With This Ring, I Thee Bed

JANINE ASHBLESS likes unconventional weddings: she was once best man for a male friend and she herself got married in secret … which really upset her new mother-in-law. She has written five erotic books for Black Lace and her short stories appear in anthologies by Black Lace, Cleis (including Best Women’s Erotica 2011) and—starting with Alison’s Wonderland—Harlequin. She lives in the UK and blogs at www.janineashbless.blogspot.com where she enthuses about mythology, Victorian art and minotaurs.

By day, JAX BAYNARD is a financial investment advisor. By night, she makes her own (and her clients’) fantasies come true. This part-time dominatrix’s short fiction has appeared in Pleasure Bound, online, and in several literary journals. Her favorite weddings are the ones you never think will happen.

CHEYENNE BLUE combines her two passions in life and writes travel guides and erotica. Her erotica has appeared in several anthologies, including Best Women’s Erotica, Mammoth Best New Erotica, Best Lesbian Erotica, Best Lesbian Love Stories and on many websites. Her travel guides have been jammed into many glove boxes underneath the chocolate wrappers. She divides her time between Colorado, USA, Australia and Ireland, and is currently working on a book about the quiet and quirky areas of Ireland. Her favorite type of wedding is an Irish one with black pints and singing. Visit her at http://www.cheyenneblue. com.

RACHEL KRAMER BUSSEL (www.rachelkramerbussel.com) is an author, editor, blogger and reading-series host. She is senior editor at Penthouse Variations, wrote the Lusty Lady column for The Village Voice, and has contributed to Cosmopolitan, The Daily Beast, New York Post and other publications. She’s edited over twenty-five anthologies, including Bottoms Up, Spanked, Yes, Sir, Yes, Ma’am, The Mile High Club, Do Not Disturb, Rubber Sex, Dirty Girls, and is the Best Sex Writing series editor. Since October 2005, she has hosted New York’s In The Flesh Reading Series, featuring everyone from Susie Bright to Zane. She cries at weddings but doesn’t anticipate walking down the aisle herself.

Heidi Champa was married on a hot, humid August day eleven years ago. The wedding started with thunder and lightning and ended with a brilliant pink sunset. Her husband has always encouraged her to write, believing her dirty mind should be put to good use. Her work appears in numerous anthologies including Tasting Him, Frenzy, Playing With Fire and Girl Fun One. She has also steamed up the pages of Bust Magazine. If you prefer your erotica in electronic form, she can be found at Clean Sheets, Ravenous Romance, Oysters and Chocolate and The Erotic Woman. Find her online at heidichampa.blogspot.com.

PORTIA DA COSTA is a British author of romance, erotic romance and erotic fiction, who loves writing about sexy, likable people in steamy and wickedly scandalous situations. Her many novels have been translated into languages such as German, Spanish and Dutch, and she’s had well over a hundred short stories published in magazines and anthologies. A passionate believer in matrimony, Portia has been married more years than she cares to count, but she still remembers feeling like a princess on her wedding day. She and her prince live in the heart of West Yorkshire with their cats.

BELLA DEAN was always the one dodging the bouquet. And she still is. But that doesn’t mean she’s not making eyes at the sexy groomsman or flirting with the caterer. She figures when the right guy comes along, she’ll go straight for the garters. Skip the bouquet. Bella’s work has appeared in Alison’s Wonderland, Pleasure Bound, For the Girls and Afternoon Delight, among others.

ERASTES lives in the UK. She writes gay historical romance and believes that marriage is for everyone. Her second novel, Transgressions, was launched in March 09 as part of Running Press’s seminal gay romance line, targeted at both men and women. Her website, which includes many excerpts of her work, can be found at www.erastes.com.

ADR FORTE is the author of erotic short fiction that appears in numerous anthologies from Cleis Press, Circlet Press and Black Lace, including Hurts So Good and Pleasure Bound, also edited by Alison Tyler. She once considered wedding cake design, but after a few notably disastrous attempts with the icing and food coloring decided to stick with writing instead. Visit her at www.adrforte.blogspot.com.

