The big day

I doze off myself, waking with a start when my phone chirps a low battery warning. It's nearly 6 AM—just hours before our afternoon ceremony. On screen, I see movement as Sarah carefully extracts herself from Wiley's embrace. She pads naked to the bathroom, the sound of the shower starting moments later.

Wiley stirs, sitting up groggily. He runs his hands through his disheveled hair, staring at the empty space beside him with a look of profound desolation.

"Fuck," he mutters, his voice hoarse. "FUCK!"

He slams his fist into the mattress, then again with more ****. The third blow is accompanied by a strangled sob that makes me flinch despite myself.

"It's not fair," he growls, his face contorting with rage and grief. "Why isn't she pregnant yet? I've been fucking her for months without protection!"

My heart pounds against my ribs as I hear him voice the very scheme I discovered weeks ago.

"I replaced all her pills," he continues, seemingly talking to himself now. "Every single one. She should be carrying my baby by now, not marrying that fucking asshole today!"

He stands, pacing the room naked, his hands clenching and unclenching. "If she was pregnant with my child, she'd have to postpone the wedding. She'd realize we belong together. It would have worked! Why hasn't it worked?"

The bathroom door opens, releasing a cloud of steam. Sarah emerges wrapped in a towel, her wet hair slicked back from her face. She looks radiant, refreshed—the picture of a bride on her wedding morning.

"Morning," she says cheerfully, seemingly oblivious to Wiley's distress. "I need to get going soon. Big day ahead."

Wiley freezes, staring at her with naked longing. "Don't go," he whispers.

Sarah laughs lightly, the sound like glass breaking in the tense atmosphere. "Don't be silly. I can't be late to my own wedding." She reaches for her purse, her fingers brushing deliberately against his chest as she passes. "Besides, I need to get ready with my bridesmaids. Tradition and all that."

Wiley grabs her wrist, his eyes wild with desperation. "Sarah, please—"

"I'll see you at the ceremony," she says firmly, extracting herself from his grip. "Front row, just like we discussed."

I watch through the camera as she collects the last of her things, leaving Wiley standing naked and defeated in his bedroom. As she reaches for her phone, the feed cuts off abruptly. Seconds later, my actual phone rings.

"Hey," Sarah's voice comes through, breathless and excited. "I'm heading to the hotel now to get ready with the girls. I'll see you at the altar."

"Can't wait," I manage, my voice thick with conflicting emotions.

"Oh, and Liam?" There's a teasing lilt to her voice. "I can't wait for you to reclaim me tonight after our big day."

The line goes dead, leaving me alone with my thoughts in the fogged-up car.

Hours later, I stand at the altar beneath a canopy of autumn leaves and twinkling lights, just as Sarah had described to Wiley. My best man gives me a reassuring pat on the shoulder as the string quartet begins to play. The guests rise, turning toward the back of the aisle.

In the front row, Wiley sits rigid in his suit, his face a mask of barely contained anguish. Our eyes meet briefly, and I can't help the small smile that tugs at my lips.

Then Sarah appears, and everything else fades away.

She's breathtaking in vintage lace, her hair adorned with wildflowers, her smile radiant as she walks toward me on her father's arm. The gown hugs her curves perfectly, the open back revealing a tantalizing glimpse of skin.

It's only as she draws closer that I notice the subtle, satisfied smirk she directs at Wiley. He visibly flinches, his hands gripping the seat until his knuckles turn white.

The ceremony passes in a blur of vows and rings and promises. When we're pronounced husband and wife, Sarah pulls me into a kiss so passionate several guests chuckle uncomfortably. Over her shoulder, I catch Wiley's devastated expression as he watches us seal our union.

The reception is a whirlwind of congratulations, dancing, and champagne. Sarah and I move through it all in perfect sync, stealing kisses and touches whenever possible. Each time, I'm acutely aware of Wiley watching from the sidelines, drinking heavily and declining every invitation to dance.

Finally, as the night winds down, Sarah leans close to my ear. "Ready to take your wife to bed, husband?"

A chorus of cheers and wolf whistles erupts as we make our escape, hands clasped, running through the ornate lobby with Sarah's train bunched in her free fist, the wildflowers in her hair askew but refusing to wilt. The hotel elevator swallows us up, all polished brass and mirrored walls, and the second the doors close, Sarah has my jacket undone, her hands sliding beneath my shirt, nails grazing skin.

"I've been waiting for this all day," she pants, kissing my jaw, my neck, the hollow of my throat. "All fucking day.”

