Modern Fairy Tale: Twelve Books of Breathtaking Romance

by Kristen Proby

  Embry’s hand brushes up against my stocking-covered ankle and I gasp.

  “What is it, princess?” Ash asks in a low voice.

  “Embry…I mean, Ash, I—” I can’t find the words just then, because Embry’s hand slides up my calf and everything stops. My thoughts, my feelings, my guilt—my world shrinks to Ash’s voice on the phone and the fingers moving past my knee and Embry’s face, so controlled. But lust and anger and determination are fissuring across that control, and I can see his wide pupils and the pulse pounding in his neck and the trembling of his lips.

  What is happening? I think distantly to myself. What am I letting happen…and all while I’m on the phone with my soon-to-be husband?

  And then the world slams back into motion, and I make a strangled noise, stumbling backwards, away from Embry. He starts to stand and come toward me, and I hold out one of my hands, moving backwards until my back is pressed against the floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the skyline.

  Embry looks down at my shaking hand and then back up to me, those fissures in his control now full-on fractures, and he says, “Greer…”

  “Don’t test me,” I whisper, not sure if I’m whispering to the groom or the best man. “Don’t test me like this.”

  Ash’s voice comes into my ear. “Relax, Greer. I want to give you this. I want to give you something you want…something you deserve.”

  This isn’t happening. I missed a connection somewhere, misunderstood something vital, because there is no way, no fucking way, that Ash is offering his best friend to me as some sort of wedding present, not when we agreed that Embry was off-limits until we figured everything out. This is my wishful thinking turned toxic, this is my darkest fantasies turning into delusion—

  “I want you to let Embry give you my gift,” Ash tells me. “While I listen. That’s what you’ll give me in exchange: every single moan, pant and cry will be for me.”

  “You can’t be saying what I think you’re saying,” I say. “We agreed…you know what we agreed to. This isn’t it!”

  “I know, but I can’t wait any longer,” Ash says with a growl. “Today is hard enough without denying ourselves.”

  “But what about you—”

  “Oh, don’t worry, angel. I’ll have something out of this for me too.”

  I hear the dark roughness in his voice and I realize I’m so very, very wet.

  As if he knows, Ash asks, “Are you wet right now? Are you wet from Embry reaching under your dress?”

  I lick my lips. I can’t lie—Ash would know. But how can I admit the truth? Yes, I am wet. Yes, I want Embry’s mouth on me. Yes, yes, yes to all of it.

  “Close your eyes,” Ash orders.

  I do, my panting somehow louder in my head when I can’t see anything. The glass window against my back is cool and strong, just like Ash’s words in my ear.

  “I know you’re wet. I know it like I know Embry is hard right now, just from the mere thought of touching you. You want it, don’t you? You want it so much that you’re shaking with the effort it’s taking to hold yourself back.”

  I feel the hem of my skirt lift again. Embry is back in front of me, but this time I don’t try to move away. I keep my eyes shut, wishing I had the strength to open them and tell Embry to stop. The strength to flee temptation.

  “Answer me,” Ash demands. “Are you wet right now? Do you want it?”

  “Yes.” The word comes out strangled and hopeless.

  “I knew you did,” Ash says. “I knew you wanted it. Spread your legs, sweetheart, and let Embry make you feel good.”

  “But I don’t want to hurt you.” It’s my final plea, my final argument, my final grasp at some semblance of sanity. My skirts are almost up at my waist now, and I know the moment Embry catches sight of my delicate, hand-embroidered French panties because he takes in a sharp breath, as if punched in the gut.

  “It all hurts,” Ash says. “It hurts watching you two watching each other. It hurts watching him with other people. It hurts knowing that I’ve asked him to walk down the aisle to me twice and he’s refused me both times. There’s no part about this that doesn’t hurt, but what’s the alternative? Living without the pain means living without each other.”

  My eyelids burn with unshed tears, and it takes all my willpower to keep them from falling.

  “At least this way,” Ash says, “I can have some control over it. At least this way, I can make it feel good just as much as it hurts.”

  You’re breaking my heart, I want to say, but that’s a lie, because my heart is already broken. Instead, I just say, “I can’t bear to hurt you any more than you already are, please. Please don’t do this.”

