Epilogue #2
Zenny offers another strawberry to Lali.
“I think he’d be good at it too. The other brothers…
they’d be good at the gentle parts—helping people, fixing the potholes, that kind of thing—but even Sean would struggle with the more ruthless necessities of leadership, the conflicting needs.
Ryan could deal with those necessities with a handshake and a smile and make it seem like there are never any hard feelings in local politics, none at all.
And he won’t be too brokenhearted to try again when his plans don’t work out. ”
Ry is passing by the fountain now, checking his pocket watch before slipping it back into his pocket. His wedding ring—wood that I hand-turned before it was inlaid into rose gold and titanium—gleams with the movement, and a possessive satisfaction curls in my chest.
“That’s the easy part for him, because he doesn’t actually have a heart.” I say it lightly, a joke, but Zenny just shakes her head.
I glance over at her to find that she’s watching Ry as he watches me.
“He has a heart, Birdie,” she says. She puts her hand over mine. “It’s sitting right here next to me.”
BELL
My wife nibbles at her lower lip as I start steering her to the other side of the room. “Are you sure it’s okay if we leave?” she asks nervously. “I don’t want to be rude.”
“We’ll only be gone a moment,” I cajole.
Seeing her doubt, I take her by the shoulders and gently spin her so she can see the reception in full swing: Aiden and Sean dancing with the kids, Tyler and Poppy and Father Brady sitting at a table while Tyler rubs the bare feet Poppy has propped in his lap.
Paxico and my dad with a half dozen beer bottles between them, Busy and Amber talking about community college like they have been all day.
Busy has been thinking about taking a class next semester, and Amber’s taking three after Birdie connected her with a scholarship for single parents—which, in a happy coincidence, is administered by my architecture firm.
“See? Everyone’s having a great time. Which means we should get to have a great time—alone.”
The war in her face is so adorably plain. It’s her innocence and her inborn resistance to corruption that fascinates me, but it’s that commiserate shadow in her that obsesses me.
She lets the shadow win.
“Okay,” she whispers, taking my hand, and together we slip through tables and guests until we’re to a tucked-away door leading to a marble-walled gallery.
I open the door and, with a quick glance around, lead Birdie inside.
I pull her through the empty room in a half run, a soft clatter of heels and dress shoes.
Birdie laughs, sweet and surprised, at our sudden sprint, and the sound makes me feel like a king. The minute we’re through the doorway, I sweep her into a kiss, seeing if I can taste some of that laughter for myself.
“I forget that you don’t know how much fun it is to break the rules,” I murmur. I have the back of her head cradled in my palm, less worried about preserving the pretty little chignon she’s worn today now that the pictures are over.
She smiles up at me and then uses the arms laced around my neck to pull me down for another kiss. “It’s good that I have you to teach me then.”
“So glad you said that. I have another rule for us to break…”
I move us deeper into the dimmed galleries, kissing her every time she starts worrying about getting caught, hushing her in between kisses.
Finally we get to a room out of the way enough that I think we’ll be safe for some knowing of the biblical kind.
We stop in front of a statue of the Madonna and child and then look up to see a life-size Christ mounted to the wall, in the pose of crucifixion but without his cross.
There’s a stylized serenity to him, opened arms, closed eyes, his limbs carved in such a way that smooths over any trauma, any pain.
“Do you think whoever modeled for this got some of the same perks I did?” I ask, sliding a sly smile over at my new wife.
Birdie looks at me with one of her raised-cheek smiles, her eyebrow lifted a little. “Are you trying to update your terms? Claim some of the perks are standard so you can ask for more?”
“Oh, I think my terms are already quite to my liking,” I purr, pulling her close again, close enough that she can feel where I’ve been getting hard for her.
I chose this vintage suit because I like classic silhouettes, but it was also convenient cover for the day.
I knew watching her walk down the aisle to me—putting a ring on her finger and kissing her and feeding her cake—wasn’t something I’d be able to endure without a physical response. And now that I have her alone…
She slides her fingers into my hair and strokes over the skin just behind my ears with her thumbs. It feels amazing. “What terms? As a model? Or as a husband?”
