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about the authors

JANINE ASHBLESS likes unconventional weddings: she was once best man for a male friend and she herself got married in secret … which really upset her new mother-in-law. She has written five erotic books for Black Lace and her short stories appear in anthologies by Black Lace, Cleis (including Best Women’s Erotica 2011) and—starting with Alison’s Wonderland—Harlequin. She lives in the UK and blogs at www.janineashbless.blogspot.com where she enthuses about mythology, Victorian art and minotaurs.

By day, JAX BAYNARD is a financial investment advisor. By night, she makes her own (and her clients’) fantasies come true. This part-time dominatrix’s short fiction has appeared in Pleasure Bound, online, and in several literary journals. Her favorite weddings are the ones you never think will happen.

CHEYENNE BLUE combines her two passions in life and writes travel guides and erotica. Her erotica has appeared in several anthologies, including Best Women’s Erotica, Mammoth Best New Erotica, Best Lesbian Erotica, Best Lesbian Love Stories and on many websites. Her travel guides have been jammed into many glove boxes underneath the chocolate wrappers. She divides her time between Colorado, USA, Australia and Ireland, and is currently working on a book about the quiet and quirky areas of Ireland. Her favorite type of wedding is an Irish one with black pints and singing. Visit her at http://www.cheyenneblue. com.

RACHEL KRAMER BUSSEL (www.rachelkramerbussel.com) is an author, editor, blogger and reading-series host. She is senior editor at Penthouse Variations, wrote the Lusty Lady column for The Village Voice, and has contributed to Cosmopolitan, The Daily Beast, New York Post and other publications. She’s edited over twenty-five anthologies, including Bottoms Up, Spanked, Yes, Sir, Yes, Ma’am, The Mile High Club, Do Not Disturb, Rubber Sex, Dirty Girls, and is the Best Sex Writing series editor. Since October 2005, she has hosted New York’s In The Flesh Reading Series, featuring everyone from Susie Bright to Zane. She cries at weddings but doesn’t anticipate walking down the aisle herself.

Heidi Champa was married on a hot, humid August day eleven years ago. The wedding started with thunder and lightning and ended with a brilliant pink sunset. Her husband has always encouraged her to write, believing her dirty mind should be put to good use. Her work appears in numerous anthologies including Tasting Him, Frenzy, Playing With Fire and Girl Fun One. She has also steamed up the pages of Bust Magazine. If you prefer your erotica in electronic form, she can be found at Clean Sheets, Ravenous Romance, Oysters and Chocolate and The Erotic Woman. Find her online at heidichampa.blogspot.com.

PORTIA DA COSTA is a British author of romance, erotic romance and erotic fiction, who loves writing about sexy, likable people in steamy and wickedly scandalous situations. Her many novels have been translated into languages such as German, Spanish and Dutch, and she’s had well over a hundred short stories published in magazines and anthologies. A passionate believer in matrimony, Portia has been married more years than she cares to count, but she still remembers feeling like a princess on her wedding day. She and her prince live in the heart of West Yorkshire with their cats.

BELLA DEAN was always the one dodging the bouquet. And she still is. But that doesn’t mean she’s not making eyes at the sexy groomsman or flirting with the caterer. She figures when the right guy comes along, she’ll go straight for the garters. Skip the bouquet. Bella’s work has appeared in Alison’s Wonderland, Pleasure Bound, For the Girls and Afternoon Delight, among others.

ERASTES lives in the UK. She writes gay historical romance and believes that marriage is for everyone. Her second novel, Transgressions, was launched in March 09 as part of Running Press’s seminal gay romance line, targeted at both men and women. Her website, which includes many excerpts of her work, can be found at www.erastes.com.

ADR FORTE is the author of erotic short fiction that appears in numerous anthologies from Cleis Press, Circlet Press and Black Lace, including Hurts So Good and Pleasure Bound, also edited by Alison Tyler. She once considered wedding cake design, but after a few notably disastrous attempts with the icing and food coloring decided to stick with writing instead. Visit her at www.adrforte.blogspot.com.

LANA FOX has published erotic stories in Alison’s Wonderland and several Xcite anthologies, including Naughty Spanking 1 and Sex, Love and Valentines. Her other short fiction about sexuality has appeared in numerous lit mags. Lana was taught that sex before marriage is sinful, so she had lots and lots of it before getting hitched in white. She is currently working on a collection of erotic stories about sex and magic. You can find her online at http://www.lanafox.com.

If SHANNA GERMAIN was a wedding cake, she’d either be red velvet with cream cheese frosting or a bite-size gypsy tart. When she’s not dreaming of new things to put in her mouth, she’s writing. Her award-winning work can be read in places like Best American Erotica, Best Bondage Erotica 2, Best Gay Romance, Best Lesbian Erotica, F is for Fetish, Playing With Fire, X: The Erotic Treasury and on her website, www.shannagermain.com.

P. S. HAVEN is from Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He began writing dirty stories as a way to turn on his girlfriend. They’ve been married for twelve years, so he did something right. His style is heavily influenced by the works of Hugh Hefner, Henry Ford and David Lee Roth. Haven’s stories have been published in Best American Erotica Series, Playing With Fire: Taboo Erotica, X: The Erotic Treasury, B is for Bondage, Frenzy: 60 Stories of Sudden Sex and many others. He blogs about writing and lots of other stuff at pshaven.blogspot.com.

MICHAEL HEMMINGSON‘s first feature film, The Watermelon, is out on DVD and Blu-Ray, and ends in a possible wedding-on-the-verge: that is, the hero gets the girl. His novels include Wild Turkey, The Comfort of Women and The Dress, along with a collection of erotic stories Sexy Strumpets and Troublesome Trollops.

KRISTINA LLOYD is the author of three erotic novels including the controversial Black Lace bestseller, Asking for Trouble. Her short stories have appeared in numerous anthologies and her novels have been translated into German, Dutch and Japanese. She has a master’s degree in twentieth-century literature and has been described as “a fresh literary talent” who “writes sex with a formidable force.” The last wedding she attended was in Duras, the French town associated with Marguerite Duras. For more visit kristinalloyd.wordpress.com.

NIKKI MAGENNIS is a Scottish writer of erotica and erotic romance who has a habit of falling over at weddings. You can find her short stories in many anthologies including Alison’s Wonderland from Harlequin and the Mammoth Book of the Kama Sutra. Her novels, Circus Excite and The New Rakes, are published by Virgin Black Lace. Find out more at nikkimagennis.blogspot.com.