It is an effort to keep my composure long enough to find our suite, the keycard trembling in my hand. Sarah crowds me against the door, hiking her dress to my waist, grinding against me with unapologetic hunger. I barely notice the bellhop slipping away with our luggage, his eyes bright with envy or maybe horror—it doesn't matter, because then the door is shut and she is pushing me backward, unbuttoning my shirt as we stumble through the darkness.

"I want you to fuck me like I'm the only woman in the world," Sarah says, unzipping her dress and letting it fall to the floor in a shudder of white lace and pale skin. "Like I haven't let you touch me for weeks." Her bra is on the floor before I can answer, her nipples taut and flushed, and when I kiss her there she arches against my mouth, hands in my hair.

I am at the mercy of a chemical storm: dopamine, adrenaline, a jealousy so sharp it’s almost narcotic. All the various poisons of the night pulse in my bloodstream, making my every nerve ending stand at attention. The image of Sarah in Wiley’s bed less than a day ago is a hot brand on my synapses, a memory that both disgusts and electrifies, tormenting me and spurring me toward ****, toward reassertion, toward some animalistic reclamation.

Each time I run my palms along her body, I imagine the ghost of his hands there before me. Each time she parts her lips against mine, I taste the echo of his mouth; the knowledge drives me half-mad with need. When I pin her wrists to the mattress, the gesture is violent, but it’s also ritual—some ancient, tribal claim that predates language. “Mine,” I growl, my voice wrecked and unfamiliar, as if it has been lashed raw by the wind and rain of a hundred battles. “Finally, completely mine.”

Sarah grins up at me, her eyes shining darkly with both challenge and invitation. For a moment she lets herself be held down, then she twists expertly, angling her body until she’s looking down at me from above, straddling my hips with the casual grace of someone who has always been in control, even when she pretended otherwise. “Not yet,” she teases, the words a gentle rebuke and also a promise. Her wedding ring flashes in the moonlight, a tiny disco ball scattering beams across the rumpled hotel sheets. “You haven’t finished reclaiming me yet.”

I try to laugh, but it comes out as a broken exhale, a gasp edged with hunger and disbelief. “What did you have in mind?” I ask, and my own voice startles me with its hoarseness, like I haven’t spoken in years.

Sarah leans forward, her breasts brushing my chest, her thighs tightening around me. “You must make me feel you everywhere he touched me,” she says, dropping the words into my ear like a commandment. She takes my hands in hers—first to her breasts, which are full and soft and warm and marked faintly with the pressure of previous hands, then to her hips, where another man’s prints might have lingered, then finally to the slick heat between her thighs. “Especially here,” she whispers, and I almost lose consciousness.

It is not enough to simply obey; I need to erase him, to overwrite every atom of memory with my own. I flip her in a single motion, pressing her into the mattress and pinning her arms above her head, my mouth everywhere at once. I kiss her collarbones, her jaw, the hollow of her throat, biting hard enough to leave bruises that will linger for days—a physical manifesto, a declaration of ownership. She writhes beneath me, every muscle electric with anticipation, and when I break away to look in her eyes, she is laughing, but the laugh is tinged with a hunger that matches my own.

“Tell me what he did to you,” I rasp, my lips against her ear, “so I can do it better.”

Sarah closes her eyes, her face twisted up with a pleasure so sharp it might be guilt, or maybe victory. She doesn't speak at first, just lets the air between us fill with the sound of our breathing, the thuds of my heart, the creak of the ancient bedframe under our bodies. Her lips brush my earlobe, and she shivers, then speaks in a voice so low and guttural it doesn't even sound like her.

"He bent me over the counter," she says, "in the kitchen. Last night. He made me look at myself in the microwave door while he fucked me." She says the last syllable with a sharp exhale, as if it's been stuck in her throat all this time, waiting for the confession. In my mind, I conjure the image of her bent at a forty-five degree angle, legs quaking, palms pressed to the cold steel, and I have the sudden urge to destroy every appliance in our apartment.

I waste no time. I haul her off the bed, dragging her by the wrist like a caveman with his prize. She stumbles, laughing—not cruelly, but with the wicked delight of someone who knows they've won. I shove her against the hotel desk, her hands splayed and white-knuckled on the lacquered wood, hips cocked, body still trembling from the aftershocks of our last bout. Her skin is so soft it seems to glow in the moonlight, mottled with the bruises and love-bites I've given her. There's no microwave here, so I make do with the mirror above the writing desk, forcing her to look at herself as I press my cock between her thighs, slick with her own wanting.

My hand comes down on her ass, once, twice, three times, the sound of it ricocheting around the room. She yelps, then laughs, then moans, louder than before, arching back into the next blow. I grip her hips, digging my nails in, and pull her onto me with a **** born of months—years—of barely restrained ****, of slights and humiliations and the constant presence of the other man. The headboard slams in counterpoint to our bodies, an arrhythmic percussion that punctuates every thrust, every grunt, every gasp.

