I tugged the cups higher, stuffed my boobs deeper in, breathed deeply and let it out. I glanced at Jamie first, to get her reaction. She had her hand clamped over her mouth, and her eyes were shimmering.
Oh, shit. She's crying.
I closed my eyes, turned back to the mirrors, and then looked at myself. My eyes stung, suddenly burning. Jamie came up next to me and tugged my hair back out of the ponytail, fluffed it out, and then pulled a bobby pin from her own hair and pinned my bangs behind my head, leaving the rest loose around my shoulders. Her eyes were wet, tears flowing freely now.
"God, Anna. You look...incredible."
"You really do," Brandi said, setting a veil attached to a tiara on my head and arranging the gauzy white material around my shoulders. "You look gorgeous."
I sniffed hard, ran my finger underneath my eyes.
I didn't look at myself in the mirror too often. I did my makeup, of course, but I leaned close and didn't really look at the rest of me. Clothes shopping wasn't something I did frequently, since I always felt like I had for most of the wedding dress shopping experience of the last few weeks: insecure about my body, overwhelmed by all the different kinds of dresses, stressed about having to choose one dress out of thousands.
But this...was different. All the other times I'd tried on dresses I'd looked at myself and seen my belly, or my wide hips, or the bulge of my ass, or my arms, or my full figure bust line. I didn't see me as a bride, I saw a girl in a wedding dress. A girl playing dress-up.
This time, though, when I opened my eyes and looked at myself in the mirror, even before Jamie fixed my hair and Brandi put on the veil, I felt like a bride. I felt...beautiful.
For the first time in a long time, I really looked at myself. I saw a tall woman, a few inches shy of six feet, long dyed-blonde hair wavy and loose around my bare shoulders, full breasts displayed but not spilling out. I saw my eyes, hazel and wavering with unshed tears within a heart-shaped face, high cheekbones, and full lips. I didn't see a dress size or a bust line or an ass that went on forever.
I saw me: curvy and confident. I saw a woman with a body made for loving, hands made for holding, lips meant for kissing. I saw wide, expressive eyes and blush-pink cheeks. I saw me as Jeff might see me. I saw the body that gave him a hard-on just looking at it, naked and wet from the shower. I saw the woman he loved, the woman he desired.
I saw the woman he wanted to marry. No longer a girl playing dress-up, or a girl in a wedding dress, or an insecure plus-size girl.
I saw me, beautiful the way I am.
Jamie touched my eyes with a Kleenex and rested her chin on my shoulder. "This one?" I could only nod and try to hold back the tears. "I'm pretty sure you're supposed to cry when you find the dress," Jamie said.
I shook my head, refusing to let them fall. I was happy. I was overwhelmed. I wasn't going to cry.
"Anna. It's fine."
I shook my head again and swiped my finger underneath each eye. "I'm fine. Really. I just--"
"It's overwhelming," Brandi said, standing near the door. "You see yourself in The Dress, and you finally realize it's really real. Like, it's actually going to happen. The veil is what usually does it for most of my clients."
"That's it exactly," I said. "Until now getting married was just an idea. But now...I can actually see myself walking down the aisle."
"Better you than me, girl," Jamie said, fidgeting with the veil.
"That's what I always thought," I said. "But now that I'm ready for it...I'm getting kind of excited."
"I'm happy for you. Really. I can't wait to be in the wedding. You and Jeff are perfect together. But it's not happening for me. No way, no how. Never."
"You're impossible."
"Yep."
"So when you do end up getting married, I get to say 'I told you so,' right?"
Jamie laughed. "If it happens, which it won't, then sure."
"So is this the dress, then?" Brandi asked.
"Yeah, I think so," I said, my voice wavering. I looked at myself once more, head to toe, and this time my voice had conviction. "Yes. This is the dress."
It would clean out the savings I'd been setting aside for a new car, and probably max out my credit card to boot, but it was worth it. Jamie and I met Jeff for lunch after making an appointment to return for a fitting.
Jeff had already ordered for us and was waiting at a four-top table at Five Guys. "So, how'd dress shopping go today?"
