Sinners at the Altar

by Olivia Cunning

  “The rings.”

  Rebekah reached over to squeeze his knee. “Right. The rings. So it became a tradition that newly married couples in the family would start their marriage wearing these very same rings until they could make their fortune and afford new ones. Then they’d replace them and save the silver rings to pass on to their children. By the time of my dad’s generation, things weren’t so tight financially, so he and Mom did use the rings in the ceremony, but they traded them for new rings right after.”

  Eric lifted his hand over the steering wheel to look at the ring on his finger. “So we aren’t supposed to wear them forever?”

  “We can wear them as long as we want,” she said. It wasn’t as if they’d be able to have children to pass them on to. Well, at least not blood-related children. She wondered if her ancestors would be okay with an adopted child wearing the rings.

  “What if Dave wants them when he gets married?”

  Rebekah smiled, hoping someday soon her brother would find someone he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. “Then I say we let him have them. They’ve been blessed with many generations of love, including ours. We can’t really expect him to give that up.”

  Eric smiled sadly. “I wish I had a cool story to tell you about my ancestors, but I know nothing about them. I probably come from a long line of derelicts and criminals.”

  “I doubt that,” she said. “You have too good a heart, Eric. I have to think at least some of that is genetic.”

  He concentrated extra hard on the road. They were still miles from home.

  He was silent for a long while, and she didn’t press him further. She didn’t want him to be sad today. She almost wished she hadn’t told him the story about the rings, how they connected generation after generation of her family. It had to make him feel completely disconnected from his own family.

  They turned onto the gravel road that led to Eric’s sunny yellow Victorian-style house in the country. He stopped in the driveway and shut off the engine, but didn’t make a move to get out of the car.

  He took a deep breath and turned toward her. “I never really thought much about my family—what I was missing by not having one—until I found you.”

  Her heart panged. “Baby, if you want to try to figure out where you come from, we can go look through records and stuff, figure out who your relatives are. I’m sure there are plenty of interesting stories in your ancestors’ pasts.”

  “I wouldn’t know where to start.”

  “With your birth certificate. Also, as a former ward of the state, you have a file somewhere.”

  He laughed. “Oh, I have a file all right.”

  “If you don’t want to know, that’s fine,” she said. “I don’t mind being your entire family.”

  “You and my band. It’s enough,” he said. He took her hand in his and kissed her knuckle just below her wedding ring. “But I’ll think about it. Maybe knowing the truth about who I am and where I came from will be a bit less terrifying with you beside me. You make me feel I can overcome any obstacle.”

  Her shoulders drooped, and she relaxed into her seat with a dreamy grin. “You’d better stop making me swoon,” she said. “I’m liable to melt right into this seat.”

  He grinned. “I like to make you swoony. Never had a woman get swoony over me before.”

  “Then you must have not shown a single woman who you really are.”

  “You don’t think this sentimental sap is really me, do you? I just act this way to get in your pants.”

  Blue eyes twinkling with mischief, he winked at her.

  She laughed. “It is effective in that regard,” she admitted. “But I’m not wearing pants. And I’m not sure your swooniness is enough to get you under my skirt.”

  “When we get in the house, you won’t be wearing your skirt either.”

  She opened her mouth to tease him further, and he added, “Or your panties.”

  She laughed. He knew her well; she had been going to tease him about the extra swoon requirement for getting in her panties.

  His teasing smile faded and he simply stared at her for a long moment. His eyes searched her face as if he was trying to decide if she really could handle being there for him for things other than great laughs and hot sex. Her heart rate accelerated when his eyes finally settled on hers and she steeled herself to support whatever he’d decided. She wouldn’t force him one way or the other. She might push a bit, because she believed knowing what he came from would give him some closure, but she wouldn’t force him to face it if he didn’t want to.

  “I’ve spent the last twenty-five years trying to forget I ever had a family,” he said. “I’ve lived my entire life focusing on the present. For the first time, I’m ready to concentrate on my future and building it with you. And I don’t think I want my past to intrude on that.”

  Planning their future was more important, but for her, the future was far more terrifying than the past. They’d already survived their pasts. The same could not be said for their futures.

  “That’s fine, baby.” She touched the cleft in his chin with one fingertip and then cupped his face between her palms. “I’ll always support you. Always.”

  His eyes flicked up to stare at her forehead, and he flashed a perfect set of white teeth at her when he grinned crookedly. “You realize I’m going to have to test that promise, don’t you? Make sure you mean it by being obnoxious and picking fights.”

  “Well then, I’ll start looking forward to a lot of make-up sex.” She pulled his face to hers so she could kiss him.

  She drew away when his fingers began to work the buttons at her back. “Not here,” she said, reaching for his door handle to exit the car.

  “Yes,” he said firmly. “Right here.”

  “But the neighbors will see us.”

  He glanced over his shoulder at the nearest house, nearly a mile away and set back away from the gravel road by a driveway almost as long as theirs. The roofline was barely visible. He turned his gaze to her again.

  “I highly doubt that,” he said. “Do you remember the very first thing that we bonded over?”

  She thought back to their earliest meetings. “This car,” she said.

