Bonus Chapter: Glass Ceiling

An Exclusive Bonus Scene from Borrowed Veil, Stolen Kiss
by Riley Kendra

This bonus chapter takes place one year after the events of Borrowed Veil, Stolen Kiss. It contains explicit sexual content and is intended for readers 18+.

The greenhouse was closed for the season.

That was the official version — the one Margaret had given when Sloane called to ask, very casually, very professionally, whether Linden Glass might be available for a “private event consultation” on a Saturday evening in January. Margaret, who was seventy and not stupid, had said, “Consultation. Of course. I’ll leave the key under the third planter. Lock up when you’re done with your consultation.”

She’d said consultation the way someone says sure, it’s just a headache when they know it’s a migraine. But she’d left the key. And the heating on. And a bottle of champagne on the center table with a note that read: About damn time. — M

Sloane pocketed the note, adjusted the ring box in her blazer pocket for the eleventh time, and started setting up.

The greenhouse looked different in winter darkness. The glass walls were black mirrors, reflecting the interior back at itself. She’d brought string lights — wound them through the iron framework, plugged them in, and watched the space transform into something that looked like the inside of a wish.

The ring was in her pocket. White gold, a single sapphire flanked by small diamonds. The sapphire was the color of the cotton underwear Harper had been wearing the first time Sloane undressed her.

Her phone buzzed.

Harper: Pulling in now. Why am I at the greenhouse? Your text said “wear the sundress” and nothing else. It’s January, Sloane.

Sloane stood at the end of the candle-lit aisle, beside the olive tree, in a charcoal suit and bare feet, and listened to the greenhouse door open.

Harper’s gasp echoed off the glass.

She stood in the doorway in the green sundress — the one from their first Friday — over thermal leggings and canvas sneakers, and her hand was over her mouth, and her eyes were already filling.

“Sloane,” she whispered.

“Come here.”

Harper walked down the aisle. Slowly. Each step through the candlelight brought her closer, and Sloane watched her come the way she’d watched ninety-seven brides walk down ninety-seven aisles, except this time, the woman walking toward her was hers.

Sloane reached into her blazer pocket and pulled out the ring box. Opened it. The sapphire caught the candlelight and blazed.

“Harper Lane. I have planned ninety-seven weddings. I have cried at every single one. And then you walked into a vineyard with a broken centerpiece and hot glue on your arm, and I thought: oh. There you are. I’ve been waiting for you.”

She lowered to one knee.

“Marry me, Harper. In this greenhouse. In this light. In your sneakers. No performance. No strategy. Just you and me and the rest of our lives.”

“Yes,” Harper said. Before the question mark fully landed. “Yes. God, yes. Obviously yes.”

Harper pulled Sloane to her feet by the lapels and kissed her. Sloane slid the sapphire onto Harper’s ring finger. It fit — because Sloane had stolen Harper’s favorite ring from the bathroom counter three weeks ago and had it sized, because she was a planner.

“You chose my engagement ring based on my underwear.”

“I chose it based on everything your underwear represented. Which is you. Unperformed. Real.”

Harper kissed her again. Harder. With the specific urgency of a woman who had just been proposed to and was experiencing a neurochemical event that made restraint feel like a suggestion.

“I do not want champagne. I want you to take me to the olive tree and fuck me like we’re christening our wedding venue. Because we are.”

Sloane grabbed Harper’s hand and walked her to the olive tree. She pressed Harper against the tree. The bark was rough against Harper’s back through the thin cotton of the sundress.

“You’re my fiancée,” Sloane said. The word was new in her mouth. She tested it. Found it extraordinary.

Harper’s hands found Sloane’s blazer buttons. The blazer fell. The shirt followed. Sloane found the zipper on Harper’s sundress and drew it down. The dress fell, and she peeled the leggings down, unhooked the bralette, slid the underwear — pale blue, always pale blue — off her hips.

Harper was naked in the greenhouse. Bare feet on warm stone, back against rough bark, candlelight painting her skin gold. The ring glinted on her left hand.

Sloane knelt on the warm stone floor. She kissed the inside of Harper’s knee, then slowly up the soft inner thigh, each kiss a syllable in a vow she was writing on Harper’s skin.

“I’m going to make you come in our wedding venue. Against our olive tree. Under our string lights. And then I’m going to do it again on our wedding night, in this exact spot, and every anniversary after that.”

She put her mouth on her.

Harper cried out — the greenhouse caught the sound and amplified it, bouncing it off the glass walls. In this room, sound had nowhere to hide. Every gasp was everywhere.

Sloane licked her with patient, thorough, devastating attention. She circled Harper’s clit in the exact rhythm that made her thighs shake. Slid two fingers inside and curled forward. Synchronized tongue and hand with the practiced fluency of a woman who had spent a year learning a single subject and had achieved mastery.

She added a third finger — Harper was ready, soaked, open — and the sound Harper made echoed off every pane of glass.

“Come for me. In our greenhouse. Let the whole building hear you.”

Harper came with a scream that rang through the glass walls like a bell. This was what freedom sounded like.

Then Harper grabbed her, spun them, and pressed Sloane against the olive tree. “My turn. Fiancée.”

She said it like a weapon. Like a claim.

Harper dropped to her knees. Her mouth was on Sloane before she could draw a full breath. She licked her with the confident, devoted precision of a woman who had started as a beginner in a venue kitchen and had spent twelve months becoming an expert.

She knew the exact pressure that made Sloane’s knees buckle. The exact rhythm that made her lose language. The exact moment to slide two fingers inside and curl them while sucking her clit.

Sloane came with Harper’s name shattering in the glass above them — filling the greenhouse with the sound of a woman who had finally been built a love of her own.

They held each other against the olive tree, naked and trembling, the candles burning low, the string lights steadfast above.

“We’re getting married,” Harper whispered.

“I want string lights at the wedding, and ivy on the arch, and wildflower centerpieces in mismatched bottles, and my sneakers, and you barefoot, and Hemingway in a bowtie.”

“Hemingway is not wearing a bowtie.”

“Hemingway is absolutely wearing a bowtie.”

Sloane kissed her. In the greenhouse, in the candlelight, under the string lights, with the sapphire ring between them and the rest of their lives stretching out before them.

No performance. No strategy. Just love.

Thank you for reading. If you enjoyed Harper and Sloane’s story, please consider leaving a review.

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