Kiss the Bride

by Jody Wallace

  God, yes. Please, yes.

  He pushed her legs up. Up and apart. Wide apart. His fingers found her moisture, and she thought she might die. He stroked her clit. Soft. Fast. Hard. Rough. She jerked helplessly when he plunged a finger deep inside her and sucked her nipple at the same time.

  “Tell me what you need,” he whispered, his words tickling her breast. He slid his fingers out of her, pinching her clit. “Tell me, Caroline.”

  “I need you.” She groaned when he entered her with two fingers, driving them high.

  “You want this?” He slid down her body, pausing at her stomach to lick her bare skin. “Or this?”

  She couldn’t speak…and this might not be the time to tell him she loved him. Helplessly, she nodded her head.

  “Last chance.” His tongue flicked her inner thigh. “Stop me if you didn’t mean for this to happen.”

  She hadn’t expected it ever would happen, but it didn’t matter. “Don’t stop.”

  “I won’t,” he promised.

  Time seemed to freeze when he touched her clit delicately with his tongue. He licked her again, soft and wet, and she whimpered.

  Teeth scraped her inner thigh. His mouth burned, and he teased her, barely licking her before biting her legs, her hips. His fingers inside her curled.

  It wasn’t enough. Spots flashed in her vision. The next time he teased her clit was when she broke and begged him. Begged him to touch her. Begged him to suck her. Begged him to take her.

  He sighed, long and slow and satisfied. She inhaled. He pushed his fingers so far inside her that his knuckles bumped her pussy, and then he licked. He stroked. Caroline found herself rising fast, tightening around him, open and yearning. Everything he did was everything she wanted.

  So many years of fantasizing about him, loving him secretly, hadn’t prepared her for the reality.

  Her climax rushed over her like an explosion, and he kept licking until she was nearly crying from the oversensitivity. The inflexible table beneath her, the chill air of the house, his hot mouth and thick fingers inside her. He pleasured her until she started tightening again, her head tossing back and forth, her hips jerking. She heard his zipper, the rustle of cloth, and her heart leaped.

  Abruptly he withdrew, but only to snatch her into his arms. The muskiness of her body was on his tongue as he kissed her, striding impatiently toward the doorway. Almost tripped on her purse.

  “Dammit.” He kicked her possessions out of his way with swipes of his foot until he froze. “What’s that?”

  “What?” She couldn’t see the floor.

  He set her down, and she grabbed the doorjamb to steady herself. He squatted and rose swiftly, several linked silver packets in his hand. “Condoms.”

  “Party favors?” she managed.

  “They’re with your stuff.”

  “Who cares?” She wound her arms around his neck. “Take me to bed, Heck.”

  He blinked, swept her back into his arms, and strode through the house . When he reached the upstairs bedroom, he tossed her onto the mattress. She hadn’t even caught her breath when he was on her, naked, his erection pressed her thighs.

  Enough light trickled into the darkened room from the hallway that she could see his face. He stared down at her without a hint of a smile. “Caroline?”

  In answer, she lifted her knees, rubbing her pussy against his hardness. Yes, she wanted him. However she could have him. He slid through her wet folds, his cock hot and huge, and they both moaned.

  “God.” He closed his eyes. “This isn’t happening.”

  “Not until you put on a…” She kissed him instead of saying condom. “Did you bring them upstairs?”

  “Yeah.” He fumbled on the floor, cursing under his breath. Came up with a packet. After sheathing himself, he settled between her legs. She curled her hips until the head of his cock parted her. He prodded into her slit, the introduction of their bodies a kind of heaven. She tightened her inner muscles and lowered her hands to his ass.

  “More,” she said.

  He breathed out as his heft stretched her inch by inch. It felt almost too fine. Flutters of delight, precursors, woke in her core.

  When he could go no deeper, he pulled back out. He caught her lips in a kiss, licking with his tongue in a way that reminded her how he’d eaten her and made her come. He continued the agonizingly slow push and pull with his hips until she thought she might go mad with lust. His erection seemed bigger now, spreading her so far apart and going so deep it almost hurt.

