by Loki Renard
“He had bad relationships in past?”
“Steven hasn’t had an easy time when it comes to romance,” Mary said, dabbing a little concealer on her finger. “You know, after he lost his first wife in a hurricane in the Solomon Islands when they were missionaries.”
“He…” Annika frowned. “He lost a wife?”
“He didn’t tell you?” Mary gasped and put her hands to her mouth. “Oh, Annika!”
“He was married before?” Annika could not believe what she was hearing. She had not expected Steven to be a virgin, he was far too assured with her to be chaste. But his having been married before, that was something she should have known about. “He was a missionary?”
“He didn’t tell you,” Mary repeated, this time as a statement. “Maybe… maybe there just hasn’t been time yet, you know, with the wedding being a bit of a rush…”
“You mean with it being a sham,” Annika said, deflating in the chair. She slumped down, no longer caring how pretty she looked. None of it was real. If they were truly in love, she would know the man she was going to marry. As it turned out, she knew nothing about Steven at all.
“Cheer up,” Mary said, a touch of desperation in her voice. “It’s your wedding day.”
“Yes,” Annika agreed. “It is a very nice thing Steven is doing.”
“You think he is being nice? You think he asked you to marry him because he’s being nice?” Mary scowled, her round face drooping into disapproving contours. “Steven doesn’t marry people to be nice to them. Do you know how many women have pursued him over the years? He could have had any one of a dozen brides by now if he wanted them.”
“Did any of them need a green card?”
“Well…”
“Exactly,” Annika said. “If I didn’t need it, he wouldn’t marry me. This isn’t real marriage. I don’t know him and he doesn’t know me. We are strangers making a farce for the government. Excuse me,” she said, getting up from the chair. “I need the bathroom.”
* * *
As he dressed for the wedding, Steven was excited. Excited and happy, more so than he’d expected to be. The prospect of taking Annika as his bride and making a life with her had opened up new vistas for him. The future no longer seemed to be one long stay in an empty house offering succor to the privileged. It was full of the promise of challenge and love and physical intimacy. He gave a little prayer of thanks to the lord as he tied his tie and looked in the mirror. Out the window he could see the sun shining and the guests taking their seats. All was in order—until a frantic knocking interrupted his happy thoughts.
“Steven!” Mary rushed in with a frantic look on her usually placid features. “I lost Annika.”
“What do you mean?”
Mary’s eyes welled with tears. “I told her about Amelie. I thought she knew, but she didn’t. Why didn’t you… oh, it doesn’t matter. She’s gone! She ran away!”
Steven sighed and began shrugging off his coat. “Hold this, please, Mary.”
Mary took the garment. “I’m so sorry, Steven.”
“Don’t be sorry, just be ready. This wedding is going ahead as planned.”
“But Annika…”
“I’ll find Annika.”
Knowing his fianceé, she wouldn’t be far away. Annika didn’t typically run so much as go to ground. He checked the bedrooms in the house, the closets, and even the church itself, which caused some mild brow raising from the guests already seated. He wasn’t worried. He could feel her close, some old hunting instinct telling him that his quarry had not yet fled the scene. Where was she?
A car passed by the church and her whereabouts came to him in a flash of inspiration. He went to his car, where sure enough, the puffy flowing lines of a bridal gown were very visible even under the blanket draped over them. She’d gone to ground in the place where everything had started. Poetic, but naughty.
“Cute,” he said, opening the back door. “Out you come. It’s time to walk down the aisle.”
Curled up on the back seat, Annika lifted her head, the shock of red hair bold against the white. “No.”
“Too late for no, young lady,” he said. “You’ve got cold feet. Time for a hot bottom.”
Without anything remotely resembling ado, he reached into the car and drew his reluctant bride out. Her gown was a voluminous mass of tulle and satin. He lifted it all over her back, exposing her bottom, which was neatly framed in a little satin thong. It was a good choice for her modesty, not so much for protecting against the spanking.
Pressing his nearly runaway bride over the trunk of the car, his hand firmly locked in amidst all the soft fabrics, Steven began to lecture.
“I’ve told you that I love you, but you don’t believe me. I’ve told you that I want you, but you think I just want to save you because I have some kind of superhero complex. If you won’t listen to what I say, maybe you’ll listen to my palm.”
He started spanking her hard and fast, no quarter, no mercy. It wasn’t a spanking to teach her a lesson. It was a spanking to get through to her, to remind her of the connection they shared when she was where she was supposed to be—over his knee. Or his car, as the case may be.
Annika barely made a sound at first, holding her feelings and her reactions in. She’d gone to that cold place she went when she didn’t want to feel anything. Any other man might have thought she was just an emotionless little wench, but Steven knew better. Her coldness was indicative of how emotional she really was.
“Annika…” he leaned down and growled her name in her ear. “I’m not going to give up on you.”
She gasped. “You cannot marry me, Steven.”
“I can, and I will.” He slapped her cheeks with firm swats, catching them on an upward stroke.
“You don’t even know me!”
