With This Ring, I Thee Bed

by Alison Tyler

  He stopped in front of me, crossing his arms over his chest as his blue eyes slowly rose up my body, a trail of goose bumps following in the wake of his gaze.

  “I’ll tolerate you all pure on the outside, in the white dress and white undies and the—” he reached and fisted his hands over the loose bun, giving a tug that sent my hair tumbling about my shoulders and drew prickles of mild pain along my scalp “—almost tame hair. But…”

  He leaned in, bit the thumping pulse at the side of my neck, held it in the soft grip of his teeth for one beat, two beats, before he let go, his words whispering along my marked skin. My nipples puckered at the heat of his breath. “I want you dirty and dark on the inside. Bruised and naughty. Like you really are…”

  “Oh…” I said. I thought he’d tell me to go down on him. I could taste him already, the salted caramel of his arousal, could feel the curve of his cock against the roof of my mouth. “Yes, yes, please…”

  But he didn’t. Instead, he turned me, using his grip on my hair to make me pirouette like a doll until I faced the bed, his hips sinking forward into the curves of my ass so I could feel his cock, canting to the left, the already throbbing pulse of it pressing through the skimpy satin.

  “Take hold,” he said, using his free hand to move one of mine to the bedpost, showing me how he wanted it, the other still buried in my hair, pulling my head back, curving my spine the way he liked it, until my whole body was a soft C, all hips and ass against him. I put both hands on the post, wrapping my palms around the wood as I would around his cock, my thumbs softly stroking its curves. He gave a low grunt of approval at my position, then stepped back. My ass felt cold without his pressure there, and I wiggled in protest.

  The sound of his belt stopped my movement. No man I’d ever known before Thad could make me nearly come with that sound alone. I’d once joked it was the real reason I was going to marry him. He did it one-handed, the other still buried in my hair. The sound of the buckle first, metal jingling against leather and flesh. Then he did this slow, slow slide, leather hard against the denim, one loop at a time. So slow I ached for the sound of the next pull, the next loop, ached to hear that final tug that meant the leather was in his hands and would be against my ass.

  He bent over me, chest to back, threaded the belt through my legs, catching the white satin and my own shaved heat, pulling upward so that I squirmed against the thick strip of leather, trying to ease my ache.

  “Dirty,” he whispered in my ear. And I was. I wanted to be.

  Pulling the belt along my cleft, he replaced the material with two fingers, digging beneath the fabric, sinking them into me without warning, so hard I cried out at the feel of it.

  “Hush,” he said, and his voice, the low crack of the belt, the curl of his fingers, all landed at once. My skin broke open everywhere, bloomed with a pain that made me want to shift away from his stroke and lean into it all at once. The next pain followed only a second after, then the next, mixing together until I couldn’t tell which was which. He kept at it, fingers scissoring inside me, the strokes of the belt moving across my ass, never landing the same place twice, each pain a new and pronounced pop against my skin. My palms were sweating, wetting the wooden headboard, and I gripped tighter, trying not to slip. His thumb angled up, circled the tight point of my clit, making it beat a stuttered rhythm of want that matched each fall of the leather.

  When he finally stopped—just with the belt, not with his fingers—I could hear us both panting. My head was down, the black that seeped into my vision keeping out all light, reducing me to little more than a tiny pinpoint of pleasure.

  “More?” he asked between breaths, with that broken edge to his voice that I loved to hear.

  I panted, a low wheeze of pleasure that rose from deep in my throat. “More,” I begged.

  “Sorry, baby,” he said. “Not now.”

  I tried to protest, but he turned me, as quick as that, steering me back by the hair until my ass was pressed against the footboard. Every sting and bruise and welt came back to life as he held me to the wood, pushed me along it until I was down on my knees. By the time I was all the way down, he had his jeans undone and the base of his cock in one hand, the long shaft pulsing in his hold.

  “Suck me,” he said. “Say ‘I do’ with your mouth….”

