23. Emzee #2
“Marie has to go on break, but I’m here to help,” she told me. “Would you like to take another turn around the store and pick a few more dresses? It sounds like you haven’t really had a chance to find one you like. Which is kind of the whole idea, you know?”
“Yes. My God.” I nodded, letting out a breath of relief. “Thank you.”
She smiled. “Don’t worry. This is all par for the course. Usually it’s mothers-in-law, though, and they tend to be a lot more iron-willed than your sisters here. Just try to have fun.”
“I’ll try,” I said.
I got back into my clothes and we circled the sales floor, looking for something that spoke to me. It was a beautifully designed store, chandeliers sparkling overhead, all the dresses elegantly displayed. But that was the whole problem. There were so many of them.
“We also have a book with the rest of our stock. I’ll grab it,” the girl said, darting into a back room and then returning with a thick, well-made binder that weighed a ton.
It had to be at least two hundred pages, with wedding dresses displayed on both sides of each piece of paper. I couldn’t imagine where they kept all of these dresses.
With the binder under my arm, I made my way around the store again.
Everything was breathtaking, gowns covered in sparkling crystals, embellished with handsewn lace, waterfalls of ruffles spilling down them.
It was an overload of the senses. I didn’t even know where to direct my eyes, since every time I’d look at one dress, I was immediately distracted by the dress next to it.
I’d barely covered a quarter of the salon before I gave up.
“Not seeing anything you like?” the tattooed employee asked.
“I don’t even know what I like,” I confessed.
She laughed. “You wouldn’t be the first,” she said. “Luckily, our job is to make sure you find the perfect dress. And if today isn’t the day, there’s always next time. No pressure.”
“Okay,” I said uneasily.
She must have seen something in my expression, because she gave my arm an encouraging pat.
“I have something that might help,” she said, disappearing into the back room again. But it wasn’t a binder she brought out this time. It was a glass of champagne.
“Here,” she said. “This usually helps take the edge off.”
I took the glass gratefully and downed almost half of it immediately.
Then we made one more round of the racks, and by some miracle, I actually managed to find a few dresses that looked more me.
They were simple sheaths, nothing fussy or flouncy, and cut with the kind of universally flattering shapes that I knew would make me feel comfortable and beautiful.
“Good luck,” the employee said, winking as she dropped me back off at the dressing room and whisked away all the reject gowns.
I stripped down to my underwear and took a deep breath.
The first dress wasn’t right, but it was much better than the others I’d tried. It was sophisticated, without any sparkly embellishments or skin on display. Unfortunately, with the wide boat neck and the vertical seams down the front, it made me look kind of…
“Matronly,” the salesgirl murmured when I stepped out of the dressing room. “No offense. I think it just looks too old for you.”
“Totally agree,” I said. “No offense taken. I appreciate your professional opinion.”
I didn’t even bother showing it off to my sisters. It was the second dress, though, that I knew was something special. It was the perfect combination of classic and modern, feminine but without all the frills and fuss. The moment I had it on, I knew that this was it.
The cut was simple and demure, at least from the front, where it looked similar to the dress Kate Middleton had worn on her wedding day.
Long lace sleeves, narrow but plunging neckline, an A-line skirt.
Instead of floral appliques on the skirt and bodice, however, my dress was free of additional decoration, and there was no nine-foot train to worry about.
The fabric was a lustrous, cream-colored silk charmeuse.
It somehow managed to pull off the trick of skimming my curves without exposing or overly accentuating them.
The back, however, was completely open.
It reminded me of the Prada dress, and I knew Ford would love it.
I also loved it, utterly and completely, but I knew I should try on a few more of my choices before I showed Tori and Brooklyn The One. I needed to know for sure that it was the dress I was going to fight for.
I’d just hung it back up behind the others and was standing there in my bra and thong, deciding which to try on next, when I heard the dressing room door creak. I turned around, expecting the salesgirl, but it wasn’t an employee coming in to help me with a zipper.
It was Ford.
“What are you doing here?” I hissed.
“It sounded like you were having a rough time, so I came to offer my support.” He hushed me with a smile, his eyes roving over my body. “I can’t rescue you, but I can give you a little something else to think about.”
I put my hand on my hips, pretending to be mad when I was actually thrilled that he was standing there. We’d spoken plenty since that night at my apartment, but had been too busy to get together.
“You know you’re not supposed to see the dress before the wedding day,” I scolded him.
“Then it’s a good thing you aren’t wearing one,” he said.
With that, he swept me into his arms, his mouth coming down aggressively over mine.
A little moan escaped me as I kissed him back eagerly, craving his mouth, his body.
Everything. I wanted him so bad that I didn’t care we were in a dressing room in a bridal shop with nothing more than a thin door and a short hallway between me and my sisters-in-law and a bunch of on-the-clock Blue employees.
Ford pushed me up against the wall, putting his finger to his mouth to indicate that I needed to be quiet.
My eyes went wide as he pulled a condom out of his pocket.
Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined something like this happening.
Part of me thought I should stop him, but the other part of me—the more insistent part of me—wanted to keep going.
I pushed my hips against his, feeling the long, hard press of his cock between my legs. I was basically naked already, but Ford still made a point of stripping off my bra and thong. Then he gave me the condom and started unzipping his pants.
I understood that I was supposed to help, my hands trembling a little as I tore the packet open. Even though we’d had sex before, Ford had always handled the condom. Putting it on him felt intimate in a new way, and I loved how his head fell back as I touched him.
After pushing me face-first against the wall, he used his foot to nudge my feet apart, making room for himself between my legs. His hard cock pressed against me from behind, and I was so wet for him that when he slid into me, my body was ready.
I was grateful for his hand coming up to cover my mouth, because I could barely contain the moan that slipped from my lips as he pumped deep inside of me.
I was still tight, so very tight, but it felt good.
And it felt even better when he began to move faster, his teeth closing gently over my shoulder, his free hand sliding around to toy with my clit.
We didn’t have much time, and there was a huge chance that we’d get caught, but I didn’t care.
I wanted this. I wanted him. He took me hard and fast against the wall, my legs spread wide, my heels giving me just enough height to provide the perfect angle for the two of us.
It was so hot, so fucking hot, both of us struggling to stay silent and discreet, me sucking the finger of the hand he still had over my mouth.
I didn’t think it would be possible to come so quickly, but I could feel an orgasm racing toward me. Before I could stop myself, I was coming, clenching hard around Ford’s cock, bracing myself against the wall as he shuddered with his own climax, his cock pulsing inside me.
We stayed like that for a moment, his hand muffling my cries, my knees wobbly.
Slowly he withdrew.
When I managed to turn around, his pants were zipped back up and he looked exactly as he had when he snuck in a few moments ago. It was hard to believe what had just happened, but I didn’t regret it for a moment.
I slipped back into my thong and my bra and Ford gave me one last kiss before he snuck back out, neither of us saying another word. Footsteps approached from down the hall, and Tori called out, “Emzee? Everything okay in there? Do you need help?”
“No!” I said quickly. “I’m almost ready. Be out in a minute.”
I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. My hair was coming loose, my eyeliner smudged, my cheeks flushed. I cleaned up my eye makeup with a tissue, hurried back into the dress I’d been wearing before Ford came in, and strode confidently down the hall to the pedestal.
Stepping up onto it, I smiled at my reflection. “I think this is the one,” I said.
They both started clapping, and I saw tears in Tori’s eyes.
“We agree,” she said.
Brooklyn grinned. “There’s no doubt,” she said. “Look at you—you’re actually glowing.”
She was right. Only it wasn’t because of the dress I was wearing. It was because of Ford.