“I know you better than you think, Annika. I know you’re smart, strong, and brave. I know that you care for others, and that you care for me. Even this little stunt is because you don’t want me to make a mistake. Because you think you’re a mistake. You’re not.”
With that, she started sobbing, great heaving sobs that racked her frame. He stopped spanking her and gathered her up against his body, kissing her lips and cheeks over and over to soothe her.
“Shh,” he said. “This is the happiest day of your life, remember?”
She smiled through her tears, then buried her face in his chest. “You don’t want to marry me,” she said. “You are still married.”
He paused. “Amelie died a long time ago, Annika.”
“And you never looked at another woman. You were going to die faithful to her. Until I came along and ruined you.”
“You haven’t ruined me.”
“You were too embarrassed to even say her name in front of me.”
“Amelie and I were married for six years,” Steven said. “And I have mourned her for twelve. I’m sorry I didn’t speak about her with you. It’s just… with you… for the first time, I felt feelings I hadn’t felt since being with her. I felt as though my life were starting over.”
“So you forgot about her?”
“No,” Steven said. “Of course I will never forget Amelie. She is part of me.”
“Was she pretty? Was she nice?”
“She was beautiful,” he smiled. “Inside and out. She cared for other people far more than she cared about herself. It was the death of her. We were working on the Solomon Islands when a hurricane warning came in. We were ordered to evacuate. But there was a family… she didn’t want to leave them. So we stayed with them. And the storm came and the storm passed and for days there was no clean water. She got diphtheria. She passed away from it a day before her twenty-fifth birthday.”
“I’m sorry,” Annika said softly.
Steven held her close and shook his head at her. “Do you want to know the last thing she said to me? Two words. Love lasts.”
“She wanted you to stay faithful to her.”
“No. She wanted me to love
and be loved. But I didn’t have it in me. I didn’t have the strength for it. Until I met someone who was also strong, who made me strong. That’s you, Annika. You’ve changed my life.”
“I’ve been a burden to you.”
“You’ve challenged me in ways nobody else has in years,” he said. “You’ve wanted me, openly and unashamedly. You’ve made me work to contain your wilder impulses. You’ve reminded me that I am a man and you are a woman and that there is a natural order to all things.”
Annika wrapped her arms around him and held on tight. “I love you, Steven.”
“I love you too.” He took a deep breath to compose himself. “Now go redo your makeup and meet me at the altar, young lady. We have a wedding to attend.”
Chapter Ten
The ceremony was a blur to Annika. Later there would be pictures and videos to remind her of what had happened, but all she really was aware of was Steven beside her, Steven kissing her, Steven holding her, and finally, Steven drawing her away from the prying eyes of the townsfolk to the private room that had once been his and was now theirs.
She shed the dress at the door and skipped the rest of the way to the bed in nothing but white stockings and garters, and a skimpy thong and brassiere that had been underneath. Steven stood at the door, his tie in his hand, just staring at her.
Lying back on the bed, one leg raised, Annika gave him a cocky little smile. “You like?”
“Oh, I like very much,” he said. “I love.”
“Now you,” she said, pointing to the suit. “Off.”
He smiled and began undressing. Annika watched with hungry eyes as the pastor’s body came into view. She’d never so much as seen him without his shirt off before, and now she was being treated to the hard, broad line of his shoulders, the muscular planes of his pecs and abdominal muscles. He was hot as hell under his clothing, a dusting of dark hair across his chest turning to a darker trail that led down, down toward his belt and the treasure beyond.
“And the pants!”
“Demanding, aren’t you?” he chuckled, but fulfilled her request. His pants came off to reveal a rampant cock at least nine inches long and thicker than Annika had imagined. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from it as he came forward, his erection gently bobbing against his belly.
The urge to suckle on it overcame her. She met him on hands and knees, running her tongue up the length of his shaft. He groaned with pleasure and ran his fingers through her loose locks, caressing her as she began to suck him.
“Annika…” His fingers curled in her hair. “Not too much.”
She paused, her lips spread about the thickness of his cock.
“I don’t want to spend myself in your mouth,” he explained. She could already taste the salty tang of his pre-cum on her lips, so she backed away and let him take charge.
He wasted no time doing so. His hands slid up her body from her thighs to her breasts, smoothing over her in a tender caress in which love and lust were equally mixed.
“You’re beautiful,” he said. “Like an angel.”
He lowered his dark head between her thighs and she felt his tongue settle against the wet crotch of her panties, massaging the silken fabric against the hard bud of her clit. His hands squeezed her bottom, lifting her up to his mouth as he tenderly and skilfully teased her to even greater heights of arousal without directly touching her pussy.
When he did finally slip the soaking material aside and began licking the dew of her desire from her soft petals, Annika could barely contain herself. Steven clamped his hands around her hips to hold her still so she could experience the full sensation of having her womanhood well and truly pleasured.
She was floating in a haze of lust and love when he asked the question she so wanted to hear.
“Are you ready?”
She was ready. She’d been ready from the moment they met. She locked eyes with him, looked into the warm depths of his gaze and nodded.
Steven slid forward, pressed the head of his thick cock to the apex of her pussy and slowly, deliberately slid himself inside her with one long stroke that brought flashes of light bursting behind her eyelids.
