In harmony, Sonia heard Mabel and Kerry emit lustful sighs.
“What’s happening here?” Ryon asked.
Sonia began to look around Callum but his other hand came to her neck and he recaptured her attention with his thumb at her jaw, tilting her face back to his.
Then he bent his head and touched her lips.
The pulse strengthened between her legs as her belly dipped but her brain reminded her that this was all show.
Just a show.
“We’re having champagne to celebrate Callum and Sonia’s weekend elopement,” Regan replied and Sonia watched Callum’s eyebrows go up.
“We eloped?” he asked in a low voice only she could hear.
“Apparently,” Sonia whispered back.
He grinned.
Sonia stared at his mouth.
He started chuckling.
She mentally shook herself and pulled against his arm.
Callum allowed this but only so far as turning away from her front and tucking her into his side.
“Then Ryon and I are just in time,” Callum announced to the group.
Kerry and Mabel were staring at him with wide eyes.
Then Mabel breathed, “You’re not hot. You’re dreamy.”
Everyone chuckled except Sonia, Mabel and Kerry. Mabel and Kerry because they were still entranced with all that was Callum. Sonia because she didn’t think anything was humorous.
“Do you play basketball?” Kerry blurted.
“No,” Callum answered.
“You’re flipping tall,” Kerry blurted again.
“Yes,” Callum agreed with a thread of amusement in his deep voice.
Sonia had to do something about this. This could go on all day.
So she said, “Kerry, Mabel, quit drooling and meet my husband. Callum, these are my girls, Kerry and Mabel.” She indicated each in turn. “Girls, this is my new husband, Callum.” She gestured to Callum.
Callum’s fingers curled around her shoulder flexed almost convulsively and definitely fiercely each time Sonia said the word “husband”. Sonia thought that was a bit overkill considering no one but Sonia could feel his fingers on her shoulder.
“Ladies,” Callum greeted.
Mabel tore her eyes from Callum and looked at Sonia.
“I can see why you hid him, Sonny,” she observed. “I would hide him too. Good call, keeping him to yourself until you got the ball and chain on that leg.”
There was more laughter even though no one, but Sonia, knew the proverbial ball and chain was worn by the wife this time. Then they heard a champagne cork pop.
Everyone looked to Ryon who’d done the deed.
“Let’s stop talking and celebrate,” he declared on a boom.
“Yee ha!” Kerry shouted.
Plastic glasses were passed around, even to the five customers browsing the shop. When everyone (including the customers) had a glass and were gathered close, they all turned to Callum and Sonia.
“To the newlyweds!” Mabel cried, lifting her glass.
Everyone but Callum and Sonia followed suit and shouted in gleeful harmony, “To the newlyweds!”
Sonia wished she could disappear.
Instead, she smiled.
Callum, on the other hand, much better at playing his part in this travesty, took her chin in his fingers, gently tipped her head back and he kissed her.
It was soft and sweet but it was also long.
Long enough for laughter and catcalls to ring out and long enough for it to build from soft and sweet to something else. Something that required Callum to drop his fingers from her chin, slant his head and drag her into his arms.
She was regretfully in a daze when his mouth broke from hers and his head moved, his temple sliding against her hair.
His lips at her ear, he murmured, “To the newlyweds.”
Then his arms gave her an affectionate squeeze.
The hoots, laughter and giggles surrounding her penetrated her daze and Sonia closed her eyes against the pain in her heart.
Then in Callum’s ear, she whispered, “To the newlyweds.”
* * * * *
Sonia sat on her bed and massaged lotion into her feet, absently listening to the voices of Callum and his men downstairs.
She was running through her day in her mind in an effort to control the panic and, if she was honest (which she was not), the expectation of what the night might bring.
While the champagne celebration went on at Clear, Callum had explained that he’d arrived because he, too, was curious about her shop.
But also, he explained, because he disliked being parted from her.
She’d been gone less than an hour and he claimed he disliked being parted from her.
Really.
He said this after he’d firmly detached them from the group in a way that appeared he wished for them to have a moment to their newlywed selves. They were far enough away so no one could overhear which meant, to Sonia’s way of thinking, without an audience, he said it with no purpose at all.