SOMMER MARSDEN made her own wedding cake. And then the cat ate it. A lovely friend made her second so she didn’t have a nervous breakdown. Even though her original cake did not survive, her marriage is still going strong. She’s been with one very patient, sexy man for a baker’s dozen years (and counting). Sommer is the author of Lucky 13, Double Booked and The Mighty Quinn. Her work has appeared in dozens of anthologies, including Alison’s Wonderland, Best Women’s Erotica 2009 and 2010, Liaisons, and Sex and Satisfaction. According to Ashley Lister (ERWA), she is “renowned for her style of combining exquisite sex with well-realized situations and credible characters.” Visit her at sommermarsden.blogspot.com.

N. T. MORLEY thinks the happiest marriages start out with strippers at the weddings, not just the bachelor and/or bachelorette parties. Morley’s many novels include The Parlor, The Limousine, The Appointment and The Visitor, as well the trilogies The Castle, The Library and The Office, and a double anthology, MASTER/slave. More can be unearthed at www.ntmorley.com.

KATE PEARCE was born into a large family of girls in England, and spent much of her childhood living very happily in a dream world. Despite being told that she really needed to “get with the program,” she graduated from the University College of Wales with a master’s degree in history. A move to the USA finally allowed her to fulfill her dreams and sit down and write that novel. Along with being a voracious reader, Kate loves trail riding with her family, “Western style” in the regional parks of Northern California. Kate is a member of RWA and is published by Kensington Aphrodisia, NAL, Ellora’s Cave, Cleis Press and Virgin Black Lace/Cheek.

A veteran of many friends’ too-elaborate weddings, THOMAS S. ROCHE hopes the next time he wears a tuxedo, he’ll be accepting his first Oscar or dispatching Russian agents. The most romantic wedding he ever attended was inside a rusted-out gun emplacement overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge. His widely published short stories have appeared in such venues as the Best American Erotica series, the Best New Erotica series and many other best-of anthologies. He can be found at www.thomasroche.com.

SOPHIA VALENTI loves married men—well, one in particular, who she has adored since their wedding twelve years ago. She thinks the best part of being married is living with your best friend—and having someone strong in the house to open jars. Her erotica has appeared in the Harlequin Spice anthology Alison’s Wonderland and the Cleis Press books Afternoon Delight, Playing with Fire and Pleasure Bound. Visit her at sophiavalenti.blogspot.com.

I.K. Velasco is a corporate slave by day and a slave to her passions at night. She tries to come off as hardcore, but is really a big softie. She’s a bit chagrined to admit that she’s had her dream wedding planned in her head since the age of six—raspberry and chocolate-brown color scheme, pink hydrangeas and a gaggle of bridesmaids, oh my!

SASKIA WALKER (www.saskiawalker.co.uk) is an award-winning British author whose short fiction appears in over sixty anthologies. Her erotic novels include Along for the Ride, Double Dare, Reckless, Rampant, Inescapable and The Harlot. Saskia lives in the north of England close to the windswept Yorkshire moors, where she happily spends her days spinning yarns. Saskia once attended a wedding on the arm of a horned demon. Saskia was dressed as a cobweb-covered ghoul. The bride and groom were vampires, and the guests included all manner of paranormal creatures. Even the registrar was wearing witch’s garb. The date? All Hallows’ Eve.

RITA WINCHESTER has multiple hideous bridesmaids dresses and nary a bridal gown in sight. But she never says never and she figures the bridesmaids gowns come in handy for Halloween … or witness protection. Her work has appeared in Mammoth Lesbian Erotica, I is for Indecent, Tasting Her, Pleasure Bound, Never Have the Same Sex Twice and Frenzy, among others. You can drop her a line or a rope at rita_winchester@yahoo.com.

KRISTINA WRIGHT (kristinawright.com) is an award-winning author whose erotica and erotic romance has appeared in over seventy-five anthologies including Bedding Down: A Collection of Winter Erotic, Dirty Girls and the collections Seduction, Liaisons and Sexy Little Numbers. She is also the editor of Fairy Tale Lust: Bedtime Stories for Women. Her writing is inspired by her own happily-ever-after tale: she married her soul mate after a whirlwind six-month long-distance relationship. Twenty years later, she is happy to say she would do it all again.

With This Ring

I Thee Bed

AN

EROTIC

COLLECTION

EDITED BY

ALISON TYLER

www.spice-books.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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Dedicated

To SAM

Two human loves make one divine.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

introduction

“I do.”

I said those words nearly fifteen years ago, in a sunny backyard ceremony, surrounded by friends and family. I knew Sam was the one for me from the start. In fact, I did the proposing.

“Ever think of getting married?” I asked after our first weekend together.

“Is that an offer?” he countered.

I nodded, he accepted and I bought the dress the next week. The ceremony took place in the spring, in a simple outdoor celebration. I wore white. He wore a suit. The handcuffs came later.

Marriage is revered in our family. My grandparents celebrated sixty-five years together, and my parents have been married more than forty. But we embrace an element of levity, as well. My folks got hitched on April Fool’s Day. The “something blue” I wore was glossy midnight polish on my toenails.

But now I’m focused on my brand-new wedding. And you’re invited. Don’t worry—I’m not cheating. I’m talking about an anthology dedicated to all things bridal—from paper to diamonds.

With This Ring, I Thee Bed features tales of married sex, honeymoon sex, make-up sex, anniversary events and a seven-year itch. Couples experiment with new ideas, and (in some cases) new people. Lovers stoke the embers of passion as they fall ever deeper in love. In at least one instance, a gigolo is involved!

When I invited the authors to submit, I told them to toss the theme in the air like a bouquet—so that we’d all be scattered with petals as well as rice.

With This Ring, I Thee Bed takes the license for marriage from naked nuptials to brides in bondage. Naughty authors are registered at the Department of Kink.

Now, who else is ready to say “I Do”?

XXX,

Alison

P.S. Although a wedding book has been on my mind (and my hard drive) for years, I’d like to thank my best man, Mike Kimera, for giving me the title and escorting me down the aisle.

Now or Forever

Nikki Magennis

We should be halfway to paradise by now.

I look at Susie’s blue kitchen clock. Just past twelve. The flight left three hours ago, heading to the Caribbean with two empty seats in first class.

The washing machine clicks over and I watch the clothes tumble around in the drum, soapy water sloshing from side to side. They’re all too colorful. Bikini, sarong, sundress. Clothes I’m never going to wear. I’m washing them instead of burning them.

Our honeymoon was a present from Charlie’s dad—one of the gifts that can’t be quietly returned. It’s not always possible to apologize. Some things can’t be undone. And “sorry” isn’t always enough.