  “You okay?” he whispered. “I can’t… It’s been a while for me.”

  “Me, too.” She was melting. She dug her fingers into his taut ass.

  “When you’re close, let me know. I want to do this right.” Heck’s breathing quickened. His hips quickened, too, shoving into her until he was hitting her clit on the downstroke. She gasped, her voice ragged. He was unstoppable. Her body inched up the bed from the force of his hips, and suddenly he twisted her legs up, over his shoulders.

  He rose onto his elbows. Higher. His fingers found her clit and pleasured her. He rubbed fast and relentlessly as he slammed his cock home.

  She let him know, in no uncertain terms, that he was doing this right.

  “Yes,” he hissed. His erection swelled. Her body shook as he pounded into her. She couldn’t believe how good he felt inside her, how good she felt. When she moaned, his cock pulsed and he said her name, “Caroline, Caroline,” as though it was part of his climax.

  After another moment, he slowed, still long and stiff, but now lazy. He lowered his weight to the bed, onto her, and pulled her arms from around him.

  He clasped her hands, pressing them to the mattress on either side of her head.

  “You’re still wearing your dress,” he said softly. “I ripped it.”

  Her eyelids fluttered closed and she smiled. She was giddy and boneless, and she’d happily sacrifice her entire wardrobe for this moment. “It’s okay.”

  “I want you naked.” He rolled her over, unzipping her purple sheath and tossing it somewhere behind him. She heard it hit the floor, heard tissues rip out of a box, heard him rustle with the condoms again. She was too blissed out to move.

  “This ass,” he breathed, bending down to kiss the base of her spine. “I have ideas about this ass.”

  She turned her head to one side, but she couldn’t see him. “What kind of ideas?”

  “In the limo, when you were out the sunroof.” He parted her thighs, massaging her cheeks with his big hands and long fingers. “I wanted to suck you off.”

  Seemed inconsistent that he’d imagined sex in the limo yet had refused to kiss her. However, she didn’t want to think about it right now. “Mmm.”

  “I can still taste you.” He squeezed all the flesh together and then pulled it apart. His hair tickled her ass. Then he bit her, fixing his teeth in her skin.

  She uttered a protest. His response was to agitate his head, teeth clamping down. He jiggled her flesh. Pain flared, but switched to anticipation when he added tongue to teeth.

  She found herself arching toward him, her spine curving instinctively. He lifted her hips and slid a bolster under her pelvis before grasping her ass again. Then he was touching, sucking, biting. The contrasting sensations excited her.

  As he held her cheeks apart, his tongue moistened her crevice in a long, unhurried lick. She squirmed. The sensation was unusual. Erotic. He’d drawn her apart, kneaded her, and now his mouth and tongue and teeth sank into her as though she were cake.

  “Get on your knees and spread your legs,” he said. “Spread yourself wide. Wider. God, yes.” He licked the curve of her ass, where it met her thigh.

  She fisted her hands in his bedspread. His tongue found her clit, and then his fingers did.

  He was doing that right, too. Her breathing accelerated. Her nipples hardened against the bedspread, and the lust she thought he’d satisfied swirled inside her like a whirlpool. His hands were like brands, and his cares
s destroyed any fatigue that remained. He shifted position again. His thighs bumped hers from behind, and his cock slid through her folds, where the head rubbed her clit. Everything was hot and sensitive and dripping wet. She spread her legs wider, begging. In one single, wonderful shove, he entered her.

  She almost climaxed, but he held his hips still. His hands, however, made magic as he reached around and stimulated her clit.

  He fingered her. Rubbed and stroked her. His cock, so solid inside her, twitched, and she shoved her hips at him, needing him to move.

  He got the message. Thrusting in and out of her pussy, tickling her clit, he didn’t give her a chance to breathe. She couldn’t even beg. He got bigger and harder, plunging into her with a wet sound. She muffled a sob of yearning against her arm. It sent him over.

  He pulsed inside her, panting and heavy, but soon began to thrust again. He didn’t stop just because he’d climaxed. If anything, he attacked her more fiercely. His stubborn desire to please her drew a powerful response from her. An intense wave began in her center and spread through her body.

