Wedding of the Century update

“No, you're not hers at all, are you?”

Dizziness fluttered along him. Felicia stood up in a smooth undulation, as if she were growing to her full beauty. His view became her skirt where it flowed over the fronts of her thighs, dipped between them both vague and infinitely hinting. He could tell how firm her thighs were, just seeing them roll under the skirt.

“Should I take this off?” Felicia asked, her voice lilting sweetly.

“Beg pardon?” Peter mumbled.

“If it's not okay for the shoot,” Felicia smiled. “I've been wearing this one a while to get comfortable with it, so I feel more relaxed when you shoot me, but if you think it doesn't work, I can always put on something else.”

“You don't have to put on anything,” Peter assured her.

“I think so too,” Felicia said, and brought her hands to her hip, where she undid the button of her skirt.

Peter's eyes widened, seeing her catch the skirt in one hand while the other lowered her zipper. The sound of the metal teeth separating seemed to go straight through Peter, like the sound of his own rushing blood when the creamy rose color of her bare hip revealed itself in the spreading opening. 

“What are you doing?” he asked, feeling suddenly furtive as a criminal just looking at her.

“It's like you said—I don't have to wear anything.“

Felicia turned away from him to step out of her skirt, inching it down to show him how her slender back swelled into a fullness slipped like a glove into silk panties.

Peter shut his eyes tightly and tried to even out his ragged breathing. “I don't think it's such a good idea to strip down with a stranger.”

He heard fabric rustle as she sat down beside him. “Maybe not a good idea… but it can be a lot of fun.”

“Mary Jane and I…”

“I thought you two were just good friends,” Felicia cooed, picking a piece of lint from his shirt.

“We are!” Peter said, resisting the urge to slap her hand away.

“So she'd just be happy if you were kissed by a nice girl… or a not so nice girl.”

Peter felt split in half. Half of him wished he could overcome his shyness enough to look at her. Another half wished he was confident enough to tell her to put some pants on. And the halves weren't evenly divided.

“It's a little more complicated than that.”

“Is it? Boy girl. Man woman. That seems pretty simple to me. Either you're with her or you're not. And right now, it seems like you're with me instead.“

“I just came here to take pictures of you,” Peter protested. 

“Yes. Pictures of me, not my clothes.” She laid her head on his shoulder. “We should be comfortable with each other if you're going to shoot me. So why don't we get comfortable? You should learn my body if you're going to know how best to make it look beautiful.”

“I mean, I don't think I'll need to work that hard to make you look good.”

“You don't seem like a man who's afraid of a little hard work.” She kissed the heaviness of his shoulder. “Don't tell me you're actually holding out for Watson. She doesn't love you and she's never going to. You're a meme she's playing along with.”

“And what are we?” Peter asked, feeling a flush of irritation.

“Just a fling, sure… but isn't that more than you're getting from her?”

“It's not about what I'm getting—”

Felicia cackled. “Oh, you are a gentleman. Thinking only of what you can do for her… the poor billionaire.”

Peter lifted his shoulder enough to make her stop leaning on him. “She's a person.”

“She's using you.”

Peter shook his head. “She's not.”

“You're adorable,” she said, moving her arms to wrap around him.

Peter stood before she had the chance. “And I'm not interested in being your gigolo.”

“Yes you are,” Felicia said shamelessly, coming to her feet like she was sprawling out on a plush bed.

“Okay, fine, I am, but that doesn't mean you can just snap your fingers and get me in your bed.”

“Oh my God… you're really that worried about hurting her. A woman who only knows you exist because it makes her trend in Twitter.”

“It's not about her. It's about me. I'm not into being used. And you're only interested in me because it'll have you mentioned in the same breath as Mary Jane.”

Felicia's face finally fell out of its coy expression. “She's taking you for a ride. Sure, I'm doing the same, but I'm giving you a chance to get something out of it.”

“I am getting something out of it. I'm her friend.”

Felicia laughed, but to Peter, it sounded forced.

“Take a selfie,” he told her, grabbing up his jacket and heading for the door.

“Peter, wait,” she called when he was halfway out the door. He turned, thoughtlessly, and saw her coming up to him without a stitch on, her beauty totally overwhelming him even before she encased him in her ivory arms, pressing herself to his chest and revealing her body to be soft as sable.

