He felt a tinge of embarrassment, but answered nonchalantly, “Oh, this? Just something I had lying around in my closet.”
She gave him an I-doubt-that look. “Dustin, I don’t know if you think this is a joke. Or if somewhere in the back of your mind you think any of this is real, and that you and I are going to be playing house. All of this….” She pointed into the room, where a sour-faced man holding a folder of documents, who he assumed would be performing the ceremony, stood next to the arrogant, slimy-looking lawyer he’d met before, and a beautiful, curvy dark-skinned woman with thick black hair. He figured this must be Chantelle’s admin, Sienna. They’d spoken on the phone before. “All of this is merely a formality—”
“I understand, Chantelle,” he said patiently. “I am not the fool you think me to be.”
“I don’t—” she blustered.
“It’s fine.” It was his turn to stare at her. She was wearing a severe steel-gray pantsuit that looked more like a scaled-down men’s suit than a suit tailored for a woman: it did its darndest to hide the femininity of her curves. He noticed she was wearing flats and wondered if this was to accommodate her dizziness. It brought him a twinge of concern, both for her and the baby, but he didn’t dare ask, lest she rip his head off and slam it onto the end of a pointy stick.
“I’m guessing from what you chose to wear today that this is indeed just another business arrangement. The only hint of color about you is your lipstick.”
She bristled. “How is what I wear any of your concern?”
“How is what I wear, any of yours?” he shot back.
She gave him an infuriated look and turned away. He followed her, enjoying her discomfiture like a middle school boy enjoys putting bugs in an annoying girl’s hair.
The officiant and the lawyer—who, Dustin thought, was so cold and bloodless he probably didn’t even bleed from paper cuts—both looked impatient. They shuffled their documents and conveyed with every inch of their body language that they just wanted to get all this bullshit over with and get back to their respective offices.
Again, Dustin felt that dip in his spirits. He was a man who put family over all, the kind of man who believed you got one shot at it… and here he was, about to make empty, meaningless vows to a stranger. In a way, although he felt vaguely lonely, he was glad that Kim, Aaron and Arabella weren’t here to witness this, his ‘special’ day.
He realized that Sienna was staring at him, not with the cool, detached impatience of the others, but with something that almost felt like compassion and understanding. Could it be that she had even an inkling of what he was feeling right now?
When she nodded her encouragement at him, he knew that she did. He nodded back.
As for Chantelle, she barely looked at him, barely acknowledged him, except to ensure that he signed in the right place and was given copies.
When they were declared husband and wife by the bored man—who radiated an energy that said, I got out of bed for this?—they stood and stared at each other. This was the point in a wedding ceremony where the bride began to shed happy tears, where the groom beamed at the congregation and declared it the happiest day of his life.
This was the point where the groom was invited to kiss the bride.
Why not? Dustin thought. Chantelle might be more tightly wrapped than a cigar, and was sending out waves of stay-away vibes, but she was his wife now.
That had to stand for something.
She read his intention in his eyes and flashed a warning back with hers. Don’t even, was her silent message.
And his silent response was, then stop me.
He was shocked by that first contact, by how warm her lips were. Something inside him had weirdly wondered if they’d be cool, like the rim of a beer glass. But nah, they were full and plump and soft, yielding against his.
She gave a little yelp of outrage—but it didn’t last long. As the pressure from his mouth increased, her resistance decreased, and when he probed past her lips with the tip of his tongue, there was no resistance at all.
Having begun his incursion past her defenses, he kept going, enjoying the delectable sweetness inside. Inhaling her scent, the mingled combination of freshly washed hair and expensive perfume. Of warm flesh and sweet breath.
His hand curved around her waist; her slenderness surprised him, but he remembered how hard she worked to disguise her curves, shield them from the gaze of the world….
She placed both hands on his lapels, palms flat against his chest. Her eyelids fluttered shut, and he could feel the puff or warm air against his lips as she exhaled. And then she stiffened, as if waking from sleepwalking and suddenly becoming fully aware of what she was doing. She shoved him back, and he was lucky to be quick enough on his feet to catch his footing. “What the hell, Dustin!”
He was so drunk on that one kiss that he could only smile and say, “Delicious.”
“Don’t do it again! I mean that!” She was stomping back to Grady, snatching the documents from his hand and glaring down at them with almost enough heat to make them ignite. “Are these done?” she demanded.
Grady made sure everything was wrapped up, and then with an incline of his head, assured them that the deed had been done. Making sure Sienna had everything they needed, he glanced at his watch and hurried out. Probably off to prepare foreclosure papers on an orphanage or something. The officiant followed.
Sienna patted the documents lightly and sent Dustin another tiny smile. Just a quirk of her lips, but to Dustin, it felt like he had an ally.
Two minutes later, lifting her head from the documents, Chantelle handed him his copies. He didn’t bother to look at them, just rolled them up into a tube shape. He was more interested in whether she was still rattled from their kiss. Because make no mistake, she’d enjoyed it, too.