I looked down at the man kneeling in front of me, his hands still clenched in my skirt, his dark head bent toward his work, and everything was silk and tulle and boots and moonlight, and suddenly my chest hurt so much I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t breathe even as an orgasm began to build somewhere behind my clit.
“Nolan,” I choked, knowing that I didn’t want him to stop—that I didn’t even think Icouldstop—but also knowing that this was too close to something that was going to hurt me. Too close to goodbye, even as we stood where generations of lovers had pledged till death did they part.
What if this was the closest I ever got to a wedding? Or worse, what if Ididget married one day but all I would be able to think of then was Nolan Shaw, staring at me in a fake wedding dress like I was the only thing on earth that could save him?
Nolan tilted his face up to mine, his eyes dark and his mouth wet. His hair had fallen over his forehead, just like a careless duke’s would, and the moonlight glowed along his cheeks and perfectly cut jaw. He lifted his hand from the bunched skirt at my waist to my chest, where he laid his palm flat over my heart, like he needed to feel the wild beating of it for himself.
For the first time, I saw nothing of the pop star in front of me, and nothing of the fantasy I’d concocted of him in my teenage head. I only sawhim.Nolan Kowalczk, my fellow bisexual disaster. Nolan, who was trying to be a good son and a good brother, who was trying to clean up after his years-old messes. Nolan, who somehow knew parts of me I had yet to uncover myself.
Nolan, who shouldn’t be here, who needed to lay low during the post-Kallum news storm, but who still couldn’t stay away.
The truth was that I couldn’t stay away either, and maybe that was part of the problem. The porn star and the newly wholesome celebrity were never meant to have a happy ending; they were never meant to stand in a church wearing gorgeous clothes and pledging eternity to each other.
So if this—this moment of make believe—was all we would ever get, then I’d take it. I’d take it with both hands and no remorse, because I couldn’t imagine a world where I’d regret the time I’d had with Nolan. It had been every fantasy come to life, even the ones I never knew I had. Even the ones whereI was a bride and he was a groom and he was choosing me in front of the world. Forever.
He knew what I needed, of course. I needed the promises and vows we could never speak aloud, so he wrote them into my body instead. I needed the memories, the moments to hold on to, because after he left, afterDuke the Hallswas over, there would be no guarantee that we’d find our way back to each other, or if we could, that weshould.
And if this was the last time we were together, then I wanted nothing held back.
He didn’t hold back, because of course he didn’t. Nolan Shaw unleashed was a beautiful thing, and he treated my body like it was his to plunder and a shrine to worship all at once. And when he slid his fingers inside me, stoking a fire with his touch as well as his mouth, I was done for.
He sucked and licked the climax free of my body as I clung to the altar rail and fought to keep standing. With his free hand, he held my hip firmly, refusing to let me move or escape. He continued to kiss me as my cunt pulsed again and again and again.
I’d barely finished when he stood, his hands dropping to the waistband of his pants and making short, easy work of the buttons. From his pocket came a condom, which he rolled on with his booted feet braced and his hair tumbling over his forehead. His sheathed cock gleamed in the moonlight, but otherwise he was still fully clothed as he said, hoarsely, “On your knees. Now.”
His words moved my body to action like I’d been hypnotized. I’d been asked to kneel scores of times—I’d dropped tomy knees three or four times a week for the last six years. But never, ever, had it felt like this. Like I’d die if I didn’t give him what he needed. Like making him come was as necessary as drawing my next breath.
I went to my knees in front of the altar rail, the dress rippling and rustling all around me, and then he easily flipped me onto all fours, already shoving the gown up around my hips and plunging inside of me before I’d even caught my breath.
“Fuck, you’re so wet,” he groaned, giving me a deep, urgent thrust that had my toes curling. I rocked back into him, and he hissed. “Yes, that’s it. Just like that, beautiful girl. Just like that until I’m done.”
He was so raw when he fucked. Like once his lust took over, he was nothing but unvarnished, primal animal until he got what he needed. God, it made me hot.
“Touch yourself,” he breathed. “I want you even wetter.”
I pushed my hands down between my legs, my cheek pressing into the floor, and obeyed, the first touch of my fingers to my clit telling me that it would take no time at all to get off again, and then he started screwing in short, filthy strokes, chasing his release as his fingers dug into my hips.
I came first, clenching around him, and then he gave a sharp, low grunt and began surging, filling the condom as he held me still against him. My lips were tingling, and static danced at the edges of my vision. I could barely drag in breath after breath as my body was flooded with every hormone known to humankind, and Nolan was right there with me, each breath labored, his thighs tense and straining against mine.
I crumpled forward and panted into the floor like a freshly fucked heathen while Nolan pulled out and rearranged himself. He gathered me into his arms after, holding me against his chest as he sat with his back braced against the rail, and we caught our breath together in a pile of crushed silk and tulle, the faint strains of the music from the Christmas fair somehow making it inside the old building.
I didn’t know how to feel about what we’d just shared, and thinking about being cuddled here—simultaneously satisfied and all twisted up inside—while I was dressed as Felicity and Nolan was in full duke regalia made the situation that much stranger. Because even though I was ninety percent sure Pearl had written this script in a crystal-gridded, sage-scented fever dream, there was a clear prism of truth at the heart of Felicity and the duke’s story. And it was that even if fate could triumph over separate timelines and separate lives, no destiny, no love, ever came for free. Love—even love decreed by fate—always demanded sacrifice and risk.
But whose risk? Whose sacrifice? And was that fair to ask of anyone? Even people who didn’t have their future dreams and livelihoods on the line, like Nolan and I did?
I didn’t know if the shiver that followed that thought was from being uncertain or cold.
I decided to pretend it was the cold, even though Nolan’s arms were so very warm around me. “We should go to our rooms separately,” I murmured. “To avoid suspicion.”
He didn’t answer for a long moment. “Yeah,” he said, his voice reluctant. “That would be the smart thing to do.”
“We’ll see each other tomorrow. We’ll have a real goodbye.”
“I want more than tomorrow, Bee,” he said softly. “More than a goodbye. You know that.”
Yes, yes, I did know that. He’d told me as much before. But then why didn’t itfeelreal? Why did a future still seem as fleeting as the moonlight moving across the church floor on a cold December night?
Maybe... maybe it was because that sometimes wanting wasn’t enough.
