to say “no.”
In seemingly no time, it was two days before the wedding and I was headed out with Felicia and Elaina for my bachelorette party.
I kissed Nathaniel goodbye when they stopped by the penthouse to pick me up. “Aren’t you a little worried about what they have planned?”
“No.” He returned the kiss. “I trust them.”
Felicia snorted. “That’s your first mistake.”
“Nah,” Elaina said, rubbing her belly. She and her husband Todd, a childhood friend of Nathaniel and Jackson, were expecting their first child. “It’s at least his third.”
“I don’t think so,” he said, pointing at her. “You’re pregnant. And you”—he pointed to Felicia—“if you do anything too crazy, the paparazzi will be all over it.”
“Not if I wear a disguise,” Felicia said.
“You’ve been around Jackson too long,” Nathaniel said. “Although, I’m not sure he has a disguise that could cover up all that red hair.”
“Come on, let’s go,” Elaina said. “We promise we’ll bring her back in one piece.”
We left him and took off down the private elevator, giggling as we made our way to the garage. Felicia grew all serious as we walked to the car.
“There’s one thing we forgot to mention,” she said.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“You have to be blindfolded so you can’t see where we go.”
“What?”
“Oh, come on,” she said. “I’m sure you’ve been blindfolded a time or two with all that kinky stuff you guys do.”
“Felicia Kelly Clark,” I warned. “That sort of talk is off-limits.”
“Tell me I’m right and I’ll shut up.”
I stood beside the car and crossed my arms. “I’ll do no such thing.”
“I told you I Googled this, right?” she asked, undeterred by my defiance.
I cocked an eyebrow at her.
“Read this interesting article on gags,” she said. “We could talk about those, too.”
“Or not.” I wasn’t sure where Felicia was going with this, but it’d been almost a month since I’d had any type of sex. Plus since she’d once said she didn’t care to hear the specifics of how Nathaniel and I worked, I wasn’t inclined at the moment to discuss it with her.
“I’ll call Nathaniel,” she threatened.
“Go ahead.” I shrugged. “In fact, I’d like to see that. Give me your phone. I’ll dial.”
“Come on you two,” Elaina said. “Felicia, I’ve known Nathaniel for most of my life and he’s never spoken a word to me about his sex life.” She turned to me. “And you, lighten up. It’s your bachelorette party.”
Felicia looked slightly abashed, but I shook my head. “I haven’t had sex in almost a month. I’ll lighten up during the honeymoon.”
Elaina groaned. “Tell me he didn’t do that no-sex-for-a-month-before-the-wedding mumbo jumbo.”
It was my turn to look abashed. “It was actually my idea.”
“Oh, girl.” She put her arm around my shoulders. “You should have checked with me first. Todd and I did that. Worst idea ever. He lasted all of five minutes our wedding night.”
“Five minutes?” I croaked.
“Get inside.” She opened the driver’s side door and slipped behind the wheel. “And I’ll tell you all about it.”
I walked around to the passenger’s side and Felicia hopped into the backseat. Within minutes, we were on our way to wherever it was they were taking me. We had a spa day planned for tomorrow. I, for one, was looking forward to some serious girl time before the wedding.
“So anyway,” Elaina said. “Todd had this grand idea that we shouldn’t have sex the month before our wedding. At the time, I thought it was so romantic.”
“See? That’s what I thought,” I said.
“It sounds better than it actually is,” Elaina said. “We finally made it to the hotel room at one in the morning and all I wanted to do was sleep. Todd, though? Well, you know men.”
Felicia snorted. “We didn’t even do the month-before thing and Jackson was like that.”
I turned around to look at her. “You and Jackson got married the day after you met. You didn’t have time for the month-before thing.”
She cocked an eyebrow. “I still have the gag.”
I stuck my tongue out at her and turned back to Elaina. “So what happened?”
“I told Todd I wanted to sleep and he laid this huge guilt trip on me about how it was our wedding night and how we had waited and how the next day would be busy because we were flying out of the country and blah, blah, blah.”
Another benefit to Nathaniel’s private jet—we could pretty much decide when we left. We’d scheduled to take off in the afternoon the day following the wedding, which would allow us plenty of time to do whatever we wished to do after the ceremony and reception.
“I’m guessing from what you said before that you went along with him and didn’t sleep right away?” I asked.
“I might as well have gone to sleep, he was worse than a teenager. One month we’d waited and like I said, he lasted five minutes. I’m not even sure we’d taken off all our clothes.” She giggled at the memory. “Nathaniel’s older, though, I’m sure he has the control thing down pat.”
I certainly hoped so. How horrible would it be to have waited for a month and for our wedding night to be over before it started?
“Funny thing,” Elaina said. “We were living together before we got married and the night before the wedding we talked about calling an early end to our pact. Ended up all we did that night was sleep; we probably should have given in.” She looked over at me. “Maybe you and Nathaniel should give that some thought. End your month tomorrow night.”
I shook my head. “We’re not even going to be together tomorrow night. I’ll be at the penthouse and he’ll be at the estate.”
“Maybe you should rethink that,” Felicia said.
“I’m sure it’ll be fine.” I bit my bottom lip.
At least I hoped it was.
Chapter Two
Abby
When I woke the morning of my wedding, the sun wasn’t out yet, so I stretched, enjoying what would probably be the last quiet moment of the day. My eyes fell on my engagement ring and it hit me: I was getting married today. To Nathaniel. My dominant. By the day’s end, I’d be his completely. I was so ready.
I took my time and leisurely climbed out of bed, slipping into my robe and padding over to the window. Light flurries were still falling, swirling in the streetlight. I sighed with happiness, watching as they floated this way then that.
My cell phone rang and I scurried to the nightstand, smiling when I saw who was calling.
“Good morning.”
“Good morning,” Nathaniel said. “I didn’t wake you, did I?”
“No.” I made my way back over to the window. “Just watching the snow fall.”
“It stopped here an hour ago.”
I looked at the alarm clock. “An hour ago was five fifteen. Weren’t you able to sleep?”
“Not without you.”
I didn’t sleep too well without him, either, but instead of saying so, I decided to tease him. “I hope that doesn’t mean you’ll have to go to bed early tonight.”
His voice changed, growing low and gruff. “I’m going to bed exceptionally early tonight.”