LANA FOX has published erotic stories in Alison’s Wonderland and several Xcite anthologies, including Naughty Spanking 1 and Sex, Love and Valentines. Her other short fiction about sexuality has appeared in numerous lit mags. Lana was taught that sex before marriage is sinful, so she had lots and lots of it before getting hitched in white. She is currently working on a collection of erotic stories about sex and magic. You can find her online at http://www.lanafox.com.

If SHANNA GERMAIN was a wedding cake, she’d either be red velvet with cream cheese frosting or a bite-size gypsy tart. When she’s not dreaming of new things to put in her mouth, she’s writing. Her award-winning work can be read in places like Best American Erotica, Best Bondage Erotica 2, Best Gay Romance, Best Lesbian Erotica, F is for Fetish, Playing With Fire, X: The Erotic Treasury and on her website, www.shannagermain.com.

P. S. HAVEN is from Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He began writing dirty stories as a way to turn on his girlfriend. They’ve been married for twelve years, so he did something right. His style is heavily influenced by the works of Hugh Hefner, Henry Ford and David Lee Roth. Haven’s stories have been published in Best American Erotica Series, Playing With Fire: Taboo Erotica, X: The Erotic Treasury, B is for Bondage, Frenzy: 60 Stories of Sudden Sex and many others. He blogs about writing and lots of other stuff at pshaven.blogspot.com.

MICHAEL HEMMINGSON‘s first feature film, The Watermelon, is out on DVD and Blu-Ray, and ends in a possible wedding-on-the-verge: that is, the hero gets the girl. His novels include Wild Turkey, The Comfort of Women and The Dress, along with a collection of erotic stories Sexy Strumpets and Troublesome Trollops.

KRISTINA LLOYD is the author of three erotic novels including the controversial Black Lace bestseller, Asking for Trouble. Her short stories have appeared in numerous anthologies and her novels have been translated into German, Dutch and Japanese. She has a master’s degree in twentieth-century literature and has been described as “a fresh literary talent” who “writes sex with a formidable force.” The last wedding she attended was in Duras, the French town associated with Marguerite Duras. For more visit kristinalloyd.wordpress.com.

NIKKI MAGENNIS is a Scottish writer of erotica and erotic romance who has a habit of falling over at weddings. You can find her short stories in many anthologies including Alison’s Wonderland from Harlequin and the Mammoth Book of the Kama Sutra. Her novels, Circus Excite and The New Rakes, are published by Virgin Black Lace. Find out more at nikkimagennis.blogspot.com.

SOMMER MARSDEN made her own wedding cake. And then the cat ate it. A lovely friend made her second so she didn’t have a nervous breakdown. Even though her original cake did not survive, her marriage is still going strong. She’s been with one very patient, sexy man for a baker’s dozen years (and counting). Sommer is the author of Lucky 13, Double Booked and The Mighty Quinn. Her work has appeared in dozens of anthologies, including Alison’s Wonderland, Best Women’s Erotica 2009 and 2010, Liaisons, and Sex and Satisfaction. According to Ashley Lister (ERWA), she is “renowned for her style of combining exquisite sex with well-realized situations and credible characters.” Visit her at sommermarsden.blogspot.com.

N. T. MORLEY thinks the happiest marriages start out with strippers at the weddings, not just the bachelor and/or bachelorette parties. Morley’s many novels include The Parlor, The Limousine, The Appointment and The Visitor, as well the trilogies The Castle, The Library and The Office, and a double anthology, MASTER/slave. More can be unearthed at www.ntmorley.com.

KATE PEARCE was born into a large family of girls in England, and spent much of her childhood living very happily in a dream world. Despite being told that she really needed to “get with the program,” she graduated from the University College of Wales with a master’s degree in history. A move to the USA finally allowed her to fulfill her dreams and sit down and write that novel. Along with being a voracious reader, Kate loves trail riding with her family, “Western style” in the regional parks of Northern California. Kate is a member of RWA and is published by Kensington Aphrodisia, NAL, Ellora’s Cave, Cleis Press and Virgin Black Lace/Cheek.

