Sweet as Honey (The Seven Sisters) - By Caitlyn Robertson Page 0,7
before they left England. He’d listened, appalled, already half in love with her, sick to the stomach to think that someone had treated this butterfly spirit so cruelly. Clearly, even though it had been nearly a year since she broke up with Ian and the family moved to New Zealand, she was heavily scarred, plus of course the death of her mother had only served to make things worse.
And Dex decided there and then he was going to make her the happiest woman on the planet. He proposed three weeks later, and suggested that they wait until their wedding night before sleeping together. By then she already knew about the disaster surrounding Cathryn, and the thought that both of them needed to take it slowly, to learn to trust before making that final step, sealed the deal for her.
He watched her now moving about the kitchen, cleaning the utensils she’d used to make the pastries and wiping down the counter, and he smiled at her loveliness.
He’d yet to see beneath her clothes. When they made out watching the TV or lying in the grasses surrounding Stormwind—the large house and estate where all the Summers clan lived bar Daisy, who’d recently moved to Auckland with Reuben, and Koru, who shared a house with Chase—he always stopped short of removing her clothing, wanting to somehow try to preserve the innocence and…he wasn’t exactly sure what he’d call it…the cleanliness of their relationship, maybe, until their wedding night, wanting it to be right.
But that didn’t stop himself imagining taking it further. What colour would her nipples be when he finally removed the white lacy bra he knew she favoured? A light rose pink? Or darker, reflecting the fact that even though she was blonde, her skin wasn’t English rose but tanned easily, reflecting her Maori heritage. On their wedding night, he’d peel away her white dress, slowly remove her underwear, then he’d push her back onto the bed and kiss her senseless for a while before moving his lips to her breasts. He’d admire her nipples and tell her how beautiful she was, then he’d close his mouth over them and suck until she squirmed beneath him. He’d brush his lips down her ribs, over her soft stomach, and then even lower, kissing, tasting…
Dex closed his eyes, leaned forward and rested his forehead on the table.
Chase and Koru started laughing.
“What’s the joke?” Reuben asked.
“Dex isn’t getting any,” Chase said.
Reuben frowned. “I thought you were engaged.”
“He is. They’re not sleeping together until their wedding night.” Koru grinned.
Reuben looked baffled. “Jeez, why? I didn’t think anyone waited till they were married anymore.”
“Long story.” Dex wasn’t in the mood to spill the intimate details of his life. The recent letter he’d had from Cathryn remained fresh in his memory, even though he’d immediately ripped it into a dozen pieces and then ceremoniously burned them before tossing the ash angrily in his garden as if hoping he could scatter the words just as easily. He hadn’t told Koru about it, or Honey, and he wasn’t going to with the wedding only a week away. He just had to hope Cathryn had been bluffing, although dread sat coiled in his stomach at the fear that she might have been telling the truth.
He especially wasn’t going to confide his innermost feelings to the boorish city dude who’d looked down his nose when he walked into Matariki and found out the restaurant Daisy ran with her family wasn’t a chic bar with chrome stools and printed menus encased in leather booklets, but instead a village-style friendly café with checked tablecloths, creaky wooden chairs and a blackboard with specials of the day written in chalk. Never mind that they served the best coffee in the Northland and their selection of pies and pastries wouldn’t have looked out of place on the table of a medieval king.
“Don’t know how you do it,” Reuben commented. “I couldn’t go a week without sex, let alone…how long have you been engaged?”
“Six months.”
“Jeez. You must have balls the size of space hoppers.”
Koru met Dex’s gaze, his lips twisting wryly. Chase also sniggered, although he was too busy glaring at Reuben’s reference to having regular sex with Daisy to pay attention to Dex’s reaction.
Dex decided to change the subject, not needing Reuben to remind him how desperate he was to get his leg over. “So what are you up to tonight?” he asked Koru. “Out celebrating, birthday boy?”
“Yeah. Jude should be here in a minute. We’re going