Garnet Lacey - Dead If I Do Part 24

He certainly had the moves. Turning around so that his back faced me, he slowly and provocatively slid the waistband down an inch. Then he quickly pulled it back up. He glanced over his shoulder as if to say, "Did you like my tease?"

"You're a very bad boy," I said, trying to sound severe. "Didn't I tell you to take those off?"

He let out a laugh. "Oh, that's how it is, eh?"

"Aren't you going to promise to obey me in a couple of days?" I said, teasing.

In a heartbeat, I found myself pressed onto the bed. His hands gripped my wrists and pulled them over my head. "It's usually the woman who agrees to obey," he murmured in my ear.

My back arched instinctively. Where our bodies met, I could tell he'd removed his pants after all. "Yet you did exactly what I asked."

"And now you'll do as I say."

My breath caught on his shoulder as he thrust his hips against mine as if to show how he intended to press the issue. I dutifully spread my legs for him.

"Ah, I hadn't said to do that." He smiled devilishly. "But I like that you antic.i.p.ated my needs."

Oh, it wasn't just his need I was antic.i.p.ating. My core ached for his touch. No doubt seeing the readiness in my eyes, he pulled himself back a little. Removing one hand, he stroked and teased my instantly hardened nipples. I squirmed desperately under him, and I felt myself getting wetter and wetter as he continued his agonizingly slow exploration of my body. When his hand slid between my legs, I gasped. With deliberate and slow gentleness, Sebastian's fingertip stroked me until I started panting with the sweet torture of it all.

"Please." I moaned.

"Please, what?"

"Please make love to me."

"Your wish is my command," he said, letting my wrists go at last. We sprang together like hungry beasts. I wrapped my legs around him, and he plunged deep inside me. I came the first time in a hot rush; then, as he reached climax, we came again together.

I was a little wobbly legged the next morning, but if Matyas noticed, he kept his own counsel.

I poured myself a bowl of flax flakes and filled Barney 's with kibbles. Glancing at the clock on the wall, I decided to call everyone about the rehearsal as soon as the hour was decent. Matyas eyed me blearily over his "I heart herbs" coffee mug, but neither of us said anything. The kitchen filled with the sounds of my noisy mastication.

"Papa is still out?"

I nodded. He was upstairs doing that lying-as-he-fell-in-battle thing. "Your mom still in the root cellar?"

"As far as I know," he said, taking a slow sip of coffee.

Barney lightly sank her claws into the leg of my jeans, begging for my leftover milk. I set the bowl on the floor. She happily lapped it up.

Matyas watched the whole thing with barely contained disgust.

I smiled. It was nice to be back to normal.

Pouring nearly half the pot of coffee into a thermos, I grabbed the keys to Sebastian's junker car from the hook by the back door. Once Barney sat back licking her whiskers, I placed the bowl in the sink.

"Have a nice day." Matyas sneered, as I bundled up and headed out the door. "You too," I replied cheerfully, humming "Winter Wonderland" under my breath just to irritate him.

Sebastian borrowed a beater from Jensen's, the car shop he sometimes worked at, for times when the snow got deep. At those times, the fancy car stayed in the driveway under a tarp. Sometimes he moved it into the barn, but with all the excitement with Tereza, he hadn't found the time. In deference to me, this year Sebastian's loaner was a Ford-an automatic, which I could drive.

No one had bothered to unearth the Ford since the blizzard. My father had nicely shoveled the driveway, but the car remained covered in about twenty inches of snow. It took me almost a half hour to brush the snow off and sc.r.a.pe away the ice that had formed on the windows underneath. I worked up a sweat under all my layers of clothes. Finally, I was in the car and on the road headed to work.

Once there, I wasn't sure I should have bothered. The place was dead. Hardly anyone came in, just a slow trickle of customers. Yule/Winter Solstice was usually a busy time; pagans liked to give each other gifts just like everyone else. Maybe people were still digging out from the big storm, or perhaps the cold, gray overcast sky made saner people roll over in bed and pull the covers over their heads. Even William came in late, looking sleepy.

I took the opportunity to catch up on all the things I 'd gotten behind on. I placed orders for candles and incense, finished sending out Yuletide greeting cards to all our Wiccan-friendly business contacts, and paid bills. While I felt so efficient, I called everyone involved in the wedding rehearsal to let them know that it had accidentally gotten scheduled for tonight. Most people promised to be there. That finished, I tidied the office. I swept floors, dusted shelves, and even cleaned out the public restroom.

