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It’s going to be such a very long night. Ann already has a slight headache forming at the center of her brain from the volume of the people gathered, the music thumping in the background of all that chatter, the bright lights coalescing over the tops of their heads. She has politely declined every time someone comes to bring her a glass of champagne or something else mixed by the bar—save for the flute she sipped from for the first hour, she has been drinking only water. She really wants to be sober for this.
This is the happiest day of her life. She wants to experience it so.
She traces the wedding band that now adorns the ring finger of her left hand, smooths her palms over the lace bodice of her dress, bunches the skirts back to her. The dress makes her feel like an angel descended from heaven, or something, but it’s all so very ridiculous.
She has to put a hand to her mouth to muffle the giggles that rip from her chest. Before long, tears of laughter dot the corners of her eyes, unable to shake the fit.
“What’s so funny, my beloved wife?”
Her giggles die out as her sight flutters up to meet Anne’s. Ann’s wedding dress is an inch from being preposterous—Anne’s suit is several miles beyond it. One extra button of the black dress shirt tucked into high-waisted navy pants has been loosened, and the sleeves of the exquisitely tailored jacket are rolled up halfway her arms, and—whew.
Put-together and all buttoned-up, Anne had looked dapper, polished, smooth. Very much the professor. The sight is so familiar to her, she could trace it in the dark.
But like this... Ann feels the night stretch even longer ahead of her, hours and hours of entertaining guests when all she wants to do is run her hands inside that jacket and start tugging at that shirt.
“Nothing,” she mumbles. “I’m just very happy.”
The way Anne smiles is nothing short of radiant. It transforms her face from intimidatingly dashing to approachably beautiful, eyes alight with joy and love and kindness. And something else, something hungry and devouring as those dark browns continue to rest on Ann, sweeping slowly, lowly—
“Do you want to go outside for a spell?”
“God, yes, please.”
Their hands, magnetized, fingers sliding home together. They hurry as fast as Ann’s trail and the crunch of people allows, weaving, apologizing, smiling. Ann has never smiled quite this much or as genuinely.
It really is the happiest day of her life, never mind how tiring and nerve-wracking it has been, how overwhelmed she feels by the number of guests, how suffocating some of it is. All she has to do is think of Anne, look at her—remember married, and it all evaporates. They go in a wide berth around their closest friends. Mariana, Catherine and Harriet have not been united since Ann’s birthday last year, when they wreaked enough havoc that the two Ann(e)s seriously reconsidered ever getting them together again.
It looks like they’re trying to commandeer the DJ away from his set-up. That spells disaster—maybe karaoke. Sophie is smart and stays at a couple of feet away, close enough to watch, far enough not to be an accomplice.
Ann vows to keep an even bigger distance.
The cool air is welcomed. There is the hint of Spring, luxurious in the sweet smell of it, wrapping all around them.
“I was coming to steal you anyway. You looked just a bit...”
“A bit what?” She cocks her head up, imploring gaze cast towards her wife.
“Like you were going stir-crazy.”
From where they are, she can vaguely make out the statue atop the roof of University of Edinburgh’s Student Centre. The sky is deepening to a dark shade of blue unable to rival that of Anne’s suit.All over the garden, paper lanterns are strung up, reminiscent of the place where they got engaged.
Anne puts an arm around her, drags her in close so that as much of their bodies realign to where they belong. Ann moves her hand up underneath the jacket and settles against Anne’s back, where she can feel body heat pour out and muscles subtly flex.
Ann lets her head rest against her wife’s shoulder, inhales her scent, listens to her heartbeat, and just like that, the rest of the world disappears, leaving just the two of them. “I was. Thank you for coming to my rescue.”
“Always.” A chaste, sweet kiss is dusted against her forehead. “You know, I did propose we elope a couple of weeks ago... it would have been just the two of us in a little church.”
“No way.” Ann shakes her head, but wouldn’t that have been idyllic, a sort of poetic rightness? But no, after all the trouble they’d gone through to be together, she had wanted to shout it off the rooftops that she was becoming Anne Lister’s wife.
There is a railing that divides the deck from the gardens; Anne maneuvers them so that she’s pressed against it, held between wood and her tuxedo-clad wife. An ember of arousal awakens, always at the ready to ignite at a moment’s notice—such is the effect Anne Lister still has on her after all these years.
“I wasn’t coming just to save you.”
No, she wouldn’t, would she?
Anne looks at her and such earnest hunger unveils itself in front of her, kindling at breakneck speed. Yet she still does not move, and Ann feels herself held back, shivering against her entrapment.
A minute movement of her head, barely a tilt, but a corner of her mouth inching towards cockiness.
“Do tell.”
She drags a finger down Ann’s bare shoulder, trailing over goose bumps and adding even more in her wake. “You are cold.”
“A little.”
Anne unbuttons her jacket with an ease that belies she has been practicing and swings it around Ann, draping it around her. The warmth of her is suffused into the fabric—Ann feels scalding instantly.
“Damn,” Anne mutters, and Ann notices that the way she bites down on her bottom lip is not an intentional tease but an involuntary effect. “Didn’t think you could look any better than you already did.”
They kiss like a slow collision, all pent-up energy bursting apart. Anne’s thumb is on her chin, and her fingers are splayed against the side of her neck. Ann is clutching a hip, crumpling silky fabric beneath her grip.
Today has been all about them kissing, but none of them have been like this private unfurling as they shed layers of decorum and glamour, stripping bare to the essence of the two of them.
No more thinking when Anne starts nipping. Ann loosens one side of a deliciously tight shirt to scratch at the skin beneath.
“We should—”
“Mhm, from our own wedding?”
“Why not?”
“We can’t... can we?”
