Sweet as Honey (The Seven Sisters) (13 page)

She kissed him lightly. He didn’t return
it, but neither did he pull away, so she stayed there, moving her mouth across
his slowly, closing her eyes, taking the time to enjoy him. She slipped her
hand into his hair, liking the feel of the soft strands through her fingers,
grazed her teeth on his bottom lip and snaked her other arm around his waist.

Opening her eyes a little, she saw that his
were closed but the frown still hovered between them, as if he was fighting
with himself, trying to resist her. She pulled him closer, pressing her breasts
against his chest, and ran her tongue across his lip.

That did it. He sighed, took his hands out
of his pockets and wrapped them around her, and she sighed back happily as he
opened his mouth and stroked her tongue with his. Fire shot through her, and when
he pushed her up against the kitchen counter, she didn’t try to stop him.

Damn, but this waiting was so hard. Perhaps
it had all been a mistake—maybe if they’d had sex he wouldn’t be having second
thoughts. Emotion rose within her and brought tears to her eyes, but Dex was
too busy kissing her to notice. He’d cupped her head and deepened the kiss, and
she moaned softly as his hands started exploring her body, stroking her breast,
his thumb teasing her nipple beneath the fabric.

He clenched his fingers in her hair,
plunging his tongue into her mouth, and his other arm clasped her around the
waist firmly. Honey began to spiral out of control. The tension of the last few
days, the stress of the case, the promise of her wedding and of finally
becoming Dex’s wife, and now her fear of losing him, all of these knotted
together, and she clung to him, terrified of letting him go in case he walked
out of her life and never came back.

He tore his mouth from hers and planted
hot, wet kisses down her neck, and she tipped her head back.

“Don’t leave me,” she couldn’t help saying
as he kissed back up to her mouth.

“I won’t.” He kissed her hard, bruising her
mouth, but she didn’t care. “I couldn’t Honey, I love you more than anything in
the world.”

“Tell me again.”

“I love you.” He kissed her cheeks, her
eyes, back to her mouth. “I love you.”

A deep ache filled her, along with an urge
to prove that she wanted him. What the hell, they were going to be married at
the weekend anyway. She fumbled at his trousers, trying to undo the button, and
he groaned and caught her hands.

“Please,” she whispered. “Let me.”

He hesitated, and she raised herself on
tiptoe and kissed him again, expecting him to start undoing her dress, maybe
even lift her and carry her off to the bedroom.

But he didn’t. He sighed, wrapped his arms
around her and rested his cheek on the top of her head. “I love you,” he
murmured.

Disappointed, wondering why he hadn’t agreed
when she’d been so willing, she rested her cheek on his chest. “I love you
too,” she said. And she meant it. She loved him more than life itself.

If only the doubt that ate away at her joy
like acid would go away, everything would be perfect.

“I wish you had taken advantage of me,”
Honey said.

It was ten minutes later, and she sat
curled up on the couch next to Dex, snuggled up to him, his arm around her
shoulders. They’d poured themselves a glass of wine, and she sipped hers now, a
faint pink staining her cheeks at the obvious memory of the way she’d offered
herself to him.

Dex smiled and kissed her hair. “We’ve
waited this long. We might as well wait a few days more.” He tucked the hand
holding his glass under her chin, lifted her head and kissed her lips. She
returned the kiss before resting her cheek back on his shoulder, but he could
see she was embarrassed that he’d turned her down.

Yet another reason to feel guilty. Why the
hell hadn’t he just whisked her off to the bedroom? It was difficult to explain
how he felt. He’d ached for release and when she’d started to unbutton his
pants he’d so nearly given in and let her, but something in him—the part that
curled up like a poked spider every time he thought about how he’d kissed
Cathryn—didn’t want to sully the clean relationship he had with Honey by letting
their first sexual experience be a quickie born out of guilt. Although several
of his friends had mocked him for waiting and would have laughed at the thought
that he’d turned down free sex, he didn’t care. Honey was going to be his wife,
and although hopefully they’d get up to a hundred different things in the
bedroom once they were wed, for now he wanted to wait until his wedding night.
He wanted it to be
right.

