by Liz Gavin
“Why are they worshipping Iemanjá in the middle of the night?”
“Don’t be silly, Noah. It’s a wedding.”
They stood a few feet away from the group and he noticed the bride and groom, dressed in light blue, surrounded by the others all dressed in white. Some sang in a mournful tone to the beat of the drums. He knew those were religious songs. He couldn’t make out all the words, but the result was hypnotic. Even though he didn’t profess the same religion, he felt like the music lifted his soul. Powerful stuff.
“It’s beautiful,” he whispered to her, not wishing to disturb the solemn occasion.
She nodded, but didn’t say anything or look at him. Her eyes were glued to the scene, her breathing became shallow. He worried she wasn’t feeling well because of the wine.
“Want to go back?”
“No! This is magical, so moving.”
He noticed her tearful eyes, but didn’t comment. He held her tightly and they watched the ceremony until it ended, no more than ten minutes later. As the small group settled on foldable chairs arranged around metal tables covered in white tablecloths, the couple posed for pictures. Noah tugged her hand, thinking they’d better return to the apartment. They shouldn’t hang around a party they hadn’t been invited to.
“I want to do this,” she whispered.
“Do what?”
“Marry. I want to get married. Will you marry me, Noah Cartwright?”
There was nothing he wanted to do more. “You’re drunk. Let’s talk again when you sober up.”
“Live the moment! Carpe Diem and all that shit. Come on! It would be fun.”
Her pleading eyes and pout had started to have a powerful hold on him. Like earlier in the apartment, he found it hard to find arguments to counter her idea. He knew there were many, he just couldn’t come up with any. Certainly, the wine didn’t help him think clearly. Yes, blaming the wine would help. He needed to pull his shit together and get them out of there.
“What the hell? Let’s do this,” he heard himself saying instead.
It was official. He could not deny Ana Oliveira anything she asked of him. He spotted the Justice of the Peace as he gathered papers and put them away in a leather briefcase. He heard the man decline an invitation to stay and eat, saying it was late and he needed to go home. He pretended he hadn’t heard that part, when they came to stand close to him.
“Excuse me, sir. This is going to sound odd, but would you mind marrying us before you go?”
The lanky man’s gentle smile was directed at both, as his eyes took in the couple. If he noticed they were drunk, he didn’t comment. Instead, he supplied, “You’d be surprised at the number of times people ask me that. I guess weddings make people emotional or something.”
“You can do it, then?”
“Well, there’s a proper procedure to be followed. You would need a license and other things.”
Noah noticed the use of conditional and the absence of a direct negative. After so many years in the country, he recognized a request for bribery when he heard one. Any other day, he wouldn’t have agreed. He was on a mission that night, though. Making Ana happy. And there was nothing he wouldn’t do to accomplish that.
“How much?”
“For the licenses? I’m not sure…”
“For your service. I’ll take care of the licenses later,” Noah informed.
“In that case, a thousand Reais should cover.”
Aware that amount was probably much higher than what the man normally charged, Noah pretended he didn’t know he had been swindled. Maybe it wasn’t swindling if you knew what was going on.
Noah fished in his wallet and wrote out a check. As he handed it to him, he said, “Please skip to the important part. It’s late and we all want to get out of here.”
The man jotted down their names on a piece of paper. “You have your vows?”
“We’ll improvise,” Ana replied, her radiant face reassuring Noah he was doing the right thing.
“Do you, Ana Oliveira, come here freely to take Noah Cartwright as your lawful husband?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Do you, Noah Samuel Cartwright, come here freely to take Ana Oliveira as your lawful wife?”
“I do.”
“Let’s hear your vows.”
“Me first,” Ana pleaded and Noah nodded. “When I thought fairytale weddings and happily-ever-afters weren’t meant for me, you came along and made me a believer again. You showed me a bright side of life I had forgotten existed. For that alone, I’d give you my heart gladly.” A loud hiccup interrupted her and Noah felt they should shorten the ceremony.