  It nearly felled her. Tremors crashed over her, and she called his name. He rocked her through it, and when it ebbed, he threw the bolster under her hips to the floor and collapsed beside her, breathing hard.

  Caroline sprawled on the bed in a haze. In all her life, she’d never felt so completely ravished. Drained and tired, yes—she’d tried Zumba, after all—but never this soul-shattering vulnerability. He’d bashed her protections to dust.

  “Caroline.” He rolled her over, and she flopped onto her back. “Open your eyes.”

  She did, barely. The room was almost too dark to see him.

  “Now I want an answer.”

  “An answer to what?” By all rights, he should be feeling the way she did. Limp and depleted and happy enough to cry. But his irritated voice betrayed none of what had occurred between them.

  Had it not affected him the same way?

  It was supposed to help him understand that she loved him. That he loved her, or could love her. Yet he sounded as lover-like as a drill sergeant as he demanded, “Why did this happen?”

  That seemed…rather obvious to her. “Are you saying you didn’t want this?”

  “I want to hear you say it, so there’s no misunderstanding.” Their bodies touched in some areas, incidentally, not affectionately.

  “Me? I’m not the only one in this bed.” Wouldn’t a man who cared for her express that right about now? Instead of questioning the whys and wherefores of something they’d both enjoyed?

  Only, he seemed to have lost the enjoyment. She was missing something essential here. And it was…

  “You need to call Dan and cancel the wedding,” he bit out.

  Uh-oh. “I thought you heard me talking to him?”

  “Yeah, and?”

  Oh-shit misgivings blasted her like buckshot. He’d done this thinking she was engaged. But why? She shook her head. Swallowed hard. Everything shifted sideways in a lurch of anxiety, and she couldn’t explain it yet.

  She threw an arm over her eyes, blocking him out. “Can’t talk. Sleepy.”

  He jerked her arm down. “Quit being rude. Look at me.”

  Reluctantly, she did as requested, worried he might pry up her eyelids. Heck wasn’t always overbearing, but once he fixated on a goal, there was no budging him.

  His broad shoulders blocked the light from the hallway, and his face was completely shadowed. She stared in the general direction of his head.

  “Call off the wedding. Now.”

  Considering what he expected her to do, and his role in it, he sounded as involved as a person watching a movie he didn’t like. His frostiness wounded her, and she reacted poorly. “It’s a bit short notice, don’t you think?”

  “Are you kidding me? You just cheated on your fiancé,” he pointed out wrongly. “I knew you had cold feet. This is your out. You’re welcome. Now call him. Once that’s done, we’ll talk.”

  What a wonderful opinion he had of her. He thought this had been bridal nerves, and not the scariest decision of her life. The consequences of her actions jumbled inside her like balls in a bingo cage. “This wasn’t cold feet. There’s more to it.”

  “Seemed premeditated to me. You had condoms in your pocketbook.”

  “I didn’t put them there,” she protested, remembering Jhi’s loaded comment about surprises in her purse. “I think Jhi did.”

  “Sure she did,” he said. “So was this revenge sex? One last fling before settling down with Mr. Celibacy? That’s no way to start a marriage. You have to call him.”

  “I don’t want revenge on Dan,” she muttered, trying to remember what else she’d discussed while Heck had been eavesdropping. How could he have missed the most pertinent part of the conversation, that the wedding had been canceled? The truth was, if Heck had so much as crooked his finger at her, she would have broken up with any of her boyfriends. Short notice be damned. She would have leaped at the chance to be with Heck over any of them.

  If she’d been using anybody, it was Dan, to get over Heck.

  “I have a confession.” She licked her lips. “It’s kind of funny. Would you believe the wedding is already off?”

  “Bullshit. I heard your conversation, Caroline. I know he hates me, and I know you were going to chuck me. Which part of that was calling off the wedding?”

  Jesus. She’d told him, straight out, and he didn’t believe her. “You’re so hardheaded. You didn’t hear everything. We broke up.”

  “Broke up? You said you loved him.” He readjusted his body until they weren’t touching but he was on his side, facing her. “Then you slept with me.”