I get another flash of Charlie’s face. The way his eyes kind of flickered as I ran past him on the path, the way he looked almost as if he was smiling, the way he does when he’s confused. He was a little pale, his freckles darker than usual.

Oh God.

It was all supposed to be a big white dream. We’d be like paper dolls cut out of a magazine. A pretty little church, the perfect lace dress, star-shaped flowers with delicate trails of ivy. Charlie would be nervous and I’d be trying not to laugh. We would kiss in soft focus. Bells would ring.

My phone goes—and it’s playing the fucking Wedding March. My sister must have programmed it as a joke. I pounce on my jacket, scrabble through the pockets and find it, hit the cancel button before I look at the name.

Charlie. Of course it’s Charlie. Did I think he’d just disappear? Six years don’t evaporate that easily. Even if I’ve broken his heart and ruined his life, we’re going to have to at least pretend to be grown-ups. I should call him back.

I don’t. Instead, I pick at the lace of the bright yellow garter Susie made me promise to wear. It’s a hideous thing—the color of crayon sunshine in a kid’s drawing, with too many bows and ribbons sprouting from it—but for some reason I can’t stop playing with it. Back when she gave me the garter—a hundred years ago, the night before the not-wedding—it seemed like a silly, joyous little joke. Now it makes me wince.

“The yellow ones are supposed to attract lovers. Maybe some of your good luck’ll rub off on me, eh?” Susie had given me a big, theatrical wink, but I think she meant it at least a little bit.

Susie and I are best friends from high school. We’ve been through crushes, boyfriends, breakups and make-ups. I’d always been the one with the hectic love life, Susie the one with the steady boyfriends. Until I met Charlie.

My head snaps up as the doorbell rings. I don’t want to speak to anyone, not the flower arranger, the dressmaker or the caterers, not friends and relations or in-laws. There’s not a single one of the thousand people involved in the biggest not-wedding this century that I want to hear from.

The bell goes again. Maybe Susie forgot her key, I think. Maybe it’s not even for me. I tread nervously to the door and reluctantly open it a crack.

On the step is the one person I want most, the one I fear most. The door swings open and Charlie and I are facing each other over the threshold.

“Seb.” It’s his secret name for me. Silly, I know, but it makes me feel as if I’m about to collapse, like I’m a bicycle tire with all the air let out.

I’m shaking my head but I can’t break my gaze, tear it away from those eyes the color of wet slate. Charlie is hard to read, but over the years I’ve learned his tells. Usually, I can pick up his quirking smile, some little giveaway angle of his eyebrow or how he tugs at his ear. Today, he’s standing on Susie’s front step with his arms hanging by his sides, and I can’t tell a thing. Whether he wants to hold me or hit me. I close my eyes.

I don’t know how to apologize.

“I just couldn’t. I can’t.” My voice is thin, about to break. “Where do I start, Charlie?”

What I want most is to sag into his arms. He’s my comfort, usually, my solace and support. I straighten my spine. No. Not now.

I stand back and let him in, taking a breath of his fresh-air-and-skin scent as he passes.

I follow him into the kitchen and it’s easier, somehow, when we’re not facing each other, so I turn my back on him and fuss with the kettle and the teacups. My hand shakes as I pour milk.

As the water comes to a boil, I turn and he’s got the garter, that hideous yellow badge, and he’s turning it round in his hands.

“You wore this?” he asks, a frown folded between his eyebrows.

“Susie asked me to.” I want to snatch the garter away from him. I remember the sensation, tight round my thigh, the cheap fabric stiff and prickly. I stood there being prepped for the wedding and I remember having the sudden, violent urge to run away and rip it off and scratch and scratch and scratch.

Charlie nods slowly.

Normally, he’d crack a joke. Normally, this would be easy—being together, the easiest thing in the world, like everything’s right and how it should be and … and perfect? I look at the yellow of the garter against Charlie’s skin.

“It was all too good to be true,” I say softly. Surprising myself.

He looks up and I can see for the first time a spark in his eyes. It could be dangerous. It could be promising. I take the chance.

“I’m scared, Charlie.”

“Of what?”

“Of us.” I watch his lips. I owe him honesty, at least. I take a deep breath.

“Of suffocating. I was standing up there at that altar and …”

“And what?” he says, his voice edged with flint.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” I start to say, before I realize what I’m doing. I start again. Look right in his eyes.

“I don’t know if I can promise you so much. Just you, just me, forever.” There’s a rushing over my skin, and I’m running fast down a slope. But I can’t stop now. “I saw my sex life flash in front of my eyes, Charlie. Do you understand what I’m saying?” I know I’m almost shouting.

Is that worse? I wonder. To have ditched Charlie in front of all his family and friends, to have left him awkward and alone at the church, or this? To tell him the truth, what I’ve been darkly afraid of all along? My lurid, cherry-red, heart-throbbing dirty secret.

How can I promise never to have another lover? Me, who’s always been quick to get bored, and quicker to discard unsatisfactory bedfellows. Who’s been first to try every practice and position, whose whole life is punctuated by sex—exotic and romantic and thrilling and brief and heartbreaking. Yes, I love Charlie, and yes, I love fucking him. But will I really be able to sacrifice every other man in the world—every other possible man?

I think about how Charlie is, and try and match it against the invisible future. I know it’s wrong, but I’m trying to measure him. Testing, to see how I love him, how much and how far.

Yes, I love how his eyelids kind of slide down a few degrees, so he’s giving me a snake’s gaze, one that slips over my body in a prelude to his touch. I love how his mouth goes tight. How his fingers travel, how he takes mouthfuls of me.

And this. Yes, I’d forgotten how much I love this.

“Charlie?”

“Shut up.”

How he is silent. How he pulls me to him and works his way from my wrist to my shoulders. Charlie is gentle. Most of the time. But he knows how to fix me in place. He’s clever, too—sees immediately how he could take an ugly yellow garter and twist it around my wrists, how it would hold my arms behind my back firmly, but stretch enough not to dig in too much.

“What if Susie …”

He ignores me. I think this might be what I love most about us. He knows me so well, he can tell when to listen and when to just keep on going. Like now, as he strips me methodically, slowly, almost brusquely. He pushes the cardigan off my shoulders and lets it bunch at my tied wrists. Reaches for the buttons at my throat and lets the backs of his hands scuff over my breasts.

I’m biting my lip again, trying not to moan. For some reason, it seems important to match Charlie’s wordless intensity. As though the only way I can apologize is with my silence, as though any more words would be too many.

