Page 48 of First Date: Divorce
“Kiss is next.Gotta have a shot of you-may-now-kiss-your-bride.Not quite yet.Wait… If I can get Daniel’s shoulder without any of his face…” Kendra adjusted two settings on the camera, then commanded, “Okay, go ahead.”
K.D.didn’t move.Neither did Eric.
K.D.didn’t breathe, either, however, and she was pretty sure Eric kept breathing.
“Go ahead,” Kendra repeated.She looked up from the viewfinder and said impatiently, “Face each other.Get closer.Pucker your lips.Kiss.”
As if in delayed motion, Eric followed each step, with K.D.half a beat behind.So he leaned forward when K.D.formed her mouth into the requisite pucker.He waited.She closed the gap and touched her lips to his.
Retreated.
Silence followed from their “guests,” though their minister might have snorted.
Kendra looked up again.“That sucked.”
“Kendra,” Ellyn scolded.
“It’s the truth.It’s not the first wedding kiss to suck.A lot of them do.Though—”
“Not ours,” Daniel said, raising an echoing murmur from the other marrieds.
“—some couples get so into it they—”
“Don’t say it, Kendra.”Despite a tremor in her voice, Ellyn’s tone was not to be ignored.
“I know, I know.At real weddings, I never let myself think about things like that, much less say them.Well, not think them at the time, anyway.But you’ve got to admit, that was one terrible kiss.”
More murmurs of agreements.
“Try again,” Daniel suggested.
Before K.D.could offer the rude response that came to mind, Eric muttered a syllable, put a hand to each side of her head, crinkling the veil, and brought her mouth to his.
Taser.
That was the only thing her befuddled brain came up with.
She’d been hit by a taser in training — they all were, so they knew the experience.She’d had the same instant knee-buckling, I-have-no-control-over-my-body reaction.
Except the taser completely missed another part of this experience.Warmth, firmness, friction.A sense that she could sink and sink and sink into those sensations, along with the warmth and firmness of his hold, and never reach bottom.
“Good, good.Yes, exactly like that.”
K.D.wasn’t entirely clear if the words came from Kendra or from inside her own head.
“Now hold it.Don’t move a muscle.I’m switching to the still camera.Stay right like that.Right like that.”
Not move a muscle?K.D.had no muscles left to move.
Yet not moving was impossible.Shehadto move.
Her hands came up to Eric’s, covering them as they still held her head.
Did she intend to remove his hands or hold them in place?
“Okay, good.Got it.Great,” Kendra said.“Now, the end of the ceremony and turning to the crowd as a married couple.That’s the big one.That’s the money shot.That’s when everybody sees if they’re both ecstatic.Or if the seeds of doubt are there for one or both.Will this marriage survive?Or not?”
Kendra coughed.
