The inside of the church sanctuary was just as spectacular, nearly six thousand glimmering bronze pipes rising out of the biggest pipe organ in Zurich, getting bigger slowly as Kerri and Harden stared mesmerized as they walked down the center aisle of the empty, silent sanctuary.
But the silence was brushed aside as those massive pipes spewed out a low, rumbling sound, higher and louder pitches chiming.
And the sanctuary wasn’t quite empty—an old man with gray hair and an elaborate white robe stood at the altar, silent and motionless as they approached.
Kerri’s line of sight drifted to the walls of the sanctuary, a cycle of frescos depicting the church’s founding and of Zurich’s patron saints, Regula and Felix. But Kerri didn’t feel out of place; she didn’t feel like the errant movie actress and embattled crusader hiding out in Europe. Kerri felt right at home in that ancient church, her soul humming with a celestial calm she couldn’t deny. She’d never been religious; nobody in her family had shown any interest. But in a church like that Kerri felt like a believer, like one of the faithful—a child of the Most High God.
And Kerri felt like even more than that. Her slender arm weaved under Harden’s muscular limb, bent at the elbow. She gazed up at him and he back down at her, a gentle and loving smile on his face. Kerri had never felt so at home in her own skin, as if she were in the exact right time and precisely the right place, for the first time in a long, long time. She felt safe; she felt secure.
And she couldn’t help but feel that her rare and amazing life with Harden—all the fantastic sex and adventure and glamor—had only led up to this one amazing moment in time, never to be replicated or forgotten.
As she strode down that aisle, her amazing man by her side, Kerri was more than just the luckiest woman in the world and a Hollywood survivor. At that moment Kerri was a fairy-tale princess, standing by the greatest man in all the land, in a church from the very pages of a storybook. It was as if they were walking backward in time to a place of lore, even as every step brought them closer to that altar, and to their future together.
They paused, the old bishop slowly opening a leather-bound Bible and tracing the lines with his quivering, freckled, white hand.
“Love is always patient,” the bishop read, his voice low and rumbling. “Love is always kind. Love is never envious or arrogant with pride. Nor is love conceited, and it is never rude; it never thinks just of itself or ever gets annoyed. Love never is resentful, is never glad with sin. Love is always glad to side with truth, and pleased that truth will win. Love bears up under everything, believes the best in all; there is no limit to its hope, and never will it fall.”
It’s true, Kerri thought, silently interrupting the bishop, our love has never failed, it’s the only thing in my life that hasn’t failed, that will not fail, that cannot fail! Thank you, God, or fate or destiny or just plain luck; thank you so much for bringing this man to me, for bringing me to him, for bringing us together and keeping us together forever, no matter what trials we may face.
“Love never fails. Now if there are prophecies, they will be done away with. If there are languages, they will cease. If there is knowledge, it will be done away with.”
Kerry couldn’t help but think about her old theories, her mental wanderings—all foolish and useless compared to the undeniable truth of their love. It replaced everything, undid everything, became everything.
“For what we know is incomplete and what we prophesy is incomplete. But when what is complete comes, then what is incomplete will be done away with. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, thought like a child, and reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up my childish ways. Now we see only an indistinct image in a mirror, but then we will be face to face. Now what I know is incomplete, but then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.”
Kerri and Harden looked at one another, both sharing a wordless smile that told them everything they needed to know, that each knew they were at long last complete in the presence of the other, that there was no place either would rather be than by the other’s side.
The bishop looked at Kerri, old eyes blue and glistening. “Did you want to swear an oath, my dear?”
Kerri’s mind went completely blank, lips moving, words halting. “Oh, um, well, I-I didn’t prepare anything.” She chuckled nervously, Harden reassuringly. Kerri went on, “What can I say? My whole life changed when we met, and I know it’ll never be the same again. And I know we’ll spend it together, side by side, through good times or bad, always there for one another, always…always…” Tears pushed out of Kerri’s eyes and her words trickled out to breathless silence.
