Hairdresser's Honey (Culpepper Cowboys Book 14) Read online

  “Sure, sure.” Brother Anthony turned back to the couples. “Well, this could get a bit complicated, so let’s just do it.”

  “We’re ready,” Evan answered him.

  “Good for you.” Brother Anthony smiled. “I’ll start with you first, then.” He cleared his throat. “Okay, do you, Evan “the Bear” Lipinski, Kissie Lips heir and pretty nice guy, take this woman, who still hasn’t told us what kind of animal she’d be, to be your lawfully wedded wife?”

  “I do,” Evan answered, gazing into Elvie’s eyes with more love than Hero had seen in ages.

  “Perfect. One down, three to go,” Brother Anthony said, then addressed Elvie. “And do you—and here you go, folks, I’m gonna tell you all her full given name now—Elvira Lavinia Venita O’Donnell, take this man—”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Evan held up a hand. “Elvira Lavinia Venita?”

  Elvie rolled her eyes. “Our parents named us all after great-grandparents and aunts and uncles. I was the only girl, so they had to give me all the names.”

  “Stupid names,” Sly muttered from the side.

  “Quiet, Sylvester,” Doc shushed him.

  “Quiet yourself, Elmer.” Sly chuckled.

  “Please tell me we don’t have to give any of our kids those names,” Evan said.

  “I dunno.” Elvie grinned. “It is tradition.” She shifted to face Brother Anthony. “And by the way, I do.”

  “That’s all I needed to hear.” Brother Anthony straightened and dove back into the ceremony. He turned to Hero. “And do you…hold on. I wrote your name down here somewhere.” He searched through the Bible in his hands, then patted at the pockets of his trousers and jackets. “It’s a real weird one, I remember that much. Ah!” He took an index card out of his pocket and read, “The one who looks like a ninja is named Hiroshi Hero-for-short Yamaguchi.” He glanced up with a proud smile. “Okay then, Hiroshi Hero-for-short Yamaguchi, do you take this woman, Denise Vivian Bonneville—that one’s easy, ’cuz that family has lived around these parts for over a hundred years—to be your lawfully wedded wife?”

  “I do,” Hero answered, gazing straight into Denise’s eyes in spite of the madcap ceremony. “I absolutely do,”

  “That’s just adorable,” Brother Anthony followed. “And do you, Denise Lioness Bonneville, take this ninja tiger to be your lawfully wedded husband?”

  Laughing, tears in her eyes, Denise answered, “Yes, yes, a million times yes.”

  Brother Anthony cleared his throat and muttered, “You’re supposed to say ‘I do.’”

  “I do,” Denise said. “I absolutely do.”

  “Whew!” Brother Anthony took a half step back, panting. “We made it through in one piece. Well, two pieces. And now, by the power invested in me by the good Lord and the state of Wyoming, I now pronounce you husband and wife and husband and wife. But not all one bunch. Two husbands, two wives. You and you. Aw heck, you know what I mean. You’re married. Everybody kiss!”

  Hero’s head spun with the craziness they’d all just been through, but it was all forgotten in an instant. He swept Denise into his arms, and there, in front of everyone, he kissed her like the soulmate he knew she was. He’d never been happier.

  It was all so sudden. One minute Denise was standing by the side of the road, her car kaput, her life a mess, and the next she was being carried over the threshold into the honeymoon suite of Culpepper’s hotel.

  “Here you go, Mrs. Yamaguchi.” Hero smiled and spun her in an extra circle before setting her on her feet in the middle of the huge suite. “It’s the best I could do under the circumstances, but I hope you like it.”

  Denise clasped a hand to her furiously-beating heart and stared around at the room in wonder. The hotel room was nice enough in itself, but Hero had filled it with flowers. Not just pretty red and pink roses, though those were there. They were surrounded by bursts of color—yellow daisies and purple irises, white and orange chrysanthemums, and a whole bunch of other flowers that she didn’t know names for.

  “I have a feeling you’re the kind of girl who loves colors of all sorts,” he said.

  “I do,” she gasped, turning in circles to take it all in. “This is so beautiful, so perfect.”

