Once Upon a Bride: A Novella (Bridesmaids Behaving Badly)

by Jenny Holiday

  “I’m going to.” Her voice came out low and raspy. Goosebumps rose on his chest as she spoke. See? She did kind of own him. She bit back a grin. “But this isn’t going to be some Fifty Shades thing. I’m not going to be your silent, submissive doll.”

  He didn’t break eye contact. A muscle twitched in his jaw. “Good. I like when you get lippy. I hired you because of that little speech about how my lobby looked like a dental office.”

  She licked her lips, trying to see if she could make that muscle twitch again. “I believe I said a dental office in Yellowknife.”

  Success.

  “You bait me on purpose, don’t you?”

  He didn’t wait for an answer. He just pushed her down so she was lying on her back as he climbed onto the bed, caging her in by hovering over her on his hands and knees. He wasn’t touching her, though, and suddenly she was back to where she’d been in the doorway, drowning in a sea of too much—yet not enough—sensation. He leaned down with his head only and kissed her. It was slower than before, but deeper. Dirty and relentless, like his tongue couldn’t get deep enough. Yet he was also, maddeningly, taking his time. When she clasped her arms around his neck and tried to pull him down on top of her, he wrenched himself from her grasp, making her cry out and arch up after him.

  He grabbed her forearms, peeled her off him, and pressed her arms down on the bed above her head. Then he slid his palms up her arms until he reached her hands, which he guided up to the headboard. They were clumsy, and she banged a knuckle sharply against the ironwork and winced. He brought the hand to his mouth and, still with the unrelenting eye contact, kissed it tenderly. She shuddered, and he did it again, dragging his lax, open mouth against the bends of her fingers. Then, slowly, he extended her arm again and said, “Grab on to the bars, okay?”

  She glanced up at the offending headboard, which was a series of unremarkable wrought iron spindles. He nodded at her hands. She found herself wanting him to…not ask. To order. So she caressed the spindles but didn’t grab on. “This headboard is ugly.”

  He didn’t falter. “You can get me a new one. Later. Grab on to the bars.”

  She still didn’t do it—though she did smirk to show she was playing with him—and she rolled her hips almost involuntarily. She expected him to take things up a notch, to get more forceful or loud with his command—that’s what she’d been aiming for—but he did the reverse. Leaning over, he put his mouth right next to her ear, but he said nothing. He slid one hand into her opened blouse and shoved the soft cup of her bra up on one side, just grazing her nipple with the base of his palm. The friction made her gasp. He lifted his hand then, leaving the one breast cold and exposed. He was no longer touching her anywhere, which suddenly seemed wildly unfair. But he hadn’t moved his head, so he was still right there with his lips. She could feel his hot breath on the shell of her ear. He repeated his earlier command, but it was quieter this time. “Grab on to the bars.”

  She grabbed the bars.

  “Good girl.” The hand came down on her breast again, and she cried out in relief. “Grab on and don’t let go. Don’t let go until I tell you to.”

  He hadn’t asked this time, but she nodded anyway, writhing and twisting fruitlessly after him as he slid down her body.

  When he was gone, she was so…exposed. She was stretched out, her body taut with desire.

  She’d taken her skirt off already, but she still had her underwear on. She hadn’t been planning on seeing him this evening, so it was just a ratty old cotton pair. She spared half a thought wishing she’d worn something nicer, but he jerked her underwear down in the same rough way he’d pushed her bra up. Like he hadn’t even registered them.

  Then his thumbs pressed on the front creases of her thighs as he exhaled a shaky breath. He was still in control, but was it slipping? He had her so turned inside out, she didn’t know if she wanted to bolster that control or hasten its demise.

  He rotated his hands and pushed her thighs open. “God.” Another one of those breaths that teetered on the edge. “I’ve been thinking of nothing else since we played Scrabble.”

  When he paused so close to her body that she could feel the heat radiating from his face, she knew what he intended to do. She responded by pushing her pelvis up off the bed to close the distance between them.

