The car pulled up and I handed Zelda into the back seat. Rush hour—or hours, as it was in Boston—meant we inched through traffic one jerk and stop after another though we were too busy touching, kissing, leaning into each other to care.
"What did the doctor say?" she asked, her lips on my jaw. "Let's talk about that. Tell me about your shoulder."
I kissed a line up her neck. "It's fine. No surgery."
"More," she demanded. "There has to be more."
I shook my head. I wasn't getting into the doctor's recommendation of light activity and physical therapy if I didn't regain full range of motion in a few weeks. Unimportant to my present needs. "Nothing else to report."
She laughed, saying, "I doubt that. Details, please."
I flipped open the top buttons of her little sweater, only enough to reach inside, and ran my knuckles over the gentle rise of her breast. "Fuck the details."
Zelda covered my hand with hers as she glanced at the driver. "Ash, I don't want—"
"No one gets to see you but me," I whispered into her dark hair. I scraped a finger over her nipple before buttoning her back up.
Eventually, we made it to my building though we were forced to ride the elevator alongside a pair of men who felt that was the appropriate venue for their disagreement on grocery spending. Zelda gazed up at me with her chin on my chest as we listened, not bothering to pretend otherwise. It was a good diversion from all the emotions I'd experienced since finding Zelda on that pedestal and the way they swirled together, melting and melding into a fervent, boundless desire to keep her—and not simply in my bed, in my presence but in my future. I couldn't imagine the next week, the next month, the next year without her right here beside me, and that was a vast new ocean of emotions I was helpless to handle on my own.
Fortunately, I had Zelda to put me in order.
She led me down the hall, inside the apartment, into her arms, though I required much more than that this evening. With both hands on her waist, I walked her backward toward the dining table. She edged up onto the surface and brought her palms to my chest.
I wedged her legs apart, stepped between them. Unbuckled my belt and drew it through the loops with a swish that vibrated like a warning. "Answer me this, my moonbeam bride." I leaned in, my hands flat on the table and my mouth a breath from hers. "Will I fuck you before the vows or after?"
She closed the distance between us, nipping at my bottom lip. "Does it matter?"
"It does." I slanted my lips over hers, sighing into her mouth as I tasted her tongue. "It matters if you're walking down the aisle full and wet from me or waiting until after you're mine."
Zelda hummed for a moment, her eyes shut. "I know which way you want it."
I unbuttoned my shirt, unzipped my trousers as I watched her considering it—and what a strange, strange thing it was to speak this way about a marriage we'd never discussed yet accepted without hesitation. "Is that right? And how do I want it, love?"
"You want it before." A feline smile curled her lips and sparkled in her eyes. "You'd want to keep a secret like that while everyone watched us say very polite and chaste things to each other."
I could see it as if it'd already happened. Zelda alone in some quiet, cloistered room as she waited for the ceremony to begin. Me sneaking inside without a word. I'd skim her panties down and her dress up, and I'd fuck her from behind while she clutched her bouquet. I'd use those panties to mop up the mess I'd made between her legs, then I'd tuck them in my breast pocket.
Certainly, grooms were entitled to keep up the tradition of something borrowed.
Zelda shifted her hand to my gaping trousers, stroking me over the fabric. "That's it, isn't it? I can see you thinking about it."
I tore her sweater over her head, tossed it behind me. The bra followed. Rucked her skirt up to her waist because I intended to use it for leverage. "The bite mark I'll leave on your thigh will be my something blue."
"That's not the kind of wedding gift most brides receive," she said, lifting up her bottom to help me free her of those panties.