He peels my shirt aside, bares my breasts and belly. He’s holding my shirttails in his fists and he tugs me from side to side a little as he leans in to kiss me, letting me know how he can move me, how he can turn me.

And then we’re kissing and it’s too late for explanations. I forget why I left the church, I forget where I am and what my name is. All I can think of is the heat of Charlie’s mouth, the scrape of his stubble and the hard pressure of his body against mine. The way he is kissing me recklessly, like a dare.

When he pulls away I’m breathing hard, as if we’ve been running.

“So I’m not enough for you,” he says, and his lip curls a little. His hand drops to my breast and tweaks hard. I open my mouth but no sound comes out.

“You want more.” His other hand, my other breast. I’m almost doubling over, and my nipples are burning beautifully as he pulls and pinches. When he lets go, I almost fall forward. In the sun-filled kitchen I’m gasping for breath—half-naked, disheveled and as ridiculous as the yellow garter.

Charlie knows how to tease, and today I’m wondering if he’s playing out some kind of revenge. If he’s going to teach me a lesson—how it feels to be left hanging.

“Please,” I say, even though I think I shouldn’t.

“You know what, Seb?”

He’s leaning back and looking at me thoughtfully, as if I were a painting he’s deciding whether or not he likes.

“I can understand you being chicken. I can even live with the thought of you fucking other people.” His eyes flash. I look at him and the blush storms through my cheeks. He nods. “Yes, I am aware that you like sex, Seb.”

He leans in close and whispers in my ear. “Dirty girl, aren’t you? You think I didn’t know that? You think I can’t tell how hungry you are every time you walk down the street, shaking that tight little ass of yours? You think I don’t notice how you stick your tits out when you’re talking to a nice-looking guy? How you give all my friends the once-over, like you’re just considering the possibility?”

I flinch. I really didn’t think he’d noticed.

Charlie pulls back and sighs. He reaches, almost idly, to my trousers and flicks at the buttons. As if he doesn’t care if they come loose or not. When he slides his hand into the front of my panties, he touches the tip of his tongue to his lip as if he’s doing something tricky.

“What breaks my heart, Seb, is that you think I’m so stupid.”

“I don’t!” If I weren’t tied up, I’d reach out for him. He curls his fingers inside my panties, cups my pussy in his hand and gives a little squeeze. It’s like he’s in control of my heartbeat now, as though each stinging pinch of my clit sends the blood running through my veins.

“You think I don’t know you.”

“That’s not true,” I say, although my voice is strained and cracking. “It’s not?”

I look up at him through the strands of hair that have fallen over my face. He meets my gaze, hard and direct.

“Seb, I know you. I know how you’re torn.”

While he talks, he keeps working at me, his fingers stroking my most intimate places, proving the truth of what he says.

“You think that getting married is a death sentence. That we’d be stuck fast together and we’d never be able to leave.”

I bite my lip. I can’t really deny this, not without lying. He strums at me, turning the dial up toward orgasm. He can make me come with a flick of his wrist. I rock on his hand, lean on his arm so that he’s virtually propping me up. I think of his cock, how long it is and how full it makes me.

“Charlie,” I say, losing the thread of our conversation. I know I have to concentrate, have to hold back. But when he tweaks at my aching nipple, I nearly give in.

“Nothing is forever,” he says, his voice so soft it breaks my heart. He tugs on my nipples, left and right, dosing me with little shocks of pain.

“You like this.” It’s not a question, but I respond anyway.

“Yes. God, yes.”

“And if you didn’t want it? If you stopped liking it?”

I won’t ever, I say in my mind. Please don’t stop. He’s alternating pinches of my clit and my nipples now, digging his fingers into me, burying them inside me.

“Seb. Answer me.”

I shake my head.

I whisper our pact, our long-ago agreement. What we discussed back when we were laying down the ground rules. When we were still falling in love.

“I say the word. And it’s over.”

“Yes. You say the word. It’s that simple.”

He holds on tight to my clit, rubbing it between his forefinger and thumb until it burns. “Or,” he says, “of course, I can also say the word.” His voice is low and creaky. Suddenly, I’m terrified.

I want to kiss him. I want to stop him from saying anything more. I moan and reach out for him, want his body slammed against mine, want him to rub against me, crush me, bore into me. Prove that he’s here, with me and not lost.

“Charlie,” I say, and there’s panic sliding in my voice. “Please.”

He cradles my head in the crook of his shoulder while he reaches to undo his jeans. At the same time he loosens the garter and throws it on the ground. Hands free, I grab for him.

We’re swaying now, falling against the kitchen table and bumping into the chairs. I push my clothes roughly down around my ankles, still leaning into Charlie, nuzzling at him. He smells of the soap he uses, maybe a little of last night’s whisky. I wonder what he did last night. Whether he slept. Whether he cried.

He turns me roughly and bends me over the kitchen table. Now I can’t see his face and I’m even more scared—is this his goodbye fuck? Is he going to say the word, cut me loose, banish me from his life?

His hands are on my hips, holding me steady and firm, and I butt back against him, wanting him to be inside me, yes, but also wanting to be inside him somehow. I spread my legs, feel the head of his cock slip between my thighs.

“Come into me, baby,” I say, tilting my ass up as though begging. His thighs are warm on the back of my legs. He pushes into me and I could weep again. My legs are shaking, about to start bucking and jerking against him, almost out of my control.

“Shhh,” he says, stroking from the base of my spine to between my shoulder blades, dragging his hand over my body to soothe me. And it does—I rock slowly, taking a little more of him at a time until he’s nestled deep in me and can’t go any farther.

“More,” I murmur, wiggling my hips from side to side. Charlie keeps caressing me, slow and steady. I hear him laugh.

“S’funny?” I ask, although I can’t stop swaying against him, working myself up and down on his shaft.

“I’ll give you as much as you want,” he says lightly, while he withdraws in a rush and plunges back into me, making me gasp. “Whenever you want, however you want.”

He punctuates his words with thrusts that get harder, more emphatic and blunter each time. His cock is thickening in me, corkscrewing deeper and deeper.

“And if you want me to stop …” He pulls out so that just the tip of him is in me, an unbearable loss. “You just say the word.”

“Charlie,” I say. He’s hovering on the brink, I know it. The orgasm gathers in my fingertips, in my toes, rushes back and forth over me, crisscrosses from my nipples to my pussy and back to my mouth, my eyes, my heart. Just as I come, holding tight to the edge of the kitchen table, I get it. I get what he means. We’ll be married if we want it, for as long as we want it, just how we want it.

Charlie slides forward, sinks into me, and gives me what I need. I rise up to meet him and we surge together, rocking, responding, fucking like we always do.