  At first, he just laid his lips against her, and they both moaned. But he pulled back. She barely had time to register her disapproval before he enacted the Dirty Scrabble scenario, dragging his tongue over her clit.

  “Oh my God!” she bit out. With anyone else, she would probably have been embarrassed by how wet she was, but the radical honesty thing they had going apparently extended to nonverbal interactions, too. He kept up the lazing licking as she writhed under him. Soon, she was bucking wildly as pleasure pooled deep in her core. As if he knew she was close, his hands clamped down on her hips, stilling her pelvis by pinning it to the bed.

  She tried to push back against him, but he growled his displeasure. “Be still,” he ordered, searching her face. “Don’t move.” She nodded, but he added an “Okay?”

  She’d been thinking, earlier, about how she wanted him to tell, not ask, but she appreciated that he was the kind of man who sought affirmative verbal consent. It signaled a level of care that she wasn’t sure she had ever experienced with anyone in bed before. And somehow that made the experience even sexier.

  “Yes,” she whispered, and he lowered his head again. He kept his hands on her hips—not that she had intended to contravene his instructions. It was hard, though, to keep still. It was like having restless legs at night but without the relief of being allowed to move them. The noises he made as he ate at her—growls of pleasure interspersed with incoherent swearing—were so wonderfully obscene, she couldn’t stand it. As much as she was a convert to this delectable form of torture, she needed more.

  “Jay!”

  She hadn’t meant to yell, but apparently she couldn’t control things like volume and tone anymore. She could barely control her body—but that part seemed okay, because he was doing a spectacular job of it for her, putting it where he wanted it and doing such deliciously filthy things to it.

  But of course her cry had come out sounding alarmed. So he stopped. Let go of her hips as his head popped up from between her legs, his beautiful face knit in concern.

  She heaved a ragged breath and rushed to reassure him that she wasn’t calling things off. “I need you inside me now.”

  He smiled a wicked, wicked smile. “You do, eh?”

  She nodded frantically, her whole body vibrating.

  His hands traced up the sides of her body from her hips and undid her bra, which clasped in the front, and kneaded the flesh of her breasts. She was on her back and stretched out, so there wasn’t much there. She wasn’t very generously endowed, and this position wasn’t showing what she did have to her best advantage—another thing she distantly registered she would have been embarrassed by in other circumstances. But she didn’t care, just thrust her chest up at him the best she could, taking care not to lift her hips or let go of the headboard. She was still, for some unfathomable reason, following his orders.

  Well, actually the reason was fathomable: doing what he said felt so amazingly good.

  He took one tight, aching nipple into his mouth, and she practically screamed. It felt so incredible, even as it highlighted how not enough it was.

  “I need you inside me.” She tried again, infusing her voice with as much neediness as she could muster and not caring what she sounded like.

  “I suggest…” He spoke around her nipple, his teeth gently grazing the too-sensitive flesh. “You ask me nicely.”

  “Please, Jay. Please.”

  Oh Jesus Christ. The way she laid there, her body splayed and stretched as she continued to hold on to the headboard. The way she begged him so nicely…. Fuck.

  Jay had had a lot of sex in his life. A lot of different kinds of sex. He liked it all—you might call him an
enthusiastic agnostic in matters of the bedroom.

  But maybe that’s because he’d never had exactly this kind of sex, with this woman.

  He had found religion.

  And it involved bossing Elise Maxwell around. For example: “Spread your legs wider.”

  She spread her legs wider so fast it unbalanced him.

  But it wasn’t a simple case of some mild dominance, as it also involved getting her to mouth off. So when he said “So pretty. I could just lay here and look at you forever,” he had an ulterior motive.

  The compliment embedded in the statement was the absolute truth, but really, he couldn’t lay here looking at her forever. He was shaking with the effort of not touching her. He was trying to bait her.

