Wedding Jitters

She was worried about the sex.

Oh, not the sex, really, Miranda thought as she turned to admire the fit of the pale green gown she'd chosen for the honeymoon. She was a virgin, after all. She'd made the decision to wait for marriage before indulging in what her sister Peg liked to called ‘the delights of the flesh', and she supposed it was perfectly normal to have some...concerns about the whole thing. Still, Ed was certainly more experienced and she didn't want to disappoint him.

'Oh yeah', her mind mocked back. You mean you're worried that he'll disappoint you!'

Sighing, Miranda stripped off the long, gauzy gown, laying it neatly over a chair to wait for tomorrow night to do its seductive magic and climbing into bed wearing only a pair of black nylon panties. After switching off the light, she lay there tossing, unable to sleep and still not willing to admit--even to herself--that her subconscious was right.

She'd chosen Ed as her future husband despite the fact that he was 35 to her 26 and had a slightly receding hairline and what could be the beginning of a middle-aged paunch. Oh, he was tall and dark-haired and had beautiful, crystalline blue eyes and a wonderful sense of humor. He did work out a few times a week, so he wasn't really soft, exactly, just not muscle-bound. He was stable--financially, socially, emotionally. Certainly sexually. Oh, he might not be the roller coaster of sex, but he would at least be the merry-go-round. Dependable. Pleasant. And thinking about the ride didn't make her want to vomit, so that was a plus. She never was one for roller coasters anyway.

In bed, Ed would be exactly what he was out of bed: kind, considerate and always attentive to her needs.

You better hope Ed has more than a couple of inches between those thighs,' she could hear Peg's mocking voice echoing from the memory of her bachelorette party that had ended only an hour before. And you better pray he knows what to do with it'. Peg was a great one for advice. She'd gleefully given up her virginity at sixteen and hadn't wasted a single minute since. She'd been absolutely horrified when Miranda and Ed had announced their engagement. Peg lived by the ‘variety is the spice of life' motto, and was sure Miranda had lost out, first by remaining a virgin and now by taking someone like Ed as her husband and bed partner for life.

"So," Miranda said aloud to the dark hotel room, Am I missing out?" Had she somehow missed the sexual boat by promising her body--forever--to someone like Ed? Someone who would fit her more like a comfortable old slipper than a sexy red stiletto? Peg certainly thought so. Predictably, her hot-blooded sister had hired a very energetic stripper for the party, and once Miranda had survived his bumping and grinding (practically in her lap, for goodness' sake, and no doubt all choreographed by her loving sister), Peg had whispered in Miranda's ear that "His name's Grant and he's yours for the night if you want him. He's already been paid...and tipped. Bet his private show's even better than the public one." Horrified that her sister would even suggest such a thing and secretly wondering about herself because she seemed to be the only woman in the room not apparently affected by Grant‘s spectacular pecs, Miranda told her sister exactly what she could do with her stripper.

Which is probably exactly what Peg was doing right this very minute, Miranda thought sourly, while she was lying here wondering if she was about to make a BIG mistake. Rolling to her side, Miranda smiled at the vase of perfect red roses Ed had sent to her first thing this morning. Red, she knew, represented love, and his note had told her how much he loved her and how difficult it would be for him to not be able to see her all day, as they had agreed to remain apart the day before the wedding. Finally, remembering that one man's love was surely better than a dozen lovers, she fell into a fitful sleep.

She wasn't sure what woke her, but Miranda opened her eyes to a room full of pitch. The curtains, which she was certain she'd left open, were not only pulled tight, but something--a blanket, maybe?--must have been thrown over the big window, because not even a sliver of light broke the black void around her. She found herself thinking, then, that she must still be asleep, because only dreams were this dark and besides, she didn't think she'd started compulsively covering her windows while sleepwalking.

Then she became aware of something else. Air from the hotel heater puffed sluggishly into the room and over her breasts, teasing her nipples with a warm sigh. Her blankets were gone and she lay in the center of the big bed, wearing only her panties. And her arms, which she had thought simply stretched out above her head in sleep, refused to be lowered away from the vicinity of the headboard.

She'd been tied to the bed.

Terror slithered through her but Miranda held back a gasp of shocked awareness and the sob waiting to escape her throat. Instead she tried to be smart; tried to listen and determine if the someone who had done this to her was still here.

Still a threat.

A shadow in the darkness snagged at the corner of the limits of her vision and she opened her mouth to scream, only to have a large, warm hand slam over her mouth before anything could escape. The scream became nothing more than a high-pitched, terrified moan.

"Don't."

The voice seemed to come out of the darkness itself. The hand over her mouth was his only physical contact with her, despite the fact that she expected much worse--and very quickly. He surprised her by not moving for a long moment; she could hear his slightly ragged breathing, as if he were warring with himself about whether he should do this. The hand, she realized belatedly, was gloved. Not with latex or some other material designed to avoid forensic science, but in some thin, soft material designed to caress.

"I won't hurt you, Miranda."

She jerked in surprise and anger. How the hell did he--

"You want to know how I know your name."

When he paused, she heard a soft rustle of fabric and while he finished his explanation he replaced his hand with a silky length of material, effectively gagging her.