She was filled, wrapped around him, completely taken and completely owned by the man who had made her his bride. He held himself there for a long moment, letting her inner walls adjust to the intrusion, then he began to move with a rolling motion, pulling all the way out and pressing all the way back in, taking her over and over with disciplined strokes that made her body yield anew each and every time.
Annika was lost in his arms, completely vulnerable to his touch. Her earlier aggression had melted away and she was content to be taken as he surged back and forth, the wet sounds of her willing pussy accommodating his cock filling the room as he moved faster and faster, kissing her passionately. His lips were locked on her mouth as he filled her, his tongue lapping against hers as his hips ground against her body, taking her as deeply as she could be taken.
As she had imagined, Steven was insatiable. He took her with a controlled roughness that made her keenly aware of both his strength and his restraint. With his flesh plunging into her over and over, she locked herself around him and held on for the ride, feeling her body responding to his control.
In the midst of their lovemaking, he wrapped an arm about her waist and rolled over. She pressed up on his chest and lifted her hips, moving her body atop his, pleasuring herself at her own pace. It seemed to please him too. He reached out and touched her cheek tenderly as her hips rose and fell, her pussy consuming his hard rod over and over until they both came, joining in flesh and seed as they had joined in law and spirit.
The happy couple made love many times that evening until her womanly juices ran from the spread petals of her nether lips, glazing her sensitive folds that remained eager and desiring of his touch even after several climaxes. Covered in a light sheen of sweat, Steven caressed her gently, his fingers working magic between her thighs as she pressed close to him.
“You’re insatiable,” he said against her lips, kissing her as he slid his fingers into her wet depths, toying with her almost casually.
“What now then, if not more sex?”
“Now we live happily ever after,” he said.
“Yes! Happily there are no rules anymore,” Annika grinned naughtily. “I am a married woman.”
“There are plenty of rules,” he said, spanking her lightly. “More rules, really.”
“I did not agree to more rules,” she complained, but not too seriously. She didn’t have much to complain about with her naked body pressed against his. She was happy. More than happy. From the top of her head to the tips of her toes, she was flooded with joy.
Chapter Eleven
“There’s a knitting circle this Tuesday night,” Mary announced gleefully. The week following Annika and Steven’s marriage had been conspicuously quiet. The parishioners had given the church house a wide berth and Steven’s phone had barely rung at all. Though the happy couple had not taken an official honeymoon, the town had more or less given them one. However, precisely eight days after the nuptials, life resumed as normal. Steven was busy again and Mary started making appearances at the house. On this particular occasion, she was very insistent that Annika should come knit.
“I don’t like knitting.”
“It’s not really about the knitting,” Mary said. “You should come. You passed the test.”
“What test?”
“The flower arranging wasn’t really about arranging flowers,” Mary explained. “It was a chance for the ladies to meet you, see if they liked you.”
“See if they could get me into trouble, you mean.”
“Steven!” Mary whined. “Annika is being antisocial.”
“Annika…” Steven gave her one of those looks. She knew what it meant. He wanted her to socialize, to become part of the community. He didn’t know that the knitting circle wasn’t really a knitting circle, and Annika wasn’t going to tell him that he was practical
ly throwing her into the arms of the Sweetville reprobates.
“Stop telling on me,” Annika hissed at Mary. “Or I’ll delete your coop.”
“You wouldn’t!”
“Annika, go with Mary,” Steven said, putting his foot down. “You can go now, or you can go with a sore bottom.”
She gave him her best ‘I don’t have to do what you say’ glare, while avoiding actually saying the words that would no doubt result in a spanking. It really wasn’t fair. Steven always had the upper hand, and sometimes she really didn’t want to do as she was told, but she had to.
“I will get you for this,” Annika muttered as she followed Mary down the street. “I don’t like flower arranging or knitting, or patchwork, or…”
“This is a special day,” Mary interrupted her tirade. “It’s your initiation.”
“My initiation into what?”
“You’ll see.”
* * *
Inside the Sweetville Women’s Hall, Kitty Treewood was dressed in a purple robe with white fur trim and holding court. It was the most ridiculous outfit Annika had ever seen anyone wear without irony. The usual suspects were there in force, all wearing pretty floral corsages and neat clothes. As she entered, the women parted down the center to allow Annika to walk down the aisle for the second time in recent history. Annika was quite befuddled, but as she didn’t seem to be in any danger, she played along.
“Welcome, Mrs. Soames,” Kitty Treewood said. “Welcome to your first official meeting as a bride of Sweetville.”
“Thank you?”
“You are confused,” Kitty said. “Allow me to explain. The Sweetville Brides were founded in 1680 in Sweetville on Thames. They were bold women, jolly jesters with a talent for japes. Some of their order came to the new country and here settled in Sweetville. They established the US chapter of the Sweetville Bridal Society, otherwise known as the Sweetville Brides. Ours is an order with a rich history and a heritage that each of our members swears to uphold. As a bride of Sweetville, and one who has already proven herself a capable prankster—I refer of course, to the Sermon of Planes—we welcome you.”