William mostly sat at the register reading. He helped me rearrange the children's area-something I'd been meaning to do for months-and I caught him up on all the various disasters in my life. I even told him about how my high school friend Jane had called to say she probably couldn't make it.

"I'll be your extra bridesmaid," he said. "I've even got a skirt! Well, it's a kilt, but I look awfully fine in it."

"I'll bet you do." I laughed. "But you could wear a tux. Anyway, I thought you were going to be one of Sebastian 's groomsmen."

He shrugged. "I'd rather be your bridesmaid."

"Sebastian needs you on his side. He doesn't have a lot of friends around here," I said.

"Are you kidding me? He's got his accountant, the dude from Jensen's, and some mountaineering friend of his flying in from Alaska or Australia or somewhere. He doesn't need me, and I'm one of your best friends." William paused for a moment, uncertain. "Aren't I?"

"Of course you are!"

So it was settled.

I pa.s.sed the rest of the day organizing, filing, and the like. After we counted up the till and got the nightly deposit ready, I told William I'd see him at the church tonight.

The Unitarian church was an A-frame building in the middle of a densely wooded lot. A vaulted ceiling showed quarter-sawn oak beams, and the wall behind the altar was made entirely of plain gla.s.s. Polished hardwood floors and a spectacular view of snow-covered evergreens gave the place a sense of awe without being ostentatious.

My mother, however, saw only folding chairs in lieu of pews and unadorned walls, and said, "Is this the best you could find?"

"Well, the Unitarian church designed by Frank Lloyd Wright was booked."

"What the heck is Unitarian Universalism, anyway?" asked my dad. "It sounds like a cult."

I rolled my eyes. "You're thinking of the Unification Church, with Reverend Moon? These are the Unies, not the Moonies," I said. "I think it's beautiful," William said, browsing through a pamphlet called What Is UU?

Sebastian came in with the minister. She was an athletic, trim woman in her fifties with salt-and-pepper hair and deep laugh lines around her mouth and eyes. She shook everyone's hand with a firm, steely grip. "While we wait for everyone to arrive, why don't we go over the events of the wedding?" she suggested.

As we sat on the folding chairs and reviewed the program and the places we 'd stand and the words we'd say, I started to realize I was really going to get married. I reached over and took Sebastian 's hand to steady myself. He gave it a rea.s.suring squeeze.

Izzy and Marlena arrived together, and soon after followed Hal from Jensen 's and Sebastian's other groomsmen. I knew Walter, his accountant, because I once accidentally mistook him for one of Sebastian's ghouls, but I'd never met Smitty, though his photograph was in our living room. "You're a lot older than I expected," I told him, upon seeing his completely gray hair and weather-beaten, tan face.

"Not everyone ages as well as old Sebastian here," Smitty reminded me.

"Where's Matyas?" Sebastian asked. "He's supposed to be my best man."

"Don't get your knickers in a knot; I'm here," Matyas said, coming up beside him. "I was just checking to make sure Mom was, uh, well-fed and taken care of."

"Oh, is there a mother of the groom too?" the minister asked. "She's more than welcome. We have special transport if she's infirm."

"Actually Tereza is Matyas's mother and Sebastian's . . . uh, ex," I explained.

"Oh!" The minister looked from Matyas to Sebastian and then back again. "I a.s.sumed you were brothers."

"I thought so too," my mother said conspiratorially.

"He's older than he looks," Smitty said. "We used to go mountain climbing in the seventies."

"We should probably get started," I said, trying to derail the whole discussion of the age of my vampire lover.

When everyone was arranged, we noticed the imbalance. Sebastian had more friends than I did. Walter, Smitty, William, and Matyas made four, while I had only Izzy and Marlena, thanks to Jane's cancellation. William said, "It's fate. I'm meant to be a bridesmaid."

"But, but, but," my mother sputtered, "Who will you walk down the aisle with?"

"Oh, that would be me," Walter volunteered in a grizzled Brooklyn accent. Walter was quite fabulously gay. He was a short, bespectacled man in his late forties with wiry hair going gray and frizzy at the edges. His partner Larry rolled his eyes from his seat in the front row.

Before my mother could open her mouth and say something unintentionally h.o.m.ophobic, I said, "Great, it's settled then. Let's give this a try, shall we?"