  And it worked. She lifted her head, even as she maintained her grasp on the headboard. “That’s the worst idea I’ve ever heard.”

  He quirked an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

  She just glared at him.

  He chuckled and ran a hand lightly over the pink folds that had been exposed by his previous command that she spread her legs. But the joke was on him, because his control was hanging by a thread. But…

  Birth control. He had to hold onto his senses long enough to take care of her, to ensure her comfort. “What are we doing for birth control?” he rasped as he dragged the tip of his cock over her slit. “Condom?”

  “I can’t get pregnant,” she bit out between gasps. “I’m clean. So if you are too, we’re good.”

  He was. And, oh God, the idea of being inside her bare. Skin to skin.

  “Are you okay?”

  He opened his eyes. He hadn’t realized he’d closed them. Or that his brow had furrowed something fierce and his jaw locked. His reaction to the fantasy-come-true scenario she’d suggested probably looked, outwardly, like pain. Relaxing his face, he felt a goofy grin blossom of its own accord. He was trying to project confidence and authority here, not goofiness, but apparently he had no control over his facial muscles. “I am fantastic.”

  It was her turn to smile, a giant, guileless, joy-filled one that sliced right though him, raising a lump in his throat.

  They remained pinned in place for a moment, staring at each other and grinning stupidly.

  This was the beginning.

  The start of a new life.

  There had been nothing wrong with his old life, but this one was better.

  Her smile disappeared. “Do I need to let go of this headboard to get you to move?’

  That knocked him out of his mooning. He did not want her to do that. He wasn’t sure why—he had no master plan here—except that they both seemed to be getting off on these mild power games.

  He grabbed his dick and guided it to her entrance, keeping a close eye on her face the whole time. “You sure?” he whispered.

  He’d meant about the no-condom thing, but the way she said “Yes,” so quietly but so assuredly, made him think she was answering a bigger question.

  He slid in, pushing past the initial resistance he encountered, and fuck. She might always be cold, but inside she was a furnace. And… “So tight,” he gasped.

  “Well, you’re kind of huge,” she shot back.

  She must have seen the beginnings of hesitation on his face. Before he could ask if he was hurting her, she said, “Huge in the best way.”

  He inched himself in the rest of the way, stopping when he was fully seated, needing a moment to adjust to being inside her. To being in this new life.

  Elise moaned—or maybe it was him. Either way, he suddenly had to move. Obeying the primal urge, he pulled out halfway and sank back in, trying to keep his strokes even.

  “I need—” Her eyes widened when he filled her fully the second time. “Oh!” She shook her head back and forth like she was frustrated. He loved the sight of her honey hair fanned out over his pillow.

  He leaned in to get a whiff of the addictive lemon scent that always lingered in her hair. “What do you need, sweetheart?”

  “I was going to say that I need pressure on my clit to come, but now I’m not sure.”

  He grinned as he found the sensitive nub with his thumb. “Well, let’s just cover all the bases, shall we?”

  “Oh my God!” She started grinding her hips up to meet his, circling them a little at the top of every stroke.

  Using the hand that wasn’t working her clit, he reached down for one of her legs. “Now wrap your legs around me, sweetheart.”

  She hooked her ankles together around his lower back, and he let loose, pumping his hips into her sweet heat. It wasn’t going to take long, so he concentrated on making sure she was keeping up with him. “You feel so fucking good, Elise. I want you to come all over my dick. Can you do that?” He rubbed his thumb in circles over and around her clit as he spoke.

  She nodded frantically, but said, “I want to touch you.”

  He shook his head. He wanted her to keep holding on to the headboard. He wasn’t sure if he could talk, though. Almost-unendurable pressure was gathering at the base of his spine. “Keep…holding on,” he managed to gasp as he fucked her against the bed.

  She did not obey him, his Elise. Despite their games, they both knew who was in charge here.

  On a giant inhale, her hands flew off the bedpost and landed on his sweat-slicked back. Her whole body almost seemed to levitate as she clung to him.