  He nodded. “That’s when I fell in love with you, you know. The minute you started talking about head gaskets and carburetor intakes, I was a goner.”

  “You’re being swoony again,” she accused.

  He unzipped his pants and directed her hand into his fly, filling her palm with hard, hot cock. A spasm clenched deep in her pussy, and she gasped with the intensity of her sudden lust.

  “Still think I’m swoony?”

  “Yep,” she said, and tugged his cock free of his pants. “Have I ever sucked you off in this car?”

  “Not yet.”

  She wiggled her eyebrows at him. “Well, that’s about to be remedied.”

  He pulled a lever and pushed the seat back as far as it would go. Knowing how much he liked to watch, Rebekah bent over his lap and tilted her head. She slowly drew her tongue along the underside of his cockhead, blowing breaths over the wetness she left behind. Eric stroked her hair tenderly as she delivered hesitant licks to his flesh.

  “Am I doing it right?” she whispered hesitantly.

  “You know you are,” he said.

  “I wasn’t sure, what with me being a virginal bride and all,” she said, wickedly grinning up at him and winking.

  He winked back, his silent affirmation that he realized she wanted to play.

  “It feels good when you suck it,” he said.

  “Like this?”

  She covered her teeth with her lips and clamped her mouth over his shaft from beneath.

  “Usually you go at it from the tip and suck it down your throat,” he instructed helpfully.

  Still latched on to the underside of his cock, she rubbed her tongue against the thick ridge in her mouth and then slowly turned her head side to side to work his flesh from base toward the crown and back
.

  “Fuck.” He sucked the word deep into his chest. “That’s another option.”

  She forced herself not to laugh and continued working her mouth up and down the underside of his cock. With each repetitive motion, she moved a fraction of an inch upward. The corners of her mouth were becoming tender, so it was a bit of a relief when she reached his tip and tilted her head a bit so that the head of his cock popped into her mouth. She continued her up and down motion, still sucking hard on the underside. She could feel his cockhead push her cheek out with each downward slide and knew he’d be able to see that he was in her mouth as well as feel it.

  Eric’s belly began to quiver beneath her hand. His breaths came out in overexcited gasps.

  “You are so fucking sexy,” he growled, rocking his hips to push harder against the inside of her cheek. “Ride me, Reb. I want to come inside you our first time together as husband and wife.”

  She lifted her head, his cock popping free of her mouth, and looked up at him with wide eyes. “Ride you?” she whispered, as if aghast.

  “We’ll play later,” he promised, grabbing her by the arms and pulling her into the narrow space between his body and the steering wheel. “I don’t have the patience at the moment.”

  “Even if you don’t want to pretend I’m an untried virgin, I just don’t think sex is doable in this huge dress in this little car, baby.”

  The man was determined to prove her wrong. Within a minute he had the white train of the dress flipped over the dash and windshield, trailing across the forest-green hood of the Corvette. The front of the voluminous skirt was bunched up between them, separating their bodies far too much for her liking. She managed to get her legs beneath her and her knees in his seat so she could straddle his hips.

  His fingers slipped beneath the leg of her panties and found her as hot and eager as he was.

  She fleetingly thought that her mother would kill her for getting her wedding gown dirty, but Eric slipped inside her and then nothing mattered but him. He pulled her onto him and buried his face in her throat. His hot breath warmed her chest. His hard cock filled her just right. She rocked her hips, encouraging deeper penetration. Eric’s arms wrapped around her back and held her close. He didn’t seem interested in fucking, just being inside her. Or maybe he was finding maneuverability in the tiny car as impossible as she was.

  “I love you so much,” he murmured against her skin, his voice raw with emotion. “So much.”

  “Shh. I know.” She hugged his head against her and kissed his hair. Her body was filled with him, but her heart was overflowing.

  “So much, Rebekah. So much.”

  “I love you too, Eric.”

  “I want to give you everything, baby. Anything in the world. In the universe. What do you want? Name it and it’s yours.”

  She placed a finger under his chin and lifted his head to stare into his tormented blue eyes. She stroked his brow to lessen the crease there and then cupped his face between her hands. “I already have everything I want right here.”

  “But if you could have anything? What would it be?”

  Apparently he didn’t believe she was being sincere. “What if I asked you the same? What do you want—besides me—at this very moment?”

  “Nothing. Just your happiness.”

  “Then you have everything you want too.”

  He bit the corner of his lower lip and stared at her forehead. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I just… I feel like I should buy you things. To prove how much I love you.”

  “Do you think I should buy you a bunch of things to prove how much I love you?”

  His brow furrowed, and he shook his head.

  “Then why do you think I would require it? Do I come across as materialistic or something?”

  “No,” he said hastily. “Of course not.”

  “You’re enough, Eric. Okay?”

  She could see the battle raging inside him, but wasn’t sure what was causing it.

  “Why don’t you think you’re enough—more than enough—for me?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, avoiding her eyes. “I just… I want to believe it. I know you mean it. I just wonder if one day you’ll realize I’m not enough, I was never enough, and you’ll… leave.”

