by Low, Gennita
She reached for the light pink lipstick as she heard cars outside, and saw her brother and the groomsmen get out of the SUVs. She wasn’t going to look for him, but her brain counted them.
Six.
She drew the tube of pink lipstick to her lips and stopped. Setting it down gently, she reached for the bright red lipstick and at first dabbed it sparingly. It was an afternoon wedding, after all. But she evaluated her looks and decided she needed to go full-on red. Full-on, sexual-siren-drop-down-and-beg-red. The come over here and fuck me kind of red. It was a statement to herself. She was ripe and ready to party, with or without the handsome SEAL. In spite of the handsome SEAL. She’d be aloof, pouty, difficult, and nobody’s fool. She’d flit about this afternoon and evening, and not even look in his direction once.
She sprayed the room with the expensive bouquet Audrey Hepburn had created, walking through it and feeling the tiny atomized droplets hit her body. At last she put her pink satin ballet shoes on, twirled to see the layers of chiffon and voile rise up as if on a breeze created by angels’ wings.
Exiting her old room, she heard talking downstairs and identified her brother and several of his friends. She grabbed her skirts nearly mid-thigh to hold them up while she traveled to her parent’s room, where the bride was being primped for her big day. She found her mother and the makeup artist busy working on Stephanie. Her small, heart-shaped face was framed in off-white lace worn like a tiara on top of her head. Her bodice and sleeves were made of delicate cording held together by lace webbing, populated with a generous supply of crystals. She wore crystals in her hair, which sparked under her veil. She was the most beautiful bride Julie had ever seen.
“Sister!” Stephanie said, holding out her arms. The makeup artist barely had enough time to get her large brush out of the way before Stephanie moved past her to give Julie a hug. Afterward, the two held hands and beamed at each other’s beautiful gowns.
“Stephanie, you are absolutely gorgeous. I’ve never seen someone so happy, so radiant. Colin is just going to die when he sees you. He’ll have a stroke, honest!”
“Oh, silly. I think there is going to be one SEAL who is going to step on his own tongue this afternoon. Honestly, Julie, you’ll be the prettiest one out there.”
“Nonsense.”
The makeup artist demanded Stephanie’s exclusivity again, and then looked at Julie’s face and applied some blush and powder. Even her mother was attended to. A gentle knock of the door was all the warning before a bevy of peach and pink lovelies came squealing in, jumping and hugging the bride and getting caught in her veil. Julie enjoyed the happy banter and laughter of the bride and her attendants. She was so happy for all of them.
Julie and Colin’s dad was going to walk Stephanie down the aisle. Her father was smartly dressed in a three-piece black suit with a silvery brocade vest. He’d kept his trim figure and proud bearing, looking more like an older SEAL than an architect. He came over to wrap his arm around her waist and whisper to her ear, “Sweet Julie, next I’ll be walking you down the aisle.”
She threw her arms around his neck, kissed him on the check, and then squeezed him in a tight hug. “Not today, Daddy. Today belongs to Colin and Stephanie. I’m just so happy to be able to be here to enjoy it.”
He gave her a squint as he tilted his head to the side. “There isn’t a single man downstairs,” he pointed to the floor, “I’d object to you landing as a husband.”
“In time, Dad. But don’t get your hopes up. I’m happy being single.” He held her face between his palms and kissed her gently on the lips. “My good girl. Always Daddy’s special one. Always will be.”
He gave a hug and kiss to his wife and then addressed the bride as if he’d just noticed her. “Oh, my heavens! You look just like an angel, my dear,” he said. The bridesmaids giggled softly in unison. “My son is one very lucky man,” he said as he winked at his wife.