  And oh, the addition of those hands. Her touch, suddenly there where it hadn’t been before. It was the single most erotic moment of his life, somehow. He was going to come, hard. But her eyes had slipped closed.

  “Look at me,” he said. “Look at me when I come inside you.”

  Her eyes, almost all pupil, flew open. He started to shudder, and she screamed.

  Chapter 6

  “Still think I’m uptight?”

  Elise wasn’t sure how long they’d been lying there panting and staring at the ceiling. She was about to answer Jay’s question with a vehement no when she had a sudden realization. “Hey! I’m not cold.”

  She rolled on to her side to face him, and he did the same. She pressed her room-temperature-bordering-on-warm palms against his chest briefly and then did a silly jazz-hands gesture with them.

  He smiled and enclosed her hands between his.

  She and her warm hands thought about his question. “You are uptight in the best possible way.” There was something about the way he asserted himself in the bedroom, ran the show with his signature intensity focused entirely on her, that… Well, it undid her a bit. No, it undid her a lot. “Anyway, I never said you were uptight. You’re always talking about how people say you’re uptight, but I am not one of those people. I think you’re…driven. You have high standards. It’s a good thing.”

  He looked way too self-satisfied at her pronouncement, so she pulled her hand out of his grasp and swatted him. He grabbed it back and then shocked her by bringing it to his mouth and kissing her palm tenderly.

  Then he shocked her again—he seemed to be really good at doing that—by saying, “I want to meet your friends.”

  She quirked her head, merely from surprise, but he must have thought she was recoiling, because he said, “Too soon?”

  “No, no. You just…sound serious.”

  He shrugged. “I’m just decisive.”

  “Jay Smith, are you asking me to go steady?” She kept her tone light to show she was teasing.

  But she kind of wasn’t. She was holding her breath. Because she wanted him to be. She could see now exactly what Gia had been saying. Jay made her better. Happier. And in fact, because of the whole radical honesty thing they had going, he helped make her…herself.

  He didn’t seem to think she was teasing either, because he just said, “More like telling. But yes. I’m not into sharing.” Then his face lightened a little, and he smirked. “I’m uptight that way.”

  He wasn’t into sharing. And he was talking about her. That was…totally thrilling. “So, what? You’re my boyfriend now?”

  Please sa
y yes. She held her breath. Funny how fast one talk with her girlfriends and one scorching session between the sheets had her changing her tune on the topic.

  “Yes. I’m your boyfriend now.”

  She hadn’t thought she was looking for one of those, but now that he, he specifically, was here, she understood that she’d been looking for him.

  She exhaled.

  “Unless you don’t want me to be,” he added.

  She shook her head, suddenly weirdly shy. “I want you to be.” Her voice had gone embarrassingly squeaky, so she burrowed into his chest. She didn’t want to have to look at him while she asked her question. “You don’t mind that I’m basically out of commission for two or three days a month?”

  “No.” She felt the surety with which he uttered the word. It rumbled through his chest. “I mean, I mind because I don’t want you to be in pain, and I think we should try to figure out a way to cut down on that, but I don’t mind in any elemental way.”

  This. This was what the girls had meant. Jay was going to be someone she could rely on. But what she hadn’t seen was that that wasn’t the same thing as being dependent on someone.

  “Having sex all the time is going to be exhausting, anyway,” he went on, laughter in his voice. “It will be good to break for a couple days for board games.”

  “And you don’t mind…”

  “What?” He levered her off him, and, using his hands to cup her face, forced her into eye contact with him.

  God, this was so mortifying. But radical honesty, right? “You don’t mind that I can’t have kids?”

  He smiled so tenderly. “Which means you’re basically my dream girl, because I never wanted them.”

  “But why?” It seemed an important question, suddenly. He had said that the one time they’d talked about it, but she needed to make sure that he meant it. That he wasn’t settling.