. The same hope that she might one day too be able to feel as content as he appeared. Not that she’d managed it so far. Not even close. If anything, she was spinning further and further the other way. Into chaos. The surplus energy she’d channeled into the wedding of the century. But now that the wedding was done, what was she going to do?

  Maybe if she didn’t love the guy so darned much, then the diamond-encrusted band on her wedding finger wouldn’t feel like it was cutting off the blood supply to her…everything. She fiddled with the band some more, trying to ease the discomfort. She rearranged, tugged—

  “Honey?”

  She was so deep inside her neuroses she flinched, her arm flying sideways to connect with something soft. The resultant “ooof” told her that something was Brent.

  She made to go to him and was yanked back by her trapped dress. Yanked so hard her other elbow smacked into the window.

  She cried out and rubbed at the spot. While her new husband sat on the other side of the huge car, hissing and rubbing his eye with his big palm, wedged deep into the doorframe, away from any more threat of flinging limbs, she couldn’t get to him to kiss him better.

  She waited for the car to slow, for the driver to check, to see why they’d both cried out, but the car just kept on moving. The thought of what else the driver had been called to ignore in the back of that same car made the whole thing seem suddenly all so ridiculous, all so much the opposite of the romantic declarations and teary speeches and excessive festivities they’d just left behind.

  All Honey could do was laugh. And laugh. Until she could barely breathe.

  “Honey?” Brent asked after a bit, his tone a tad worried.

  “I’m stuck,” she explained. “My dress. It’s caught in the door.”

  He glanced to the privacy screen.

  “It’s fine,” she said, her voice filled with the kind of hopeless exhaustion all the time in the world spent in cotillion wasn’t enough for her to be able to hide. “We’re nearly there.”

  Brent looked at her, then seemed to look a little deeper. Whatever he saw in her eyes had him moving closer, leaning over her, checking where door met dress. Like he understood nearly there wasn’t near enough.

  The scent of him filled her nose. The remnants of day-old aftershave she’d bought him for Christmas. A tiny drip of crème brûlée o
n his collar. Sweat. Heat. Musky man. So familiar. So lovely. So loved.

  And her heart began to thunder. The knots in her belly twisting into ropy threads of desire. When she tried to lean into him, to nuzzle into his neck, she couldn’t even move that far. And that was the final straw.

  “Screw it,” she said, wincing at the unfamiliar feel of the word on her tongue. But this was not a time for good breeding. This was do or die. And the girl who’d charmed the music teacher into letting her play the lead opposite Brent in the school musical, even though she was tone-deaf, had what it took to fight for her man.

  “Get me out of this damn thing,” she roared. “Now!”

  Brent flinched at her tone. But even though beneath the driving ambition, Brent was a naturally gentle man, the guy had muscles, and mercy he knew how to use them. When his big fingers found the row of tiny buttons at her back of her corset, she felt him pause.

  “Rip!” she demanded. “Rip ’em right off.”

  His blue eyes swung to hers, he breathed deeply, then grinned.

  She barely had the chance to register the sweet slide of his thumbs against her skin as they eased down inside the back of her dress, and with an almighty tug he did as he was told.

  Buttons went flying. Individually collected pearls in a precise champagne color to match the bridesmaid’s dresses. Who freakin’ cared?!? Honey thought, as she hopped onto her knees on the seat, shimmying out of the constraint, while Brent yanked the thing down.

  “Jesus, Hon…” he said as his eyes roved over her nearly naked form. She glanced down at the lace half-cup-bra, silk panties, whisper-soft silk stockings, and lace garter belt she’d taken such pains to choose, imagining herself performing a slow and sultry striptease at the base of the canopy bed waiting for them at the Villemont.

  A quick reveal in the back of a car not quite the same thing. And yet the look in his eyes mollified her. And then some.

  “You like?” she asked, her voice an octave lower than normal.

  “I fucking love.” Her eyes shot back to his to find the startling blue all but lost in the swell of his pupils. His cheeks were pink, not from the effects of the party, or champagne, or the bracing wind outside the window. Because of her. Just her.

  In that moment, the brief lull, it felt like the first time they’d been alone in the same place together in such a long time. In that ephemeral bubble of time she looked into her husband’s eyes and finally felt…something.

  A stirring of something good. Of tenderness, and trust, and history, and hope.

  Then Brent, using those big muscles of his she adored so much, picked her up bodily and lay her along the bench seat. He moved over her, blocking out the glow of track lighting around the limo’s ceiling. And every tender feeling was swept away as she felt a whole lot of lust.

  Honey slid her hand behind her husband’s neck and pulled him into her kiss. Before he’d even settled, she glided her tongue along the seam of his mouth, and with a groan, he opened to her. His tongue tangled with hers, traced her teeth, her lips, taking control until she gave up and followed his lead. Trembling. Needing. Wanting. So much. Everything.

  Zipper down, she freed his huge erection from his pants, reveling in the silken heat, sliding her thumb over the pearl of liquid waiting at the tip before opening to him, pressing herself against his swollen head, pulling her panties aside, opening further still. She couldn’t have been more ready, and yet she cried out as he pushed inside of her. Stretching her to her limit and beyond.

  There he stopped, waited until her eyes swung back to his, until she saw him. His smile, his need, his plans. Which he brought to fruition as he pulled out, just far enough she thought she might lose him, before he drove back inside of her. It was torment. It was bliss.

