My Maid of Honor Took My Groom, So His Best Man Took Me novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Captain's Chair

Brennan drives Kirsten to his ferry in Provincetown, they set their rules, and in the empty pilothouse he goes down on her until Shea's text lights his phone and Kirsten answers it herself.

Brennan drove a truck that smelled of diesel and coffee.

He did not say a word until the Truro lights were behind us.

I sat in the passenger seat in my wedding dress with the envelope in my lap.

My phone buzzed against my hip, in the pocket Shea had made them sew into the skirt.

I let it buzz.

"Where are we going?" I said.

"Provincetown. I have somewhere you can sit that nobody will look for you."

"Is that a line?" I said.

"It's a boat."

He glanced at me, and the corner of his mouth moved for the first time all day.

I laughed, and then I cried, and then I laughed again.

He drove with one hand on the wheel and put the other palm up on the seat between us.

I took it.

His hand was big and rough and warm, and I held on to it for the whole length of Route 6.

At MacMillan Pier the ferry lot was empty and the high-speed boat sat at the dock with her lights low.

"She's mine until seven tomorrow morning," Brennan said. "Come aboard."

He walked me up the gangway and through a dark passenger cabin of empty blue seats.

Then we climbed a short stair to the pilothouse.

It was small and glassed in on three sides.

A wide console of dials and screens ran along the front, and one tall chair was bolted to the deck.

The harbor lay black below us, with a few masts and a few lights.

I stood in the middle of it in forty yards of ivory lace and could not stop shaking.

"I'm not cold," I said.

"I know."

"I'm furious," I said.

"I know that too."

Brennan took off his gray coat and hung it on a hook.

He stood in his shirt and waistcoat with his sleeves already rolling back.

He had forearms built by hauling lines for a living.

"I want to say something," he said, "and then I'll leave you alone if you tell me to."

"Say it," I said.

"Five months ago Shea asked me to stay quiet, and I did."

"I stood next to your groom at the rehearsal dinner. I knew she was out of our engagement, and I didn't say a word. That's on me."

"You didn't know about Todd," I said.

"No."

"Then it's not on you."

"It's a little on me," Brennan said. "I'll carry it."

I looked at him standing there, not asking me for anything, and warmth flooded through my chest.

"I have a rule," I said.

"Tell me."

"Until the plane lands back at Logan, we're two people on a trip. Then I don't know you," I said.

"Fine."

"That's it? Fine?"

"I've got a rule too." His eyes did not leave my face. "I don't touch you again until you tell me what you want. In plain words."

"I haven't touched anything yet."

"You took my hand for twenty miles."

I turned around so he could see my back.

"Unlace me," I said. "Please. I've been laced into this for six hours."

He stood very still behind me.

Then I felt his fingers at the top of the ribbons, slow and careful, loosening them one cross at a time.

The dress eased off my ribs and I took the first full breath of the day.

"Better?"

"Yes."

"Good." His voice had dropped. "Lindholm, you have a freckle on your left shoulder blade."

"I know."

"I've been looking at it for forty minutes. Facing the wrong way at the altar. It was the only thing I could look at."

I stepped out of the skirt.

It sank around my ankles, and I stood in a corset-backed slip and white stockings in a ferry captain's wheelhouse.

I turned and looked at him.

"Sit in your chair," I said.

"What?"

"Your chair. Sit."

He sat in the tall chair, and I walked to him in my stockings and stood between his knees.

His hands stayed flat on the armrests.

He was keeping his rule.

His breath was coming harder than he wanted me to see.

"I want your mouth on me," I said.

"Now. I don't want to be gentled."

For a second he did not move.

Then he put his hands on my hips and slid me forward.

He pushed the slip up and found the edge of my underwear with his thumbs.

"Say it again."

"I want your mouth on me."

"Good girl," he said, very low. "That's all I needed."

He drew the lace down my legs and tossed it behind him onto the console.

Then he put his hands under my thighs, lifted me up onto the console edge, and went down on me.

The first stroke was long and slow and so warm that my head dropped back against the glass.

"Oh."

"There," he said against me. "There she is."

His tongue found my clit and stayed, and his hands held my thighs wide and steady.

I heard small broken noises coming out of my own throat.

"You taste like salt and champagne," he said. "You're so wet already. Look at you, Kirsten, you're perfect."

It was the first time he had called me Kirsten.

I put my fingers in his hair, and I held on.

He sucked, light and steady.

He slid two fingers into me and curled them where nobody had ever found it on the first try.

"Brennan. Oh, God. Right there."

"I know. Stay right there. I've got you."

The harbor lights smeared in the glass.

My thighs began to shake against his shoulders, and the whole pilothouse tilted.

I came with his name stuck in my throat, grinding against his mouth and his hand until I could not breathe.

He kept going, gentler, until I pushed at his head.

When he looked up his mouth was wet and his eyes were dark and wild.

"Was that plain enough?" I said.

"It was perfect."

I was shaking, and I was laughing, and I wanted more.

A phone lit up on the console beside my hip.

It was Brennan's, face up, buzzing in a slow circle.

The screen said: Shea. Please bring the envelope back. I can explain.

I picked up the phone.

I typed back with my thumb, still shaking, one slow letter at a time.

It's my card. Come and get it.

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