The bishop turned to Harden.
Harden looked deep into Kerri’s watery eyes. “Before I met you, I thought I had everything. But it was all empty, all illusion. You are my only truth, Kerri Abernathy, and you will remain that. I think of you when I wake and I dream of you when I sleep. I am your servant, your honor guard, your knight errant, and I thank the heavens that I have that honor, that privilege, that delight. I will never be apart from you, no matter where we are or where we go, I will forever be by your side, that quiet presence to comfort you and love you, through all things and in all ways.”
The bishop said, “Have you rings?”
Harden pulled two gold rings from his jacket pocket, Kerri taking the bigger in one palm and extending the other, ring finger extended. Harden said, “I, Harden Steele, do solemnly swear to love you and cherish you and honor you, until death do us part.”
Kerri slipped his ring on his finger. “I, Kerri Abernathy, do solemnly swear to love you and cherish you and honor you, until death do us part.”
“Then by the power vested in me by the Canton of Zurich and the great nation of Switzerland, I now pronounce you man and wife. You may now kiss the bride.”
Harden leaned down, Kerri looked up, and they kissed. It was gentle, sweet, lips pressing together in a silent celebration. It was like no other kiss Kerri had ever had or ever would have—the first kiss of the rest of her life.
Chapter 12
That night their hotel room was a lusty battleground, a sexual slaughter.
Kerri’s jaw clenched as she lowered herself just a bit farther on his long, thick cock. He was just too big to take in all the way, but a year of intense lovemaking had finely tuned them both to the details of the other’s body, how far they could go and for how long, though each was always willing to push the boundaries even further.
Kerri leaned forward, her hands pressing against his muscled torso, glistening with sweat, radiating a heated musk. Up and down on that tremendous trunk, Kerri clenched her pussy down with all her strength, though her dewy lips were already stretched to the limit, wrapping themselves around his gorgeous circumference.
Kerri rode Harden like he was some kind of great wild animal, more a beast than a man. Harden’s arms were splayed out at his sides, supporting them both. His legs were bent at the knees to more easily thrust his cock up and into her, counter to her own up-and-down cycle. Kerri shook her hips as she so much loved when Harden did it, and she could read the delight in his body.
“Fuck me, Mrs. Steele, fuck me so good!”
“Yes, yes…say it again…”
“Fuck me…Mrs. Steele.”
The words rang through Kerri’s heart and soul and her other parts two, the very notion heightening her excitement on every level.
Even though Kerri was on top, she couldn’t imagine herself dominating him. It was more like she’d climbed him, mounted him like a log and was now riding him down some distant flume, speeding through the trees, cutting one way and the other, fast and dangerous, and all Kerri could really do was hold on for dear life.
When he turned, she turned; when he pushed, she rose up like a boat on a stormy sea, salty mist filling her nostrils.
Another of Kerri’s roiling orgasms was fast growing inside her. She suppressed it, using skills she’d learned from Harden, to let it swell like so
me great wet bubble inside her. The longer it took, the bigger it got, and the more resplendent it promised to be. And Harden could sense it; he could feel it.
“You’re getting ready to cum, aren’t you?”
“Yes, baby,” Kerri said, pumping faster up and down on his unbending dong. “I’m getting ready to cum, yes I am.”
“Don’t do it, Kerri, not yet.”
“I wanna do it, baby.”
“And you will, but you won’t do it yet, you hear me?”
“I hear you, baby,” she said through her panted breath, “not yet, not yet … ”
“When?”
Kerri kept pumping, a clockwise swirl sending waves of temptation through her.
“When, Kerri?”
“When you tell me,” Kerri said, eyes clamping shut, teeth gritted.
“That’s right, baby,” Harden said in a smiling growl, “that’s right.”
Harden flipped Kerri over with his usual ease and a rush of lust. Now beneath all that manly meat and muscle, Kerri threw her head back into the pillow, eyes dipping shut. “Eyes open,” Harden commanded, and Kerri did as she was told.