Holding her hands, looking into her eyes, he offered his vows, “I never wanted to be your knight in shining armor because you don’t need one. You’re a courageous, self-sufficient woman. I want to be with you because I can’t go on without you.”
He could think of another million things to say, but Ana swayed for the third time and he feared she wouldn’t last much longer. Apparently, the Justice of the Peace noticed the predicament and pronounced them husband and wife. She collapsed in his arms right after that. As he gathered her in his arms to return, the man tucked a paper in Noah’s jacket pocket. When he frowned, the man explained, “Your marriage certificate. It’s useless without official corroboration, but you can get that at City Hall.”
Maybe the man wasn’t as despicable as he had thought. Besides, if the fee included the certificate, it wasn’t that high. “Thank you, sir.”
Walking back to the apartment building, Ana gave no signs of recovering consciousness. Without her, he couldn’t open the main door to the building or her apartment door because he didn’t know her pin number to the electronic locks.
His car keys were in his jacket pocket, so he decided to go back home. Ana certainly wouldn’t mind. As he drove through the deserted streets, covering the distance to his home in less than fifteen minutes, he realized he would have to move out of the apartment. Tristan was a great roommate, but newlyweds needed their privacy. A warm wave of sensation spread through him at the thought of starting his life with Ana. He couldn’t wait for more of their wedding night. The preview had been promising so far. His cock stirred to life in his pants and he smiled as he opened the automatic gate to his building’s garage. Looking over at the passenger seat where Ana was sound asleep, he believed their future was bright.
On the elevator, going up to his apartment, he carried Ana in his arms, her head rested against his shoulder. He realized she was too drunk to wake up any time soon. He entered the apartment and went straight to his room. He laid her on the bed, careful not to hurt her or wake her up. Her soft snoring indicated he didn’t need worry about that. He kissed the tip of her nose as he took off her coat, then pulled the dress over her head. He left the sexy lingerie on. He wanted a barrier between his libido and her tempting body, flimsy as it might be. Getting rid of his own clothes, he got into bed and pulled her back against his chest, resting his chin on her cheek. Basking in the warmth radiating from her skin, he drifted into sleep.
* * *
When he woke up again, Ana was still sleeping, although her breathing indicated she would soon be conscious. Eager to taste her again, he ran a finger from her turned-up nose, down her lips and chin and along her neck to the hollow of her throat. Her eyes fluttered, one arm rose and fell on the sheet along her body. His plan was working. Kneeling on the bed, one leg on either side of her, he cupped her shoulders, thumbing her prominent collarbones. He wanted to lean down and kiss the hollow they formed, but resisted the impulse, not to spook her. She would probably wake up disoriented and hungover and he didn’t want to add to her stress.
On the other hand, he wished to make love to his wife. The memory of Ana asking him to marry her filled his chest and he grinned like a kid on Christmas morning. Just as impatient to unwrap his present, his fingers fidgeted with the lacy material of her panties, but he wouldn’t take them off while she was still out. Then he remem
bered he had promised her a specific kind of wake-up call. He leaned down and kissed her sex over the silk of her lingerie, sucking the tiny nub of her clit just enough to stir his wife in her sleep.
It worked. He watched as she stretched on the mattress like the most exquisite feline, reaching up and tucking her hands under the pillow. She froze for a moment and he figured she wasn’t sleeping anymore and would open her eyes, so he moved to the middle of the bed. She didn’t though. Instead, she scrunched up her nose, squinted her eyes, then opened them a little. Noah could tell the moment she understood where she was because her slack jaw was almost comical.
Given more time, her new marital status and that they were still on their wedding night would sure come to her, but he decided to jumpstart her memories. He positioned his shoulders between her spread thighs, smiled his best grin and captured her dazed stare. Despite the obvious signs of a hangover in the way she squinted her eyes to focus on him, she looked lovely.