"I know you, Miranda. I've been watching you. Wanting you."

His hands, finished with the gag, moved. Barely touching her, the velvety tease of his gloves skimmed over her throat, her shoulders; the sides of her breasts. She jerked again, despite the fact that the touches were hardly even touches, and shook her head in mute denial when her nipples tightened; ached. His hands played feather-light over her hips; her thighs. At the foot of the bed he wrapped his fingers around one of her slim ankles and fastened a velvet-lined cuff around it.

Suddenly understanding that he meant to tie her feet to the bed as well, Miranda kicked out at him, managing only to force a broken curse from him as he took one blow in surprise before subduing her. Spread-eagled with only her panties between her and the stranger, Miranda hated herself for crying. Still, tears squeezed from her eyes, running down into her hair. She tried to beg but the only sound she made was a pitiful sob behind her gag.

"Please. Don't cry, Miranda," he whispered, coming back to her and lying in the bed, stretching alongside her without touching her. "I promise that I won't do anything to hurt you. And that I will give you pleasure. I didn't come here to take from you, Miranda. This isn't rape."

When his mouth brushed her ear, Miranda jerked , another hard sob catching in her throat. Oh, God, she thought, what was this? Not rape? Then what? Not lovemaking, certainly. She had no choice. She should be repulsed.

But she wasn't.

There was something about the way he'd spoken to her. Something...familiar? No. Something reassuring. Honest. She believed him when he said he wouldn't hurt her...or maybe she was just telling herself that to reduce the terror. He was obviously big--she could tell that from the way the bed dipped as he'd lowered himself next to her--but his hand, which was sliding in its velvety sheath across her belly to lie over her ribs just below her left breast, was sensually caressing, not punishing. And his mouth...oh, god...he was nipping and nibbling at her ear, teasing her with brief, hot touches of his tongue.

Hot, erotic shivers were snapping down her spine.

"Yes," he whispered with satisfied male superiority. "You like that. I can't see you, and I'm not touching your breasts, but kissing you here makes your delicate little nipples stiffen. Doesn't it, Miranda?"

Yes. But to avoid such admissions; such submission, she made a harsh sound of refusal in her throat and twisted as far away from that delicious mouth as the bounds would allow her.

"No!" Moving as quickly and silently as a panther, he caught her by the waist, pulling her back into place with one hard, sharp movement and effectively frightening her into silence. "Miranda, tonight you're mine. Don't fight me. By choice or by force, you're going to explode in my arms tonight. For my hands. My mouth. And my cock. And it's going to happen more than once. You are mine."

The force and barely restrained violence in the words made her shudder. To pull her back into place he'd moved in the bed and now he was kneeling above her, straddling her right thigh. She could feel his body now. His big hands, holding her shoulders down onto the bed; his hair-roughened, muscular thighs chafing her softer one. And she realized that he was as naked as she was, wearing only some kind of cotton briefs. As he released her shoulders, bracing himself on his palms at either side of her head, he leaned down to put his mouth to her other ear, kissing and nipping her there with the same incredible, arousing, awful response in her. And as his body came into closer contact with hers, his hard, wide chest pressing crisp male hair against her nipples, a tight shock of pleasure rode from her nipples directly into her pelvis and she felt his arousal.

Holy mother, she thought, lightheaded.

Gasping behind the gag, she moved in protest again, but arching off the bed only brought her body closer to his and she regretted that immediately, because he groaned and moved his penis against her belly in a masturbatory stroke, making her feel suddenly hot and...wet. He was covered with cotton, but not completely, because her action made him swell and thicken against her until he was impossible huge and the cotton, which had been doing a poor job of restraining him to begin with, could no longer hold him. The head of his penis met her belly, skin to skin, and she panicked and renewed her struggle against her bonds.

"Unh...god," he hissed, his mouth against her ear as he fell fully atop her, his arms sliding under her to anchor himself to the bed and her to him. "Stop struggling, Miranda. You're going to make me come tonight but it you don't stop I'm going explode right now. Goddam it, I said stop!"

She did. She couldn't escape; couldn't make him change his mind. He was going to...well, she knew. She knew all the names for all the horrible, filthy things he was going to make her do...

Shock settled in her system and the fight left her, leaving her body to lie unmoving against the bed. She couldn't fight him, but she wouldn't help him, either. Let him enjoy raping a limp rag doll.

"Don't worry, baby," he crooned in her ear before kissing the soft flesh behind it, "You don't have to do anything at all. But don't think you'll be laying there like you're dead to the world for long. I know exactly how to bring you alive."

His hands still beneath her, he suddenly moved down in the bed, his hot, wet mouth opening over one of her contracted nipples and she spasmed, moaning at the feel of him as he took full control of her; she could sense his satisfaction as she yielded beneath him and that clearly aroused him. His mouth played her breast, making her gasp through her silk gag and arch and groan involuntarily. She fought to remain stiff, but her body was made to feel pleasure and he knew how to give it to her. He licked and pulled, sucked and gently bit her achingly hard nipples, plumping her full breasts together with his hands, aligning them beneath his mouth for his own pleasure, and for hers, and she couldn't stop the wet heat that grew between her thighs at the sounds of pleasure he made, as if he were feasting and every taste was exquisite.