“This is how they fuck in heaven,” Charlie said back in the first flush of our relationship, after six weeks of springtime courting and delirious sleepless nights. It was one of those embarrassing thoughts that spill out after especially good sex, and the way he said it—like a teenage boy awestruck and mad horny, made me blush. I remember we both laughed at the time.

Years later, and only after I’d managed to wreck our picture-perfect day, I realized he was right. It’s why I wasn’t all that unhappy that we missed the flight to Saint Lucia. Charlie and I know exactly how to make heaven on earth. We made it that afternoon in Susie’s kitchen, with the yellow garter lying trashed on the floor and the sky outside turning a really pretty shade of pale blue, like shirts when they’re fresh out of the laundry.

It was a strange day. We should have been brokenhearted that we’d created such a public disaster of our marriage. We were shipwrecked and empty-handed, and we probably both looked like fools. But in the space left behind we were free to make our own promises, say them quietly, in our own time.

There were no flowers, no speeches, no guests and no garter. Just me, Charlie and the words between us—the only ones that really mattered.

Racing to the Altar

Sommer Marsden

I eyed the billboard as my foot mashed on the gas pedal. The thought cops hide behind big billboard signs like that flittered through my head, but I mashed it anyway. My speed crept from 68 to 74. I was late. I was so fucking late it wasn’t funny. I was racing to the altar. Hell-bent for matrimony.

Kelly and Tina and Tracy all awaited me at the church. No doubt pacing the small bridal room where they were to do my makeup and my hair. I could picture Kelly fretting as she ticked off the minutes in her head. How much time we had and what that would allow. Up-do with accent braids? Chignon? Traditional bun? She would kill me!

I shot past the sign advertising Rock Hard Gym and my stomach bottomed out when I saw the lights, my body tingling the way it does when I ride a roller coaster. The cherry lights atop the cruiser came on in a flash of crimson, and I gnawed my bottom lip.

Cop.

I pulled to the side of the road.

I didn’t have time for a ticket. There was hair to be done, makeup to be applied, panic to be embraced. I had to go over my vows and make sure the seating arrangements were perfect and check the church to ensure that Uncle Sal was not next to Great-aunt Dot (or they would kill each other). I had too much to do. And at the end of it all, hopefully I would be lawfully married and not insane. Then Jackson and I would run off to Nova Scotia, never to return!

Okay, so we were returning. The point was that we had to make it through this stressful, heart-pounding wedding and reception before we could escape. And all I really wanted was to be with him. Somewhere quiet. Just me and him and our lips pressed together, making out like horny teenagers the way we did when we weren’t tasting butter cream frosting or picking out dye to make shoes match dresses. I sighed, drumming my fingers on the steering wheel. In my head, I was already pleading my case. Figuring out what I would say to Officer Friendly to get off with only a warning.

“Do you know how fast you were going, miss?” he asked into my semi-open window. My heart shot up into my throat and my stomach dropped to my feet. I opened my mouth, but he cut me off. “I asked you a question, miss. Do you know how fast you were going?”

“Too fast?” It was all could think to say.

The good officer laughed. “Obviously, or I wouldn’t be here, would I?”

His eyes studied me and I studied him. He’d pulled his aviator sunglasses down to peer at me, his mouth twisted in a wry grin. Bright blue eyes like an autumn sky, lush lips, peppering of dark stubble along his jaw. I thought it would be fairly easy to cut paper with his cheekbones, and I was struck, sitting out here in the bright October sunshine, by how utterly gorgeous he was. Nearly beautiful, to be honest.

“This section of road is zoned for 55 miles per hour, ma’am. You were going over 70. Were you aware?”

“No,” I lied. He put his hand on the door and I rolled my window all the way down. My eyes went to his thickly muscled forearms, and my head felt swimmy. I’m a sucker for thick forearms. But I had a wedding to get to.

“I think you knew, and you were speeding anyway.” He leaned into the window, crowding my space. He had a teardrop-shaped birthmark above his left thumb. I inhaled deeply and tried to think.

“I’m sorry?”

“Are you sure? You don’t sound sure.”

This officer, this man, this amazing specimen was nearly leaning headfirst into my window. So close to me and my jangling nerves I swore I could feel the invisible particles of his energy mixing with mine. It was downright dirty, was what it was, because my pussy was responding to the heady mixture of fear and excitement and attraction. “Yes, I am absolutely sure that I am sorry,” I said, and any idiot could tell I was lying.

“I don’t believe you,” he said. He put his pad in his pocket and ran his finger along the seam of rubber that protected my lowered window. I watched that finger trace, and fought the urge to cross my legs. This was crazy. This was silly. I should ask for my ticket and leave. I should make him let me go right this instant. My bridesmaids and others would be foaming at the mouth by now. I. Did. Not. Have. Time. I didn’t have time for this insanity!

“I assure you, sir.”

“You’re lying.”

I felt a blush heat my cheeks. I blew out a sigh, trying not to think about church parking, place settings, snippy caterers and my betrothed’s mother’s insistence that we had some ridiculous disgusting red velvet groom’s cake.

“I don’t lie,” I lied.

“Could you pull around next to my cruiser and step out of the car please, ma’am?”

Real fear sizzled through me then. My eyes found my watch and I almost cried. I was already a half an hour late to the church. In two and a half hours I was supposed to be saying, “I do.” And then a party to rival all parties and then blissful, perfect alone time. Away from all the lunacy of a big wedding.

“Ma’am.”

“Look, Officer, I don’t have time for this. I truly don’t.” I smiled. He had to understand. He had to! I would make it all up, but right now I had to bolt. Hell, I pretty much needed a police escort.

“I don’t recall giving you an option, ma’am.” He smiled. That smile slid down my throat, snaked between my breasts, tickled over my belly button and stroked my clit like some living mystical thing.

“Urn … please?”

“Please drive around and park next to my vehicle, ma’am. Then I would like you to exit your vehicle and wait.”

I blew my bangs out of my face. Resistance was futile, as the saying goes. But I could just floor it. Mash my foot on the gas and take off like some bandit out of a seventies moonshine movie. God knows I’d seen enough of them. Even Jackson made me watch them! With a dad, three brothers and a car-crazed fiancé, I was pretty much a pro at car chases from the law.

He read my mind. “And, ma’am, if you try to run, you’ll be sorry. Way sorrier than you’ll be for lying to me now.” He smiled again, all tan skin, white teeth and twisted humor.

I harrumphed, started the car and slowly drove to park beside the cruiser. To be honest, what I did was pretty much drift my big SUV next to it. The cherry lights were still looping but the siren was off.