He couldn’t wait any more to taste her. “Finally! I’ve been waiting rather patiently for you to regain consciousness,” he confessed, not entirely sincere since he did his best to wake her up. He caressed her thighs, lifted her knees and buried his fingers in her flesh. God, he loved her legs.
As he kissed her skin, from the knees to her thigh, he smiled against her flesh when the strong scent of her arousal reached his nostrils. To think he did that to her was inebriating, almost as much as she was. His heart skipped a beat when her thighs trembled under the pads of his fingers. He ached to feel her quiver around his cock, which was up and ready for action.
He wanted to fill her body and soul with so much pleasure like Ana had never experienced. The memory of her screaming his name in ecstasy the night before still lingered in his mind. He wanted more of that. So, he whispered. “I wouldn’t take advantage of you while you were sleeping, no matter how tight you held me to your chest. You’ve no idea how tempting you were, gorgeous. I behaved, though. Now, it’s time for our delayed fun to begin.”
He licked around her belly button and had the satisfaction of watching her fist the sheets and gasp. He smiled and scratched her skin with his stubbled chin, while he closed his teeth around the strap of her panties. Planning to tear in two the barrier that stood between his mouth and his favorite meal, Noah pulled his head, but froze when Ana shook hers. Intrigued, he stopped as she asked, but couldn’t resist nosing her entrance over the thin black silk. His naughty gesture was rewarded with a new wave of hot juices from her body, evident in the dark patch on the panties and the fragrant scent that filled his nostrils.
She fisted a hand and bit down on it. He assumed she was trying to delay her pleasure. To his surprise, she softly told him, “We can’t do this, Noah. It isn’t right. You’re my boss, for crying out loud.”
Maybe the wine had erased more than the last moments of their night. She needed him to refresh her memory. “That’s your best argument?” He challenged her as he resumed kissing her endless legs, inching his way to her sex.
When he was a breath away from his goal, she bolted upright, grabbing him by the hair and stopping his mouth. Trying to catch his breath, he looked up at her with a quizzical expression. All he could do was wait for her next move, so he watched her embarrassment when her eyes traveled down his naked chest to his erect cock. That should jolt her memory. He had learned over the years to be proud of his dick, not only because of its measurements, but because he knew how to use it. He planted a smug expression on his face, certain she would remember how happy she had been when he introduced her to his best friend the previous night. “See anything you like?”
It didn’t go as he planned, she still looked confused and he began to panic. Her next words made it all worse. “That’s beyond the point. I work for you. What were you thinking dragging me to bed when I was too drunk to know any better?”
That hurt. He controlled his temper, but not the bite in his retort. “First off, you weren’t drunk at all when we started the night. I didn’t drag you anywhere you didn’t want to go.”
She pinched the bridge on her nose in a clear effort to concentrate. He waited for the verdict as she closed her eyes. She finally opened them and stated, “I remember a bar, you, lots of people and lots of loud music.” Expecting more, he merely arched an eyebrow. She added, “And too much drinking.”
“That’s all?”
“Pretty much.”
Telling himself not to despair just yet, Noah chose to stick to his original plan to revive her memories. She hadn’t been so drunk as to black out like that. Maybe the hangover was stronger than he had anticipated. He knew only too well that the headaches could be debilitating. He believed orgasms could help, so he asked against her thigh, “You forgot us fooling around?”
Telltale goosebumps told him her body remembered. She confessed, “For the most part. I don’t remember anything specific.”
“Let me revive your memory.”
She relaxed under him and that was all the invitation he needed. He covered her sex with his hungry mouth, still over the silk material of her panties, and sucked at her clit. For a moment, she moaned and seemed to welcome him back, but suddenly she froze under him, covered his hands with hers and pleaded, “We’ve got to stop this.”
Any other day, he would have accepted her request. As the desperate man he had become, he hung on to the last hope he had, making Ana remember their night. Unable to determine if it was the alcohol or some trauma blocking the memories, Noah had only one certainty: Ana should remember by herself.
He kept trying to help her. “Why should we stop, gorgeous? Because I’m your boss?”