A veteran of many friends’ too-elaborate weddings, THOMAS S. ROCHE hopes the next time he wears a tuxedo, he’ll be accepting his first Oscar or dispatching Russian agents. The most romantic wedding he ever attended was inside a rusted-out gun emplacement overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge. His widely published short stories have appeared in such venues as the Best American Erotica series, the Best New Erotica series and many other best-of anthologies. He can be found at www.thomasroche.com.

SOPHIA VALENTI loves married men—well, one in particular, who she has adored since their wedding twelve years ago. She thinks the best part of being married is living with your best friend—and having someone strong in the house to open jars. Her erotica has appeared in the Harlequin Spice anthology Alison’s Wonderland and the Cleis Press books Afternoon Delight, Playing with Fire and Pleasure Bound. Visit her at sophiavalenti.blogspot.com.

I.K. Velasco is a corporate slave by day and a slave to her passions at night. She tries to come off as hardcore, but is really a big softie. She’s a bit chagrined to admit that she’s had her dream wedding planned in her head since the age of six—raspberry and chocolate-brown color scheme, pink hydrangeas and a gaggle of bridesmaids, oh my!

SASKIA WALKER (www.saskiawalker.co.uk) is an award-winning British author whose short fiction appears in over sixty anthologies. Her erotic novels include Along for the Ride, Double Dare, Reckless, Rampant, Inescapable and The Harlot. Saskia lives in the north of England close to the windswept Yorkshire moors, where she happily spends her days spinning yarns. Saskia once attended a wedding on the arm of a horned demon. Saskia was dressed as a cobweb-covered ghoul. The bride and groom were vampires, and the guests included all manner of paranormal creatures. Even the registrar was wearing witch’s garb. The date? All Hallows’ Eve.

RITA WINCHESTER has multiple hideous bridesmaids dresses and nary a bridal gown in sight. But she never says never and she figures the bridesmaids gowns come in handy for Halloween … or witness protection. Her work has appeared in Mammoth Lesbian Erotica, I is for Indecent, Tasting Her, Pleasure Bound, Never Have the Same Sex Twice and Frenzy, among others. You can drop her a line or a rope at rita_winchester@yahoo.com.

KRISTINA WRIGHT (kristinawright.com) is an award-winning author whose erotica and erotic romance has appeared in over seventy-five anthologies including Bedding Down: A Collection of Winter Erotic, Dirty Girls and the collections Seduction, Liaisons and Sexy Little Numbers. She is also the editor of Fairy Tale Lust: Bedtime Stories for Women. Her writing is inspired by her own happily-ever-after tale: she married her soul mate after a whirlwind six-month long-distance relationship. Twenty years later, she is happy to say she would do it all again.

With This Ring

I Thee Bed

AN

EROTIC

COLLECTION

EDITED BY

ALISON TYLER

www.spice-books.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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Dedicated

To SAM

Two human loves make one divine.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

introduction

“I do.”

I said those words nearly fifteen years ago, in a sunny backyard ceremony, surrounded by friends and family. I knew Sam was the one for me from the start. In fact, I did the proposing.

“Ever think of getting married?” I asked after our first weekend together.

“Is that an offer?” he countered.

I nodded, he accepted and I bought the dress the next week. The ceremony took place in the spring, in a simple outdoor celebration. I wore white. He wore a suit. The handcuffs came later.

Marriage is revered in our family. My grandparents celebrated sixty-five years together, and my parents have been married more than forty. But we embrace an element of levity, as well. My folks got hitched on April Fool’s Day. The “something blue” I wore was glossy midnight polish on my toenails.

But now I’m focused on my brand-new wedding. And you’re invited. Don’t worry—I’m not cheating. I’m talking about an anthology dedicated to all things bridal—from paper to diamonds.

