Chapter 1
Andrew
Today my two best friends Dane and Avril got married and there’s no denying… that changes things. Of course, things really changed when the three of us entered into a three-way sexual relationship with each other. I mean, let’s be honest… the minute Avril started riding my cock while Dane fucked her in the ass threw our best-friend dynamics into disarray.
And yet, it changed again when I realized that my best buddy Dane and my sweetest girl Avril were falling in love with each other even as all three of us shared a bed. It was an erotic, wild ride I took with the two of them for several weeks, but I figured out quickly that Dane and Avril had something special together, so I had no choice but to back away.
Thank fuck the ties that bound our friendship since we were all freshman in college were strong enough to withstand everything that happened. Thank fuck times ten that my heart was able to withstand it.
If I thought I’d have any regrets or longings watching Avril enter the sanctuary in her white wedding dress, I’d be wrong. The day was utter perfection from the time her father walked her halfway down the aisle to me—and I then walked her the rest of the way to hand her off to Dane—to the beautiful vows they wrote and the celebratory reception after.
I threw the after-nuptials party but without any recrimination from Dane and Avril, I excused myself before they could get to the garter-throwing part. I didn’t want that shit getting anywhere near me because there was one other change that occurred throughout all of this.
I’d gone from the man who was a firm believer in true love to someone who didn’t think it was in the cards for me. I mean, I was the romantic out of the three of us. I was the one who always dreamed of marriage, kids, and a white picket fence. Dane was strictly into hedonism, and Avril was too practical when it came to love.
Throw in an extremely weird but very satisfying sexual ménage for several weeks, and everything got reversed. Dane and Avril are now deeply in love in a committed relationship, and I’m now of the belief that true love isn’t on my horizon.
But that’s fine.
I have my work, which is important.
I have my health.
I have money. Loads of it.
And when I want to fuck, I now have a membership to The Wicked Horse, the premiere sex club in Las Vegas.
What more do I truly need?
I make my way out of the country club where the reception will be winding down soon. Dane and Avril have an early evening flight to Tokyo for their honeymoon. They said they plan to take two weeks, but I know them well. They’re workaholics, and I bet they’ll be back inside of seven days.
Ten, max.
While they’re gone, I’ll be in charge of Caterva, the multi-billion dollar biotech company Dane founded after we graduated college, and which Avril and I own a hefty amount of shares in. As the chief scientist, I oversee all research and lab-testing facilities in our quest to provide complex disease analysis from a single drop of blood. It’s absolutely revolutionary. Some would say miraculous. It’s also made us stinking, filthy rich, but that’s not what drives the three of us.
We do it to change the world.
In fact, I can think of nothing else other than going home, getting out of this tuxedo, and diving into some initial test reports of a new imaging cytometer we’re developing and hoping to patent soon. Or maybe I’ll take a quick run by The Wicked Horse. I haven’t fucked in a few weeks, and I’m getting tired of the relationship I’ve had with my hand.
Despite my immense wealth, I don’t care about losing cool points by firing up my plain gray Subaru. I live in an expensive condo just a few Vegas city blocks from Caterva, so I walk to work every day. I’ve had this crossover for almost three years now, and it barely has seven-thousand miles on it. As I make my way out of the burbs toward the city, I’ll add another fifteen miles to the odometer.
I head west into Vegas on NV 564, pulling my shade down to help shield my eyes from the glare of the setting sun. Even with my Ray-Bans on, the glare of the sun on bleached asphalt and desert sand causes my head to hurt. I glance down to my radio dial, moving it off the Foo Fighters and onto some Soundgarden. When I look back up, I do a double take thinking that perhaps I’m having my first desert mirage.
There… walking in the same direction as me on the shoulder of the highway is a woman—one in a full-length strapless wedding dress of brilliant white. She’s even wearing a veil attached to the back of her head, and it’s floating off to the right from a northerly breeze. Her dark hair is pulled into a loose bun with stray locks blowing in the same direction. More shocking than a bride in the middle of the desert is that she’s got her left arm out at an angle, hand fisted and thumb sticking straight up. Her other arm holds onto a satchel-like purse in a taupe color.
Fucking hitchhiking on a desert road in a wedding dress.
I’m about parallel to her before I stomp on the brakes. I pull onto the shoulder ahead of her, and then watch as she approaches on the right side of my car. Hitting the button to lower the passenger window, I remove my shades.
The woman stoops to see in, and I’m momentarily stunned. Not by her beauty—though she’s absolutely stunning—but by the fierce determination in her expression. Eyes hardened, jaw locked, she asks, “Can I catch a ride into the city?”
“Not even going to ask if I’m a serial killer or anything?” I ask in return. Because seriously, what woman hitchhikes these days?
“The mood I’m in, if there’s any killing that’s going to happen in your car, it’s you who should be afraid of me.”
We stare at each other a moment while I process whether I’m in any true danger, and also marvel at the fact she doesn’t seem to care that she may be.
Throwing my head toward the passenger seat, I give her the invitation she wants. “Hop in.”
Her face softens minutely, letting me appreciate for just a moment her high cheekbones, delicate nose, and full lips that are painted and slicked with a peach-colored gloss. Her blue irises are crystal clear and the shade of morning sky, but I notice they’re red- rimmed as well.
The car door opens, and she hikes her skirt up just enough so she can slide in unimpeded. A pair of tennis shoes catch my eye, and I have to smother a smirk.