I put the car in Park, eyed the time again. “Oh, I’m screwed. I am so, so screwed.” But I knew from the set of that man’s face I was not getting out of this.

I could hear his big boots crunching and popping over the dirt shoulder of the road. I shivered, rubbing my arms. I was crosswired. Unbelievably turned on when I should be begging and pleading.

“Step out, ma’am!” he barked, and I yelped. I opened the door and lowered myself from the SUV. Shit, shit, shit. I had worn my yoga pants and a tee to the church. Flip-flops to let my pedicure dry. I hoped my toenails didn’t get dusty.

“Stand by the car, ma’am.”

“I am by the car!” I worried my fingers together. I was so wet between my legs it was insane. I studied the fretting image of myself in his mirrored shades. I wished he’d lower them and gaze at me again so I could try and get a read on those eyes.

“My car, ma’am.” He smiled and my nipples betrayed me by poking incessantly at the thin fabric of my ancient tee.

“Oh.”

I walked to his cruiser as if I were going to the gallows. When I got there, I wanted to cry. Now what? Should I face the cruiser? Face him? I had no idea, so I stood in a stupid, cockeyed stance kitty-corner to him and the car.

“Face the cruiser, ma’am.”

Damn. His voice was like hot caramel, melting chocolate, warm coffee on a cold day. It skittered down my spine and curled at the base of me. A steady wet echo sounded in my pussy. I was getting married in like … two hours!

“Hands on the trunk, please.”

“But—”

“Now, ma’am.” He walked closer to me and his energy pressed to me like an embrace. The breath shivered in my throat and a cool fall wind swung the loose legs of my yoga pants around my legs.

“But, in like two hours I’m—”

“Ma’am, if you disregard a direct order again, we’re going to have a problem. A very serious problem.”

I could tell by the set of his jaw and that stubborn-man look that this was it. I could obey or it would be ten times worse.

“Fine,” I said under my breath. I put my hands on the trunk and hung my head, fuming. But when his hands settled on my hips and started to slide I was hot all right, but not from anger.

“I’m just going to pat you down for weapons, ma’am. Routine. You just keep your hands there on the trunk.”

I couldn’t really make noise with his hands on me. They glided down my hips, skimming my buttocks, caressing the backs of my thighs so gently they could have been an hallucination. My eyes drifted closed, my body going loose. My heart filled my ears and wet heat filled my pussy. I sighed. His hands slid around my bare ankles, which were a bit chilled in the early fall air. Then those hands were scooping back up the front, dancing over my flanks, my hips, the fronts of my thighs. His fingertips brushed the V between my legs and his longest fingers came precariously close to my pussy. I sighed again. Mostly so I could get some air in my lungs.

“Now where were you rushing to, might I ask.” He said it right into my ear, his hot breath pouring into the shell, over the lobe, down my throat so goose bumps rose up like crocuses through snow.

“My wedding.” I gasped.

His hands played along the wide waist of my yoga pants. Hot fingers dipped under the thin fabric, each touch searing my skin like a burn. I was a kiss away from getting married, and this man was making me nuts.

“Lucky guy, if you don’t mind me saying.” One hand had slipped completely into my pants and plucked and snagged at my tiny yellow (old!) panties. The other hand smoothed along the swell of my ass as if he owned me.

“Sir … um, mister? Uh, Officer?” I tried them all, but it was damn near impossible for me to think. That rogue hand had slipped down to cover my mound. My neatly groomed for my honeymoon, new-bride pussy. His fingers slipped along the ridge of my lips and pressed to my clit so that I shivered in his half embrace.

“Officer J. S. Monroe,” he said.

“Yes, Officer Monroe. I’m going to be so very, very la—oh, God, right there.” He had slipped a finger deep into my wet, pulsing cunt and he was just barely thrusting it. Just enough to make all the blood that slept beneath my skin hum like a chorus.

“You know it’s dangerous to drive that fast,” he said, his lips sliding up and down the back of my neck so that I shook as if I would come apart.

“I’m sorry. Really. I am so, so sorry that I endangered—oh,” I said, because he’d slipped another finger into me and his free hand was yanking at my yoga pants.

I glanced around wildly. Someone would see us! Surely they would! Someone would notice us and this would end and … but no. Given how we had parked, how he had instructed me to park, we were blocked from sight on all sides. Barring an airplane, no one would see us. He had my ass bare to the wind, his dark blue dress pants pressed to my bareness. His erection pressed the crack of my bottom and his fingers continued to fuck in a slow, classic rhythm. Like a church organ or a hymn.

“Officer person Monroe,” I babbled. “We really shouldn’t be doing this. I’m going to miss—”

“You won’t miss a thing, ma’am. You have my word. Why, I’ll even give you an escort to your ceremony. Would you like that?”

His mouth slipped over my shoulder and even through my tee I could feel the humid heat of his breath. He cupped my breast, rolling the nipple between his fingers. I heard that other hand making busy with the belt and zipper of his blues. Was this really happening?

Then the warm, hard slide of his cock to my skin assured me it was.

“Yes, escort me. Hurry,” I said. God, that sounded dirty. “If you’d just bend forward a bit, ma’am, we can continue with the pat-down.”

I bent forward, hands splayed on the warm white metal of the trunk. I pushed my ass out and he took his big knee and knocked my stance wider. There were his fingers again, slipping between my legs, into me, testing me. Then the head of his cock, pressing deliberately to my wet, wet opening. “Yes, Officer,” I said.

My hair hung down and danced over the cruiser’s bright blue numbers as he anchored my hips and slipped home, sliding into me from behind as if he belonged there. I held on to nothing at all. Only the tips of my toes touched earth as he started to rock and sway against me, his cock thrusting in and out, in and out with sublime friction. Officer Monroe steadied himself, his broad chest, decorated with various commendations, pressed to the back of my worn tee. His other hand snaked around my waist, making my belly muscles flutter and adding a rush of heat wherever his fingers touched.

“Is that nice, ma’am?”

I could only nod. I watched his long tan fingers, nicked from hard work and dealing with God knows what or who, track and dance along my skin. Down the small swell of my belly, the dip of my mound. I watched that teardrop-shaped birthmark dance above his thumb, and then his fingers found my clit even as he started to thrust harder.

“Is that a yes, ma’am?”

“Yes, oh, I’m going to be so—”

“Shh, no more,” he ordered.

I bit my lip and gave in. Some vehicle whizzed passed us way too fast. Lucky for them, the law was otherwise engaged. And though I knew I shouldn’t be doing this right now—not at all—I sank back a little farther, opened myself a little more and let him in as deep as he could go. His fingers painted circles on my clit, shivering every nerve ending to life.