He leaned his head on the back of the sofa
and sank into the cushions, trying to relax. He’d been terrified about seeing
Honey again, wondering if she’d heard what had happened, and if she hadn’t,
whether he’d feel the compulsion to blurt it out. Even though he’d promised Cam
he wouldn’t say anything, in the end he’d told himself that he should call off
the wedding—it was only fair to her because she deserved so much more than him.
But when it came to it, he couldn’t get the words out. She’d stood there in the
kitchen, the evening sunlight turning her hair golden, her skin glowing,
looking at him the way that only she did—with her big brown eyes full of
admiration and hope, as if he was a hero. Dex wanted to be someone’s hero.

He was tired of thinking about it and just
wanted to put it all behind him. He kissed Honey’s hair again, his body aching
for release. Only three more days, he thought desperately. Surely he could wait
that long?

“Tell me about the courtroom,” he said to
take his mind off sex for a moment. “How did it go today?”

She shrugged without looking up. “We’ve
finished hearing the testimonies. Tomorrow we have to make our decision.”

“Cut and dried or is it a difficult one?”

She glanced up then and bit her lip. “I’m
not supposed to talk about it.”

He smiled. “I know. But you look worried. I
promise not to give my opinion, if you want to get something off your chest.”

She looked into her wine glass. “It’s about
a woman who’s been abused by her partner.”

His heart sank for her. “Oh, sweetheart…”

“I know. Of all things. He’s just horrible,
Dex. He’s sitting there watching her the whole time with a smug, superior look
on his face, because he’s so certain we’re going to find him the innocent party.”

“Do you think you will?”

“I think she meant to cause him harm when
he came into her house. But I don’t know that I can find her guilty.”

He studied her face. He should tell her
that she shouldn’t bring her own experiences into the courtroom—that she should
make a judgement based on the facts alone. Of course she would sympathise with
the woman, but she shouldn’t find the defendant innocent just because she felt
sorry for her. But the judge would have already told her that. What was the
point in irritating her by telling her what she already knew?

He studied her face, her intelligent eyes
bright with an unusual fervour. She painted herself so often in the role of
victim where Ian Mc-Fucking-Idiot was concerned that Dex realised he’d fallen
into the trap of thinking of her that way. But she wasn’t a victim, and she
wasn’t stupid. She had a heart as big as an ocean and just as deep, but even
though she’d been abused and it had taken a while for her to escape Ian’s
claws, she’d had the courage to walk out of the relationship and start a new
life for herself. She wasn’t weak and this wasn’t the Palaeolithic period where
he could cart her off to his cave by her hair. She wasn’t going to stay with
him just because he loved her. He’d do best to remember that.

The front door clicked and then Cam
appeared in the doorway, looking across at them with surprise. “Hey, you two.”
He placed his jacket over the dining chair. “I thought you’d be out walking,
sorry.”

Good job they hadn’t gone to bed, Dex
thought with relief. His heart thundered at the memory of his conversation with
Cam earlier that day, but he forced his mouth into a smile.

“It’s okay, Dad. We’re just talking,” Honey
said, casting an amused glance up at her fiancé.

“There’s a bottle of pinot gris open in the
fridge if you’d like some,” Dex said.

“Don’t mind if I do.” Cam went and poured a
glass, brought it back and sat heavily in the chair opposite them. “Phew. What
a day.”

“Have you missed me?” Honey asked.

“Of course.” Cam took a large mouthful of
wine and gave a long, approving sigh. “Missy’s not keen on the pastries but she
has a go. She does well, but they don’t have your fine touch.” He winked at his
daughter. His eyes met Dex’s momentarily, and Dex had to force himself not to
drop his gaze but to meet Cam’s openly, to show him everything was fine.