  Hero shrugged. “It’s beautiful and perfect because you’re beautiful and perfect.”

  His sweet, sweet comment struck her hard. Years-long hurt welled inside of her as she turned to him. “I’m really not,” she confessed. “I’m so afraid that any minute now you’re going to open your eyes and see that you married a fat, ugly, mean witch.”

  Hero placed his hands on either side of her face, looking deeply into her eyes. “I promise you, I didn’t. I married a hard-working, earnest, fantastic woman who has been trying hard for a long time to be on the outside who she’s always been on the inside.”

  All the flowers in the world couldn’t hold a candle to that comment. Denise blinked away tears, no idea how she would ever be able to express to her new husband how much that meant to her.

  “You’re so wonderful, Hero, and I have nothing to give you in return,” she said.

  He wiped away her tears with his thumbs. “Of course you have stuff to give me. You have so much to give me. You can cut my hair and give me a scalp massage or a manicure.”

  She laughed at his joke. “No, but seriously.”

  He stepped closer to her, sliding his arms around her. “You’re a special person. Just being around you is giving me so much. I’ll never get lonely, I’ll never be bored.”

  Denise snorted. “Being bored is better than being in trouble all the time.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure about that.” He lowered his voice to a tone that felt like honey in the sunshine. “You’ve never been boring before. I have been. It’s…boring. But I don’t have to worry about that ever again.”

  “No, now you’ll have to worry about a wife with a reputation, her old mom tagging along, and her teenage daughter throwing fits all the time.”

  “Lucky for you—” He slid closer still. “—your mom likes me.”

  “She does.” Denise sighed, relaxing into his embrace.

  “And Destiny and I had a talk right before the wedding.”

  She snapped to full shock. “You did?”

  “Yep.” He grew solemn for a moment. “She was…uncomfortable. She kept looking around for her dad.”

  Denise’s heart sank. “I noticed Wes didn’t show up to the wedding or the reception. I’m just so worried that if he doesn’t take her away, he’s going to let her down, crush her hopes. Or worse still, that he’ll take her away from me, then leave her all alone in that big house of his with all of the expensive things he says he’ll buy for her, but no companionship, no love.”

  “We won’t let that happen.” He kissed her lightly, lifting her heart and her spirits. “I promised Destiny that I would take care of you, that I would make you happy. I promised to take care of her and your mom too.”

  “You did?” Her heart felt as though it might fly right up out of her chest.

  “Absolutely. And I mean it.” His ever-present smile turned downright wicked. “I can think of a couple ways I could make you happy right now.”

  Giddy tingles broke out all along Denise’s skin and in places she’d been trying hard not to think about. She felt herself blush hot and glanced down. “Hero, I have a confession to make.”

  “It’s okay.” He hugged her tighter, kissing her lightly. “I don’t care how many guys you’ve dated, or whatever it was Destiny was trying to say the other day.”

  “That’s just it.” Slowly, painfully, she forced herself to look up at him. Her face burned even hotter. “I’ve gone out on a lot of first dates in the last fifteen years, but…” She swallowed, licked her lips, wished there was an easier way to say what she had to say.

  “But?” he prompted.

  “But I’ve only ever slept with one guy. Ever.” She shouldn’t feel so embarrassed about that, but she did.

  “We
s?”

  Denise nodded. “And…” Why was this so hard? “And we actually only did it that one time, when Destiny was conceived.”

  Hero’s dark brows flew up. “You’ve only ever had sex one time, and you ended up pregnant?”

  She nodded, glancing down, caught between feeling like a skank and a total dork.

  To her surprise, Hero slipped a hand under her chin and tilted it up, bringing her eyes up to meet his. He was smiling. She shouldn’t have been surprised, but she was.

  “That’s kind of sweet, actually,” he said.

  She blinked, not sure she’d heard him right. “It’s sweet that I’ve only had sex once, fifteen years ago, and that I got talked into it that time?”

  His smile sank to a frown. “Did he force you into it?”