  Lifting my chin, I coiled my tongue along the smooth head, into that place just beneath the ridge that made him growl low in his throat and push harder between my lips. I took him in, the way he’d taught me once, so long ago, tilting my throat back, letting him inch deep and deeper, swallowing against his tip. I love it like that, when he goes slow, when I can feel the veins, the smooth curve of his head sliding…sliding over my lips, along my tongue, against the ridges of the roof of my mouth. He tasted of salted fig, meaty and sweet.

  “Ah, fuck, Lil,” he said, his fingers buried in my hair, hips speeding up as he began to fuck my throat. The way he says my name sometimes, like when he’s fucking me, or when he’s just looking at me with that wolfish grin, I’d swear it was enough to get me off. I had to sneak a hand down, sink it into the silk, two fingers curling to replace where his had been.

  “Oh, no. No you don’t,” he said, the fist in my hair pulling my mouth off his cock, my tongue snaking out into the widening distance, trying to lap at him. “That’s my job.” He’s grinning down at me with those blue eyes, not master now, but equal. Wanting like a boy. And then we were both laughing as he lifted me by the shoulders and spun me, the next step in our ever-changing dance.

  He laid me facedown on the bed, and followed me, lifting my hips with a hard clasp of his fingers into the skin, the tip of him already butting against my heat. I leaned hard into him, wanting him so fiercely that I could already hear myself begging, a low whispered plea that chanted from my lips.

  “Please, what?” he said, centering his tip against me, teasing and teasing with that soft curved skin. Every time I arced back into him, he leaned back, too, keeping himself poised there. “Please, what, Lil?” His fingers traced my curves, his touch too light.

  I dropped my forehead to the bedding, my cheeks hot. He knew what I wanted—he always knew. Why did he make me ask? I shook my head. I wouldn’t.

  But his fingers were circling and circling, dropping down my curves to center over my clit, just one hard flick against the sensitive skin. My nerves sang and I parted my lips with a ragged groan of pleasure. I knew that I’d always give him what he asked for, what we both wanted. “Please fuck me, please, please…”

  He slid into me on the first “please,” filled me until I couldn’t breathe, pulling all the way out on each backward stroke, thrusting to the hilt again on each of my words, his rhythm low and hard. One hand still worked my clit—flick and circle, flick and circle—and the other swung against the bottom of my ass. A careful hit—the sound of the slap dulled by his flattened palm—but each sting on my already marked skin made me bite the bedding, trying to quell my rising howls so the whole house wouldn’t hear.

  He switched suddenly, the hand at my ass digging in, nails piercing my skin, pulling me back, while the one at my clit folded, his fingers falling onto the peak of skin with a hard slap that sent sharp-edged streamers through me, paper cuts of pleasure that slid beneath my skin. My orgasm opened like a dark bloom, spread outward in petals and thorns. “Fuck, Lil,” he said again, his voice tight through his clenched jaw, and then he came with a low groan; his hips bucking hard against my curves, filling me.

  It was a long time before I could speak again, our fast breaths the only sound in the room. My ass prickled and burned from the way he’d worked me with the belt and his hands. And I could feel my hair, wildly tousled, sticking to my face. The room—and my skin—smelled of lust and leather and come.

  He pulled from me, a movement that left me empty. A few fingers stroked the curves of my ass, pushed in against the hot spots, made a bruised ache spread beneath my flesh. I knew it wouldn’t be long before my skin was mottled and
purpled, flowering bruises shaped like his hands and belt and nails.

  “My dirty slut bride,” he said, and the thrum in his voice made me want to fuck him all over again. I rolled over, facing him, and he leaned down to kiss me the way I liked—mostly teeth and the hard push of his mouth, as if to eat me up.

  My mom got her wish in the end—her daughter, all decked in white, my hair tamed into a low bun at the back of my neck, wearing tiny pearls in my ears and a bit of mascara on my lashes.