My dad and I were instructed to go downstairs. The dressing rooms were in the bas.e.m.e.nt, as well as the office and child care room. It was determined that I'd make a more dramatic entrance coming up the staircase, plus that way no one would see me before the service started. My dad and I huddled in a room off the bottom of the stairs and waited for our cue.

Unexpectedly, Dad took my hands in his. "Are you going to be ready for this?" he asked.

"Sure," I said. "When they start 'Here Comes the Bride,' we'll just-"

"No, hon, I mean this," he said, putting two fingers around where my engagement ring encircled my right ring finger.

"Oh, Daddy," I said, getting a little choked up at the thought of really walking down the aisle with Sebastian. "I don't know. I mean, I love him, but you can't really know how it's all going to go until you live it, right?"

"You've thought everything through?"

"We've been through a surprising amount of stuff, Sebastian and me," I said. "You wouldn't believe half of it, but I think it 's made us stronger as a couple. I think-"

There was a loud explosion upstairs that definitely wasn't part of the script.

Tenth Aspect: Semi-Square

KEY WORDS: Quandries, Glitches

I ran upstairs to discover that Vatican witch hunters were crashing my wedding rehearsal. Literally.

The windows in the front that I 'd been admiring were completely destroyed. Gla.s.s and shattered wood littered the floor.

Upturned folding chairs lay scattered everywhere. Ice-cold wind blasted through the gaping hole the witch hunters had smashed.

My dad and I had just reached the top of the stairs when someone burst in through the front doors. I turned to see a black - robed priest duck out of the way. Behind him stood a man holding a longbow, c.o.c.ked, with an arrow pointed right at my breast.

"Get down," I said to my dad, giving him a shove off to the side.

The archer, however, didn't shoot. He seemed to be scanning for someone else. I had a good idea who, given that the last time we encountered the Order of Eustace, they stuck Sebastian to the wall with an arrow exactly like that one. That time, however, they'd had surprise on their side.

Though I tried to grab at him, the archer pushed past me into the main room. Sebastian was on the opposite end near the broken windows, wrestling with two other hunters who'd apparently come in that way.

The rest of the wedding party seemed to be in hiding, although I wasn't sure how much cover folding chairs actually provided.

I turned back in time to see the archer take aim.

"Sebastian!" I yelled, "behind you!"

Unfortunately, half the wedding party poked their heads up to see why I was yelling. My mother stood up with the fierce look of a lioness protecting her cub. "Get away from my daughter!" was her battle cry, as she started moving toward the archer just as he let his arrow fly.

I screamed. My mother was going to step between Sebastian and the arrow.

Sebastian moved faster than I'd ever seen him go. He vaulted over the witch hunter, trying to block his way and hit the ground running. Reaching out, he caught the arrow in his hand. At least that 's what it looked like at first, until my eyes registered the fact that his fist closed around a shaft that had pierced him clean through his palm. A spray of blood spattered my mother 's face. The arrow had been that close to hitting her. While still running toward the archer, Sebastian snapped the shaft with his fingers. The barbed point stuck out the back of Sebastian's hand; I could see it as he sprinted past me. The guy who'd kicked the door in for the archer launched at him. Sebastian backhanded their hunter, leaving the point embedded in his cheek.

Now I wasn't the only one screaming.

More hunters streamed in the door. Over his shoulder, he yelled, "Get back. I'll take care of them."

Dazed, I stumbled to a stop and tried to take stock of the situation.

Sebastian's show of strength, however, seemed to have rallied my friends.

Closest to me, a knot of people, which included Smitty, Izzy, Marlena, and a confused and battered -looking black-robed priest, wrestled. Punches flew haphazardly, but Team Wedding Party seemed to be kicking the hunter into submission.

Matyas and my mother teamed up against another one. Matyas had the hunter in a stranglehold, while my mother bashed the fellow about the ears with her handbag.

Walter and Larry had tackled a hunter too. Walter sat on the guy's chest pinning his arms under his knees and seemed to be yelling at the man about his lack of manners. Larry had his hands on his hips and occasionally nodded his head in agreement with whatever Walter was saying. The minister hid behind the altar. She peeped out to check out the scene, let out a gasp of despair and/or horror, and retreated to safety again.

Meanwhile, William stood in the center of the chaos, talking on his cell phone. He had a finger in his ear to keep out the sounds of the fighting, ducking and dodging whenever various bits of debris flew near him.