  “No.” The word is final. “I want this. God, Greer, I’m so fucking hard right now, it hurts. If I were there—” He stops and I hear one long sigh. “Tonight,” he says instead of finishing his thought. “Tonight.”

  It is a promise. A gift and a curse, because tonight when my cravings are relieved by Ash, it will be in our wedding bed, and Embry will be somewhere else, alone.

  Or worse, not alone.

  My chest tightens with unreasonable jealousy at the thought.

  Embry transfers the heavy material of my skirt to one strong hand, and then I feel his other hand run up the inside of my thigh.

  I let out a soft whimper. My skin cries out for Embry, just as the rest of me cries out for Ash. What I wouldn’t give to have Ash here, ready to take all my pent-up lust and mold it into something that won’t kill me with guilt.

  Because I will die with guilt.

  But somehow it doesn’t stop me from squirming with want as Embry’s hand runs up my other thigh. And then it happens. With one deliberate, grazing touch, Embry’s fingertips skate across the lace covering my folds, and I gasp. Embry looks up at me with hooded eyes, and I stare back.

  “I can smell you,” he says, his voice cracking a little at the end. “It smells so good.”

  I shiver. A thousand voices, a choir of warnings, seem to sing in my mind. Stop this. Stop this. Stop this.

  But his words, the way his voice roughened, as if being able to smell my need is the one thing that can break him…

  I don’t stop him. In fact, I reach down and gather my skirt into my arms so that Embry’s hands can be free, something he immediately takes advantage of by sliding his palms to my ass and squeezing. The groan he lets out when he does goes straight to my clit.

  His fingers once again graze over my folds, tickling the lace, and it feels as if everything has become electric. The air, his skin, my skin, everything hums with insatiable need.

  Embry leans forward so that the only thing I can see below the heavy bunches of fabric is his light brown hair, and then he kisses the tops of my thighs, lingering soft kisses that trace the lines of my stockings and the clips of my garter belts. I’m already panting by the time his lips brush against my mound.

  “Oh my God,” I breathe. “Oh my God.”

  “Tell me what’s happening,” Ash demands. “Tell me everything.”

  “I shouldn’t be doing this,” I mumble, “I have to stop.”

  “Don’t you fucking dare,” Ash says.

  “Ash…”

  This time, Embry doesn’t stop after hearing my hesitation. He keeps going, kissing the line of my panties, kissing along the swirling lace patterns, nuzzling into me. The nuzzles turn aggressive, rough and hard, punctuated with sharp nips at my flesh through the lace. Each bite pulls a noise out of me, and each noise pulls an intake of breath from Ash.

  “Tell me, Greer.” It’s a command that doesn’t brook argument.

  “I—he’s biting and kissing me through my panties.” I should stop him. I should push him away. We will all regret this after it’s over, me most of all.

  And I even get as far as putting my hand on Embry’s head, thinking I would push his mouth away from me, but right at that moment, he licks me right through the lace and I practically dissolve. My fingers instead wind into his thick hair
and tug sharply, making Embry groan so loudly that Ash can hear it.

  “Fuck,” Ash breathes, hearing Embry’s noise. “What’s happening now?”

  “He’s licking me,” I say, “he’s licking me through the lace. His mouth is so warm and oh—”

  My fingers tighten in his hair as Embry begins sucking my clit through the lace. I squirm against him, holding his mouth fast to where I want it, feeling the licking flames deep in my core.

  “He’s sucking my clit now,” I say, barely recognizing my own voice. Who am I, so brazenly telling my future husband about what his best friend is doing under my wedding dress? Who is this woman who leaned against a window and opened her legs for this? But I’m too far over the edge now, too wet, too sensitive, too sinful to let this end. Regret seems like a distant thing on the horizon, fuzzy and irrelevant, and with every lap of his tongue and kiss of his lips, Embry wipes the guilt from my body.

  And then his deft fingers are at the clasps of my garters, easily unhooking them, and memories of another night, years and years ago, surfaces in my mind.

  And like that night, Embry looks up at me as he pulls my underwear to the side, exposing my wet, pink cunt.