  Mouth wide open to catch as much air as she could, she gripped his straining arms with her nails. He hissed at the pinch of it. And his eyes became darker still.

  Honey moved her hands over his back, down his waist, to grip his backside. Good Lord did her man have the best backside in three counties. Probably the whole damn state. It clenched beneath her touch as he pushed into her, his pace hastening. The pleasure swirling chaotically inside of her began to focus, to slide to her center. God, it felt so fine. But she wanted more. Needed more.

  When she slung her leg over his shoulder, her back arching at the sensation ratcheting suddenly beautifully hot and hard inside of her, Brent growled like he could eat her alive.

  She closed her eyes and took him, all of him. Her man. Her husband. And just as she felt like she could handle not a mite more, her pleasure reached its fantastical crest, hovered, lingered, stretched, and collapsed in a million tiny points of light.

  And when Brent came inside of her she couldn’t remember a time he’d let go with such abandon. When he’d cried out with such raw passion. When she’d felt like he’d lost a part of himself inside of her. Maybe because she hadn’t let herself feel that way either.

  Maybe the both of them had been brought up too well.

  Screw that, she thought, smiling on the inside, liking the feel of the word even better the second time round.

  When their breaths settled into a matching rhythm, Brent slid free, tucking himself away, sitting up just enough to run his hand through his hair, and to draw in a huge ragged breath. Then he held out his hand to help her sit up. She found herself perched on a mound of tulle. There was no getting away from the thing. It could have handled its own zip code.

  “Wife?” Brent said, and she liked it.

  “Yes, husband?”

  Brent smiled, as though he liked it too. “Today was a good day.” He shuffled deeper into the seat, and held out an arm for her to snuggle against him. Now free of her dress, she took it and the warmth it afforded. She felt the bubble of intimacy expanding, and prayed it would be a little while longer before it burst. Before the real world slammed back in.

  “Romance was in the air,” Brent said. “Did you see my parents? Like two lovebirds on the dance floor.” He rolled his eyes, but she could tell it meant something. He liked the world seeing how happy his folks were together. Hope rolled through her like an ocean of waves. “Even your parents looked a little loved up out there.”

  “I know, right? Momma sure liked those mimosas.” Her head on his big shoulder, Honey melted and fizzed by turns as he traced fingers down her bare arm and back up again. “I do believe Grace and Beau might go on a date soon.”

  “Hmm?”

  “Wedding planner. Owner of Belles Fleurs.”

  “Right. Grace and Beau.”

  “Eve and Rainer too.”

  “Now that I noticed,” Brent said with an easy grin that made her wonder why she’d ever doubted him at all.

  “And Pippa and Griff?” Honey pressed. So, she was a presser. If Brent wasn’t fine with that by now, then that was just his tough luck. Because now she’d found her nook again, she wasn’t going anywhere.

  Brent blinked, his eyebrows shifting north. “Now that I did not see coming.”

  “Didn’t you?” she asked gently.

  And she watched closely as Brent thought about it—about his high school girl who’d broken his heart, and the big brother he idolized. As he let himself see what he’d apparently been blinkered to back then. He even had the good grace to blush. “Well, what do you know?”

  Not that complicated, Pippa had said about Brent. Nina had tried to tell her that Brent’s silence about her crazy wedding ideas was the result of his deep and abiding love for her. Maybe they were both right.

  Brent said what he thought and meant what he said. And a few hours ago he’d told God and everyone that he wanted to marry her.

  And just like that, the last knots in her belly unwound until ribbons of satisfaction unrolled out to the tips of her limbs.

  “And while we’re on the subject,” Brent said, taking a moment to press a kiss against the top of her head, “I gotta say—and this is the only time I’m ever going to admit it—I can’t quite
believe you married me.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, you, Honore Clemency Moreau. Daughter of Judge and Olivia Moreau. Daughter of the American Revolution. Daughter of the Confederacy. The most beautiful girl Bellefleur has ever born. That’s quite some pedigree to live up to. And I do plan to live up to it. To you.”

  “But Brent, you—”

  He quelled her with a glance. And pulled her tighter against him, as if making sure she couldn’t get away. She let him. In fact, considering how numb she’d felt for so long, she felt so much all of a sudden she was hard-pressed not to blubber all over him again.

  Then he continued, “I spent my childhood striving to be…someone else. To be my brother, in fact. And when Griff walked away from every advantage God had given him, all my ambitions, my plans felt like they had no foundation at all. But the most terrifying part of it all—if I was wrong about him, could I be wrong about my rightness for you too?”

  Honey looked up at him, the lift of his strong chin, the distance in his clear blue eyes, all that inherent strength, and realized he’d had doubts too. But not about her. Never about her.

  “I had to build myself back up from scratch,” he said. “To make a man of myself. One I could live with. One my parents could be proud of. One you could still love.”

  Still love? Like she could ever stop!

  She tried again, needed him to know how silly he’d been. “But Brent—”

  He placed a finger against her mouth, soft yet insistent. The heat of his touch, and the way it brooked no argument, touched at the heart of her, and heat coursed through her like a stream of fire.

  She flicked her tongue against the pad. His bright blue eyes darkened. Oh, she loved it when they did that. She loved that she knew what it meant. There was no anticipation in the world like it.

  But he clearly had more to say. He took his finger away, kissed the tip of her nose, and cocked his head at her. Listen, will you?

  She nodded. She’d listen. Then she’d show him just why he needn’t worry ever again.