There was warmth in the atmosphere far beyond what even her lush body could provide. Her perfume was almost dizzying, like crushed rose petals ran through his very arteries. He was exhilarated and yet relaxed.

“Don't think of her; she's not thinking of you. Think of me. I'm thinking of you.” Her voice, animal and husky, barely registered. Far more he heard promise and invitation. “You've played hard to get—it was cute. But now I'm getting you.”

Her eyes bore into him, so much darker than MJs, and he could not pretend she had ever looked at him like this.

She kissed him. It was like sinking into quicksand, being at the center of a vortex. His mind had suddenly gone from low tide to high tide, besieged by crashing waves. Felicia was all about him, leaving him nowhere to turn from her drive, her desire, the sheer will of her demanding to be satisfied. She was melded to him, making him kiss her back with a simple need to please her, and as if she were guiding his hands, Peter found them going to every glorious womanly curve of her in turn. His senses rioted and still he kissed her, months open, tongues locked, teeth biting. 

He didn't know what was wrong, only that something was wrong. Taking hold of her slender shoulders… even they were sumptuous… was like injecting himself with pure adrenaline, but he managed to push her away despite the renewed temptation.

He didn't even have it in him to say anything. All he could manage was to turn on his heel and leave. It was an unspeakable relief when he heard the door slam shut behind him. He didn't know if he'd have the strength to keep his back turned to that all the way to the elevator. 

He hit the floor button immediately, and when the elevator rocked into motion, it swayed and shifted more than he'd ever felt an elevator do.

How to explain, even to himself, how he could want something so much and still have it feel wrong? He thought of Mary Jane. Was it as simple as not wanting to hurt her? And why would it hurt her, when they were so little to each other? 

Peter resolved to put it out of his mind. If he'd been able to be seduced, he would've been seduced.  He didn't want to be led around by the nose, or anywhere else in his anatomy, so he hadn't been. Simple as.

And even if he and Mary Jane weren't anywhere near where he'd almost been with Felicia, he didn't like the thought of being so… friendly with the redhead and then letting another woman run riot on him. 

And it wasn't like he disliked the thought of being unfaithful to Gwen. It was more like it was unthinkable to him. And there was a difference between finding what he and Mary Jane shared, and just jumping into bed with some girl.

Though try telling his body that. He still felt like he'd just run a four minute mile.

Octavius. The thought was like a bucket of cold water splashed in his face. He needed Mary Jane to get to Octavius.

Peter shook his head. That wasn’t it. He liked her, he cared about her. But if he was on good terms to her, he could get at Octavius. What was some one night stand, no matter how orgiastic, compared to that?

He wouldn’t have thought anything could drive the flaring sense-memory of Felicia out of his mind, but by the time he got home, all he could think of was Ock. He hadn’t even known the man was alive when he befriended Mary Jane; but now that he knew, MJ was an asset. And it was hard not to manage her. The ingrained commandments of a life where knowing how to use someone could be the difference between life and death.

Well, it hardly mattered, he assured himself as he unlocked the door to his apartment. The furor between him and Mary Jane had to be dying down. She’d go on tour or shoot a movie and forget all about him. He wouldn’t have to worry he was manipulating her. By now, she was probably… trawling her back-up dancers for a date. Peter knew he would, if he had the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders following him around wherever he went.

He got so distracted by the thought of the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders being his ensemble that he nearly got hit in the head by the smartphone that was thrown at him. But he’d had his spider-sense long enough to catch things instead of letting them break his nose.

“Jerk!” Mary Jane cried.

Mary Jane stood in his apartment wearing cargo pants, flip-flops, a Last Action Hero T-shirt, and a faceful of runny mascara, which was enough to give Peter the immediate impression that she had gotten out of the shower, thrown on whatever was clean, and come to see him armed with a smartphone meant for his face. What, had Felicia phoned her to say she knew what flavor of TicTac he liked?

Or, he amended, seeing what was on the smartphone meant for his concussion—had the Daily Bugle posted a cheating scandal article with pictures of him and Felicia as he left her apartment? And with smaller censor bars than he thought a reputable newspaper should use.