  “I need,” he says quietly to me, and the déja vu hits me so hard that my knees almost buckle, because of course that’s what he said to me the night he took my virginity too. And the way his eyes blaze, the way he slowly licks his lower lip tells me that he remembers exactly what he said that night too.

  That he hasn’t forgotten.

  “He’s pulled aside my panties now,” I tell Ash. “He’s looking at me there.”

  Not just looking. Looking. Devouring with his eyes. Making plans, marking possession with his stare, as if by memorizing every curve and glistening fold of my pussy, he can claim ownership somehow. This is the male gaze that academics always talk about, this is what they meant. Because in this moment, I feel objectified, branded, almost dehumanized.

  Fuck if it doesn’t make me wetter than ever.

  “He’s taking off my panties now,” I say, the soft scrape of the lace on my thighs almost more than I can bear. And then Embry helps me step free of them, afterwards putting one warm hand on each thigh and parting my legs so that I stand in a wider stance.

  Embry groans at the sight of my exposed pussy.

  “He’s looking at me again. He can see that I’m all the way bare. And I’m so wet, Ash. Do you remember the time I rode your thigh in front of him?”

  “God, yes,” Ash says, and I think I can hear the rustle of fabric, as if he were parting the fly of his tuxedo pants to palm his cock.

  “I’m wet like that. Oh. Oh God.”

  “Tell me, princess.”

  “He…” I swallow, my fingers finding Embry’s hair once more. “He put his finger inside me. And another one. They’re sliding in so easy, Ash, I’m so wet, but I’m swollen and it’s so tight.”

  Ash rumbles in response, and I hear more movement, the sound of skin moving over skin. The mental vision of Ash rubbing himself to my narration of being finger-fucked by his best friend makes the flames at my core lick higher and higher.

  Embry curls his fingers, pressing against the sensitive nerve endings clustered near the front and I moan. He leans forward and sucks my clit into his mouth again, this time without the barrier of the lace, and the hot, wet contact is almost shocking in its intensity.

  “Sling your leg over his shoulder,” Ash tells me. “And push his face against your cunt. Grind into his mouth.”

  I do as he commands, and the moment I begin fucking myself against Embry’s mouth, his control shears away. One hand grips my ass, his fingers digging into my flesh, while the other hand continues to fuck me mercilessly. And his mouth…

  “It’s like he’s starving,” I breathe into the phone, watching his head move below my skirts. “Like he’s trying to eat me alive. His fingers are so deep in me, so fucking deep. I can feel them in my belly.”

  “God, I wish I were there,” Ash growl. “I’d watch you come while he shoved his fingers in you. I’d make him kiss you while his mouth still tasted like your cunt. And then I’d make you kiss me.”

  Ash’s words are like curtains catching fire, sending the clenching burn of my cunt streaking upwards towards my chest. I’m going to orgasm, I know it, but I won’t be able to stand, my knees are about to buckle as it is, and as if Embry can sense this, I’m all of a sudden being tugged down by my waist. Tugged down to the floor as he lies back, and then his fingers are digging into my hips, planting my pussy firmly over his mouth. I’m straddling him, riding his face, and the minute his tongue slides into my hole, I know it’ll be mere moments before I lose it.

  “Embry pulled me down to the floor,” I manage to say into the phone. “I’m riding his face, my knees are on either side of his head. His hands are groping my ass.”

  Ash’s voice sounds scraped and scratched, as if he can barely talk. I imagine his massive hand moving up and down on his long, thick erection as he speaks. “You’re going to come this way, aren’t you? Like a queen, riding what’s yours. Fuck his face hard, baby, that’s what he wants. He’ll have your smell and taste still on his lips when he watches you put my ring on your finger. He’ll remember the feeling of your thighs cradling his jaw when he watches us dance our first dance at the reception.”

  “Jesus,” I half moan, half pray, burning up from the inside. I happen to look up right at that moment and catch our reflection in the floor-length mirror on the wall. Me, flushed and panting, necklace and tiara flashing in the light, kneeling in a cloud of white silk and tulle. The fabric almost completely hides the strong, tall male beneath me, except the wandering hands that are now roaming up to my corseted breasts to squeeze and grab. The bride riding the best man’s face. The groom, alone as he rubs himself listening.

  The fairy tale, gone up in flames.