A real runaway bride, I guess.
Her gown isn’t one of those ones that seems to spread out in a five-foot diameter of poof and fluff, but is rather sleek and streamlined. I can’t help but notice the adornment is all in the lace sewn with what I—even as a dude—recognize to be intricate detail. She pulls the door shut with a huff before slumping into the seat.
“Rough day?” I guess.
“I’ve had rougher,” she murmurs as she stares out the windshield. She shifts slightly toward me, the profile of her face almost blank. “The day my father had a heart attack while he and I were out hiking, and I had to sit with his dead body in the middle of nowhere while I waited for help to arrive.”
“Jesus,” I hiss in surprise at the horrid thought.
“But yeah… today was a close second.”
“I’m almost afraid to ask what happened to come close to that,” I say, shifting in my seat to face her.
She regards me for a moment, but then sighs. “I was set to marry the man of my dreams, or so I thought. The church was full, I was about ready to traipse down the aisle, and then boom… saw something on my maid of honor’s phone I shouldn’t have.”
“And what was that?” I ask, morbidly fascinated and yet terrified to hear the answer.
“A text she had sent just prior to stepping out to use the bathroom,” she says with a shrug, turning her attention back to the windshield. “To my fiancé. Followed by a photo. Of him and her together. Carnally. With the best man.”
“What?” I ask, astonished by the lewd image this poor woman just described seeing only moments before her marriage. Yet, I’m also intrigued by the calm tone of her voice.
She gives me her eyes again, and there’s no emotional overtone in her words. “I had suspected something was up. Just gut feelings, you know? But nothing I could ever really put my finger on. So I wasn’t really surprised when I saw the photo of them together. However, I was shocked the best man was in the photo, too. Want to see it?”
No. Absolutely not.
“Sure,” I reply, because she seems to want to share her pain.
The woman digs around in her purse, then comes out with her phone. She taps the screen a few times before turning it toward me. “I forwarded it to myself. That way, I’d have the proof and would know I wasn’t crazy for running out of the church without telling anyone.”
I give her phone a brief glance.
And fuck… it’s a hot picture. Been in that same position myself with Avril and Dane. No clue which guy is the fiancé and which is the best man, but there’s a hot blonde on her hands and knees with a dick in her mouth and another in her pussy from behind.
“You know what bothers me the most?” she says softly, and I cut my gaze to her. She drops the phone back into her purse. “Who took the photo? It means there was someone else there, another man mostly likely. I mean, I doubt it was one of the bridesmaids, but at this point, what do I really know other than the fact my maid of honor—who is my best friend—is a real whore. And my fiancé is the biggest asshole in the world. Can’t say I really blame the best man. He’s single and wasn’t doing anything wrong, unless you count failing to keep my fiancé’s dick out of my best friend’s snatch.”
She lets out a stuttering breath and slumps farther into the seat, seemingly worn out from her confession to me.
I don’t tell her I know who took the picture. I’d recognized exactly where it was taken, and that would be The Wicked Horse. They were in the Orgy Room where the waitresses are more than happy to memorialize any shenanigans if the participants want them to take a picture. I’m sure it was one of them who snapped it, but what type of cunt of a maid of honor would think it was a good idea to send it to the fiancé just moments before he was supposed to marry this woman?
That is some fucked-up shit.
“So you canceled the wedding?” I surmise.
“I ran from the wedding,” she corrects me. “They’ll figure out it’s been canceled soon enough, I guess.”
“Thus the tennis shoes,” I say with a nod down toward her feet.
“I apparently have a very cool head in moments of crisis,” she says with an almost prideful tone.
“How come no one came after you?” I ask. “It’s a bit shocking to see a woman walking down the road in a wedding dress.”
She shrugs. “I confronted the maid of honor, who stammered so much I think she may have been seizing. Then I told her I needed a few moments alone to process things and asked her to leave. The minute she left the dressing room, I locked the door behind her. Took my heels off, put my tennis shoes on, and slithered out a window with my dress hiked around my waist. Didn’t even take time to get out of my dress because the one thing I knew was I wanted to get far away from all of it. I couldn’t even stomach facing my fiancé and hearing all his excuses and apologies. In fact, I bet Tara—that would be my maid of honor—is probably still outside the door waiting for me to ‘process’ things.”
The thought of the distraught maid of honor standing outside that door and the fiancé having no clue his bride has already disappeared on him is amusing for sure. I put the car in drive and after a quick check of my mirror, I ease out onto the highway. I’ve known this woman less than two minutes, yet she may be the most fascinating creature I’ve ever met.
“Where do you want me to take you?” I ask.
“The Bellagio,” she murmurs tiredly. “I’ll get my bags packed, then try to catch a flight out to San Diego tonight.”
“Can I make a different suggestion?” I ask on pure impulse.
“What’s that?”
“Let’s hit a bar instead,” I say. “I know an out-of-the-way place not far from here. We’ll get you stinkin’ drunk, so you can forget about the asshole and the whore. I’ll buy, and I’ll even make sure you get to your hotel room safely.”
“Because you’re not a serial killer,” she adds on.
“Definitely not,” I say confidently.
She’s silent. I take a moment to move my gaze from the road to her, then back to the road again. But in that brief sliver of time, I see that same look of fierce determination she had when she first peeped in my window.
“You know what?” she says, voice strangely husky. “Let’s do that. I feel like getting rip-roaring drunk.”
