Groom's Brother's Mouth Before the Wedding

The bridal suite held the late light in a wash of pale gold that turned the ivory of Beatrice's gown almost warm. She was twenty-six, and the dress had been fitted to her a month ago: satin through the bodice, lace at the cuffs, a skirt heavy enough that she had to gather it to turn. Her veil waited on the chair. Her lipstick was exact. In a handful of minutes the quartet would start, and Cody would be at the altar in the garden, hands in his pockets the way he stood when he was trying not to fidget, ready to marry her.

She had told herself she was calm. Her pulse disagreed.

The door opened on a soft click.

Silas stepped in and shut it behind him, a white florist's box in one hand. He was twenty-eight, broad through the shoulders in a dark suit cut as clean as the buildings he drew for a living, tie knotted, hair still damp at the temples from the heat. He took the room in the way he took every room, one glance at the window, the mirror, the lock, and then all of his attention settled on her.

"Cody forgot this in the car," he said. His voice stayed low. "Boutonnière. The coordinator sent me up so she could keep the guests in the right rows."

Beatrice's hands rested on the vanity. She watched him in the glass the way she had been watching him for the better part of a year and calling it nothing.

"You could have given it to an usher."

"I could have." He set the box beside her perfume. The lid stayed closed. "I didn't."

The quiet between them had a shape. It had started at the lake house the summer she was already twenty-six, a weekend with Cody and his family, Silas on the dock at dusk with his sleeves rolled, talking about a commission downtown while she listened too long. Nothing had happened. They had both made sure of that. He had kept his hands in his pockets. She had gone upstairs early. The wanting had stayed anyway, a private heat she fed in the dark and never named, least of all to the man waiting below to become her husband.

"Silas. The ceremony starts in minutes."

"I know what time it is." He did not come closer. The distance felt like a hand around her wrist. "I've known since I saw you in this dress through the side door and nearly walked into a trellis. Say the word and I leave the flower and I go. I mean that."

She turned. The skirt whispered. Up close he smelled like clean cotton and the lemon soap from the guest bath, and his eyes were darker than she remembered, honest about where they landed: her mouth, the satin over her breasts, the narrow of her waist.

"If I say the word," she said, "I walk down that aisle and we spend the rest of our lives pretending the lake house was only a weekend."

"Yes."

"And if I don't."

His throat moved. "Then we have these few minutes, and I do what you've been thinking about, and nothing you don't ask for. I won't take you out of that gown. You tell me to stop and I stop. One last private moment, Beatrice. That's all I'm asking permission to want out loud."

The admission rose in her like a blush she could not hide. "I've wanted your mouth on me since that dock. Not his. Yours. I am not going to marry him while I'm still lying about it in my own head. If you want the same thing, say it now. If you don't, walk out."

Silas exhaled, closer to a rough laugh than a breath. "I want it so badly I've been hard since the rehearsal dinner, trying not to stare at your throat when you laughed. I want my mouth on you. I want to hear you. And I want you to say yes while you can still change your mind."

"Yes." Her voice came out steady. "Yes. We don't have long, and I am not changing my mind."

He did not lunge. That was what undid her. He stepped in, cupped her jaw, and kissed her once, brief and deep, more promise than taking, then dropped.

The carpet took the sound of his knees. From above he was all shoulders and upturned face, looking at her as if she were the only plan that had ever mattered.

"Talk to me," he said. His hands hovered at the hem and did not lift it yet. "Tell me you want this while I do it. I need to hear you the whole way."

"I want it." She did not care that her voice shook. "Lift the dress. Please."

He gathered the satin in both fists, careful, folding it over her knees, then her thighs, until the cooler air of the suite touched skin the gown had kept hidden. Ivory lace panties, a delicate scrap she had put on for a wedding night that was supposed to belong to someone else. Silas made a low sound and pressed his mouth to the inside of her knee.

"Still yes?"

"Still yes. Higher. Don't make me beg unless you want to hear it."

"I want to hear all of it." He kissed upward, left thigh, then right, open-mouthed and unhurried in a way that felt almost cruel, because the clock was cruel and he refused to be. His stubble scraped, bright and soft. Beatrice's hands found the vanity behind her. She widened her stance without being told, the skirt bunched now at her hips, lace stretched over the ache between her legs.

"Look at you," he murmured against her skin. "Already warm through the lace. I can smell how badly you want this."

A helpless laugh broke out of her. "Then use that mouth for something besides commentary. No. Keep talking. I like it either way. Just don't stop touching me."

Footsteps passed in the hall. Both of them went still. A woman's voice, brisk, calling for the rings, then moving on. Beatrice's heart slammed so hard she felt it low in her belly, right where his breath was warming the lace.

