Page 63 of American Queen (New Camelot Trilogy 1)
Belvedere’s voice comes through. “Mr. President, I have our ambassador in Ukraine on the phone, and she’s on a non-secured line. May I put her through?”
“Yes.”
There’s a click, and then the voice of an older woman comes over the line. “Diana Cotter speaking.”
“Hello, Diana,” Ash greets her. “I’m sorry for the unexpected call, but I wanted to touch base with you before the next couple days play out. We have someone here without a Need to Know, so we need to keep it light.”
“Of course,” she says.
Embry, Ash, and the ambassador start talking, Ash quickly explaining the need to feel out the current political climate around Carpathia. True to his word, Ash doesn’t delve into anything requiring high-level security clearance, but it’s still fascinating and I’m listening in with my eyes glued to the phone, when I feel a thumb against my clit, hard and rough, rubbing small circles against the swollen bud. In an instant, all the banked desire from the last week is there. All-consuming, obliterating past and present, obliterating the future, destroying everything that isn’t the painful ache in my cunt as I push into Ash’s touch.
He pushes back, hard, giving my clit a light pinch that sends my eyes rolling back into my head. He does it again for good measure and I gasp, clapping my hand over my mouth once I realize my mistake, eyes darting back to the phone.
Ash arches an eyebrow at me—a can you keep quiet eyebrow—and I nod, a little frantically, desperate for him to keep doing what he’s doing. His thumb rubs steadily, the rhythm never breaking as he and Embry talk about border agreements and the UN and the Carpathian president, and I find myself rocking into his touch, squirming down onto his thigh to increase the pressure. His thumb stops as he leans over to end his phone call, but I keep rocking, tilting forward so that I’m rubbing my clit directly against his leg. It’s so shameful, so obscene and immodest, to be driven to the point that I don’t care that I’m rubbing against Ash’s leg like a dog in heat. That I don’t care that Embry is watching me debase myself so much, act so mindlessly carnal. There’s only the need, and if this is the only way I’m allowed to slake the need, then I’m fucking doing it.
Ash sits back, watching me with his elbow on the arm of the sofa and his head braced against his forefinger and his thumb. The erection tenting his slacks is massive, all the more erotic for the expensive tuxedo that frames it, but Ash’s face is perfectly controlled. Only the pulse beating at the side of his neck betrays his excitement. “Does that feel good?” he asks calmly as I grind against him.
“Yes,” I pant.
A sharp slap on my ass. I jolt and moan.
“Yes, Sir,” I try again.
“Good. My thigh is all you get right now. If you behave, you can earn more. My mouth maybe. Would you like that?”
My shudder is all the answer he needs. He looks past me to Embry. “She’s a good girl, isn’t she, Embry?”
His friend’s voice is hoarse when he answers. “Yes.”
Ash looks at his friend, his finger rubbing at his forehead. “Do you still want to go, Embry?”
Once again, Embry takes a long time to answer, but when he does, it’s definitive. “No. I want to stay.”
A smile curls Ash’s mouth. “I thought so. Would you like to see more of her? Maybe without the shirt?”
There’s a pause, a pause that seems to last forever, and in that pause I hear five years’ worth of agony.
“Yes,” Embry finally replies.
Ash looks back to me, and while there’s not satisfaction in his face necessarily, there is something else. Confirmation, maybe. Like it wasn’t what Embry said but how he said it that told Ash what he needed to know. “You heard the Vice President,” Ash says, running a finger down the placket of the shirt. “Take it off.”
Even in my need-to-come haze, I hesitate. “Can…can you take it off, please?”
“No.”
He’s going to make me do it. Just like the crawling. Each step of tonight is a crossroads—past what, I don’t know—but Ash is making sure that I’m the one taking each step. That I’m acutely aware of my own role in this.
I meet his eyes, every pleading, angry thought written on my face, and I feel his hand slide up my thigh and give it a reassuring squeeze. His eyes are so clear and so green, his pupils dilated into huge black pools of hunger. He doesn’t say anything
, doesn’t push, but keeps his eyes on mine, his hand gentle and sweet on my thigh.
He’s giving me a chance to safe out. One word, and I could end this misery for all three of us.
But oh God, I can’t bear to. Sometimes misery is better. Sometimes the forbidden fruit is just too sweet not to bite.
I lift my hands and begin unbuttoning the shirt, and both men exhale simultaneously. I should hate the rush of power that gives me, the rush of lust, but I don’t. It feels right. As right as kneeling, as right as crawling. As right as standing before a class or thumbing through books older than the college I teach at. Like I was born for it.
I take my time, not to be intentionally seductive, but because my hands are shaking so much that each button is a struggle. It’s worth it though, when I finally tug the shirt free from my shoulders and I see Ash’s control almost break. He shifts underneath me, his hand squeezing my thigh so hard I know I’ll bruise, and he bites his lower lip.