  I got my wish, too, truly. Walking down the aisle slowly—partly because I was afraid I would fall in my high heels, but mainly because I wanted to savor every moment. The way Thad’s blue eyes looked at me, at all of me, knowing what was beneath the white, and wanting me anyway. The scent of sex and leather beneath the odor of lilies. The way my panties pressed, damp and coated, between my legs. And with every step I took, the brush of white satin over my bruised ass, sending blooms of pleasure and pain over my skin. My hands clutched a bouquet of white daisies, but I knew the real bouquet was underneath, planted on my pale skin, a testament to love and lust and what it really means to say “I do.”

  Speak Now

  Heidi Champa

  When the oversize envelope came in the mail, I knew right away what it was. That didn’t stop me from burying it under a pile of junk mail and bills, believing the old adage—out of sight, out of mind. It didn’t work. Despite the layers of paper hiding it, the wedding invitation was fresh in my mind every minute. Trevor and Jessica were finally tying the knot. I knew hiding from it was childish, but it was the only thing getting me through the day.

  It’s not like I didn’t know it was happening. They had been dating on and off since college. Plus, I’d heard through my mother’s ever-vigilant grapevine all the details of their engagement and the lead-up to their wedding. Since I hadn’t settled down and given her the chance to play mother of the groom, she had no choice but to covet other people’s good news.

  “Greg, did I tell you, Trevor and Jessica are having their reception at the country club?”

  She told me with as much gusto as she could muster, trying to get me to commit to coming home for the blessed event. My mother had called me no less than ten times, wondering why I hadn’t responded to the invitation. I knew I could avoid it, make an excuse not to show up. Distance was on my side. But I had to go.

  Before I could change my mind, I dropped the response card into the mailbox. It was done. I was driving five hundred miles to watch the man of my dreams marry the woman of his. I packed up the car, carefully hanging my freshly pressed suit in the backseat. Shaking my head, I pulled away from the garage, leaving behind the city, my apartment and clearly, my sanity.

  I hadn’t been home in almost a year. And I hadn’t seen him for nearly two. Trevor was a doctor, and his dream of a small-town family practice had come true. All he needed for his perfect life was the perfect wife. Jessica fit that bill to a T.

  The first time I met Trevor was when he waltzed into my homeroom senior year of high school. He didn’t wait for the teacher to tell him where to sit; he just plunked down next to me and smiled.

  “I’m Trevor.”

  “I’m Greg.”

  “Good to meet you, Greg.”

  That was it. I was hooked. Our friendship grew quickly and easily, just like my crush on him. He started climbing the tree outside my window a few months after we met. It was the perfect height, a huge branch reaching right to the edge of my windowsill. Even when there was no reason to sneak in, he would forgo the front door for the chance to scare the crap out of me by appearing at my window. He would tap out a slow, repetitive rhythm until I came and let him in. Most of his visits would last only a few minutes, long enough to leave me wanting more and feeling even more conflicted. How could I be in love with my best friend?

  Nothing ever happened between us. I was too scared to try and change our relationship. Until one night the summer after his freshman year of college. I didn’t go to school, choosing instead to get a job at a newspaper, while Trevor stayed local at the state university. Once the summer came, we were inseparable, neither of us having much to do but hang out every night.

  We had both begged off attending the annual Fourth of July fireworks display, content to sneak beers out of my dad’s secret stash and watch crappy movies on the tiny television in my room. We slouched on my beat-up futon, munching on chips and sipping warm Miller’s right out of the can. I never drank much, and I was feeling fine after just three beers. But more than that, I was feeling brave. Brave enough to do something truly stupid. I let my head fall on Trevor’s shoulder. Holding my breath, I waited for him to shrug me off. He didn’t. Instead, he shocked me by wrapping his arm around me, his fingers gently grazing my shoulder. My heart jumped on contact. It was the first time he’d really touched me, outside of playful punches and shoves. I relished every second of it. But I wanted more. I put my hand on his leg, a couple inches too high to be casual. Again I waited for him to flinch or throw my hand off him, but he didn’t. He covered my hand with his, pushing it higher still, until his cock was only a few inches away.