Harden pulled out of her engorged pussy, a slow retraction that registered over every inch of her clit and reverberated through the rest of his body. That journey seemed unending, the pressure in her abdomen receding.
But Kerri knew there would be a whole other kind of pressure, close by, but not the same. Kerri knew then why Harden wanted her to wait, to keep that orgasm at bay for as long as she could. When his huge head pierced her parched pink mound, lubed with sweat, Kerri didn’t think she’d be able to hold it off at all.
“Concentrate.” Harden said, “You control your body; your body doesn’t control you.” He very gently started dragging his dong in and out of her, her legs hanging up and over his hips, the small of her back arching to give him full access. It was just the angle that drove Kerri absolutely mad, and she was going crazy with the precision of each glorious thrust.
Kerri strained to take him in, but he never went in there too deep, once again reading her body’s need and desires with pitched perfection. It hurt just a bit, a zesty strain that made her brain rattle in her skull.
“Hold it, Kerri, hold it…”
Kerri nodded, eyes locked on Harden’s, lips pressed together.
“Are you ready?”
Kerri nodded, but she knew what he meant, and that her orgasm was a long way from bursting, and when it did, it would roll and break like thunder.
Harden said, “Ten.” He delivered easy strokes, his voice low and grainy. “It’s close, isn’t it?”
She nodded.
“It’s close, but don’t you dare do it, Kerri, don’t you dare.”
“I won’t,” she said, mouth twisting in an anguished pout.
“Good,” Harden said with a devious grin, “good. Yeah, that’s right, that’s right.” Pushing his big rod back and forth in little juts that sent waves of pleasure coursing through Kerri, Harden said only, “Nine.”
Kerri grinned, knowing the road they were about to travel together, knowing the destination and already anticipating it. That orgasm was already at the surface, but Kerri wrestled it back into her depths. She wouldn’t be able to do it much longer. But Harden had declared how it was going to be, and it was going to be that way.
“Eight,” Harden said, his strokes poking just a bit deeper and moving just a bit faster. “You think you can wait; you think you can hold it off?” She nodded, but he said, “No you don’t. You don’t think you can at all. But you’re going, Kerri, you’re going to make yourself … I’m going to make you make yourself wait.”
“I’ll wait… I’ll…” But her words were interrupted by a long, frustrated moan, filling her ears and the room and only inspiring her orgasm to greater strength and impatience.
“Good, Kerri, good.” With a sharp turn to the side, pausing to leave his cock half-buried in Kerri’s lower body. “Seven!”
“Oh God!”
“Six, Kerri,” Harden said, patience receding from his increasingly loud volume and masterful tone. “That’s right, baby, sweet and sexy six.”
Kerri gasped as Harden leaned forward, pushing Kerri’s hips up to give him more access. And he took advantage, his steaming stick digging deeper into her, feeling like it was crushing her intestines and threatening to split her pelvic cradle straight up the middle.
A bit louder, Harden said, “Five,” a clockwise grind and some chaotic shaking rendering her orgasm ready to explode.
“Don’t do it, Kerri!”
“Please!”
“Four, Kerri…four!”
Kerri bit her lower lip, head turning sharply from side to side, eyes clamping shut so she could direct all her strength and focus on quelling that spine-shattering orgasm as long as possible.
It was all about control, and she was learning the mastery required and savoring the unique rewards.
“Oh, we’re so close now,” Harden rasped, Kerri shivering beneath him, sheeted in sweat.
“I can’t take it,” Kerri barely managed to say.
“Three, Kerri, just three now!” Their bodies banged together, legs flinching while her muscles contracted, her whole body bucking and twitching, overwhelmed with a chemical soup of love and lust and mindless, delirious, primitive fury.
If it weren’t for that sense of control, Kerri would have lost consciousness. But there was too much at stake, and she was too close to her treasured reward.
