“Shhh!”

Jeff tugs on my hand as he leads me away from the bustling ballroom. I’m not sure why he wants me to be quiet because there’s no way anyone at the reception can possibly hear us right now. I should feel guilty sneaking off before the toasts and the throwing of the bride’s bouquet, but I don’t think anyone will miss us. They’re all a bit preoccupied with dancing and the alcohol that’s flowing as freely as our inhibitions.

My laughter echoes down the empty marble hallway, which makes me laugh even harder. In the distance, the wedding band is in the middle of their latest crowd-pleasing set. Jeff’s family didn’t notice our escape as they were too busy belting the lyrics to Robin Thicke’s Blurred Lines right alongside that horrible wedding singer. Fortunately for all, enough booze has been consumed that nobody even cares when the wedding singer goes off on a three-minute tangent answering Thicke’s million dollar question of “what rhymes with hug me?” I think the real million dollar question here is who sings Blurred Lines at a wedding? That’s about as appropriate as playing Nine Inch Nails’ Closer at a Beastiality Anonymous meeting, but I digress.

Other than the music, this wedding has been pretty incredible. I practically threw myself on top of Jeff right in the middle of the dance floor earlier in the evening. His epic, white guy dance moves were certainly not the way into my panties, but when his eyes smiled, and there was a glint of mischief, I nearly mauled him.

But that’s not how we got here in the hallway.

I’m not sure when I made the decision to slip away with my boyfriend for a mid-wedding celebration quickie, but when he looked at me with his ocean blue eyes and lazy drunken smile and jokingly said, “There’s something about weddings that makes me horny,” I knew it was hopeless to fight my libido. My ears perked up at the magic “H” word. It’s not the first time he’s told me that line, but it’s the first time I was drunk enough to react to them like I did roughly ninety seconds ago.

The room was dim, my fingertips were curious, and I leaned over into his ear and whispered, “There’s something about you that makes me horny,” just before brushing my fingertips up the length of his inner thigh to discover that he was telling the truth. I am never that forward. But imagine my surprise when I learned those weren’t just words … weddings actually do make him horny. Jeff grabbed me in a flash and had me sprinting out the double doors behind him.

Maybe it was the bottle and a half of champagne I’d downed during the happy hour that made me follow him? No, it was definitely the bottle and a half of champagne I downed during happy hour. I don’t care, though. Because this man, my boyfriend, is all I want right now. Provided we can actually find a few minutes of peace and quiet.

That’s a lie.

I’m probably drunk enough to entertain an audience with him.

The first two doors Jeff tries are locked, but on the third try, he throws his weight against a door and opens a room that is pitch black. Before I know it, our lips mesh as Jeff pushes my shoulders against the door.

He moans into my mouth. “You taste like strawberries, woman.”

I giggle and reach for his shirt, enthusiastically unbuttoning it from the top down.

“Don’t bother, Henley, we only have a few minutes,” he reminds me, then nips my collarbone with his teeth before flicking his tongue up my neck, retracting the path with relentless kisses.

His hot breath against my skin causes me to writhe and my head slams against the backside of the door. “Ow!” I cry through my laughter. Noting that the copious amount of champagne has deadened my nerves.

“Are you okay, baby?” he whispers in concern. I can barely see his face lit up by the dim glow of a red exit sign above us.

“Yeah,” I breathe out heavily and fumble with the belt wrapped around his waist.

“Hold on, let me find a light really quick.”

“Fuck the lights, Jeff.” I pull his chin toward me and kiss him with an unrivaled ferocity all while unzipping his tuxedo pants, slipping my hand into his boxers and pumping my hand up and down his cock a few times. It comes back to life instantly in my palm.

Jeff presses his forehead against mine, and a purr escapes from the back of his throat. “Shit, Henley, I want you so bad right now.”

