My eyelids burn with unshed tears, and it takes all my willpower to keep them from falling.

“At least this way,” Ash says, “I can have some control over it. At least this way, I can make it feel good just as much as it hurts.”

You’re breaking my heart, I want to say, but that's a lie, because my heart is already broken. Instead, I just say, “I can’t bear to hurt you any more than you already are, please. Please don’t do this.”

“No.” The word is final. “I want this. God, Greer, I’m so fucking hard right now, it hurts. If I were there—" He stops and I hear one long sigh. “Tonight,” he says instead of finishing his thought. “Tonight.”

It is a promise. A gift and a curse, because tonight when my cravings are relieved by Ash, it will be in our wedding bed, and Embry will be somewhere else, alone.

Or worse, not alone.

My chest tightens with unreasonable jealousy at the thought.

Embry transfers the heavy material of my skirt to one strong hand, and then I feel his other hand run up the inside of my thigh.

I let out a soft whimper. My skin cries out for Embry, just as the rest of me cries out for Ash. What I wouldn’t give to have Ash here, ready to take all my pent-up lust and mold it into something that won't kill me with guilt.

Because I will die with guilt.

But somehow it doesn't stop me from squirming with want as Embry’s hand runs up my other thigh. And then it happens. With one deliberate, grazing touch, Embry’s fingertips skate across the lace covering my folds, and I gasp. Embry looks up at me with hooded eyes, and I stare back.

“I can smell you,” he says, his voice cracking a little at the end. “It smells so good.”

I shiver. A thousand voices, a choir of warnings, seem to sing in my mind. Stop this. Stop this. Stop this.

But his words, the way his voice roughened, as if being able to smell my need is the one thing that can break him…

I don't stop him. In fact, I reach down and gather my skirt into my arms so that Embry’s hands can be free, something he immediately takes advantage of by sliding his palms to my ass and squeezing. The groan he lets out when he does goes straight to my clit.

His fingers once again graze over my folds, tickling the lace, and it feels as if everything has become electric. The air, his skin, my skin, everything hums with insatiable need.

Embry leans forward so that the only thing I can see below the heavy bunches of fabric is his light brown hair, and then he kisses the tops of my thighs, lingering soft kisses that trace the lines of my stockings and the clips of my garter belts. I'm already panting by the time his lips brush against my mound.

“Oh my God,” I breathe. “Oh my God.”

“Tell me what’s happening,” Ash demands. “Tell me everything.”

“I shouldn’t be doing this,” I mumble, “I have to stop.”

“Don’t you fucking dare,” Ash says.

“Ash…”

This time, Embry doesn't stop after hearing my hesitation. He keeps going, kissing the line of my panties, kissing along the swirling lace patterns, nuzzling into me. The nuzzles turn aggressive, rough and hard, punctuated with sharp nips at my flesh through the lace. Each bite pulls a noise out of me, and each noise pulls an intake of breath from Ash.

“Tell me, Greer.” It's a command that doesn't brook argument.

“I—he’s biting and kissing me through my panties.” I should stop him. I should push him away. We will all regret this after it’s over, me most of all.

And I even get as far as putting my hand on Embry’s head, thinking I would push his mouth away from me, but right at that moment, he licks me right through the lace and I practically dissolve. My fingers instead wind into his thick hair and tug sharply, making Embry groan so loudly that Ash can hear it.

“Fuck,” Ash breathes, hearing Embry’s noise. “What’s happening now?”

“He’s licking me,” I say, “he’s licking me through the lace. His mouth is so warm and oh—"

My fingers tighten in his hair as Embry begins sucking my clit through the lace. I squirm against him, holding his mouth fast to where I want it, feeling the licking flames deep in my core.

“He’s sucking my clit now,” I say, barely recognizing my own voice. Who am I, so brazenly telling my future husband about what his best friend is doing under my wedding dress? Who is this woman who leaned against a window and opened her legs for this? But I'm too far over the edge now, too wet, too sensitive, too sinful to let this end. Regret seems like a distant thing on the horizon, fuzzy and irrelevant, and with every lap of his tongue and kiss of his lips, Embry wipes the guilt from my body.

And then his deft fingers are at the clasps of my garters, easily unhooking them, and memories of another night, years and years ago, surfaces in my mind.

And like that night, Embry looks up at me as he pulls my underwear to the side, exposing my wet, pink cunt.

“I need,” he says quietly to me, and the déja vu hits me so hard that my knees almost buckle, because of course that’s what he said to me the night he took my virginity too. And the way his eyes blaze, the way he slowly licks his lower lip tells me that he remembers exactly what he said that night too.

That he hasn't forgotten.

“He’s pulled aside my panties now,” I tell Ash. “He’s looking at me there.”

Not just looking. Looking. Devouring with his eyes. Making plans, marking possession with his stare, as if by memorizing every curve and glistening fold of my pussy, he can claim ownership somehow. This is the male gaze that academics always talk about, this is what they meant. Because in this moment, I feel objectified, branded, almost dehumanized.