  “I won’t leave,” she said. She grabbed him by the chin and forced him to meet her eyes. “Look at me, damn it.” His blue eyes lifted to hers. “I won’t leave you. I won’t. I’m not your fucking mother.”

  He grinned at her. “Thank God for that. My cock is still inside you.”

  She slapped his shoulder angrily, and he flinched. “Don’t make this into a fucking joke, Eric. I know it hurts you.”

  “You do hit hard for a girl,” he teased.

  She growled in frustration. She understood that he used humor as a defense mechanism, but God, she could strangle him when he used it to shut her out. She opened the car door and struggled to get off his lap. He clutched both hands in the fabric of her cumbersome gown and kept her from rising.

  “You liar, you’re going to leave me already!” he said, his voice uncharacteristically hard.

  “I’m not leaving you,” she said. “I’m going into the house. Let go of my dress.”

  “And if I refuse?”

  “You get to tell my mother how it got ripped.”

  She wrenched her body away from his, and the seams strained to stay together. He let go at once, and she staggered out of the car. Lips pursed, she gathered her skirts in her arms and dashed for the house.

  How could she possibly prove she was strong enough to support him if she ran away at his first sign of adversity? Fuck, she had to pull it together. He’d never get over his insecurity about deserving love if she let his defense mechanisms hurt her. But she couldn’t help it. Deep down she knew his inability to accept that she loved him was his issue, not hers, but damn, it hurt to think that she wasn’t meeting his needs. If she were, he’d have an easy time accepting her assurances. How did she show him what was in her heart? How did she get him to understand that she wasn’t just saying she loved him and going through the motions? She loved him unconditionally—how could she not? But how did she prove it to him? And why should she have to?

  She dashed tears away as she climbed the steps. Her heels echoed on the wide sunny porch as she hurried to the door. She grabbed the handle and found it locked. She growled in frustration and rattled it, as if that would have any affect. A hand covered hers on the doorknob. Eric moved up solidly against her back, effectively preventing her escape. She went still, the flesh between her shoulders tingling.

  Even in her frustration and pain, her skin craved his touch.

  “You are not allowed to be mad at me today,” he said in her ear and handed her the house keys.

  “I can be mad if I want to be mad!” She shoved the key into the lock and struggled to turn it. Why were her goddamned hands shaking so badly?

  “Why are you mad?”

  “I’m not!” She wasn’t lying. She wasn’t mad. She was hurt and she was scared. Scared that she’d never be enough to make up for all the neglected years of his youth.

  “We promised never to do this, remember?” he said. “We said we’d always communicate with each other, even when it’s hard. So tell me what’s bothering you so we can make it right.”

  She took a deep breath and tilted her head to look up into the spired roof on the interior of the porch. She’d never noticed the interesting architecture of the white beams up there before. She wondered what other details she’d failed to notice about Eric’s showcase Victorian. She was wondering this now because communication was hard.

  “Rebekah,” he whispered, his lips brushing the hair above her ear. “Talk to me.”

  She bit her lip and looked down at his hand covering hers on the doorknob.

  “Sometimes,” she said. “Sometimes you make me feel like I don’t love you enough. Or maybe it’s you don’t believe I love you. Not really.”

  “I do struggle
with that,” he said quietly.

  “Why? H-how do I prove it to you, Eric? How do I make you believe it?”

  “For starters, you could kiss that spitting cobra that likes you so much,” he said in a teasing tone. His free hand slid over her shoulder and plucked at the buttons at the back of her gown. “Cobras prefer their women naked.”

  Would she ever get him to be serious for more than five seconds at a time?

  She huffed out a breath, trying to remind herself why he acted the way he did. Tried to remember how much she enjoyed his infallible sense of humor.

  “That would only prove I lust after you. I know you believe that. I can’t keep my hands off you.”

  “Are you sure? You left me in the car with my hard dick hanging out of my pants. I thought wedding-night sex was a guaranteed thing.”

  She chuckled slightly, unable to help herself. It wasn’t like her to be too serious either, but figuring out why he struggled was important to her. She needed to know what she was doing wrong so she could help him believe that her love was as true and unending as his own. That she had enough love to give him. Enough to fill his life with it.

  “Sex is guaranteed, Mr. Sticks. After you answer my question.”

  He sighed and leaned heavily against her back. Her bodice loosened, and she realized he hadn’t just been playing with her buttons—he’d been unfastening them.

  “Why did I pick now to remind you that we promised to communicate? I want to get laid.” He turned the doorknob and pushed the door open. “Will you let me carry you across the threshold now, wife?”

  “After you answer my question.”

  “What was your question again?”

  “Why don’t you believe I love you?”

  “I do,” he said.

  “Do you think I love you as much as you love me?”

  “That’s a loaded question I refuse to answer.”

  “Why is it loaded?”

  “Because if I say I love you more, then it becomes a competition, and if I say you love me more, then you get your feelings hurt, and if I say we love equally, you’ll want evidence of something that can never be proven, something you can feel, but can’t touch. Can’t see. You can’t hear it or smell it. How do you know it’s real if you can’t experience it with anything but your heart?”