Free Sweet as Honey (The Seven Sisters) by Caitlyn Robertson Page A

head back, closing his eyes. His heart pounded,
but he forced himself to calm down, to keep his cool.
    Yes, he’d made a grave mistake. But it
could have been worse. He hadn’t taken her off to a motel and fucked her. It
had only been a kiss, less than five seconds of their lips touching, hardly
enough to bring an engagement to an end.
    You think that matters? His brain screamed at him. You think Honey would understand if
she found out? Would you understand, if you saw her kissing Ian
Mc-Fucking-Idiot? Of course he wouldn’t—he would be terribly, irrevocably
hurt. He would think she still loved her ex, and that she couldn’t possibly
love him, Dex, to have betrayed him so badly.
    He just had to hope she didn’t find out.
There was no guarantee he’d been seen by anyone he knew. The kiss had been brief after all, and even if someone had seen them in the café talking,
that wasn’t a crime—he often met up with friends and colleagues for a drink.
    His mouth felt sour, and his head ached. Despair
and doubt swirled around him. Cathryn had touched a nerve—she’d hit on his
deepest innermost fear—that Honey had seemingly coped fine being single for a
long time, and maybe her ex had been right and she wasn’t interested in sex.
He’d tried to fight it—she always reacted well enough to his kisses, but the
worry had eaten away at his brain like a maggot in an apple. How would he cope
if she didn’t like sex, or only wanted it once a month? With the lights off, in
the missionary position? If he asked her to do something and it disgusted her?
He’d planned to let her dictate the pace at which they explored their sex life,
only suggesting one thing at a time, taking it carefully to make sure he didn’t
overstep the mark. But he didn’t think he could bear it if he frightened or
hurt her, and he worried that she’d go along with something she didn’t want to
do just to please him.
    Cathryn had reminded him how suited they’d
been sexually. They’d got up to all sorts of things he’d never have dreamed of
before he met her, although he knew she’d never understood that even though
they’d been good in bed together, after sex with her he’d always felt tainted.
She would never understand how much he loved being with Honey because of the
way she made him feel—clean and unsullied, renewed.
    But the fact was that he hadn’t
changed—deep down he was still the same man with the same faults, even though
he tried to hide them. He’d been stupid and briefly given in to his libido,
which wasn’t hugely surprising considering how long it had been since he’d had
sex—it didn’t make it okay by any means, but it was understandable.
    And then shame swept over him and he sank
his head into his hands, clutching his hair. Understandable? He was the pits,
the worst kind of man that ever existed. He didn’t deserve Honey Summers, who was
an angel on earth, who’d been treated badly herself and who needed a good man
to look after her, someone who wouldn’t hurt her.
    He wasn’t that man. He’d kidded himself he
could change, but he was an old dog and that was a decidedly new trick. At that
moment, Dex hated himself. And he wished he’d never been born.
     
     

Chapter Ten
    “You’ve been so long in that bath I’m
surprised you haven’t turned into a prune.”
    Honey looked over her shoulder to see Cam
walking toward the deck, coffee in hand. “Hiya.”
    “Can I join you?”
    “Of course.” She cupped her hot chocolate
in both hands and smiled at him as he sat beside her. She had indeed spent over
an hour in the bath, soaking until the water turned cool, and now she wore her
favourite pink pyjamas and soft white fluffy robe, her feet—stuffed into
matching white fluffy slippers—propped on one of the wooden garden chairs.
    He sipped his coffee, and they looked out
across the lawns to the darkening gloom of the Waitangi Forest. Although it was
nearly April and therefore officially autumn, the