Page 22 of American Prince (New Camelot Trilogy 2)
“You don’t have to be coy, Morgan. I saw what your body looked like after a week with him.”
She chewed on her lip again. “I could see what he was. Is, I mean. I see what he is because I’m like him in what I want, how I love. But Embry—you’re not.”
“Not what? Game for being spanked?”
She rolled her eyes, looking like a teenager again, like the bossy older sister that would bother me when I was trying to watch TV.
“It’s a lot more than spanking, you know.” Her expression turned serious. “He wouldn’t just want your body. He’d want your mind, your thoughts, your heart. Your surrender. That’s more than a few playful slaps. It’s power and pain and control. He might be able to live without it, but even if he could, the need for it would gnaw at him every day.”
“And you think I can’t handle that?”
She looked incredulous. “Embry, you are the most selfish person I’ve ever met. You don’t take anything seriously, all you want to do is drink and fuck, and on top of that, you brood all the time. Or at least, you brood when you’re not fucking and drinking. Do you really think you’re the ideal person to bear the brunt of Maxen’s needs? You can’t even handle your own!”
She had a point. Several good points, actually. I couldn’t imagine willingly allowing someone to hurt me, allowing someone to take the reins in bed. I was too much of a fuck-up emotionally to even play around with giving up my emotions to someone else.
“How do you know about all this kinky shit anyway?” I asked my stepsister. “You are way too knowledgeable.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Do you really want the answer to that?”
I thought for a moment and said quickly, “You know what? I don’t.”
She laughed.
I stood. “I guess I should go. Are you sure you’re okay leaving the hospital?”
“Yes, Nimue is picking me up and flying with me.”
Nimue was my mother’s youngest sister, closer to our age than to hers, and as a genuine, quinoa-eating, crystal-wearing Seattle hippie, she was a perennial embarrassment to Lieutenant Governor Vivienne Moore. But she was nurturing and kind and also a professor of sociology, so she was fiercely intelligent. Morgan would be in good hands.
I bent down and hugged my sister as best as I could in her hospital bed, careful of her injured shoulder. “Love you, sissy.”
“Love you too, bubby. I still don’t forgive you.” She pulled back from the hug so she could look up into my face as she spoke. “And don’t forget what I said about Colchester. For the sake of your own happiness, you should stay far, far away from him. Find a nice girl. Maybe a quiet blonde who likes books. She’ll be much less trouble.”
10
Greer
after
President Melwas Kocur sits across a table from me. The table is wide enough to accommodate serving dishes, flowers, candles, and wineglasses—Melwas has ordered the servants here not to disturb us as we eat, and so we serve ourselves, me only eating things that he’s eaten first. I taste nothing of the food, save for—strangely—the paper-thin apple slices in the salad. They are too tart, pulling my tongue to the top of my mouth, making me swallow unnecessarily. No matter how much water I drink or whatever else I eat, that tartness lingers and stings.
Melwas is as handsome as I remember him, blond hair and a strong face, a wide, muscular build that he clearly dresses to show off. But up close that handsomeness is compromised. By the hardness of his eyes, which are the flat color of acorns pressed into winter mud. By his mouth, which is almost too thin for how broad his jaw is. By the softness of his hands as they cradle his wineglass and pluck idly at the linen napkins.
“Aren’t you going to ask?” he says finally.
I haven’t said anything since I’ve gotten to the table, save for a quiet thank you when Melwas complimented my appearance. I didn’t want to say even that much, but I had decided to be Queen Guinevere and it’s what she would have done. Both to indicate her personal sovereignty was intact and to set the tone for the interactions to come. Much as I resented the idea of being polite to a kidnapper, it was expedient for me to keep Melwas within the bounds of civility for as long as possible.
“Ask what?”
He gestures around the lodge. “Why you’re here. Why I’m here. Why I had you spirited away in such a manner.”
“I assume it’s a move meant to provoke my husband,” I say. I sound much calmer than I feel.
Melwas nods. “Yes, partly that. But Greer, you cannot have forgotten the words we exchanged in Geneva.”
Someday I’ll see what the great hero gets to enjoy every night.
I have not had a challenge in a very long time.