  She shrugged and squirmed. “No, not really. I don’t know if it’s the same for guys, but I’d been dating Wes for a couple of months, and it’s all I could talk about with my girlfriends. It was such a big deal—when we were going to do it, where we were going to do it, what the first time would be like. If you’re part of a certain crowd in high school, that sort of thing is a big deal for your social life.”

  “I’m not sure how I feel about that.” His frown deepened.

  “I’m not sure now either.” She shrugged, which made her more aware of his arms around her. She liked that they were there, took strength from them. “Anyhow, we did it. In his car. And then he stopped calling or asking me out as much. Once I found out I was pregnant and told him, he dumped me like a load of trash.” She sighed. “I suppose I was trash.”

  “No.” He was so firm that she tensed. He was quick to soothe that jolt of tension away by rubbing her back, kissing her lips. “You were not, you are not trash. You’re treasure. You’re my treasure, and I’m so lucky I found you.”

  This time when he kissed her, he kissed her deeply. And it was the most wonderful sensation she’d ever experienced. It wasn’t just about poking tongues or tonsil-hockey, the way her long-ago kisses with Wes had been. His mouth explored hers, his heat matching her heat. The press of his body against hers sent swirling sensations through her. It made her feel like she wanted, no, needed something. A sound between a sigh and a hum spilled out of her, and she slipped her hands under his jacket to feel the firm heat of his body.

  And he had a great body. The muscles that met her touch were solid and well-defined. It wasn’t the kind of thing you could see through clothes, since he was so proportionately built, but her new husband was some sort of a god. All of a sudden, the only thing she wanted was to see him naked. She even reached around and started unbuttoning his jacket and shirt, she wanted it so badly.

  Of course, Hero laughed. “I guess fifteen years is a long time.”

  She laughed with him, sheepish about her own desire, but not enough to slow down. She continued unbuttoning his clothes and pushing them aside as she said, “It’s a heck of a long time.”

  The mood switched. Every bit of passion and desire was still there, but along with it was a playful excitement. Hero seemed as eager to get naked as she was to undress him. He shrugged out of his jacket and shirt, leaving them where they fell on the floor. At the same time, he reached around for the zipper at the back of her dress. Denise turned to give him better access, shimmying restlessly as her dress came loose and slithered to the floor. He popped her bra while her back was turned, so when she twisted to face him again, he got an eyeful of her girls.

  “Is it okay if I touch them?” His eyes held fire, and there was a distinct tent in his trousers.

  “Oh yeah!” She might not have done the full deed in fifteen years, but if she really liked a guy, she wasn’t above letting him play around, mostly because she liked the feeling of being touched like that.

  Hero moved in with both hands, and Denise gasped as he cupped her breasts. She wasn’t one of those demure teacup girls, but Hero had decent-sized hands that felt fantastic stroking and squeezing her. Her nipples were tight in no time, and when he pinched them gently, she shivered.

  “That feels so, so good,” she sighed.

  “I bet we can do some stuff that feels even better,” he said, the honey in his voice even warmer.

  His hands dropped across her stomach to her waist, hooking under the band of her panties and pushing them down. As soon as they were far enough down to fall the rest of the way to the floor, he leaned in and slipped his hand between her legs. That felt so good that she yelped and shivered even harder.

  “I can stop if that’s too much,” he said.

  “No way,” she mewled, wriggling against him. “That’s just right.”

  It was more than just right. He knew exactly where to touch her, exactly how to rub. In no time flat, she felt hot and liquid, and her knees threatened to give out. She figured the only way to survive the delicious onslaught of sensation was to give as good as she got. She reached for the waistband of his trousers, flicking the button open and sliding the zipper down. It was easy as pie to go even further, slipping her hand in to run along his length.

  He let out the most amazing, carnal sound she’d ever heard, closing his eyes as he enjoyed what she was doing. But only for a moment.

  “Okay, I think we’d better move this to the bed or we’re going to be done before we get started.”

  She laughed and nodded, and they retreated across the room, losing the rest of their clothes as they did. The sheets were crisp and cold as they slid into the rose petal-strewn bed on either side, then met in the middle. It felt so good to slide her body along his that she sighed for joy.