"We could get caught," she whispered.

"We could." He looked up, eyes hot, waiting. "Say the word and I fix your skirt and I'm gone."

"Don't you dare stop." She spread her thighs another inch, offering herself, lace and all, the risk lighting her up instead of warning her off. "I want your mouth on my pussy. I want you to eat me until I can't stand up straight. That's the yes. That's all of it. Only your mouth. Worship me with it, right here, before I walk out that door."

His hands slid up the backs of her thighs and gripped, firm, grounding. "Then hold the dress," he said. "And let me."

She gathered the satin high and held it. Silas rose just enough to turn her, gentle but sure, until her hips met the vanity and the mirror showed her own flushed face above his dark head. He pinned her there with the breadth of his shoulders and the brace of his hands, not trapping her, giving her something solid to lean on while the garden waited outside. One palm smoothed up the back of her thigh. The other hooked the lace at her hip.

"These stay on," he said. "I'm only moving them. Tell me if that's not what you want."

"Move them." Beatrice's knuckles were white in the skirt. "Silas, please. I'm dripping and we have no time and I need your tongue."

He yanked the panties aside. Cool air hit wet skin, and then his mouth was there, and the sound she made was nothing like a bride's careful quiet.

The first lick was long and firm, flat of his tongue from her entrance all the way up through her slick folds to the swollen peak of her clit. He did it again, slower, as if he were learning the exact map of her and intended to memorize it before the music started. Beatrice's head tipped back. The mirror showed the ruin of her composure: mouth open, chest rising hard under lace and satin, a twenty-six-year-old woman in a wedding gown gripping her own skirt while the groom's brother knelt between her thighs and ate her like he had been starving for it.

"Oh," she breathed. "Oh, that's—yes. Right there. Don't rush the long ones. God, your tongue."

He groaned against her, the vibration traveling straight into her clit, and obeyed. Long, firm licks, again and again, gathering the wetness that was already smearing his lips and spreading it higher. He nosed into her, shameless, and the stubble on his chin dragged lightly over tender skin until her thighs jumped. His hands left her hips. They slid around, strong fingers spreading over her ass, gripping both cheeks, holding her open so his mouth could work without anything in the way. He pulled her forward onto his face. She went willingly, grinding down, lace biting at one side where he had yanked it clear.

"Use me," he said into her, the words muffled and filthy. "Grind. I can take it. I want you soaked all over my mouth."

"Then earn it." Her voice had gone ragged. She rolled her hips, chasing the flat heat of his tongue, and he met her with another slow lick that ended in a soft, sucking kiss just beside her clit, not quite on it, teasing until she whimpered. "Silas. Stop teasing. Suck it. Please suck my clit."

He did. His lips sealed around the swollen bud and he sucked, steady, rhythmic, tongue flicking underneath in tight little strokes that made her vision spark at the edges. Pleasure climbed so fast she had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from crying out loud enough for the hall to hear. One of his hands squeezed her ass, holding her open, thumb pressing into the soft flesh, and the other stayed braced at the small of her back so she could not shy away from the intensity. He was relentless in the exact way she had imagined and never admitted: not sloppy, not hesitant, an architect's attention turned entirely on the way her body answered.

"Like that," she gasped. "Just like that. Don't change it. Oh, fuck, your mouth is perfect. I'm going to come if you keep—no, not yet, I want more, I want your tongue inside me too."

He pulled off her clit with a wet sound that made her flush harder, looked up once, chin already shining, and smiled like a man who had been given a cathedral to build and intended to finish it. "You'll get all of it," he said. "Hold still for me. Or don't. I like it when you can't."

Then he dipped lower and pushed his tongue into her dripping entrance.

Beatrice's knees nearly buckled. The vanity edge bit into the backs of her thighs and she was grateful for it. He tongue-fucked her in slow, deep strokes, curling, thrusting, fucking her with nothing but his mouth while his nose nudged her clit on every push. Wet sounds filled the small room, obscene and quiet and unmistakable. She could hear how soaked she was. She could feel it sliding down, coating his lips, his chin, the faint scratch of stubble made slick. Her free hand left the skirt for a second, found his hair, and held. Not forcing. Asking.

"Deeper," she whispered. "Yes. Fuck me with your tongue. God, Silas, you feel so good I can't think. Right before I marry him and this is the best thing anyone has ever done to me. Don't stop. Don't you stop."

