Tempting Trouble

Chapter 81

"And you. my best man, know how to organise a good bachelor party." Ed praises me, holding his beer up as a way of showing me recognition. "I got worried you'd drag me along to some seedy strip club, like they do in movies."

"I couldn't do it, the thought of looking at some naked woman who isn't my girlfriend makes me feel sick." I admit before remembering who I'm talking to. "Sorry, that's probably the last thing you want to hear me talk about, your cousin naked."

The image of Claire's naked body fills my mind, such a glorious sight of perfection but not an image I should be thinking about when I'm next to Ed. 

"Weirdly, it makes me happy that you only have eyes for Claire." He chuckles. "I also feel the same about Bennu, she's the only woman I want to picture so I'm glad we didn't get a stripper like the girls did."

"Wait, what?" The girls had a stripper tonight? Claire didn't tell me she was organising some dude to come to the flat and take his clothes off. Did she keep this from me because she knew I'd get insecure about her looking another man's naked body? 

"Yeah, my parents and aunty Roni paid for it, he's a friend of my sister's apparently." He tells me, eyes trained to the beer in front of him as if trying to hide his own jealousy from me. "I hate the thought of Bennu looking at this guy or getting turned on by him but I'm all she's ever seen. I've shared the bed of many women before her but I'm the only experience she's had and I felt like I owed her this, as somewhat of an apology for my former self."

His guilt comes pouring out, confirming the rumours that would circulate around school about Ed being a player. 

"My dad says that you shouldn't punish someone for their past when they are making efforts to change." I share some wisdom with my friend and he looks at me with a smile. "Who you are now, a committed husband, is so far from who you were before Bennu."

"She brings out the best in me." He says and I understood where he was coming from because Claire did the same for me. 

"How will you survive an entire week without her?" I joke, knowing that after tonight, Ed is required to not see Bennu until their wedding day, as to keep with Bennu's customs. He'd be staying back at his parents house and Bennu would be staying at their flat with her sister, who was visiting. 

"Don't remind me." He groans, looking frustrated at just the thought. "This was one of the Turkish traditions that I was reluctant to take part in."

"Bennu's sister, you think she'd stop you from sneaking in?" I ask.

"If she's anything like their mother I think that would lead to getting my balls put through the blender." He laughs but I know Ed is a man who doesn't shy away from risk. Danger fuels his appetite. 

After everyone had finished their last drink we took the bus back to Ed and Bennu's flat. Ed explained to me on the drive how it was tradition in Turkey for the groom's party to end their night with the bride's. 

I was excited to see Claire but my insecurity, of her seeing another man naked, was eating away at me the entire bus ride. What if she liked what she saw and was now thinking she could do better than me? Like Bennu with Ed, I was the only man she'd ever been with, was I enough to keep her satisfied?

The bus pulled up out the front of Irish Ink and we all scrambled off fast, each man keen to get to his woman upstairs. The cold, wintery air seemed to sober me up slightly but I knew that tomorrow I'd wake up with a hangover from the cheap beer I'd drank tonight. 

We could hear the music, coming from the flat, pumping out on to the street and I wondered if the stripper was still up there, were we going to walk in and be confronted with a naked man dancing around our ladies. I didn't want Claire to think it bothered me that she had a stripper, I knew this wasn't her doing so I pushed my jealousy down and entered the flat with a smile on my face.