Jeff reaches around my body and attempts to take my dress off, which is ridiculous if I’m not even allowed to take off his shirt. “Don’t even try. It’s too much effort.” And it’s true. My navy strapless dress has a corset back, and there’s no way I can get in — or out — of it without the assistance of an army. I reach down and gather the fabric and hoist it up to my waist. Jeff slides his hands up my calves and thighs to slip my panties off.

“What the fuck?” he slurs in surprise. If I weren’t so caught off guard by his comment, I’d probably find his tone adorable.

“What do you mean?”

“What the hell is this, Henley?”

Oh, God. Shit! “Um …”

“Are you wearing granny panties?”

I grind my teeth in horror. “Shit. No! Those are Spanx. They were undoubtedly made by some guy as a torture device, but they do a damn good job keeping everything in place.” There goes my lady in the streets but a freak in the sheets reputation I’ll never get.

“Mmm … I’d like to spank you right about now,” Jeff growls.

Involuntarily, I snort at his comment. It reminds me of the time we tried dirty talking and failed miserably. We both ended up in fits of laughter.

“Just get them off, will you?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Jeff kneels down and peels the Spanx off my ass, and I step out of them, kicking them to the side. My body instantly feels free from the tight confines of those wretched unmentionables. He makes quick work of the rest of his pants and boxers, dropping them to his ankles. He leans my body back against the door and in one fell swoop, pushes himself inside of me, filling me to the brim.

I melt around his body.

My head is light from all the champagne and from the dizzying spell he casts upon me. It becomes increasingly difficult to hold my body up as my legs turn weak and, instinctively, Jeff takes on more and more of my body weight in his arms as we lean back against the door.

“It feels wrong to be having sex before the bride and groom,” I pant mid-thrust.

“It’s not wrong. We’re celebrating love. They’d commend us for celebrating so passionately,” Jeff whispers in my ear before nipping my earlobe with his teeth.

“To love,” I cry out and clench his body tighter. Our tongues are at war with one another as our bodies mesh together.

“Oh my God, Henley, I’m so close. I’m so close … I’m gonna come,” he growls in my ear like he’s a freaking sports announcer calling a grand slam, game-winning play at the bottom of the ninth inning of the final World Series match up.

Why do guys do that anyway?

I hitch my leg tighter around his waist and sink my fingernails into his perfectly tight ass, bringing him impossibly closer to my body.

“Oh, shit! Henley! My calf … I … I’m cramping … Oh, God … I’m coming! CRAMP!” Jeff’s body tenses right as the overhead lights flash on, blinding us both.

What the fuck?

My gaze snaps to his, and I feel the color draining from my face in one fast, sobering moment. The same moment Jeff’s body shudders as he finds his release.

“Holy fuck nuggets” he whispers, clenching his eyes shut.

“Hey! You! You can’t be in here!” a man’s voice echoes through the space, chopped up into bits and pieces of broken English. “Stop that! Now! That is bad!”

When I look over Jeff’s shoulder, a portly old man in a hunter green security uniform crosses the space across the empty ballroom, hastily waving his finger at us.

“Oh, shit!” I whisper, trying to contain my laughter.

Jeff stares at me wide-eyed and full of panic as he processes exactly what is happening here. He stands eerily still like he believes that he’s camouflaged with the door behind me and if he moves even a fraction of an inch he’ll be exposed. No pun intended. Don’t get me wrong, his ass cheeks are pale. Just not that pale. This is one of those moments where I’d give my left tit to have my childhood wish of being invisible actually come true.

When I look over Jeff’s shoulder and see the guard glaring at me, he speaks louder. You know, just in case I didn’t hear him the first time he chided my first experience of sex in a public place.

“You bad for doing that here! You dirty! You bad! Go! Go now!” With each syllable, he stabs his finger into the air, and even from the other side of the room, I can see his thick, caterpillar eyebrows furrow angrily.

I give Jeff’s arm a subtle squeeze, reminding him that we’re not, in fact, invisible, and that we actually need to make a move before this five-foot cock-blocker takes a step toward us.