"Fuck," he hissed, the word almost reverent. "Your tits are perfect. I never imagined..." And before he could finish the thought he was at her again, sucking and licking , his mouth like greed personified.

Miranda jerked in pleasure and surprise. Belatedly, she remembered what Grant had said to her just before sneaking off with Peg at the end of the party. Getting her in an otherwise vacant room, he'd backed her up against a wall and whispered that he was sorry she hadn't taken her sister up on her generous offer and what a shame it was because she had such fabulous tits...or something to that effect.

It was Grant! Wasn't it?

And what if it was? She hadn't asked for this. She didn't want to be unfaithful to Ed before she'd even had a chance to lose her virginity to him. Still, the thought that this was someone she knew...hell, it was possible that...

OF COURSE!

Peg! This was all her doing! And this was Peg's idea of the perfect wedding gift--a rape fantasy or some such thing. She'd heard her sister talk about it, and Miranda could even recall having admitted once that the idea was certainly arousing. Peg had hired Grant to do this! Thus, the velvet gloves and silk gag and sexy cologne she could smell coming from his heated body, along with the heady odor of aroused male, and the gentle restraints lined with velvet.

So now for the question of the day: did she want this, or was it rape?

And even more troubling was her honest answer. Why couldn't it be both?

She heard herself moan deep in her throat and arched her back off the bed to force her breasts closer to his mouth. He responded by biting her a bit more forcefully, at a fleshy spot near her left nipple. Then his mouth lowered, his tongue darting out to tease her along the sensitive skin beneath her breast.

She gasped and her whole body seemed to vibrate with heat.

"I told you," he growled against her skin. "I know you. I know what you need, Miranda. What you want. You're going to come for me now, sweetheart. I want to hear you scream and feel your body spasm when you come hard for me."

No, she couldn't, and she shook her head to let him know that she would never...

Then he was gone suddenly and Miranda felt the chill of it through to her bones. She hadn't know just how hot he was...they were...until he pulled away. She felt him moving in the bed and before one thought had time to flash through her brain, she felt her panties being tugged and then ripped away before his velvet-sheathed hands were on the soft inner sides of her thighs and he was opening her gently; fully.

Then his mouth...

Her back arched fully off the bed at the first firm, wet movement of his tongue, and she did scream behind her gag, the sound harsh, surprised, impatient and erotic in the otherwise silent room. Her body relaxed only marginally as he deliberately slid his tongue back and around and over her clit, his gloved hands teasing her by tickling the soft edges of the hair between her thighs and making her think how desperate she was for him to take off the gloves and slide his fingers inside her...

Within a minute she was writhing under his mouth, trying to get her heels down into the mattress so that she could force her clit harder against his invading tongue and increase the pressure, but he kept the advantage, pulling back when she strained forward, his masculine growls and moans telling her that he was not only loving what he was doing, but he was loving her frustration as well. Somehow the fact that he had that advantage and used it to pleasure her until she was nearly insane made her even hotter.

Oh, hell, she thought fuzzily through waves of warm, wet pleasure...she had finally made up her mind. She wanted this. Of course, that could be because she was a couple of hard tongue strokes away from a mind-blowing orgasm and her first with a man, and being in that intensely aroused state didn't exactly make for clear thinking, but there it was.

He moved his hands away and Miranda moaned, the sound effectively conveying her disappointment. Still, his mouth never left her, but continued teasing; playing. She could feel his hunger and knew that she was being fanciful but imagined that it was all for her; that whoever this man was, he was mad for her...for the taste that bloomed hot and wet between her thighs and that was uniquely hers. An instant later, he put his hands back where they had been before and she nearly came off the bed.

Hard, broad, roughly calloused hands that without gloves felt more like heaven than the velvety sheath against her soft inner thighs. She started pleading without words, making sounds that she hoped he understood. She pled for him...inside her.

He didn't give her any preliminaries. Two of those long, hard, calloused fingers slid inside her before he'd even taken the time to check her readiness to accept them. He knew.

She listened to his moans melding with hers. Sinking his fingers into her and drawing them out only to push inside again, he began with a slow, deep stroking but his patience seemed only as long as hers and after a few strokes quickened the tempo of both his tongue and his hand. Replacing his mouth with his free hand, he spoke to her out of the darkness.

"Enough play," he whispered harshly. "Come for me, Miranda. I want you exploding in my mouth. Now!" and he put his tongue to her again, this time offering her all the heat and pressure she wanted...and in all the right places.

Miranda felt the fire implode under his hands and mouth and screamed again; her orgasm brought her hard off the bed, her hips shoving against his ravenous mouth, her head thrashing; hands fisting around the velvet cords that held them. She screamed while furious pleasure slammed into and through her, forcing her entire body to spasm wildly while he sank his tongue into her pussy to taste her pleasure, fucking her with hard little thrusts. And when she collapsed, drained and still jerking with tiny spasms of her orgasm, he kept his mouth on her until she was sure he'd sipped every drop of the slick liquid between her thighs.