  “Now this is what I’m talking about,” he growled, rolling her to her back and covering her with his own body. His hands explored her eagerly. “None of this pokey, stick figure nonsense. I like a woman who has plenty for me to enjoy.”

  “Really?” she squeaked, wriggling under him and doing some exploring of her own. Even the muscles in his back were awesome.

  “Absolutely,” he said.

  “And here I was about to apologize for being so fat.”

  “You’re not fat,” he insisted, kissing her neck and nibbling his way even lower. “You’re ample. And ample is always a good thing.”

  Old habits told her she should argue with him, but the way he caressed every inch of her flesh and kissed his way down to her breasts shut that argument down before it could start. He had to mean what he said. The way he squeezed and stroked and rubbed her in all the right spots was too raw and honest for him to be lying to make her feel better. He especially seemed to like her chunky thighs, which he shocked her by shifting down to kiss and nibble.

  She was certain he was going to go straight for the gold and bring that kissing right up between her legs, but at the last minute, when she was quivering with need and wanted nothing more than to be one with him, he adjusted to slide over top of her again, the things that really mattered right where she wanted them.

  “You’re too much for me,” he panted. “We’ll have to save some things for later, because I don’t think I can—”

  She stopped his protest by reaching for his head and pulling him down for a searing kiss. They both groaned at how good that felt, but it wasn’t enough. She wanted more, he wanted more, and there was nothing to stop them from getting what they wanted.

  With careful control, he pressed forward, sinking himself inside of her. Denise let out a long moan of satisfaction as he filled her. It felt so full and so right that she forgot to be afraid that after so long it would hurt. It absolutely did not hurt. Exactly the opposite. As he started to move inside of her, electric sensations of pleasure raced through her, growing hotter and hotter until her body burst into shimmering waves of perfection. She closed her arms around him, wanting it to go on forever.

  The best was still to come. Before her orgasm completely faded, Hero tensed and thrust into her with almost uncontrolled tension. He let out a heavy breath as he came, then gradually his thrusts began to slow. They were both left hot and sweaty, their
bodies rubbery with spent passion, as they rolled to the side and flopped apart.

  “Wow,” Hero panted. “That was amazing.”

  “Wow,” she repeated. It was all she could say. She’d never imagined anything could be so good, and she wasn’t even talking about the sex. Unbelievable as it was, she was completely in love.

  6

  Denise woke up the next morning with a start. It took her a minute to remember where she was and why. Even that was a total shock.

  “Oh my gosh, I’m married!” she gasped, staring up at the ceiling in disbelief.

  Slowly, everything that had happened and everything that it meant washed over her, leaving her smiling and giddy. She turned to her side to watch Hero as he slept. How on earth had she gotten so lucky? Hero had a fantastic body and knew how to use it. What they’d experienced last night put that fateful evening in Wes’s back seat, when Destiny was conceived, to shame. He’d made her feel fantastic, and not at all self-conscious. Not only had she let go of her worry over what he’d think of the extra weight she’d put on, her stretch marks, and complete lack of experience, she’d let go of her inhibitions and loved him back the way he’d loved her.

  She sighed happily. Maybe a little too loud. Hero stirred and blinked himself awake. He turned to his side facing her, and for a few seconds the two of them just smiled at each other.

  “Good morning, beautiful,” he said at last, his voice gruff with sleep.

  “Good morning,” she replied, feeling way shyer than she should.

  He reached out and stroked the side of her face. “You look cute with your hair all spiky like that.”

  Suddenly anxious, Denise reached up and touched her short hair. With all the hairspray from yesterday, if must look terrible. But Hero liked it?

  “I’m so scared that I’m not good enough for you,” she blurted, eyes wide.

  “Don’t be.” He reached for her, nestling her flush against him. “You’re more than good enough for me. You’re perfect.”

  It felt uncommonly good to be wrapped in his embrace. It felt great to have him say such wonderful, kind words to her. She certainly hadn’t done anything in her life so far to deserve a man as wonderful as Hero. It must mean that he was there to reward her for making efforts to be a better person.