“Oh, Mr—”

“Officer.”

“Oh, Officer …”

“Yes?” His warm laughter filled my head as my toes and flip-flops struggled to find purchase, but he had me, swaying barely above earth. He had me, gripped in his huge safe hands, and I was coming. Coming apart, coming undone, coming as the early fall wind bit at my exposed skin. I was coming.

“That’s a good one, ma’am. Good job.” His hips started banging in earnest, the more gentle thrusts gone now, and excitement curled in my belly, bursts of excitement and the fear of being caught filling my chest, making my heart pound.

Another car whizzed by and he pushed me forward a little, so my belly, chest and head rested on the warm trunk, as if I was being arrested. Officer Monroe held my legs up and apart, driving into me hard so I would have scootched across the trunk if he didn’t have me in his grip. I was open, exposed, so very, very bad. And I was going to come again.

“Oh, you’re getting tight again. Do you have plans for another?” His voice had lost its silken texture. Now it was all grunting, panting, choppy words. I loved it.

“I might, if you, yeah, like that.”

And he did it like that. And then he did it like that harder until he froze like a robber under a spotlight. Then a final jerk and he emptied into me as my cunt gripped around him tight, taking every little slice of friction he might offer.

My hair was a mess.

I let my heart come down a beat, and looked at my watch. Then I was scrambling across the trunk like a madwoman, hair standing on end or hanging in clumps, yoga pants nearly tangling me so that I went down in the dirt. “Oh, God! Oh, God! I’ll never make it now!” I was damn near hysterical.

He took pity on me, bundled me up and put me in my car. Monroe pulled out into traffic, his cherry lights coming on and the siren screaming about as loudly as I wanted to right then. I could swear I saw him smiling in the rearview mirror as he escorted me to the church.

“Oh, my God! Where in the hell have you been! We are never going to—what happened to your hair, Fallon?”

“I, urn …” They all stood staring at me. Kelly’s toe was tapping the way it did when she was furious. “I had a flat and I had to change it and God! It was a mess.”

It must’ve worked because they all rolled their eyes, threw up their hands and flew into action.

How Kelly made my hair go from trailer trash struck by lightning to damn near royalty is beyond me. But I was going to roll with it. The hushed presence in the church had the charged intensity you can feel in a room packed full of people about to yell “surprise!” The anticipation was palpable.

I’d done a quick cleanup in the bride’s “facilities” and was powdered, perfumed, groomed and gowned. It was now or never.

Do or die.

No turning back.

The music cued and my stomach bottomed out. “Oh, God, I am going to pass out.”

“Clench your ass! Clench your ass!” Tracy kept hissing in my ear. “It’s what the fighter pilots do!”

But clenching my ass made me think of Officer Friendly and the frisking, and just as they threw open those big-ass doors to reveal the ivory-draped aisle, I got the giggles.

“Oh, no. She’s freaking out. Good thing Jackson will think it’s cute.” Tracy blew out a sigh. Tapped my cheeks with the tips of her fingers, her version of a snap-out-of-it smack.

“You guys are so gross, how icky and in love you are.” Kelly laughed. She nudged me and I stumbled forward a bit. Remembering the perfect feel of him. The feel of warm metal under my finger and—

“Go!” Tina said.

I went. I nodded and smiled and tried not to throw up. I kept my ass tense, no small feat when you are trying to walk gracefully to your betrothed.

He stood there, smiling. That perfect sexy-as-hell smile. In full-dress uniform, just for me.

In my mind, I was spread-eagle, facedown, being slipped and slid and used and—

“Fallon?” Reverend Scott said.

“Yes, here I am. Here I am,” I repeated, and turned to Jackson.

Nervous? he mouthed.

I nodded. He smiled, took my hand for a squeeze, and I ran my thumb over the dark brown teardrop-shaped birthmark above his thumb. I raised it to my lips and kissed it.

In a few moments we would be man and wife. And then Jackson couldn’t call me “miss” or “ma’am” when he played his game with me and made me damn near insane with want. Then he’d have to call me “missus.”

Or “wife.”

Forever Hold Your Peace

I.K. Velasco

This was supposed to be the happiest day of my life. It many ways it was. But I often wondered if I would never be satisfied, if I would always want what I could not have.

The mother of the bride, my sister—the maid of honor—and all eleven of my bridesmaids had finally left the small powder room to give me a moment of peace before the ceremony. The gentle rocking ocean waves and breezes outside the stylishly draped windows sounded like silence compared to the cacophony of a dozen women. I embraced the sound, burrowed under it as if it were down bedding, and allowed myself some refuge in the darkness behind my eyelids. I could feel the stress of the last few days ebb away with the tide.

It was really the stress of the last eight months. Planning a wedding was like leading a war, and I often felt like a general, my flagstaff held high, barking orders to the troops. “Those hydrangeas aren’t quite the right shade of pink. You need to pick new ones. That fondant isn’t right at all! I said the color of raspberry, not Pepto Bismol! I don’t care if you’re falling out of your dress, that’s what duct tape is for.”

And it was in many ways, but all I really wanted right this moment was to see him—my Jacob.

I hadn’t seen him in thirty-six hours and the ache was palpable. I could taste it on my tongue, like an unquenched thirst, an unfulfilled craving. I knew it was only thirty minutes until I would be walking up the aisle, but I wanted to be with him right this moment, to share his space and breathe his air. I felt as if I would suffocate without him.

The door clicked open without warning, but it didn’t startle me. I somehow knew it was him—my Jacob. He stepped up behind me and placed warm, familiar hands on my shoulders. Our eyes met in the mirror and he smiled a wide and goofy grin.

“You can’t be in here!” I chided. “You’re not supposed to see me before the ceremony. It’s bad luck.”

“Luck, schmuck.” He tugged on his collar, uncomfortably. I wasn’t used to seeing Jacob dressed in formal garb—white shirt, suit with no tie, charcoal gray, not black; since the wedding was at the beach, we’d wanted it to be more casual. The color darkened his eyes somehow—made them more gray than green, as they usually were. He looked devastatingly handsome. “Sixty percent of American marriages end in divorce. You’re going to be a statistic in T-minus twenty-three minutes.”

I frowned. “Don’t say that.”

Jacob squeezed my shoulders, his wry smile spreading. “Can’t help it. Jaded, I guess.”

“Well, I won’t be a statistic. I’m very loyal. Nothing to worry about.” I crossed my arms and pouted.