  I am gone up in flames too. There’s nothing left but a burning silhouette of need, and I forget everything but the hot mouth I’m fucking and the thick breaths of my fiancé at my ear, peppered with his murmured commands—ride him hard and grind, sweetie, grind till it feels good and push your clit in, make him suck it.

  Heat crackles, flames rise, buildings and civilizations collapse into blistering beds of coals as at last release snaps free from my womb.

  “I’m—” I can’t finish, can’t speak, can’t breathe, contractions so fierce they make my eyes water centering in my pussy.

  “I know, angel,” Ash rasps. “You don’t have to tell me.”

  And then everything explodes outwards. The contractions multiply, the walls of my cunt pulse, my clit throbs against Embry’s tongue. I cry out and cry out again because it feels like a living thing has a hold of me, puncturing me in the best ways, sending tingling heat to the roots of my hair and the tips of my toes. My cries slowly turn into whimpers, and beneath me, Embry’s mouth goes from ravenous to tender, gently sucking and kissing my pussy.

  “My cock wants you,” Ash says raggedly. “It’s getting thick now. Dark and shiny. It wants to be in that wet pussy, but I can’t have it right now. So I’m using one of your silk blouses to jack myself off with.”

  I moan at his words, aftershocks still traveling through me.

  “I’m going to come,” he tells me, “and when I do, I’m going to pretend I’m standing over you right now, while you look all messy and flushed and ashamed. I’m going to pretend you’re looking at me with those big, gray eyes, looking guilty and scared, as I shove my cock down your throat. I’m going to pretend that you’re licking me clean after I come.”

  “Oh God,” I whisper. The image sends my cunt fluttering again, a second, milder climax now chasing through me as I imagine Ash, his tall frame looming over me, his face implacable and angry as he fucks my mouth. As he punishes me for accepting his own gift.

  And maybe that’s the most fucked-up part of all, that I find that follow-up scenario just as arousing as what just happened.

  Ash grunts, an unash
amed, male sound, and I know he’s coming right now. Know long spurts of cum are erupting into the soft silk of my blouse, probably ruining it, but I don’t care. The mental image of him defiling my clothes, all because he’s so aroused by listening to Embry and me, is worth it.

  A thousand times worth it.

  But as his breathing returns to normal, as my orgasm subsides but I still allow Embry to kiss my cunt, I look up in the mirror at myself and panic.

  What the hell will happen next? What will happen to the wedding and marriage that the press has already dubbed the second Camelot? Ash calls me his princess, and maybe I looked like one before I let the best man under my skirt, but this is no fairy tale.

  Or if it is, it’s the most fucked-up fairy tale I’ve ever heard of.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  The Wedding Day

  Love endures all things.

  I marry Ash with Embry’s bite marks on my thighs, and Ash marries me with his bite marks on Embry’s neck. There’s something kind of beautiful about that, I think dazedly as the priest recites our wedding mass. Something kind of beautiful and fucked up. Who needs a ring when you have bite marks? Who needs vows when you’ve literally bled for one another?

  Then there comes the moment where the priest asks for Embry to furnish the ring—my ring—the one that will mark me as Ash’s wife and bind me to him for the rest of my life, and my tears threaten to return. I’m not sad, I’m not afraid or overjoyed or angry or guilty or excited or jealous or suspicious, it’s that I’m all of them. Every single feeling, all at once, a carnival of flashing thoughts and emotional noise inside my head. And that it has to be Embry to hand Ash that dainty platinum band…

  Embry pats his pockets dramatically, and the crowd ripples with laughter at the “best man lost the ring” gag. Father Jordan Brady—a handsome young blond with that unmistakable Christian hipster vibe—is too polite to roll his eyes, but I sense he goes somewhere deep inside himself to escape the threadbare frivolity of the old joke.

  Embry finally removes the ring from his pocket and starts to hand it to Ash. And instead of holding out his palm to take it, Ash turns to Embry and slowly uncurls Embry’s fingers from the ring. To everyone else, it looks like Ash is simply being careful with the small piece of jewelry, but I see both the promise and the apology in the gentle way Ash touches Embry’s skin. What does it feel like to take a ring from a man who refused yours? And for Embry, what does it feel like to still be in love with a man you couldn’t bring yourself to marry?