  “First off, I didn’t plan this. I enjoyed it, but I didn’t plan it.” As long as wishing for it to happen since she’d become interested in sex didn’t count as planning. “Second, the wedding. Is. Already. Off.”

  “I find it hard to believe you forgot to mention that until now. Don’t you think everyone would have wanted to know?”

  “I did mention it in the hallway,” she said. “Then we started kissing and—”

  “You agreed to call off the wedding if we had sex. I asked if you knew what this meant and you said yes.”

  “That’s not how I remember it.” She’d thought the sex was a physical confession of love and that they’d be together now. But he wasn’t even touching her.

  “Then why did this happen?” he asked, sounding genuinely baffled but also angry. With her.

  “The reason this happened starts about thirty-four years ago.” She didn’t know how to make him believe the truth if he simply…refused. Calling poor, drunk Dan would work, but it would also be hideous. And once she did convince Heck of the truth, he’d assume she’d slept with him out of grief or anger, instead of love and a healthy dose of lust.

  “Summarize.”

  There was no good way to summarize her years of stupidity and foolish longing. So she didn’t try. “Blah blah blah and then Heck acted like a moralizing bitch.”

  “I’m not condemning you. I’m just telling you how to fix it.” It sounded like he was frowning. He expressed no joy that they’d come together at last, and it was ripping her to shreds.

  “I don’t think you’re in any position to saddle up your high horse.” He didn’t do one-night stands, as far as she knew, so why had he jumped her if he didn’t want her for himself? Was he acting out of friendship? Or, good Lord, did he hate Dan that much?

  But all he did was tilt his head. “All you have to do is call him right now and cancel the wedding. It’s that simple.”

  “I’m not doing that,” she said. “It’s three a.m. He may not even answer.”

  “Then I’ll call him. I’ll take the blame, I don’t care. He can hate me all he likes. I just want things to go back to normal.”

  “Which normal? When I wasn’t getting married? Or when I wasn’t dating Dan?”

  He shoved a frustrated hand through his hair.

  “T
he normal where you weren’t moving to Atlanta with that peckerhead.” Suddenly he was touching her again, grabbing her shoulder, his fingers biting into her skin. “Jesus, Caroline, how can you marry a guy who makes you ditch your friends? What is he, some kind of control freak? I couldn’t sit back and let you ruin your life.” He let go and gestured sharply. “I had to do something drastic.”

  “Oh, my God.” As if she weren’t already dismayed, Heck’s revelation pounded it into her like…like he’d pounded into her. “Did you sleep with me so I’d—”

  He rolled onto his back, cutting her off. “This isn’t about me. This is your decision. I’m sorry, Caro. I shouldn’t have interfered.”

  How could she admit she loved him now? “You were trying to wreck the wedding. I mean, why else would you have sex with me?”

  For a minute, he didn’t move a muscle. Then he sighed. “We shouldn’t have done this. It was wrong.”

  That was what sleeping with her meant to him—something wrong.

  At some point, she’d realized that having Heck in her life meant never being able to fully appreciate other men. He overshadowed them in her heart, and she’d decided she had to know. She’d tried, with Dan, to give herself a chance to love someone else.

  It hadn’t worked. She hadn’t fooled Dan, and she hadn’t fooled herself.

  After tonight, she’d have to push Heck out of her life anyway. No getting past this. He’d taken her to bed to destroy her wedding and keep his life the way he preferred it. Keep things normal—the normal that was making her sad and crazy because she loved him when he only wanted friendship.

  He might have given her the best sex she’d ever had, but sex wasn’t everything. Friendship wasn’t everything. Heck wasn’t saying the things she needed to hear. He wasn’t interested in pursuing a romance, and he wasn’t holding her.

  He’d turned his back on her.

  God, she’d ruined everything because she’d finally taken a shot. Swing and a miss.

  She had to get out of here before she started crying.

  She didn’t make it. Jhi took fifteen minutes to arrive, and Caroline cried for fourteen of them. Heck, stubbornly waiting beside her on the porch, wore the most dejected expression she’d seen on anyone’s face since his divorce.