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I’d barely hit Post when a cloud of Chanel No. 5 swirled around me, and before I could adequately brace myself, Patricia Wellbridge appeared before me like the ghost of New Year’s Past, fanning herself with her mask.
“Reagan, my darling! Where is that handsome husband of yours?” My mother’s eyes scanned the room. “I could have sworn he was right here.”
I squeezed my eyes shut for an instant, but when I opened them, she was very much still there, in full jeweled-and-feathered regalia, blocking my escape yet again, damn it, proving that no matter how much some things might change, other things never would.
“He had to go find Brantleigh. He’s flying back to LA first thing in the morning to start his new job.”
She waved a delicate hand in the air, her large diamond ring catching the light in a blaze of sparkles. “At least he’s finally settling down. I think you’re a good influence on him.”
I bit back a laugh. “More like he’s finally gotten his own shit together after realizing how nice he had it on his parents’ dime.” The truth was, I was happy for Brant. He was still a complete asshole, but at least he was beginning to take some responsibility for his own life, and he’d been generous enough to fly to New York to spend some holiday time with his father. As long as he treated Thatcher with respect, I was content.
“I was hoping Thatcher would offer to dance with me since your father has two left feet,” my mother continued, still peering around the room in search of my trophy husband. She’d gotten too used to using his high profile to her advantage this past year, and it grated on me. Thatcher himself was gracious as hell, but I was tired of feeling like my parents valued the man on my arm more than their own son.
“He sprained his ankle,” I lied. “No dancing.” At least not the vertical kind. I planned to pirouette the fuck out of him in bed later.
“Hm. Shame. He’s a lovely dancer. That Willow Honeycutt never misses an opportunity to brag about dancing with him at your wedding reception, and what she fails to recall is that I danced with him twice. Of course, that was before Alden and his brother?—”
I blocked out her continued complaints about “those Honeycutts” until something in her tirade caught my attention.
“—with that PJ Honeycutt! That was quite the surprise, wasn’t it?”
“What was a surprise?”
“The man he’s with. The…” She looked around as if making sure no one could hear her before she lowered her voice. “The construction worker.”
I couldn’t stop the laugh that bubbled up. “He’s not really a construction worker. You know that, right?”
Mom’s eyes narrowed. “That’s the thing with those Honeycutts, though. You just never know, darling. Maybe he’s not who he says he is. I ask you, why would the man come to Honeybridge last summer under false pretenses? That’s what I want to know.”
I thought back to the whirlwind of last summer in Honeybridge when Thatcher couldn’t keep from blurting out a marriage proposal while we were out on the water in my brother’s catboat. My mother had catapulted into action as if planning a large society wedding for one of her offspring was her life’s greatest dream… probably because it was.
It had taken JT’s firm insistence on letting Thatcher and me plan it the way we wanted to finally pull her away from her high expectations. In the meantime, I wasn’t the only Honeybridger who’d found love in an unexpected place. PJ Honeycutt, still wallowing in his strange depression after leaving art school, had fallen head over heels despite every attempt to keep the newcomer at arm’s length.
“Sometimes the right person shows up at the right time,” I said vaguely, though I was mostly focused on how I was going to show up in my husband’s hotel room at the right time tonight. I glanced at my phone.
11:28 p.m. Damn it. I had two minutes to get upstairs and lose the tuxedo. Just thinking about hotel sex with my husband made my heart race.
“Gotta go, Mother,” I said, leaning in to buss her on the cheek. “Happy New Year.”
I left her sputtering her disapproval at my back as I hurried through the crowded ballroom to the copper-colored elevator doors. Even the sound of the faint ding as the doors slid open lit me up and sent blood rushing south.
As soon as I found the right room, I paused outside the door and took a deep breath, closing my eyes and resting my forehead against the cool painted wood.
“You’re late,” he said, stepping up behind me and sliding his arms around my front.
“I’ve been standing here trying to talk my dick down from the ledge,” I admitted.
“Is that so?” His firm mouth twitched at the corner. “You going to come in your pants again, baby?”
“Possibly.” I fumbled in my breast pocket for the key card and let myself in the room. He trailed me, following closely enough for me to get another hit of his woodsy scent. As soon as the door closed behind us and I slipped the key card back into my pocket, he moved even closer until his nose brushed the back of my ear and his warm breath hit the skin below.
“I expected you to be waiting for me, naked,” he murmured before running the tip of his tongue along the edge of my ear. “But you know what they say. If you want something done right…” My heart hammered as his large hands slid down my shoulders to my lapels and yanked my tuxedo jacket off.
I made a breathless sound of approval as he dropped the jacket and began untying my bow tie. “Mmm. Do you have any idea how hot it makes me watching you across a crowded ballroom, knowing I tied this on you earlier this evening?” He tugged one end, loosening the knot, then kept pulling until the tie slid away from my collar. All the while, his lips continued to tease the skin on the back of my neck with hot, open-mouthed kisses that sent electric shivers all the way to my toes.
I was so lost to sensation already that I barely noticed when he pushed me up against the door and began removing my shirt with excruciating slowness, one stud at a time.
He didn’t speak but made deep noises of approval in his throat as he pulled my shirt open and leaned in to kiss my chest. The sensation of my shirt being pulled out of my pants by his sure hands was enough to send blood flowing just as surely into my dick. His confidence was sexy as fuck, and I found myself relaxing into it, letting myself surrender to him—to this thing between us—in a way that was both familiar and exciting.