He laughed, reaching up to pinch my cheeks. “You know I love it when you pout! Plus those crossed arms are accentuating your voluptuous bosom.” He straightened up to his full height, peering down at the tightly wound corset of my dress.

I feigned modesty, placing my palms over what I knew was ample, revealing cleavage. I’d chosen my dress precisely for that feature.

“I hate that you’re seeing me when I’m not fully ready. I wanted you to see me later, on my father’s arm, walking down the aisle….”

“See you when everyone else sees you? That hardly seems fair. I’m special, aren’t I? More special than those people out there? I should get the first peek.” Jacob reached up and lifted the layers of taffeta making up my train. He quickly found the lace between my legs, running his fingers along the edges.

I gasped, pushing at his hands. “Hey! Don’t do that….”

He backed away, frowning. “I’m sorry. I thought you would want to …” His eyes changed again, from gray to black.

I reached for him, wrapped my arms around his waist and tucked my chin, pressing my forehead on his belly. “I didn’t mean to push you away. I’m just … It’s a big day. I want everything to be right. I’m nervous, excited.” I felt his soft lips on my hair. “I’m sorry. Yes, I want this to be perfect for you.” I leaned back and met his gaze. He bent down to kiss me, his mouth open and giving.

There was a fleeting thought about Jacob’s kisses messing up my makeup, but that was soon forgotten when he lifted me out of the vanity chair, hands secure under all the taffeta and lace, and carried me to the nearby couch.

He lifted my skirt and bunched the fabric around my waist. His fingers clutched at the flesh of my thighs, pressing my legs apart. Jacob tore at my undergarments, ripping my panties aside and exposing the wet, pink folds beneath. He leaned down and ran his tongue up and down my slit. I shuddered, clutching at his shoulders.

“Oh my … Jacob!” I murmured. “Please, harder, please …”

He acquiesced, cupping his lips around my sensitive bud and sucking. I came immediately, waves of pleasure pulsing from between my legs and out to my extremities.

I did not linger in this place of ecstasy, knowing we didn’t have much time. I pulled Jacob toward me, crushing his mouth to mine. His weight was on me, his hips grinding between my legs. I bucked against him, gasping for air. I reached for his waistband and released his hardness, guiding him to my waiting pussy. He thrust up into me, and I welcomed the fullness of him.

“Oh baby, you feel so good,” he murmured. He tilted my hips up and pulsed his cock deep into me and out again.

“Wait, wait,” I begged, weakly pushing against his chest. “I want to taste you.” I managed to sit up, and switched positions with Jacob, pushing him down onto the couch. I knelt before him, pulling his cock into my mouth. His eyes scrunched shut, and he pressed one cheek against the leather.

The sound started as a low whimper at the base of his throat. He mewled like a kitten. I could feel it building inside him. The pressure began at the bottom of his cock and flowed in gentle waves up to the tip.

The waves swelled his cock taut. I eased back on the pressure with my mouth, and I could feel him twitching up to the roof and down to my tongue. I smiled, reapplied the pressure and sucked him inside. He moaned.

I ran my lips slowly along the ridges, sank down until the tip rubbed the back of my throat. Building a steady rhythm, I rocked against him. His cries became urgent, his hands clenching as if he were reaching for some target just inches from his outstretched fingertips.

I felt connected to him like no one before. More than the physical, it was as if I was leading him up into some alternate plane of existence.

And suddenly, I lost him. It was as if he was the only one left in the world and I was lurking below, observing this massive writhing.

I continued to tug on his cock and the undulations swelled and peaked. The crest broke and he flooded my mouth again and again, the warm wetness flowing past my tongue and into my throat.

His trembling waned, replaced by a palpitation in his chest. Jacob was laughing, giggling beyond control, as if the rush of pleasure was bubbling out of him. I reached for his hands, knelt back and smiled as beatifically as possible.

“That was.” He laughed again. “Incredible, amazing, mind-blowing …”

“The best orgasm ever?”

“The best ten orgasms ever. I had no idea my body could do that. I had no idea your mouth could do that.” “I hope no one heard us,” I said.

“At this point, I don’t care. That was … amazing. Worth any embarrassment you or I would ever face.” He shuddered again, shaking his head as if to clear the last threads of tingling.

I smirked. “I don’t know about that.” The image of my mother’s displeasure passed across my mind’s eye and I shuddered, too.

“Wow, it’s sad, really,” he said, sighing. “It’ll never be the same again.”

I nodded. “Yes, it will be different. That’s life, isn’t it? Ever evolving.”

“I suppose.”

I stood up, attempting to straighten my mussed hair. I would have to do my best to recreate the makeup job that my sister had done an hour ago. Hopefully, she wouldn’t notice the difference.

Jacob tugged his pants back on, looking around the room for any leftover carnage from our lovemaking.

A beautiful, uninhibited chuckle suddenly escaped his lips. I looked over as he leaned down to the floor to pick up a swatch of white fabric—the tattered remnants of my lace panties.

“Oh my,” I said. “I guess I’ll have to go commando.” He laughed. “It’ll be our little secret.”

“Ready to go, sweetheart?” my father asked.

“Yes,” I said, hoping to still the trembling in my voice.

Dad squeezed my hand, placing it on his arm. He smiled, a reassuring smile that could only come from a proud father. I squeezed him back.

We turned to face them, the crowd of family and friends sitting in rows of rattan chairs, each wooden leg nestled into the sandy beach. They stood when the music started, a lilting symphony so familiar.

I could barely see past the layers of white veil covering my face, but it didn’t matter. I could see Jacob’s shape to the right of the altar, standing beside his best friend, Michael. Both Michael and Jacob looked genuinely happy, and that made me happy, too.

The ceremony went by in a daze. We said our written vows, the classic “I do’s,” the exchange of rings, and then the minister said, “If anyone knows of a reason why this couple should not be joined in holy matrimony, speak now or forever hold your peace.”

I had imagined this moment many times. I had even discussed it with Jacob, discussed the horrifying possibility of someone speaking up at this point in the ceremony. The memory of those discussions did not help me; we never did come to any conclusions. The reality felt surreal, a scene from a daydream or nightmare; which one, I couldn’t decide.

I couldn’t help it. I looked up over my groom’s shoulder, at Jacob’s place as the best man. Jacob’s face was stone, his mouth a tight line. He looked back at me and I saw it, a gesture so minute, I was sure none of the one hundred forty-nine guests had seen it. I saw it because I was looking for it—the slight movement of his head shaking no.

I gasped, the air rushing through my nostrils so loudly it sounded like a last breath. I marveled at this silent conversation, the intricate exchange of glances. And the look that sealed my fate.