Jeff kisses my lips quickly as he pulls himself out from my body and hoists his pants back up in a flash, narrowly missing catching his manhood in the zipper. I let the skirt of my dress fall to my ankles and smooth out the fabric. We slip out the door and hightail it back down the hallway to his brother’s wedding reception.

“Holy hell. Did that really just happen?” he asks over his shoulder as he reaches back for my hand.

“What? The realization that we just had a run in with Long Duk Dong thirty years after his movie debut in Sixteen Candles, or the fact you cramped up like a little bitch in the throes of passion?”

Jeff stops dead in his tracks and gives me a pointed look. “Hey, there was nothing bitchy about my moves back there. Or little for that matter.”

I can’t help but laugh softly.

“I love you,” he says with a smile that reaches his eyes.

“I love you, too,” I pant, still trying to catch my breath from the sexcapades that happened over the past ten minutes. I roll up onto my tip toes to lay another kiss on him and—

“You!”

Jeff and I both turn toward the distinct voice echoing from the far end of the hallway.

“Jesus! This guy is a stage five clinger,” I say.

“Let’s go. The last thing I want is to get kicked out during my brother’s wedding reception for indecent exposure.”

We slip inside the doorway, back into the reception hall full of Jeff’s intoxicated family and friends, but the security guard is still chasing after us, yelling about something I can’t make out while waving a tan-colored towel in the air like he’s trying to land a goddamned Boeing 747.

Oh shit.

I swallow hard and make a beeline to the bar with Jeff hot on my heels. “A glass of champagne—actually, two. Please.” I throw the last word in as an afterthought. I should probably try to be more polite in front of my boyfriend’s family.

“Uh, just one,” Jeff corrects the bartender before adding, “I’ll take a glass of scotch, I was done with the bubbles hours ago.”

“I know,” I deadpan and then look back over the counter to catch the barkeep’s attention. “Champagne, two glasses. Not one.”

He nods in compliance and quickly produces two glasses, one for each hand, then grabs the bottle of Johnny Walker Black and a low ball glass for Jeff. I toss back the first champagne flute in one swift motion and squeeze my eyes tight as the bubbles quickly take effect.

“Whoa, babe, slow down! The sex wasn’t that bad, was it?”

I shake my head no because, if I’m honest, having spontaneous wedding reception sex now tops my nonexistent list of sexual experiences outside of the bedroom.

Jeff laces his fingers through mine and lifts my chin toward his face. “Then what is it? Is everything okay?”

“No … I mean yes …” I sigh in defeat. Or maybe it’s embarrassment?

Tap … tap … tap … “Excuse me!” a man says in broken English from the microphone at the front of the stage.

Fuck.

“No. I'm not okay. That security guy is holding my Spanx hostage.” I bury my face in the crook of Jeff’s neck.

“Would da young lady in navy dress who left these,” he waves my unmentionables far above his head and the crowd begins to snicker, “come see me to take back?”

I groan and want for nothing more than the floor to swallow me whole.

The man’s eyes finally find mine in the crowd, and he smiles like he's just discovered the golden ticket into the Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. “You!” He points excitedly, gesturing me to come up and see him. “Here you go! These belong to you!”

More than a hundred pairs of eyes look from my underwear and then straight to me, standing in Jeff’s arms. They're quickly doing the math as to how I'm standing here and my Spanx are not plastered to my ass. The best I can hope for is that everyone is so completely wasted that they’ll have no memory of this moment when they wake up in the morning. I'd also settle for a cameo from Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones with those nifty mind eraser thingies from Men in Black.

Mrs. Carrington’s eyes find mine, and her expression changes no less than fifteen times, teetering between horror and amusement in the span of three seconds.

Just kill me. Kill me now!

And without hesitation, Jeff thrusts his glass of scotch in the air and shouts, “To Love!” mirroring my words from our moment of glory in the other ballroom.

For a fraction of a second, the room is frozen as they process the moment. Then everyone else lifts their drink in the air, echoing the sentiment and a valiant cheer.

The band resumes.

The chatter commences.

And I exit stage left in sheer mortification.