  Awash with liquid courage, and thrilled by his encouragement, I turned my head to look at him. He gazed straight ahead for what seemed an eternity, then finally turned and met my stare. Our mouths were inches apart, but I was frozen. Luckily for me, Trevor was willing to give us a push. His hand slid from my shoulder to the back of my neck, his fingers lightly tugging at my hair. He smiled one last time before covering my parted lips with his. Every part of me was shaking, my hands gripping his T-shirt.

  We pulled apart after a few minutes, both of us breathless. I was expecting Trevor to freak out, but he just smiled. His voice wobbled a bit, making me love him even more, when he said, “What took you so long? I thought I was just going to have to jump you when you weren’t looking.”

  I never got the chance to answer. I was distracted by his kisses and his hands on my belt. There was nothing in my head, no words with which to object. Despite my fears, my questions and my doubt, I let him open my pants and reach inside. My cock was almost painfully hard, over a year of unrequited feelings driving me mad. Trevor closed his fist around my dick, gently moving it up and down. I gasped into his mouth, my fingers digging into his wide shoulders. Dangerously close to coming, I felt moisture dripping from my slit. His thumb passed over the weeping head, making my muscles contract. Releasing my mouth, he pushed me back onto the thin mattress, sliding my pants down my legs. I rose up on my elbows, looking up at him bathed in the blue glow of the television. His smile damn near killed me.

  “Trevor, are you sure?”

  “You worry too much.”

  That mouth, the one I had just tasted for the first time, closed around the head of my cock. My back arched, my hands instinctively going to Trevor’s head. His hair was like black silk, softer and finer than it appeared. His mouth kept going lower, until I felt his nose hit my belly. I heard the crackling and popping of fireworks exploding across town. They grew louder and louder, the show climbing to its crescendo. Trevor grasped my hips, sucking me hard and deep. My mind was still swimming, my body on complete overload. Riding the edge, I knew I was close.

  “Trevor, I’m gonna come.”

  Instead of speeding up as I expected, he eased his tempo. His tongue swept up the underside of my cock, his fingers making a tight ring around the base. Everything moved in slow motion, boom after boom echoing outside my window. With one last stuttering stroke from Trevor, I was finished. My hands tightened, my hips jerked, my cock squirting into his warm, wet mouth. The ceiling was littered with red, green and yellow flashes, the same colors that had just erupted behind my eyelids. Soon, everything was quiet. The fireworks inside and out were finished. Sitting up, Trevor was waiting to kiss me, both of us still shaking in the dark. We never did finish the movie.

  After that first night, his knocking became a regular occurrence. We would lay in my single creaky bed, our hands and our mouths exploring,
never getting enough. To the outside world, we were still the same friends we always were. But in my room, we were free. Until Trevor met Jessica.

  When my car hit the state line, my stomach tightened just a fraction. Even with hours to go, it still felt too close. Jessica had always been around, moving on the fringes of our group, just a nice and pretty girl. At least, that was all she was to me. Trevor saw her differently. As much as I tried to ignore it, to tell myself it was just my imagination, he liked her. A lot. Their relationship blossomed right out in the open, while ours was still stuck in the shadows. His trips to my window grew infrequent, our nighttime meetings close to nonexistent. It was hard not to feel like a substitute, when his only appearances coincided with fights with Jessica.

  But I told myself it was enough. When we were together, it felt as real as any public kiss shared between any couple. If it had to be a secret, I could live with it.

  My foot sank down on the accelerator, my heart pounding just thinking about Trevor. Scenes from our past ran through my mind like a movie, including the last time he’d rapped his knuckles against the ancient glass of my window. It had been weeks since he’d shown up at all. Even longer since I’d kissed him.

  “Hey. Can I come in?”

  I stepped out of the way, letting him throw his legs over the ledge. He shoved his hands in his pockets, looking everywhere but at me.

  “How’ve you been, Greg?”

  “Good. How about you?”

  “Good. You know, same old shit. It’s been a while.”

  “Yeah, well. I know you’re busy.”

  “Pre-med is a lot worse than I thought. And Jessica’s been hounding me about everything.”

  Something in me snapped, my words coming out before I could stop them. “I really don’t care, Trev.”