“Two,” she rasped, her voice quivering, “please two…please… ”
“Two,” Harden said, pouring a rush of strength into his cocksmanship, jutting his tall, muscular body to sent irresistible impulses through her. Kerri’s legs bent when the muscles along the backs of her calves and thighs pulled and tightened, feet rolling, toes clenching. Kerri’s fingers pulled at the sweat-dampened sheets.
“You ready now? You ready?”
“Please, baby, please! I can’t take anymore!”
“You goddamned can, baby, just a little more…just…a little…”
Kerri threw out an agonized scream, a begging sob that was too big for any words, tearing out of her throat.
“One, Kerri, one!”
Kerri kept screaming, that orgasm volcanic within her, threatening to tear right through her. “Good, baby, good! So good, so good … ”
Kerri’s orgasm crashed inside of her, only getting stronger and stronger as Harden went on, working his magic until his own orgasm could no longer be denied. It raced down his shaft and Kerri could feel his cock shake, vibrating as it delivered its hot package into her, juices blending together, the two of them becoming one in the unseen chambers of Kerri’s most private, most personal self.
Chapter 13
Kerri streamed down the slope, legs flexing as she weaved to control her speed. The wind blasted in her ears even through her wool hat, goggles and scarf protecting her face. She leaned forward, relishing the momentum propelling her down that Swiss hillside.
Kerri hadn’t been skiing since she was a kid on family trips to Big Bear and Yosemite, but it all came right back to her, muscle memory kicking in. Kerri felt strong, in control, and she knew that had as much to do with Harden’s influence as it did on his intense physicality. Kerri had never felt so agile, legs strong, muscles supple and flexible even after hours on the slope. She’d been driven to hours of endurance, as much outside the bedroom as in it, not to mention the kitchen…the living room…the balcony.
And Kerri’s senses were keener too, finely tuned by Harden’s intense psychological manipulations and her own, new discipline and new awareness of the possibilities of the brain as much as the body. The colors of the pine trees were sharp in her periphery, the swoosh of the snow beneath her underscoring the clouds of white powder, kicking up around her.
But Kerri allowed herself to be distracted by the sight of Harden, tall and powerful, his amazing ass protruding, ski poles tucked under his arms as he weaved downward, ey
es fixed dead ahead.
Mister Perfect Form, she couldn’t help but reflect, of course. Is there anything this man can’t do, and better than anyone else? What did I ever do to deserve such a man?
But Kerri refocused on the slope below and in front of her. Be careful, she told herself, don’t get distracted—you’ll smash into a tree and turn Harden Steele into a tragic and miserable widower.
So Kerri weaved and bobbed and slid down that hill with her new husband. She couldn’t quite match the grace and precision of Harden’s arrival, turning sharp and kicking up a huge cloud of snow dust. But Kerri did remain on her skis and only slid a few yards farther, spinning to slide back to greet Harden.
Both pulled off their goggles.
“Nice, Kerri, nice. Not since you were a kid, huh?”
Kerri modestly shrugged. “We did it more than once; I used to love it.”
“I can tell. Ready for a hot buttered rum?”
Kerri thought about it, adrenaline still pumping through her from the run. “That does sound pretty tempting. But I kind of feel like another run at the mountain. And once we’re by the fire, all cozy and cuddly…”
“Yeah, that sounds nice. All right, let’s go one more.”
“Hey, you don’t have to if you don’t want to.”
“I don’t mind.”
“You don’t—? No, Harden, I’m not gonna drag you around for the rest of our marriage.”
“I’m not saying that you’re—”
“Go have a hot buttered rum in the lodge; I’ll go back up and meet you in about twenty.”
Harden scratched his chin, but she said, “What, don’t you think I can handle it?”
“Of course you can, Kerri, but, y’know, it’s like diving—the buddy system.”
Kerri chuckled, “Okay, buddy, you go have a hot buttered rum, and you’ll buy me one when I get back.” With that, she shook her head and glided toward the ski lift.
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