The Mischievous Mrs. Maxfield (33 page)

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 hem 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. 

I winced at the jab on my midsection but I had gotten so used to it the pain seemed almost normal to me now and I just kept going.

With enough practice, pain and suffering could be your daily life. Your father got used to it after your mother walked out. You could too when you walk away after the year and it’s much, much too late because you’ve already given your heart to Brandon. 

“And how exactly do you plan to get out of it when it required an entire assembly of people to get you in the first time?” he asked, crossing his arms over his chest. 

“Only because we didn’t want to wrinkle or snag it,” I snapped, reaching around the bodice to see if I could reach where the pearl buttons were at. 

I gritted my teeth through the strain against my midsection but I stubbornly kept angling my arm around with no avail. “Not that I want to wrinkle or snag it now. I want to keep this and give it to my daughter someday.”

I realized what I said and I paused, looking up at Brandon who was standing back and watching me struggle.

“That is if I get to keep this dress,” I said slowly, my cheeks warming up.

Brandon’s eyes glinted with a fleeting, unidentifiable emotion before he sat down on the bed and turned me around slowly so he could access the fastenings on the back of the gown. “Of course, you’ll keep the dress. And I’m sure your daughter will be very pretty in it. She’ll have dark brown hair, flashing blue-green eyes, and the same spunky tilt to her chin as you do.”

I stood still as Brandon’s fingers started to loop through the button flaps, undoing each fastening slowly and carefully.

“Dark brown hair?” I repeated, looking up to the ceiling. “What makes you think she won’t be blonde like me?”

“Just because,” he said noncommittally.

This was a very dangerous conversation. It was dangerous because I knew exactly the shade of brown hair I was imagining my daughter to have. 

It was already bad enough that Brandon was undressing me on our wedding night (even though he’d done the same very easily in the last couple of days) but something about tonight just seemed all symbolic. The last thing I wanted us to talk about were our blue-green-eyed and hazel-eyed children with their assortment of dark brown and honey-blonde mops for hair.

“Sometime before three in the morning, I’d like to get out of this dress,” I muttered, changing the topic. “For someone with claims to expertise in efficiently getting women out of their clothes, you're remarkably slow.”

Brandon snorted. “Well, I’ve never tried to ravish a woman in her wedding dress before. I usually try not to usurp the groom’s place on his wedding night.”

I rolled my eyes because even though I had my back turned to him, I knew he could tell. “Oh my. How gallant of you, Brandon, to at least until the woman’s honeymoon is over.”

“I don’t sleep with married women, Charlotte,” he said, a smirk in his voice. “Why would I take unnecessary risks with women who have husbands who might want to shoot my head off when there are plenty of young, single women out there who would do just fine?”

My cheeks flamed and I was angry all of a sudden. I started out poking fun at him and now he had the upper-hand, that sly beast!

“Oh, yeah, I forgot. You like them young,” I scoffed. “Young like Bessy Mitchell who’s only about a year older than I am. Heard you two got hot and heavy on a ski trip last year.”

Before he could answer, I rambled on, too annoyed now to back off. “Did you find the mythical treasure down her esophagus, my intrepid explorer? Men have tried and failed, you know? Others have died during the expedition—mostly from asphyxia and the lost Altoids she still can’t find to this day. She had been repeatedly told not to roll them around her mouth during the blow jobs she was rumored to be giving away like gift bags in the back of the school gym but apparently, she likes them minty.”

Wow. Those claws are razor sharp, Charlotte. Congratulations! You have now stooped to Bessy Mitchell’s level. Real adult of you.

I tried to tell myself that regardless of my motivation, Bessy deserved it. She really didn’t because she wasn’t here making a muck of my wedding night—I was doing that myself without any help, thank you very much. 

I couldn’t stop myself because I was, without a doubt, undeniably jealous. And I was being incredibly childish because of it.

“I could spend the next ten minutes convincing you that nothing happened with her beyond a kiss she’d initiated,” Brandon said with a sigh. “That I have no interest in Bessy or any of my sisters’ friends. In the end, the answer is whatever you choose to believe in.”

Suddenly, the bodice of my dress loosened and started to fall away from my body. Brandon rose to his feet and I saw his hands slip around my waist to grasp the top of the skirt and slowly and carefully ease it down to the floor until I could step out of it.

His head was bent down but I could hear the hiss of his breath. 

I shivered at the sudden coolness that kissed my exposed skin. Much of it was revealed by the white lace bustier I was wearing paired with matching lace panties with a narrow silk patch that hid my intimate parts. I had opted out of the white sheer stockings that would’ve rolled up to the top of my thighs and clipped to the garter straps. It was the height of summer and I hadn’t wanted to further stew under the layers of fabric under my dress. 

Brandon slowly unfolded his form from his crouching position as I stepped out of the dress, his eyes glowing with fierce wanting.

He took a step toward me, his gaze touching me all over like a caress, his breath coming out choppy with what I could tell was clearly an effort at restraint, based on how the crotch of his dress pants quickly filled out.

“You’re like a battering ram.”

My head whipped up sharply. “Excuse me?”

He smiled softly. “You’re devastation I could see coming from a mile away—nothing subtle or too complicated—and one that I can barely avoid if I stand too close. One that will relentlessly beat down the doors until they break down. One that will knock the air out of me the first time it catches me off guard. One that will do me in for good if I don’t get out the hell out of the way.”

I blinked up at him, unable to believe my ears even though his words had me unsettled with their candid admission. “You’re comparing me to a battering ram?”

His eyes lit up with mischief. “Only your effect to me. Why, it’s not romantic enough?”

My fists clenched at my sides. “Have you been living under a rock? Where did you ever hear of a battering ram being romantic?”

He laughed. “I see your point. Let me try again.”

I waited, glaring at him.

“You’re like an asteroid crash.”