It was arranged so that the grooms stood in order at the foot of the stairs and the bridesmaids followed each other single file down the stairs. Stephanie stayed alone in the bedroom with her future mother-in-law. Julie made her way down the stairs carefully and looked over the top of the crystal-enhanced hairdos of the other bridesmaids as they paired up with their grooms. She deliberately didn’t look for Luke, and then when she realized she was close, instead of looking into his eyes as all the other couples had done, she looked down. Luke hooked his arm out to the side and she laced hers through it, gently pressing her upper arm against the back of his and resting her fingers on his forearm below his elbow. This had all been choreographed and scripted, and she followed along as instructed. She moved with him as he escorted her across the concrete floor of the living room, and out the ten-light double doors towards the patio. She carefully stepped over the threshold. Part of her dress snagged briefly on a rough spot in the wooden doorjamb.
In an instant Luke was there in front of her, kneeling, looking for where the fabric had hung up. The delicate material looked soft and luscious in his large, callused hands, like he was handling armfuls of whipped cream. He pressed the fabric he’d freed back into her skirts and she felt a gentle touch of his fingers on her voile-encased thigh. That’s when he looked up at her and his blue eyes seared her, and in spite of herself, she focused on his lips, thinking that would be safer than he eyes, until she realized he had done the same.
Their look mated. Both of them did a deep, controlled inhale, and both of them noticed the other doing it. Neither one looked away as the rest of the room faded to the background of muted voices and faded, blurry colors.
She had gotten used to his constant dark stubble, but today he was clean-shaven, his cheeks smooth and shiny, like they’d been oiled, but she knew it was his aftershave lotion. The lemony one he used, and yes, she could smell it. The light fragrance would still be on his fingers. His full lips were deep pink. Without his stubble, she noticed he had a dimple on his right side that was usually hidden, even during their ardent lovemaking. She’d thought she knew every luscious detail of his face, so this discovery was thrilling.
And that’s what she was thinking about as he turned and brought her through the doorway, the last couple to make their way across the patio, across the dance floor to the corner of the stone wall near the large cascading fountain. At the sight of Colin’s face, his eyes sashaying between the two of them, his lips raised in a private grin, she and Luke drifted apart and took their respective positions at the end of the procession on either side of the ceremony center.
A lute player began playing an old English hymn and the minister instructed everyone to rise and turn to see Stephanie standing at the edge of the patio with Julie’s dad proudly at her side. There was a collective gasp, and for a second Julie thought the audience would break into spontaneous clapping.
Though Julie was focusing on the bride, and frequently bringing her warm, loving gaze back to Colin, she felt Luke watching her. She could feel the heat of his smoldering gaze, the attraction she felt still strong, as it had been given a little encouragement earlier with the snag of the dress and the gentle brush of his fingers against her. She hadn’t flinched or stepped back at his subtle touch. Her heart still pounded at the closeness to him, at the feel of his eyes perusing her body carefully while everyone else’s was focused on the bride. She was doing her own private lap dance for him though she barely moved.
As Stephanie approached her future husband, Julie allowed Colin’s head to obscure Luke’s face. She noticed the SEAL stayed put and then moved slightly to the side so that she got a clear shot of his questioning blue eyes. She rocked back on the heels of her slippers and he was obscured again, and she turned her eyes downward as if she hadn’t noticed what she’d done.
In an act of boldness coming from somewhere deep inside her, she licked her ruby red lips, raised her chin and stared straight into the blue heaven of his eyes. Her heart fluttered and protested the pain of needing him so much, but took solace in the equal need she saw in his.
‡
Damn it! Luke’s inability to focus didn’t serve him today. He was tethered to the sight of Julie, like a big pink wad of cotton candy, ripe and exploding on his taste buds, the image of her delicate flower underneath all those petticoats and the way she would writhe beneath him.
Is she feeling it too?
Why couldn’t they just sit and talk first? Why did it always end up being about sex with her? He wanted desperately to plunge into her, but the need to be understood…to be loved…first was filling him with an angst that normally would make him incapable. Not today. He was drilling deep with his eyes, as if he could convince her he had the best of intentions, but couldn’t think until he was next to her, inside her, breathing her spice and tasting her juices.
At her fuckin’ brother’s wedding. He felt an unmistakable rock-hard erection that was damned inconvenient. Maybe the pain of his need was spurring him on. Was it the PTSD, making it so he wanted to lose control, take her, lift up her skirts and bask in the glory of her pink, quivering peach?