“Has Aroha been helping out?” Honey asked
innocently.

Cam gave her a wry look. “Don’t start.”

Honey smiled. “Just wondered.”

Cam knocked back another mouthful, slipped
down a little in the chair and stared up at the ceiling. “I’m not looking to
marry again.”

“You don’t have to marry her, Dad,” Honey
berated him. “Wouldn’t it be nice to have some company? To go to the cinema and
stuff?”

“I can go to the cinema with you guys.”

“Yeah,” Honey said, “’cause that’s
completely the same thing.”

He raised his head and gave her an
exasperated look. “Why does everyone keep feeling the need to push me into
dating again?”

“We’re not trying to push you, sir,” Dex
said, seeing the way Cam clutched his glass, the frown lines on his forehead.
“Of course it’s your own business.”

“No, it’s not,” Honey said. “You know when
you have kids you don’t have private moments ever again.”

“Ain’t that the truth.”

They all laughed.

Cam looked across the living room to the
large windows that gave a beautiful view of the large lawn and the Waitangi
Forest beyond, and Dex followed his gaze. The setting sun stained the grass
with orange and reflected off the river as it tumbled over the rocks.

“She is nice,” Cam said absently. “And
that’s kind of why I don’t want to get involved, you know? She deserves a man
who can give her a hundred percent of everything—attention, love, passion… And
I don’t have that anymore. If we dated, she’d only be getting half a man. They
buried part of me with your mother, Honey, and it wouldn’t be fair to Aroha to
pretend otherwise.” He stopped talking and took a mouthful of his wine,
ostensibly, Dex thought, to cover his emotion.

Honey’s arm tightened around him. He
pressed a kiss on her hair. Cam and Marama had been married for thirty years.
From what Honey had told him, they had met young and theirs had been a fiery
but wholly committed relationship, with no talk of either of them ever being
interested in anyone else. After being with someone that long, of course it
would feel strange being suddenly alone. No wonder Cam couldn’t bear the
thought of dating again.

Dex’s lips lingered on Honey’s hair as he
inhaled the coconut scent she used. Would the two of them still be together in
thirty years’ time? Married, making love, arguing and making love again, happy
and content with half a dozen kids and a dozen grandkids?

He’d risked that golden future for one
brief, forbidden kiss, and it sickened him. How could he have done that? How
would he have felt if he’d have walked in tonight and Honey had been standing
there, phone in hand, staring at him with hurt and betrayal and—God
forbid—hatred on her face?

He closed his eyes momentarily to shut out
the image. When he opened them, Cam was watching him. The older man didn’t
smile, his handsome face serious and his eyes dark in the fading light. Dex
wondered how much Honey had told her father about his past. Cam had never
discussed it with him, until today. Even when he’d gone in to ask for her hand
in marriage, Cam hadn’t given him a lecture about his behaviour or even a talk
about how he had to treat Honey well or else.

All he had done was look Dex in the eye and
say to him, “Do you love her?”

Dex had replied, with all sincerity, “More
than anything, sir,” and at that Cam had nodded and they’d shaken hands to seal
the deal. But did Cam now feel as if he’d gone too far for Dex? Panic enveloped
him and he blinked, unable to tear his gaze away from Cam’s steady stare.

And then Cam smiled. “Don’t look so scared,
Dex. I know the wedding’s only three days away, but if you carry on like this,
you’ll pass out on the day.”

Honey looked up at him, and the concern
that had flickered in her eyes when he’d first turned up reappeared in her
green gaze.

“I’m okay,” he said. “Nervous that it’s
still so far away. That I might lose her in the meantime.” That, at least, was
the truth.

Cam raised an eyebrow. “That won’t end on
Saturday, son. A wedding ain’t superglue. Only love and treating each other
well is what’ll keep you together.”

“Says the man who once smashed half a dozen
of my mother’s favourite cat ornaments in a fit of pique,” Honey said.