The Mischievous Mrs. Maxfield (32 page)

If anyone asked me about my wedding night, I really wouldn’t know how to answer.

It was... not exactly what I had in mind.

First of all, I was wiped out.

The adrenaline kept me going but it ran low after having danced half a dozen songs with Brandon, a couple with Jake, one with Martin, another with Francis (much to Brandon’s unconcealed disapproval), and a collective number with my bridesmaids and other younger female guests when the band broke out their more upbeat songs that were local favorites.

I was head of the line to meet the band after their set. I didn’t ask how much Shelly paid to get them signed on for the reception considering they were a minor celebrity around the city and highly in-demand for plenty of gigs. I never even got to see them until Brandon and I arrived at the reception.

The lead singer, Damien Holt, looked so sexy he might as well have been a decadent treat. The other women were practically salivating as they gathered around the stage. 

I was giddy and a little starstruck when he walked down the stage and met up with me and the other girls. He paid me special attention (duh, I was the bride, after all) and complimented me with a line about how I was the most beautiful bride he’d ever seen, which of course, was a total lie, but I was flattered by the effort. 

Brandon ruined it by appearing behind me and slipping a possessive arm around my waist, declaring himself the lucky groom. 

I couldn’t see his face because he’d tucked my head under his chin but I strongly suspected he was looking down his nose on the man in a way that only Brandon Maxfield could execute with the perfect amount of arrogance. 

I couldn’t really say I was surprised, to be honest. Having finally married me didn’t seem to reassure him in the slightest—in fact, he seemed a little more determined in staking his claim. Were these the ancient times, Brandon would’ve probably pounded on his chest with his fists and howled to the moon if it asserted his dominance and his territory. 

All this after three hours of marriage.

The adrenaline couldn’t last all the way to the end of the party though.

I was tired, drowsy from the pills I popped after a couple of dances, and my midsection was screaming from the strenuous activities of the evening.

After tearing me away from the band and their adoring fans, Brandon decided it was time to go. 

I was too tired to protest when he scooped me up in his arms but as he started to cross the dance floor, people turned our way and he stopped, caught off guard.

I tried not to giggle when I saw his cheeks flush as he cleared his throat and flashed everyone a crooked smile.

“I guess it wouldn’t do for me to just steal my new bride away into the night,” he said, eliciting several chuckles from the remaining guests. 

“If you never see or hear from me again, look for a freshly landscaped flower bed at his house,” I joked, clinging to his neck, and laughter gurgled from my throat when Brandon looked at me with a horrified expression.

I turned back to the guests and shook my head. “No, no. He doesn’t even have a house. I’m just kidding. If I die tonight, it’ll be from pleasure, I’m told.”

When his jaw just dropped open in complete disbelief as everyone erupted into laughter around us, I shrugged what I could of my shoulders. “What? That’s what Clyde told me.”

“You are drunk, Mrs. Maxfield,” he said, finally recovering and failing miserably in fighting a grin. 

“And you are starting to blur,” I quipped, burrowing my cheek against his chest. 

He sighed. “I did my best to make sure they didn’t ply you with wine.”

“I had a teensy bit,” I said, squinting one eye at the space I was indicating between my forefinger and thumb although that blurred quite a bit too. “I think Anna gave me some. She said it made vixens out of virgins, whatever that means.”

“Oh, God,” Brandon said with a low groan. “We have to go. Now.”

He rambled something off to our captivated audience before I got jostled around in his arms as he practically ran out the door to where the limo was waiting.

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 against 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.