The Rehearsal Dinner

The champagne is expensive.

That's my first thought as I watch her across the room—Ryan's fiancée, tomorrow's bride, lifting a crystal flute to her lips. The bubbles catch the candlelight. Her throat moves when she swallows.

I've been watching that throat for three years.

Sophie Chen is five-foot-two, maybe a hundred and ten pounds. She has black hair that falls to her shoulders, a dancer's posture, and a smile that makes me forget my own name. She's wearing a green dress tonight—emerald, silk, clinging to the small curves of her body like it was painted on.

She's marrying my best friend tomorrow.

And she's walking toward me.

"You look miserable," she says, stopping close. Too close. Her perfume is jasmine and something darker. "Best man's supposed to be celebrating."

"I am celebrating." I lift my glass. "See? Champagne."

"You've been nursing that same glass for an hour." She tilts her head. "You've been watching me for longer."

My heart stops.

"Sophie—"

"Don't." She glances over her shoulder. Ryan is laughing with his groomsmen, three sheets to the wind, oblivious. "I need some air. There's a balcony upstairs. Third floor, end of the hall."

She walks away without looking back.

I should stay here.

I should get another drink, make a toast, be the best man my best friend deserves.

I follow her.

The balcony overlooks the vineyard.

Rows of grapes disappear into the darkness, silver under a half-moon. The sounds of the party are muffled up here—distant laughter, clinking glasses, a world that doesn't matter anymore.

Sophie is leaning against the railing when I step outside. The breeze moves her hair. The silk of her dress shivers against her skin.

"Close the door," she says.

I do.

"Lock it."

I do that too.

She turns to face me. Her eyes are wet.

"I've been waiting for you to say something," she says. "For three years, Marcus. Three years of dinners and holidays and pretending I don't feel you looking at me. Pretending I don't look back."

"You're marrying him tomorrow."

"I know."

"He's my best friend."

"I know that too." She takes a step closer. "Do you think I don't know? Do you think I haven't spent every night for the past month wondering if I'm making a mistake?"

"Sophie..."

"Tell me I'm wrong." Her voice breaks. "Tell me you don't feel it—this thing between us. Tell me, and I'll walk back downstairs, and tomorrow I'll marry Ryan, and we'll never speak of this again."

The silence stretches.

I can't tell her she's wrong.

Because she's not.

I've imagined this a thousand times.

In the shower, in bed, in the quiet moments when Ryan talks about their future and I smile and nod and die a little inside. I've imagined what she tastes like. What sounds she makes. Whether her skin is as soft as it looks.

Now she's in my arms.

Her mouth is champagne and heat. She kisses like she's drowning—desperate, gasping, pulling me closer with hands that tremble. She's so small against me. So fragile. I could break her.

I want to worship her instead.

"We shouldn't," I breathe against her lips.

"I know." She's unbuckling my belt. "We're going to anyway."

She frees me—hard, aching, straining toward her. Her small hand wraps around my cock and I groan into the night air. She strokes once, twice, her grip firm and knowing.

"I've thought about this," she whispers. "Thought about you. In his bed, when he's sleeping. I touch myself and pretend it's your hands."

"Fuck, Sophie—"

"I'm wet right now. I've been wet since I saw you at the church this afternoon." She guides my hand under her dress. She's not wearing underwear. "Feel what you do to me."

She's soaked. Slick and hot against my fingers. I slide two inside her and she bites her lip to keep from crying out.

"Please," she begs. "I need to know. Just once. Before I—before tomorrow—"

I spin her around.

She braces against the railing, looking out over the vineyard, looking at the moon. I hike her dress up over her hips. Her ass is small and perfect—tight, athletic, flexing as she arches her back.

I press against her entrance.

"Last chance," I say. "We can stop. We can pretend—"

"I'm done pretending."

I push inside.

She's tight.

Impossibly, almost painfully tight. She gasps as I fill her, her fingers white-knuckled on the railing. I hold her hips and sink deeper, inch by inch, until I'm buried to the hilt.

"Oh god," she moans. "Oh god—you feel—"

I start to move.

She's so wet I glide easily, thrusting into her while the party continues below us. Her small body rocks with each stroke. Her dress bunches around her waist. The breeze is cool on our skin but we're burning—both of us, consumed by something we should have buried years ago.

"Harder," she demands. "I need—harder—"

I give her everything.

The railing creaks with each thrust. The sounds she makes are animal—whimpers and moans that she tries to muffle, fails to contain. I reach around and find her clit, circle it while I fuck her, and she nearly screams.

"I'm close—Marcus—please—"

"Come for me." I thrust deeper. "Come on your fiancé's best friend's cock."

The filthy words push her over.

She shatters—clenching around me, shaking, biting her arm to keep from screaming loud enough to bring the whole party running. I feel her pulse around my cock and I can't hold back.

I pull out at the last second, spilling onto her ass, onto her perfect green dress, claiming her in the only way I can.

We stand there. Breathing. Trembling.

Then she turns around, and she's crying.

"I can't marry him," she whispers.

"Sophie—"

"I can't." She cups my face. "I've known it for months. I just... I needed to know if this was real. If you felt it too."

"I feel it." I kiss her forehead. Her tears. Her lips. "I've always felt it."

Below us, someone calls her name.

The party is winding down. People are looking for the bride.

"What do we do?" I ask.

She takes my hand.

"We tell him the truth." Her voice is steady now. "Tomorrow, before the ceremony. We tell him everything."

"He'll hate me."

"Maybe." She squeezes my fingers. "But I'll love you. Isn't that enough?"

I look at her—this small, fierce woman who just destroyed my oldest friendship with a single kiss.

"Yeah," I tell her. "It's enough."

The wedding doesn't happen.

Ryan punches me in the face when we tell him. I don't blame him—I'd have done the same. Sophie's mother cries. The guests whisper. It's a scandal that will follow us for years.

But that night, in a hotel room twenty miles from the venue, Sophie curls against me in sheets that smell like us.

"No regrets?" she asks.

I trace the curve of her spine. Kiss the spot where her neck meets her shoulder.

"None."

She smiles. Climbs on top of me. Takes me inside her again.

We make love until dawn—slow and desperate and real. Two people who waited too long, who finally stopped pretending, who chose each other over everything else.

It's wrong.

It's the rightest thing I've ever done.

And when she whispers my name in the morning light—Marcus, Marcus, Marcus—I know I'd burn the world for her.

I already have.