“It’s our wedding.” Anne’s fingers are following brocade patterns across Ann’s bodice, distracting in how they ghost over her breasts and stomach, but there is only intense focus in her wife’s expression. “Surely we can do what we want.”
Given in an inch to this, they are powerless to stop it, so after a few long seconds of looking at each other breathing heavily, they flee. The guests inside are blissfully unaware of the brides stealing each other away, hurrying towards the car parked out front.
There’s streamers, tags, and signs attached to the rear—something tinkles and rattles something awful—Anne has a hand on Ann’s thigh and the other securely locked onto the wheel, steering them homeward.
“I can’t believe we just did that.”
But her desire is pulsing something fierce through her. Nothing about how she shivers at every brush of her wife’s jacket against exposed skin is to be trifled with.
“Mariana didn’t think we’d last an hour.”
Everything is too much. The distance between them. The distance between them and home. The quaking of her thighs inside her ridiculous wedding dress.
She has never been so glad to see a particular copse of trees, the driveway that appears after the last bend, the dark spaces waiting behind the windows.
Once upon a time, she tumbled out of a cab here and dragged Anne to bed and was rewarded with the first taste of having the love of her life on her lips. Now there are years and memories and rings and promises, but that very same gnawing giddiness in her gut, that same smoldering arousal.
Anne is good up until they’re at the door to the bedroom they share. Bed unmade. Clothes hanging off the back of the chair they’ve put up by the window because Anne likes to read while Ann is still sleeping.
Shit, they’ve booked a hotel room for tonight.
Anne interrupts her thoughts by sidling up behind her and kissing her shoulder next to the collar of her jacket. A pair of arms wraps around her middle, pulls her in snug. “You’re thinking too much.”
“Only about you.”
A wolfish grin, by the feel of it, baring teeth. Ann’s head falls backward as Anne bites down, digging her mark deep into her pale, unbroken skin. She clamps her hands over Anne’s still held against her as soon as that mouth continues to lavish attention to her, tongue soothing the bite that aches and pounds.
“On the bed.” Anne shoves her just enough to get her going forward. Rustling in tulle and silk and lace, Ann shuffles over to the bed, sits at the edge.
Anne kneels in front of her, flashing back to what was the beginning of all this, a secluded grove away from all the tourists, pink petals floating down to touch down on her shoulders.
This time, the sure unbuckling of her heels, sliding them off. Sliding hands up her calves, spreading her legs at the knees. Anne bunches her skirt up, adding only to Ann’s disheveled state.
“My god,” Anne breathes, low, in the back of her throat. She fingers the garter that sits just above her left knee, small bow at the front, lacey all the way around. “I thought you veto’d this.”
“I veto’d you taking it off me in front of a crowd.” Ann bites her lip, smooths her hands over Anne’s shoulders. Her hair started pinned up to her head, but it has fallen down into the low pony she adores so much—she winds her hand into it, weaving locks of thick hair between her fingers. “I wanted it to be just for you.”
Kisses along its edges, as delicate as its fabric. Touches, careful, delighted. Anne takes it off her more softly than she does most things, then loops it twice around the wrist that slides up her thigh, above the hand that takes her dress with it.
Anne leans up to kiss her again.
Shoes go thudding. They’re a little unbalanced when Anne climbs up against her, shifts her, lifts her. They end up by the headboard, Anne sitting, Ann sliding into her lap.
“I want you to keep it all on for now.”
Anne’s arm disappears up to the elbow beneath the layers of her dress, so Ann closes her eyes and tunes in to the feeling of her trajectory—the touch of the garter against the inside of her thigh, sure fingers teasing at her panties, the first bold stroke that spreads her open and starts her gushing over the hand that she didn’t put a ring on tonight, though there’s the cold press of metal from the promise ring on her thumb from what feels like another lifetime.
“Anne.”
“Yes, baby?”
A needy cry rips from Ann so violently a deep blush blooms on her cheeks. It hasn’t even been minutes and she’s a whimpering mess. That cocky grin should have lost its effectiveness ages ago, but Ann has to close her eyes again, ignore it or unravel even faster.
Anne sets a slow, teasing rhythm, not quite fast enough, and not quite as rough as Ann likes it. She bucks into Anne’s palm, scrunches her nose as she seeks an edge of a little something more, open mouthed, panting, these soft little sounds—
“Look at me.”
Ann complies, though her vision is hazy, lashes fluttering wildly.
“Look at me.”
The connection of their lustful gazes is enough to topple Ann forward, come down crashing with her orgasm, pouring out all over those magnificent pants Anne is wearing.
Suddenly their clothes are restricting, sticking to their skin. Giggling and whispering sweet nothings, they undo each other of their wedding garments. Expensive pieces of clothing go zipping through the bedroom as they are discarded.
Ann ends up sprawled atop the mattress, thighs hooked over Anne’s shoulders, her wife lapping at her while their hands snake towards each other. Clasped together, her thumb can reach the garter bracelet. Her heels dig into Anne’s back, hips buck up, the bed creaks as Ann trashes.
It’s in too rapid succession, her voice pitching higher and higher, her muscles contracting. She’s so sensitive it’s starting to hurt. Ann tries to squirm away, just an inch, just a breath.
Anne grins at her as she gets dragged back in, eaten out to Anne’s satisfaction, not her own.
Fingers. Mouth. Teeth.
Anne does not relent until all that leaves Ann is a pitiful whine, barely audible, and a desperate gasp for air. Only then does her wife crawl up her body again, kissing over her aching tummy and sensitive breasts and bruised neck to kiss her so, so sweetly against her cheek.
“That’s a good wife,” she husks.
Boneless, boned to within an inch of her life, all Ann can do is try to breathe.
It’s going to be a very long honeymoon.