"Like this?" I demand, my voice an octave lower than usual, hoarse and splintered. I want her to say it's better, that I'm winning, that Wiley was just a placeholder for everything she denied herself. But she only grins in the mirror, her hair a wild mess, her smile feral.

"Harder," she spits, as if daring me to truly claim her. "He thought he could leave marks on me. He tried—oh, fuck—he tried to brand me as his."

The words hit me like a hammer to the gut, and I redouble my efforts, slamming into her with a **** that is both calculated and entirely out of my control. I reach around and tangle my hand in her hair, yanking her head back so she has **** but to meet my eyes in the mirror. For a moment, the only thing I can see is the reflection of my own face, twisted and unfamiliar, a hungry animal in a rented suit.

"Let him hear you," I snarl, the words leaving my mouth before I can think them through. "Let everyone fucking hear who you belong to now." I want Wiley—wherever he is—to hear her, to know that she is mine, now and forever. I want him to **** on the sound of her pleasure, to weep at the inevitability of his own defeat.

She doesn't need to be told twice. The scream that tears from her throat is raw and real, a sound pulled from the roots of her soul. "Liam! Liam! Oh fuck… so much LIAM!” Each repetition is a nail in Wiley's coffin, a small victory that I savor even as I feel the edge of my own climax rising, the world narrowing to the point where our bodies join. I picture Wiley on the other side of the wall, clutching his pillow, face hot with rage and humiliation and unspent lust. The thought is almost enough to make me laugh, but I lose the thread as I spiral into orgasm, shuddering and shouting her name like it's the only word I know.

We collapse in a tangled heap on the bed, both of us gasping, sweat-slick and trembling. But there's no rest, no peace, only the sense that the battle is not yet over. Sarah rolls off me, sprawling across the sheets like a cat, her eyes glittering with something dangerous.

"Again," she says, not a question but a command. She doesn't wait for an answer, just crawls to the foot of the bed and pulls me with her, nails raking my thighs as she positions herself on all fours. I follow, helpless, my battered body willing to endure anything for another taste of this victory.

We fuck again, this time with less **** and more desperation—a race to see who can break first, who will surrender. I try every angle, every position, each one a new attempt to erase the memory of Wiley from her body. I pin her wrists, I bite her neck, I drag my teeth down her shoulder blades, leaving a constellation of marks that will outlast the honeymoon. She eggs me on with a running commentary, each phrase a jab to my ego, a dare to do better, to love her harder, to outlast every ghost that haunts us both.

We move through every possible configuration: Sarah riding me in the armchair, her thighs trembling with exhaustion but her hips never slowing; Sarah pressed up against the window, breath fogging the glass as I take her from behind, the city sprawling below us like a conquered kingdom; Sarah bent over the bathroom sink, her hair in her face, my hands splayed on her lower back as I thrust into her so hard the faucet rattles. Each time, she whispers some new detail of her time with Wiley, and I answer with a new act of aggression, a fresh claim to territory.

At some point, we end up on the floor, the carpet rough against my knees, Sarah on her back with her legs scissored around my waist. She draws me in, nails deep in my shoulder blades, and looks up at me with a suddenly soft, open expression—a crack in her mask of bravado.

"He told me he loved me," she says, barely above a whisper, as if she's confessing to a priest. There's no smile now, only the heavy weight of her words. "While he was inside me. He said he wanted to marry me himself. That I was the only woman he'd ever really want."

"He—he said he loved me," Sarah pants as I take her against the bathroom door, her legs wrapped around my waist. "While he was inside me."

I thrust deeper, harder. "And what did you say back?"

"Nothing," she gasps, her nails digging half-moons into my shoulders. "I just—oh fuck—made him work harder."

Hours blur together as we continue our carnal marathon. The hotel phone rings once—a noise complaint, no doubt—but we ignore it, lost in our private war of reclamation. My body should be exhausted, but jealousy and possession fuel me beyond normal endurance.

Near dawn, we finally collapse onto the sweat-soaked sheets, our bodies slick and trembling. Sarah curls against my chest, her breathing gradually slowing as exhaustion claims her.

"Liam," she murmurs, her voice hoarse from screaming my name all night.

"Hmm?" I stroke her tangled hair, my own eyes heavy with impending sleep.

She looks up at me, a soft vulnerability replacing the wild passion of moments before. "You've done it," she whispers. "You've finished reclaiming me. Every part of me is yours now."

Pride and satisfaction flood through me as I pull her closer, pressing a kiss to her forehead. "As it should be.”

We drift off together, limbs entangled, her wedding ring catching the first rays of sunrise filtering through the curtains.