“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, aft
ershocks 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 unashamed, 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.
28
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?
Despite the circus of whirling questions and emotions, the moment Ash takes my hand, I feel everything go quiet and slow and right. His hand is warm and certain around my own, his fingers sure and careful as he slides the ring onto my finger, and when I look up to his eyes, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that he will do everything in his considerable power to keep me safe and loved.
And I know with the same certainty that I will do the same for him.
We exchange vows, we take communion, we sing the hymns and chant the chants. And at the end, when Ash lifts my veil and kisses me firmly on the lips, I feel the faintest flickering of the one emotion I haven’t been able to muster yet today:
Hope.
“Congratulations.”
Ash and I look up from the bridal table to see Embry in front of us. He’s already given his speech, but there’s still cake and dancing to be had in the massive reception pavilion. It’s set high up in the river bluffs, overlooking the dun ribbon of water below, and less than a mile off, the skyline twinkles merrily. All around us are nearly seven hundred guests laughing and eating and drinking while the press hovers nearby like moths near light.
But Embry looks pale. Tired. He’s still in his tuxedo jacket, even though Ash has long since ditched his, and I can tell that he hasn’t had anything to eat or drink.
“Embry,” Ash says warmly. “Pull up a chair and eat with us.”
“Actually, I think I’m going to head back to the hotel,” Embry says, not looking at either of us. “I’m not feeling well. A bug, I think.”
“Stay,” I say, reaching for his hand. “Please. Drink with us. Dance with us.”
He glances at me and then at Ash, at us together at the bridal table with our rings glinting in the twinkling lights. “I can’t. Congratulations, again. I wish you both all the happiness in the world.”
And with those hollow words, he leaves.
I stand up, about to chase after him, but Ash takes my hand and stops me. “Greer. The press.”
“Fuck the press,” I grumble, but I allow him to tug me back down to my chair anyway.
“And besides,” Ash continues, “it would be cruel to ask him to stay and endure his pain so publicly.”
Love endures all things. The Bible verse from the church floats into my mind. But perhaps love shouldn’t have to endure all things. Perhaps it would be cruel to make Embry stay.
“Angel,” Ash says, taking both my hands into his. His fingers find my ring, and I smile at the possessive way he rubs it with his fingertips. “Wife. What’s your safe word?”
“Am I going to be belted in order to earn my slice of cake?”
A small smile but he doesn’t take the bait. “Say it so I know that you have it close. That you know it’s yours to use for any limit. Any limit.”
I look down to where his fingers are playing with my ring. “Maxen.”
“Good.” He leans down to kiss the ring, letting his lips linger at the junction of metal and flesh. “Tonight’s our wedding night, Greer.”
“I know,” I sigh. “Can’t we just leave these people and start it now?”
He hesitates, his lips still on my hand.
“What is it? Were you planning on doing something extreme tonight? I’ll try it. You know I’ll try anything you ask me to.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of. You have to agree to this because you want it, not just because you think I want it.”
He straightens and takes a deep breath. “I want Embry to join us tonight.”
I don’t answer. I can’t answer, actually, because I’ve forgotten how to breathe.
“Today was perfect,” he says in a low voice. “Listening to you on the phone while he touched you was…electrifying. And marrying you, Greer, saying those words to you was the happiest moment of my life. Today feels like magic—tonight feels like magic—and I want more of it. I want us, all three of us, to feel it together. If today was about the two of us making vows, then tonight should be about the three of us taking the next step together.”
I finally find my voice. It’s dry, threatening to crack. “And what’s the next step?”
“I don’t know,” he says, giving me a smile so beautiful it breaks my heart. “But I’m ready to find out.”
The evening passes in a blur. We dance, my grandfather cries, Abilene flirts. There are too many senators and heads of state and businesspeople and celebrities to keep straight, and it’s impossible to keep track of time or the number of people who wish us congratulations. When I glance at Ash’s watch, I’m shocked to see it’s past eleven p.m.
“It’s late,” I say to Ash, squeezing his hand.
He squeezes back. “I’m having a hard time being pati
ent too. Just a little while longer, angel.”
I don’t want to wait any while longer, little or not, and I can’t shake the strange fear that Embry isn’t alone right now. That he found someone to spend the night with, some other warm body to bury his pain in, not knowing that Ash and I are here feeling desperate for him. Not knowing that we’re going to find him.
When I mention this fear to Ash, he nods like the thought hurts him too, but then says, “Would you blame him for that?”
“It makes my blood boil.”
“Mine too. But then we could go back to our room and fuck until we felt better. Don’t you think he deserves the same thing?”
“He said something similar to me in Geneva.”
“And?”
I lift my chin. “Just because it’s fair doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
“I don’t know what there is to like about any of this sometimes. That doesn’t mean it’s not necessary.”
Eight months ago, my only necessary things were bourbon and research. When did my life get so complicated?
Finally, Ash waves Belvedere over, who passes word to the wedding planner that we’re ready to leave. The party is still in full swing, the band having packed up and a DJ having come in, and any other time, I would have wanted to stay. But tonight, Ash’s bed waits for me.
And maybe Embry will be in that bed too.
Ash and I hold hands and leave the pavilion as people line up and wave sparklers, glittering fire spitting and dancing around us, hissing down into the soft green grass below. We wave, kisses are blown, and then we’re packed into the Beast, the black Cadillac designed specifically for the President.
My dress surrounds us in clouds of silk and tulle, and Ash is laughing as we try to smash it down so Luc can close the door. The door closes and then I’m being dragged into Ash’s lap, tulle and all, and we’re surrounded by walls of wedding dress.
“We’re supposed to wave goodbye through the window,” I whisper, although I like the sudden, if ridiculous, privacy we have right now.
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