“Both, although I’ve only been a husband for a few hours now. I might need to review what’s on offer.”
I don’t give her any warning, taking her by the hips and turning her so she’s facing the wall of short statues. I reach around her and place her hands flat on the plinth the statues rest on, a position that makes her bend at the hips and her skirt pull tight.
I sweep my hands up the sides of her thighs to her waist and back down again.
She is taut under my touch, nervous about privacy maybe, or the alabaster statue of Saint Thomas Aquinas, who is staring past us both with an expression of resignation.
But when I drag her skirt up to her hips with the next sweep of her thighs, she lets out a helpless, shivering breath that I’m very familiar with. A yes wrapped in but I shouldn’t.
Once I get her skirt up to her hips, it’s my turn to exhale.
I’ve put my little artist in all kinds of slutty things—lace and mesh and leather—but this is maybe the sluttiest thing I’ve ever seen: a demure, nude thong under sheer pantyhose, framed by white fabric rucked up over the swell of her ass.
I run the backs of my fingers down the seam of her pantyhose, from the dimples at the small of her back to the valley of her cunt, my heart beating fast. The nylon is so silky and her skin is so warm underneath it…
I get down to one knee and indulge the mindless urge to rub my face all over her.
Against the nylon-covered cheeks, the insides of her thighs, seeking the lush heat of her pussy and unable to get it through the hose and her thong.
My palms run ceaselessly over the outsides of her thighs and down her tight calves and to her heels.
My mouth is dry and my dick hurts, and a restless orgasm gnaws somewhere deep in my belly, ready to be screwed free.
I stand up, nearly dizzy with the drive to fuck, breathing hard as I unbutton my suit jacket and then unclasp my trousers before unzipping.
My eyes are stuck on the sight in front of me as I pull out the part of me that’s stiff for her.
The low lights of the room, just enough for security to see their way as they walk through, make her heart-shaped curves and strong thighs gleam, shine almost, and when I carefully place myself along the center seam of her hose, the contrast in textures is obscene.
And the silkiness I’m resting on… I rock my hips a few times to drag my dick against it.
Fuck, that feels good.
With laudable self-restraint, I stop long enough to twist my fingers in her hose and rip them down the middle.
She startles at the noise, loud in the empty room, and I give her a reassuring “Shh, it’s okay.
No one knows.” And then I seek out the tear in her pantyhose to find her thong, push it aside.
She’s soaking wet.
Her head drops between her shoulders, and a kind of moan escapes her—shame, I think, about what she wants—as I test the slickness in her pussy and then search out the sensitive place just in front of that.
I croon a little when I find that place as greedy as ever, a blood-plumped ridge ending in a sweet pearl as turgid as I am.
When I press a fingertip to it, she whimpers.
“Yes, pretty bird?”
“We should wait,” she mumbles, her hips chasing my touch, her fingers curling a little against the plinth. “We should wait until the hotel. It’s not right.”
“Funny, because I thought one of the things on offer was you. Whenever I wanted. However I wanted.” I rub her clit with more intention now, the firm, consistent strokes she likes. “Keeping my balls drained. Keeping your taste in my mouth. Isn’t that right?”
“Yes.” It’s a whimper, a plea, her feet going wider, her fingernails scratching against the wood.
This is a tiny bit of theater, since she does have a real safe word now and can pause things whenever she needs, but we learned in our kink-friendly therapist’s office that we like the theater too much to leave it behind.
So with our renegotiated limits and with our new safe words—yes, one for me too—we play like we did before.
With Birdie as the sole focus of my lust and attention, my unholy love, and me as everything I can be for her—orgasm giver and art consultant and waffle maker and heartbeat regulator and bringer of cats.
The play fits us, fits the way we’re formed, because I love her so much that the mass and gravity of it have ignited into an ever-burning star. And she’s been bereft of love for so long that she never stops crawling toward the light.