Chapter 17: Hours

The bachelorette bus left the restaurant at eight, with nine women, a cooler of ginger sparkling water.

A banner that said BRIDE TRIBE in gold glitter.

It left without the bride at nine.

Priya had told them she had a migraine.

Cass had backed it up with a straight face and a bottle of Advil, and no one asked a single question.

By ten she was on my iron bed in the dark, in her cream slip, with her glasses folded on the nightstand.

I was standing over her with my belt in my hand.

"Wrists," I said.

She held them out.

I did not use the ribbon.

I buckled the belt around both wrists in a snug figure eight and ran the tail through the iron rail of the headboard.

That her arms were stretched above her head.

Her back arched up from the sheet without any help from her.

"Is that too tight?"

"No," Priya said. "It's perfect."

I stood back.

She lay in the lamplight, small, bound, with her slip rucked up over her thighs and her black hair spread across the pillow.

I let myself look until she fidgeted.

"Here are the rules," I said. "You don't come until I tell you to."

"Okay."

"You will want to. You will want to a great deal."

"Okay."

"And when you want to come, you say please. You say it nicely."

"Please, Jo," she said, immediately, and I laughed.

"Not yet."

I sat on the edge of the bed, and drew the hem of the slip up her thighs.

A slow inch at a time, to her waist.

Then I did nothing.

I put my hand flat on her belly and just held it there, warm, while she breathed.

"Jo?"

"I'm not in a hurry."

"I am."

"I know."

I drew a single fingertip along the inside of her thigh, from the knee up, and stopped a hair from where she was wet.

She lifted her hips to follow.

I drew back.

"Down."

She dropped them, with a whimper.

I began with her mouth.

I kissed her for what felt like a quarter of an hour.

With my hands pinned on either side of her head, until she was begging with her tongue.

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