God in heaven, I’m a fuckin’ dog. He made quick apologies to Mama Guzman’s God, the one they all prayed to in Team 3.
Help me out, here.
And then he saw her wet her lips. She was all pink and innocent except for those lips that were the color of blood. The crack of the automatic, the feeling of warm liquid on his thighs, Camilla’s blood, the whisper from his beloved, the one he had held every night in spite of how much pain it caused him, the familiar things of his memory and his life, slipping into the slots of his brain and one by one faded, until all he could see was Camilla’s lips saying, goodbye.
Black circles began to tighten around his vision, and he thought he might pass out. He could see Camilla fading, almost floating, in a red satin gown that was moving all about her, the vision moving away from him, faded, and then was lost in a puff of smoke as his focus returned to the present.
“I now pronounce you husband and wife. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Mr. and Mrs. Christensen.”
Colin and Stephanie first kissed modestly then turned and faced their well-wishers. The audience stood and clapped for them. Their happy profiles obscured Luke’s view of Julie for a moment, but he was rewarded when the newly-married couple stepped forward and down the aisle, and Luke saw her blush, blotchy red marks on her chest above the indescribably beautiful heaving breasts needing release. Her body was almost shaking as she struggled for breath. God, he wanted to fill her need. He knew he was the one to do it as no other could.
The other couples met in the center and followed the bride and groom out through the audience. At first Luke presented an arm for her to hook through, but at the last moment clasped her hand firmly and they walked, not as was rehearsed, but fingers entwined, slipping over each other’s fingers, squeezing, exploring, tips touching the juncture of each other’s fingers until he thought he would explode.
He led her off to the side of the house, not inside with the rest of the bridal party. He didn’t look at her, but instead held up a finger to his friend, Julie’s brother, and asked for a private moment with her. The moment was granted and he searched for a place where they could just be alone.
There was a small rose garden on the west side of the house, behind a white gate covered in a pink-blooming climber. He clicked open the gate and heard the creak of metal hinges, closed it behind her, brushing the beautiful fabric aside from the weathered wood on either side of the gate, and from tiny thorns of the climbing rose.
He felt her eyes watching him as he fixed her skirts, as he smoothed them and brushed them like he was preparing a large doll for display. And then he stepped to her, placed his palms on either side of her face, pressed her cheeks together, puckering her beautiful wet, crimson lips and sank himself into them. The soft pillows of flesh parted for him, complete with her delicious, high-pitched whine.
“Julie, Julie, Julie. I can’t stop thinking about you. I can’t stand being away from you.”
He stepped back and searched her eyes, which were watering. Her arms carefully moved up along his back, rubbing over the black fabric of his tux.
In a moment he did not understand, she whispered, “Help me.” Her eyebrows had quirked into little tents. The warm brown eyes looked back and forth between both of his, looking for something he hoped to God she’d find there.
“Baby, I need you to help me,” he said honestly, rubbing his lips against hers, nibbling on her mouth, tasting lingering toothpaste and stroking her lower lip with his tongue. “I have nothing to give you but pain,” he said sadly, searching for an answer in her eyes.
She smiled and returned his nibbles, her long dark lashes fluttering as she examined his lips by kissing them. “No, you don’t give me pain. You give me pleasure, you give me hope. You give me something I’ve never experienced before fully, until today. You give me your love, and I accept it freely. All of it you can give, Luke. All of it, along with the pain and whatever else you have inside. I want all of you.”
The words she spoke began to sink in. She must have seen his doubt.
“All of you, Luke,” she said again, as she cupped his head between her hands. “I want entangled, complicated, and I want to be missed when I go, just as I’ve missed you these past few days.”
“Julie, are you sure?”
She drew back and looked at him with what he thought was going to be a scolding remark. “You telling me I don’t know my own feelings, Luke?”
“Of course not. But I’m—”
“Perfect just the way you are. Let me help you put back the pieces and grow the ones that are still missing. I can do this, Luke. If you’ll let me in.”