He'd never come with us, obviously, but he always wanted to know what was happening.
"I found the dress," I said, sitting next to him.
Jamie took the spot opposite me. "It's gorgeous," she said. "Like, incredible. You just might faint when you see her for the first time."
"I'm sure I will," Jeff said.
"No, really. All the blood's gonna rush to your cock and you're gonna pass out. It's that sexy."
"Jamie, seriously? You're incorrigible." I threw a French fry at her head.
"What? It's true. I'm a girl and I got a hard-on."
"Ohmigod, Jamie. You're so freaking impossible."
"You know you love it."
"True. But seriously, though, Jeff. I really love it." I dabbed a fry in ketchup. "My credit card balance doesn't love me, but it's worth it."
"How much was it?" Jeff asked.
"You don't want to know."
"Anna. You can't go broke trying to do everything on your own."
"Neither can you."
"Anna."
I dabbed another fry. "Fivethousanddollars," I mumbled the words, all squished together and under my breath, and followed it with a bite of cheeseburger.
"Excuse me?" Jeff leaned forward, setting his burger down. "It sounded like you said five thousand dollars for a second there."
"Wow, I really like this song. I haven't heard it since the nineties," I said. "This is Gin Blossoms, right?"
"Anna."
"Fine. Yes. It was five thousand three hundred and ninety two dollars, okay?"
"You spent fifty-five hundred dollars?" Jeff sank back in his chair. "Good lord. I thought you'd at least call me before you went and blew your entire savings. I could have helped you. We're doing this together. At least, that was the idea."
"Are you really pissed off about this? I wanted to. It was what I wanted. I'm finally getting into this, getting into the whole 'planning a wedding' thing, and now you're pissed off that I made a decision. You're not supposed to see the dress until the actual wedding anyway."
"I know that, but we could have split the difference or something. At least talk to me before you go and spend that much money. I thought that's what couples did?"
"Well, shit. I'm sorry I didn't consult you first. I guess I thought I was old enough to make my own decisions."
"That's not what I meant--"
"Wow, look at that soda dispenser," Jamie said, a little too loudly, getting up for a refill. "They have like, a dozen different kinds of Fanta."
"Jeff, let it go."
"Well, at least call your--"
"If you bring up my mother, I will straight up walk out. For real. I am not calling her to help pay for my wedding."
"Didn't you want your mom to be there when you picked your dress? It's kind of traditional, isn't it?"
"Jeff, you really need to stop pushing this family button, okay? Yeah, maybe it is traditional, but Jamie is more my family than my mom at this stage. Tradition can jump off a cliff. I just want a happy wedding. I don't want my family there. Just you and me and those who really matter. My blood family doesn't matter. Not anymore."
"I know I'm pushing it, but...it's important to me. Family is important to me."
"You're my family. Jamie is my family."
"What about Jared?" Jeff picked at the Cajun-seasoned fries.
"Well, he's been in the Marines since I was, like, sixteen, and he's only spent his leave Stateside, like, three times, ever, so I don't see him at all. He'll message me using the TextMe app every now again,
but that's it."
"Where's he stationed?"
"The Philippines. He's been there for...three years? He was in Okinawa first, then Italy."
"What's his MOS?"
"He's an MP."
Jamie had come back to the table but had pretended to be absorbed in her phone. "He's hot. If he lived here, Anna and I would be sisters."
"I thought that was never happening, with anyone."
"For your sexy-ass brother, I might make an exception." She looked up at me and saw my irritated expression. "God, Anna. Kidding. I would never marry Jared. I'd fuck him till he couldn't walk for a week, though."
"JAMIE!"
"Shutting up."
We finished eating, and Jamie and I said our goodbyes. I promised to call her with the next step of our plans. Jeff drove us home, but before we went inside, Jeff spoke up: "So, this dress you picked out."
"You can't see it until I'm walking down the aisle."
"No, I know that, but--
"You want to know how I knew which dress was the right one?"
"Yeah."
"I saw myself like you see me. Just for a second, looking in the mirror. I saw the woman you love, the woman you want." I paused. "Would it be overly dramatic if I said it was kind of a defining moment in my life?"