He made a hungry noise and drove in again, then again, hands gripping her ass hard enough to leave the memory of his fingers under the gown. He spread her, tilted her, and alternated without warning: a few firm thrusts of his tongue into her clenching entrance, then up, a long lick through her folds, then his mouth back on her clit, sucking harder now, flicking faster, relentless. The pattern scrambled her. Every time she started to crest he shifted just enough to drag the climb out, and every time she whimpered a protest he gave her exactly the pressure she needed and stole a little more of her control.

Her thighs shook. She ground against his face, lace twisted aside, satin crushed in her fist, perfume and sex and lemon soap thick in the air. In the mirror she watched herself come apart: flushed throat, ruined lipstick from the one kiss, eyes half shut, hips rolling in a rhythm she could not have performed for anyone she was supposed to be modest for. Silas's dark head moved between her legs. His shoulders flexed under the suit jacket he had not even taken off. He ate her like the minutes were a deadline and her orgasm was the only structure that mattered.

"I'm close," she managed. "Silas, I'm so close. Stay on my clit. Suck it. Please, please, I'm going to—oh—"

He locked his mouth over her and sucked, tongue working the swollen peak in firm, relentless strokes, no more teasing, no more detours. One hand gripped her ass and held her open; the other slid down, two fingers spreading her folds wider so his tongue could press exactly where she needed, still only his mouth doing the work that would undo her, his hands only holding, only offering her up to himself. Beatrice's breath broke. The build was nothing she had known with her own fingers, nothing she had known in any bed she had shared, a tight bright wire pulling from her clit through her belly and down her shaking legs. She ground down hard, chasing it, and he took the grind, groaning into her, encouraging it, devouring every pulse of wetness she gave him.

The orgasm hit like a door slamming open.

She shattered against his mouth with a choked cry she smothered in her own wrist, hips jerking, pussy clenching around nothing while his tongue stayed glued to her clit and licked her through it. Pleasure roared up and over, bigger than she had language for, the best orgasm of her life, white-hot and endless, rolling in waves that made her thighs tremble uncontrollably. She soaked him. She felt it happen, a rush of wetness flooding his lips and chin, dripping onto the hand that held her open, and he did not pull away. He drank it, licked her through the shake, softened his suction when she gasped that it was too much and then gave her one more slow, loving stroke when she whimpered and pushed back down for it. Her legs would not hold. He held her up by the ass and the brace of his shoulders against the vanity, mouth still working gently, drawing the last bright aftershocks out of her until she was sobbing quiet, grateful sounds and tugging his hair to tell him she was finished, she was wrecked, she could not take another flick without screaming.

He eased off. One last soft kiss to her swollen clit, almost tender, and then he rested his forehead against her trembling thigh while they both tried to breathe.

Beatrice caught the edge of the vanity and hauled air into her lungs. Her gown was a crushed mess at her waist. Her panties were soaked and twisted aside. Her lipstick was gone. Her legs still shook, small uncontrollable tremors that traveled up through her belly every time she shifted. She looked down at him, at the shine on his mouth and chin, at the satisfaction already starting to curve his lips, and felt something in her settle into a new shape she would not be able to unmake.

"Come here," she said, hoarse.

She let the skirt fall, or tried to. He helped, standing, smoothing the satin down with careful hands while she fixed the lace underneath as well as shaking fingers allowed. Then she caught his face and kissed him, deep and grateful, tasting herself on his lips, salt and sweetness and the heat of what he had just done to her. He kissed her back without grabbing, without asking for more than she had offered, and when she drew away she was smiling in a way the mirror had never shown her before a ceremony.

Silas wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, then more carefully with a tissue from the vanity, smirking with the satisfaction of a man who had been given exactly the moment he had come upstairs to risk. He straightened his tie. The boutonnière box sat unopened where he had left it.

"You're glowing," he said quietly. "He's going to think it's the dress."

"Let him." Her voice was steady again, if lower. She found her lipstick, repaired what she could, and met his eyes. "Go. Before she comes looking for the flower and finds you instead."

He nodded once. At the door he paused, hand on the knob, and the smirk softened into something she would think about for years. Then he was gone, the latch clicking shut behind him with seconds to spare.

A knock followed almost at once, brisk and professional. "Beatrice? We're ready for you. Rings are down, quartet is set. Are you all right in there?"

"I'm all right," she called, and it was true in a way that startled her. She settled the veil, lifted the front of the gown, and opened the door onto the coordinator's relieved face. The walk down the aisle felt different in her body, lighter and heavier at once, every step a private echo of the mouth that had just ruined her and put her back together. Cody waited at the end in the gold light, smiling, sure of her. She smiled back, glowing, forever changed, and when the coordinator leaned in at the last moment to whisper a check, Beatrice answered in a voice only the two of them could hear, a confession dressed as calm.

"I'm ready," she said. "Ask me again after the vows and see if I still look this sure."