Page 96 of How to Ruin a Wedding

“I’m going to come,” I manage to get out, my breath ragged.

“Come,” Anders says, “again, and again.”

“You too,” I plead. “Inside me. I need to feel you. Please.”

He slams his mouth over mine, slipping his hand between us, his thumb circling my clit without losing the rhythm of sliding inside me. Now, instead of needy whimpers, ragged shouts echo out of me between kisses, incoherent sounds of pleasure, Anders’s name said like a prayer, my center pulsing as euphoria sweeps over me like a tide.

My body racks itself with sobs, my eyes burning with tears as I scream his name. Hot liquid pools inside me, and I squeeze, getting out as much as I can from Anders. Pleasure pulses through me, Anders jerks inside me, and a final cry rips from me as I come along with him.

My vision is freckled with white spots, my breath comes in rapid gasps, and my legs grow limp and useless. He drops his head into the curve of my neck before moving up to my mouth, taking his time, laying soft, sweet kisses like dozens of thank-yous.

When he pulls out of me, I cry out, a sudden burst of pleasure hitting me in an aftershock. If I could move my legs, I’d want to get on my knees and start all over, tasting him.

For now, I push my fingers inside me, feeling the mix of my and Anders’s come, and bring it up to my mouth and suck.

Anders’s jaw tenses, and he grabs my wrist, pulling my fingers from my mouth to his, sucking before leaning down and kissing me until I’m dizzy. He pulls away, presses another kiss on my temple, then walks to his en suite bathroom.

He returns with a small, wet hand towel and cleans me off with gentle, slow movements, pressing kisses where he wipes along the way.

Heat flushes through my cheeks initially. I nearly tell him I’ll do it myself. When I think about it, no other lover has ever cleaned me up after we’ve had sex. Not even my ex-husbands.

Anders must see something on my face because he asks, “What’s wrong?”

“Not wrong,” I say, then, with even hotter cheeks from the admission, tell him what I was thinking.

He drops the towel beside me, leans down and holds my face in his hands. “Lucinda, I’m going to treat you like you deserve; I promise you.”

“Do you mean it?” I ask, humiliated at how small my voice sounds, at the sudden fear of it not being true, and worse, the hope that it will be.

He pulls my hand to his mouth, presses a kiss on my palm. “I’ll prove it to you.”

26.

“I can’t believe you actually flew out your sister’s psychic.” Valerie squeezes my arm as we walk through Anders’s house—he’s missing, of course, because he claimed he wouldn’t be able to keep a straight face at everything planned—out to the backyard.

“No worries,” I say. “Anders paid for everything. I’m just the idea girl.”

“Still,” Valerie says, adjusting her Libra necklace, “everyone else always rolls their eyes when I talk about this stuff. You’re the only person who doesn’t make me feel like an idiot for believing in astrology.”

Knowing this is all a ruse makes the statement sting, but I smile as we step onto the deck.

Anders helped me drag a circular table out of his basement. It’s now sitting on the pale wood deck overlooking his meticulously trimmed lawn—mostly bare, except for a tiny patch in the corner where a younger Olive and Anders built a fairy garden.

My heart pounds—just thinking his name turns me into a puddle of affection.

I shake it off. This is the final push. The biggest pressure yet between Valerie and John.

Just then the “psychic”—Taina, of course—emerges onto the deck. “Greetings,” she says in a thick Spanish accent.

A snort escapes before I can stop it. I cover it with a cough, but Valerie doesn’t notice. She’s wide eyed, watching as Taina circles thetable and stops in front of her—coincidentally both wearing white dresses—to inspect her with a dramatic flair. She moves her hand, each finger heavy with rings, and waves them as if pulling Valerie’s scent toward her.

She hums deeply before sitting across from a hopeful Valerie.

“You’re confused,” Taina says, placing her hands in a prayer shape on the table covered in a white tablecloth. Everything but Taina’s rings, layered necklaces, and hair is without color—purposefully plain, so she could “easily read the colors of Valerie’s aura,” she’d said, after “extensive research” on Spanish psychics she found on a Reddit thread. She took notes all night.

“Your soul is splattered with emotion,” Taina continues. “So much so that your inner self has become a shadow lost in a dark room, unable to find itself.”

Valerie stiffens.