"Really?"
"Yeah, really. To finally, finally feel my own worth in myself...I can't explain how huge that is for me. Not just through you, or through Chase. But in myself. Actually seeing with my own eyes a woman worth being. Yes, it was a defining moment of my life."
"And I shit all over it, freaking out about the money."
I laughed. "Yeah, you kind of did. But I get it. You couldn't have understood if I didn't tell you. I don't care how much the dress costs. I'd sell my liver if it meant feeling that way again. And yeah, I know it's just one day. I don't care. If you want to pay for it, or split the cost, fine. Whatever. I really do want to do this with you. I'm just...I'm not used to being a couple. To doing things like that together. But I want to."
Jeff's deep brown eyes swept over my face, love radiating from him in palpable waves. "Thanks for telling me."
"I would've eventually. I just--"
"Needed a little prodding," Jeff said.
"Yeah."
"I'm pretty good at prodding," he said, a mischievous smirk on his face.
"Hmmm. I might have to test your prodding abilities. You know. To make sure they're up to expectation. We have very strict prodding standards, you know."
"What kind of test did you have in mind?" he asked, feigning curiosity.
"Come inside and I'll show you," I said.
His eyes lit up with a lustful hunger as we went inside.
"Take me," I gasped, my lips against the hair above his ear. "Take me right here, right now."
Lately, we'd gotten into a pattern. We'd work, go back to his place, have a glass of wine or a bottle of beer, and then go into his room, our room, and make love. It was a pattern I enjoyed. There were nights we simply went to sleep, holding each other. The sex, even when it was the same basic thing or two every night, was never stale, never boring. I could see us in ten years, still enjoying vanilla missionary sex just as much as now.
But this, the fiery hunger flickering in Jeff's eyes, the demanding way he pinned me back against the front door and chained my wrists by my face with his strong hands, this was sudden and powerful and lit me from within. He didn't kiss me at first. He held my hands in his, palm against palm, fingers lined up, his dwarfing mine. Then, slowly, he curled his fingers into mine, clenching tight. His lips explored my mouth, his tongue pushing between my lips to taste my tongue.
I kissed him with eyes wide open, watching his expression change moment by moment: lust, love, hunger, need, raw and potent strength. He circled both of my wrists with one hand, holding them up over my head. With his other he lifted my shirt up, stripped it off, releasing my hands long enough to pull it free and toss it aside. His mouth dipped to my shoulder, kissed the round bend from shoulder to arm, then upward to my neck, my jaw. Gentle, nimble fingers unclasped my bra, dropped it to my feet. While my hands were free to slip the straps off my arms, I tried to wrap my arms around his neck, but he caught my wrists again and pinned them above my head, kissing me with startling power.
I melted into the kiss, relaxed into his hold, pressed my bare breasts against the rough cotton of his button-down shirt. His free hand traced down my side, butted against the waist of my jeans and circled around to the front, toying with the button before releasing it. He lowered himself down, stretching his arm to keep my hands in place, his lips kissing a hot, moist line down my chest and between my breasts. He tugged my pants down, one side at a time until they pooled at my feet, and then he repeated the action with my panties.
My back was still against the front door, my heart thudding with anticipation. This was a new, demanding Jeff, in control and taking what he wanted from me. Excitement made my hands tremble and my lips shake against his, and when his teeth grazed my nipple, wet heat burst between my thighs. I struggled against his hold, wanting to touch him, needing to strip him down to skin and slide my legs around him.
He held me still, crushing me against the door with his body, kissing me with hard fury. His mouth demanded my acquiescence, and I gave it, opening to him, softening against him. When I was still and only our lips moved against each other, he leaned back and ripped his shirt open, buttons popping and ticking on the floor at our feet, then, with the fabric dangling from his arm, he deftly slipped out of his pants so he was naked in front of me.
I expected him to push me to our bedroom then, but he didn't. He pressed burning kisses around my breasts, focusing in on one and laving the nipple, circling it, nipping it. His free hand slid palm against my belly, fingers pointing down and moving between my thighs. He cupped me, and I whimpered, wanting to feel his fingers delve in, but he drew out for the moment, smiling against my lips.