With This Ring, I Thee Bed features tales of married sex, honeymoon sex, make-up sex, anniversary events and a seven-year itch. Couples experiment with new ideas, and (in some cases) new people. Lovers stoke the embers of passion as they fall ever deeper in love. In at least one instance, a gigolo is involved!

When I invited the authors to submit, I told them to toss the theme in the air like a bouquet—so that we’d all be scattered with petals as well as rice.

With This Ring, I Thee Bed takes the license for marriage from naked nuptials to brides in bondage. Naughty authors are registered at the Department of Kink.

Now, who else is ready to say “I Do”?

XXX,

Alison

P.S. Although a wedding book has been on my mind (and my hard drive) for years, I’d like to thank my best man, Mike Kimera, for giving me the title and escorting me down the aisle.

Now or Forever

Nikki Magennis

We should be halfway to paradise by now.

I look at Susie’s blue kitchen clock. Just past twelve. The flight left three hours ago, heading to the Caribbean with two empty seats in first class.

The washing machine clicks over and I watch the clothes tumble around in the drum, soapy water sloshing from side to side. They’re all too colorful. Bikini, sarong, sundress. Clothes I’m never going to wear. I’m washing them instead of burning them.

Our honeymoon was a present from Charlie’s dad—one of the gifts that can’t be quietly returned. It’s not always possible to apologize. Some things can’t be undone. And “sorry” isn’t always enough.

I get another flash of Charlie’s face. The way his eyes kind of flickered as I ran past him on the path, the way he looked almost as if he was smiling, the way he does when he’s confused. He was a little pale, his freckles darker than usual.

Oh God.

It was all supposed to be a big white dream. We’d be like paper dolls cut out of a magazine. A pretty little church, the perfect lace dress, star-shaped flowers with delicate trails of ivy. Charlie would be nervous and I’d be trying not to laugh. We would kiss in soft focus. Bells would ring.

My phone goes—and it’s playing the fucking Wedding March. My sister must have programmed it as a joke. I pounce on my jacket, scrabble through the pockets and find it, hit the cancel button before I look at the name.

Charlie. Of course it’s Charlie. Did I think he’d just disappear? Six years don’t evaporate that easily. Even if I’ve broken his heart and ruined his life, we’re going to have to at least pretend to be grown-ups. I should call him back.

I don’t. Instead, I pick at the lace of the bright yellow garter Susie made me promise to wear. It’s a hideous thing—the color of crayon sunshine in a kid’s drawing, with too many bows and ribbons sprouting from it—but for some reason I can’t stop playing with it. Back when she gave me the garter—a hundred years ago, the night before the not-wedding—it seemed like a silly, joyous little joke. Now it makes me wince.

“The yellow ones are supposed to attract lovers. Maybe some of your good luck’ll rub off on me, eh?” Susie had given me a big, theatrical wink, but I think she meant it at least a little bit.

Susie and I are best friends from high school. We’ve been through crushes, boyfriends, breakups and make-ups. I’d always been the one with the hectic love life, Susie the one with the steady boyfriends. Until I met Charlie.

My head snaps up as the doorbell rings. I don’t want to speak to anyone, not the flower arranger, the dressmaker or the caterers, not friends and relations or in-laws. There’s not a single one of the thousand people involved in the biggest not-wedding this century that I want to hear from.

The bell goes again. Maybe Susie forgot her key, I think. Maybe it’s not even for me. I tread nervously to the door and reluctantly open it a crack.

On the step is the one person I want most, the one I fear most. The door swings open and Charlie and I are facing each other over the threshold.

“Seb.” It’s his secret name for me. Silly, I know, but it makes me feel as if I’m about to collapse, like I’m a bicycle tire with all the air let out.

I’m shaking my head but I can’t break my gaze, tear it away from those eyes the color of wet slate. Charlie is hard to read, but over the years I’ve learned his tells. Usually, I can pick up his quirking smile, some little giveaway angle of his eyebrow or how he tugs at his ear. Today, he’s standing on Susie’s front step with his arms hanging by his sides, and I can’t tell a thing. Whether he wants to hold me or hit me. I close my eyes.