Let her in? Hell, yeah.
Just like that night at the beach, she had reached inside his chest and grabbed his heart. His soul was touched, his body was on board. His brain was still screaming what ifs! but it didn’t matter. He wasn’t going to go anywhere but deeper.
He started searching, turning his head from side to side.
She reached up on tiptoes and whispered into his ear, which made them tingle, “Follow me.”
Julie took his hand and they went through the white gate again, into the back yard. Off to the left stood a brick pathway curving behind a row of large shrubs. As they rounded the corner, Luke could see a vintage airstream trailer with its blue awning extended over the front door. She pulled the lever, opening the door, and stepped up inside the cool, dark trailer. He followed.
It had a musty, unused smell, but the windows were open and the curtains fluttered in the breeze. They could hear people laughing and talking, some dance music playing. He knew they didn’t have much time before the wedding party needed to pose for pictures, but he hoped to God they’d understand.
She walked down a short corridor, past an efficiency kitchen to a bed in the back with a light green satin bedspread and colorful pillows. She turned around, looking up to him as she sat in the pink whipped cream of her dress. Her body needed to be unwrapped, each layer peeled back slowly and savored. Her blush made him gasp.
He pulled off his jacket and laid it gently on the front couch, then undid his bow tie, dropping it to the floor. He removed his vest and dropped it. Bisecting the distance between them, taking his time to look at every luscious petal of her picture, he unbuttoned his shirt, pulling it out of his black pants. Her hungry look spurred him on. He sank to his knees, smoothed his palms from her ankles to her knees under the fluff of her skirt as she closed her eyes and licked those damned red lips. He moved his hands slowly up, like a swimmer doing a breaststroke, against her soft thighs, encountering the garters of her corset.
That’s going to be a challenge. But he’d make do. He dipped his head underneath her skirts and inhaled her womanly desire—
Two loud raps on the door broke the spell.
“Luke, Julie. We’re all waiting on you two,” Colin’s voice came boldly through the door. Luke whipped his head out from under her skirts
, still hungry for the taste of her and faced Julie’s shocked face.
“Oh, my God. Ohmygod,” Julie said as she stood, her hands flying around her skirts. She ran to help Luke find pieces of his wedding attire, helping him slip on his vest as he buttoned his shirt.
“Colin, we’ll be right out. We were just having a private conversation. Sorry.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet. But Jules, I came over here because Dad was steamed and when he saw you two come here. I’m afraid the whole wedding party kind of—
“Not to worry, Colin. We’re coming,” Luke said as Julie darted him a look, blushing. He couldn’t help but wiggle his eyebrows. She appeared not to have gotten the joke. He picked up his jacket. At least he hadn’t taken his shoes off.
As Luke was fiddling with his bow tie Julie opened the door to her brother.
“Sorry, guys. But we’re hot and crabby. Everything’s waiting on you two.”
Luke, grabbing Julie by the waist, whirling her around before bending to give her a deep kiss, his tongue as urgent as hers. Colin wouldn’t be able to mistake his intentions.
“Wow. Slow down there, partner,” Colin chuckled. “If you make my bride wait any longer, I’ll not gonna get lucky tonight like you guys are obviously gonna do.”
Julie giggled and tried to pull away. Luke loved the feeling of catching her and bringing her back to his chest.
“Luke, let’s get your bow tie straightened out.”
He submitted to her fussing over the little thing he wore willingly, especially since her scent and the delicate feel of her fingers on and around his neck was so pleasurable. She checked him over. She smiled. “What?”
“I like how you fuss over me. I can’t wait to do it to you, Julie,” he blurted.
“Guys!” Colin was getting impatient.
“Coming, coming!” Julie said breathlessly as she ducked out of the doorway. Luke slammed the door behind him and, taking Julie’s hand, allowed himself to be dragged back to the public part of the yard, and the waiting wedding party. He couldn’t bring himself to look at Julie’s mother or father, but several of the bridesmaids bore expressions of shock, one young lady covering her mouth to conceal what he suspected might be a grin.