“That too.”
“I’m more than that, wouldn’t you agree?”
Her reply robbed him of his last wind. “You’re a good friend, I’ll give you that. This is still wrong. We’re just going to hurt each other. Come on, it’s us. That’s what we do, remember? We break people’s hearts.”
Then, he got pissed. “Fuck, Ana! We went over this shit last night. That’s a stinking pile of bullshit others say about us, that’s simply not true.”
She offered him the saddest smile he had ever seen as she nestled his face in her hands and brushed her lips across his, then put their foreheads together. “I wish I could remember our conversation. I don’t though. The way I see it, you’re still my boss and a good friend. I don’t want to jeopardize either. So, let’s leave it at that, shall we?”
She seemed to have settled the argument, as she tried to get off the bed. Noah wouldn’t have any of that. His hands closed around her waist and stopped her. “You’ve got to be kidding me. You actually don’t remember what happened?”
Panic gradually swelled in the depths of her eyes. The last emotion he expected to see in them. He didn’t know what else to do when she whispered. “What do you mean? What happened?”
So, he offered the plain truth. “We got married.”
He wasn’t ready for her reaction and did his best to try to see it from her perspective. He failed. He understood passing out drunk and having blackouts. He sympathized with being disoriented and feeling vulnerable. She had covered all those emotions since she came to. He had close relatives who suffered from panic disorder, so he recognized an attack when he saw it. That was clearly what was happening to Ana. He couldn’t shake off the feeling he had triggered it, which annoyed him. To think that hearing she was his wife had sent her down a spiral of sheer terror, hurt like hell.
He didn’t feel equipped to deal with that. Not wanting to make things worse and distrusting his own emotions, he preferred to give her physical space. Getting off the bed, he grabbed the first piece of clothing he found, pulled up an old pair of shorts, didn’t bother to button them up and sat down in the middle of the carpet that covered the wooden floor between the bed and the door.
She opened her eyes and, after studying him for a long moment, she informed him, “That’s just not possible. I can’t marry you. I just can’t.”
He s
wallowed hard to avoid saying something he would regret later. Epic failure. “Well, you should’ve thought about it before saying your vows. What’s wrong with me, anyway? How come the idea of marrying me makes you physically ill?”
“Oh, God, no. Don’t say that. I didn’t mean it like that at all. It’s not you, I can’t marry anybody. I am married.”
He lost it. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
Immediately, he regretted his lack of control. For a fatal second he forgot her past experiences in the hands of her abusive boyfriend. Ana was a traumatized person who deserved to be treated with more care and consideration. Feeling like a Neanderthal, Noah kicked himself mentally as she exhibited classic symptoms of a hysterical reaction.
She spoke fast, moving her body back and forth, jumbling phrases, without coming up for air. “I was too young when we got married. I didn’t know better. I thought Paulo loved me the way I loved him. When he turned evil, I believed I had done something wrong. I tried, I tried my best to make it work, but my best wasn’t good enough for him. My mom wouldn’t listen to me and I was too ashamed to talk to my dad. It was hell for the longest time. Then, he got his mistresses and I could breathe freely. But when his dad wanted him to produce an heir, Paulo returned to his nightly tormenting of me. It didn’t matter if I felt sick or sore, he would climb on top of me and stick his dick in me until I got pregnant. My shrink told me I learned to equate marriage with emotional distress. I also lost my sense of self. I love kids. I want to teach them. I know I will find myself again around kids.”
Shocked to the core to find out the depths of her wounds, Noah took a while to react. Reliving that anguish must have been tearing her up inside. He couldn’t allow her to suffer again, not on account of him.
Leaping back onto the bed, he hugged her closely, rocking her against his body, smoothing her back with his palms. She kept mumbling stuff he didn’t want to hear, so he spoke at the same time. “Shush, hon. No more. Forget it. It’s all in the past. I’m here and I won’t let anything or anyone hurt you ever again.”