I don’t know how to apologize.

“I just couldn’t. I can’t.” My voice is thin, about to break. “Where do I start, Charlie?”

What I want most is to sag into his arms. He’s my comfort, usually, my solace and support. I straighten my spine. No. Not now.

I stand back and let him in, taking a breath of his fresh-air-and-skin scent as he passes.

I follow him into the kitchen and it’s easier, somehow, when we’re not facing each other, so I turn my back on him and fuss with the kettle and the teacups. My hand shakes as I pour milk.

As the water comes to a boil, I turn and he’s got the garter, that hideous yellow badge, and he’s turning it round in his hands.

“You wore this?” he asks, a frown folded between his eyebrows.

“Susie asked me to.” I want to snatch the garter away from him. I remember the sensation, tight round my thigh, the cheap fabric stiff and prickly. I stood there being prepped for the wedding and I remember having the sudden, violent urge to run away and rip it off and scratch and scratch and scratch.

Charlie nods slowly.

Normally, he’d crack a joke. Normally, this would be easy—being together, the easiest thing in the world, like everything’s right and how it should be and … and perfect? I look at the yellow of the garter against Charlie’s skin.

“It was all too good to be true,” I say softly. Surprising myself.

He looks up and I can see for the first time a spark in his eyes. It could be dangerous. It could be promising. I take the chance.

“I’m scared, Charlie.”

“Of what?”

“Of us.” I watch his lips. I owe him honesty, at least. I take a deep breath.

“Of suffocating. I was standing up there at that altar and …”

“And what?” he says, his voice edged with flint.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” I start to say, before I realize what I’m doing. I start again. Look right in his eyes.

“I don’t know if I can promise you so much. Just you, just me, forever.” There’s a rushing over my skin, and I’m running fast down a slope. But I can’t stop now. “I saw my sex life flash in front of my eyes, Charlie. Do you understand what I’m saying?” I know I’m almost shouting.

Is that worse? I wonder. To have ditched Charlie in front of all his family and friends, to have left him awkward and alone at the church, or this? To tell him the truth, what I’ve been darkly afraid of all along? My lurid, cherry-red, heart-throbbing dirty secret.

How can I promise never to have another lover? Me, who’s always been quick to get bored, and quicker to discard unsatisfactory bedfellows. Who’s been first to try every practice and position, whose whole life is punctuated by sex—exotic and romantic and thrilling and brief and heartbreaking. Yes, I love Charlie, and yes, I love fucking him. But will I really be able to sacrifice every other man in the world—every other possible man?

I think about how Charlie is, and try and match it against the invisible future. I know it’s wrong, but I’m trying to measure him. Testing, to see how I love him, how much and how far.

Yes, I love how his eyelids kind of slide down a few degrees, so he’s giving me a snake’s gaze, one that slips over my body in a prelude to his touch. I love how his mouth goes tight. How his fingers travel, how he takes mouthfuls of me.

And this. Yes, I’d forgotten how much I love this.

“Charlie?”

“Shut up.”

How he is silent. How he pulls me to him and works his way from my wrist to my shoulders. Charlie is gentle. Most of the time. But he knows how to fix me in place. He’s clever, too—sees immediately how he could take an ugly yellow garter and twist it around my wrists, how it would hold my arms behind my back firmly, but stretch enough not to dig in too much.

“What if Susie …”

He ignores me. I think this might be what I love most about us. He knows me so well, he can tell when to listen and when to just keep on going. Like now, as he strips me methodically, slowly, almost brusquely. He pushes the cardigan off my shoulders and lets it bunch at my tied wrists. Reaches for the buttons at my throat and lets the backs of his hands scuff over my breasts.

I’m biting my lip again, trying not to moan. For some reason, it seems important to match Charlie’s wordless intensity. As though the only way I can apologize is with my silence, as though any more words would be too many.