"Tell me what you want, Anna," he whispered, his voice a rough, primal growl in the silent, evening-lit house.
"You," I answered, pushing my pussy against his hand, willing him to touch me.
He rewarded me with a single fingertip slipping between my nether lips.
"Tell me more. What else do you want?"
I bent my head down to rasp my answer in his ear, "Put your finger inside me. Make me come, Jeff."
He growled, a rolling animal sound of hunger. His finger dipped in, sought my juices and slathered them over my soft folds, finding the hard nub of my clit and softly swiping around it. I moaned and rolled with his moving finger, pushing my breasts against his bare chest.
"Yes, just like that," I said, "two fingers, now. Yes, god yes. Faster."
He obeyed my commands, moving faster until I almost couldn't stand it.
"Slower, slower. Slow down." I let myself fade away from the ragged edge of orgasm, until his fingers were barely moving against me. "Faster, not so hard. Soft. Yes, just like that. Oh, god, Jeff. I love the way you touch me."
Climax rose slowly, this time. I let it build gradually. My arms were starting to tingle over my head, but I ignored it.
"Put your mouth on my tits," I said. "Suck my nipples."
"Yes," was his only response.
His lips found one nipple, then the other, his fingers circling my clit. I opened my mouth to tell him to slow down, but then climax hit me without warning, gushing through me, ripping the strength from my knees. I collapsed, shuddering, and only Jeff's hand held me aloft.
Jeff's knee nudged my thighs apart, and I forced myself upright on trembling legs. I felt his hard tip brush against my thigh as he crouched and rose up. Gently, slowly, carefully, he guided himself into me. When our hips bumped and his cock filled me, I felt my legs go limp again, and I was held up by him, by his hands around my wrists and his cock within me.
I curled over him, my face against his shoulder, bit his salty skin. He gasped at the sharp nip, and then thrust into me, once, hard, and my
whimper of pleased shock was muffled by his flesh. I was lifted up onto my toes, and then he was fading out and plunging back in, pressed back against the door by the power of his body coursing against mine. I let my weight fall against him, trusting his strength. The climax, still rocking through me, redoubled, inundating me with searing ecstasy. I let my voice rise in volume, giving in to the pleasure, shrieking and gasping as he began to drive into me with ever greater force.
His hand released mine and I wrapped my arms around his neck, clinging to him. He slid his hands beneath my ass and lifted me. I wrapped one leg around his waist, and he held it there, rocking up on his toes to crush ever deeper.
"Jeff..." I could only gasp his name as the waves of orgasm trebled in intensity, each crest indecipherable from the one before or behind. I squeezed my eyes shut and rode the climax, gasping with each surge of his body against me, the pitch of my voice rising until I was screaming unabashedly, back arched, face thrown to the ceiling, hips gyrating madly.
I felt him come, heard his bellow. His cock throbbed, pulsed, and released a flood of seed within me, hot and washing through me. His face buried in my breasts, he groaned as he came again, and again, moving his body into me in sinuous thrusts.
I hadn't thought I could come any harder without breaking apart at the seams, and yet I did, feeling him spasm and arch into me, feeling him lose himself in me.
"God, I love you," I whispered in the silence between our breaths.
"You're my eternity, Anna."
Tears dripped from me, a sudden rush of hot salt burning my cheeks. "Fuck. You've gone and made me cry after sex again."
"Good tears?"
"Good tears."
"Cry if you want. Doesn't bother me." He let me down, pulled out, and we lay on the couch, pulling a hand-knit afghan over us.
I was messy, and I didn't care. "I've cried so much lately. I don't know what it is."
"You're finally learning to feel your emotions?"
"Yeah, maybe." I nuzzled my face into his broad shoulder. "I just wish there weren't so many of them. I feel like a basket case sometimes."
"I love who you are, and I love every single thing about you, good or bad. I know you've been through some hard shit, and I wish I could take away the pain you've carried. I would take it on myself if I could. But I wouldn't change anything about you. Our pain and mistakes and faults are an integral part of us. They make our joy and successes and qualities all the more significant."