Page 44 of American Prince (New Camelot Trilogy 2)
“Did you pretend to force her?”
The words puncture me, lodge in me, expertly shot arrows. I look up at him, desperate, and he takes pity on me, bending down to stroke his fingers through my hair. “It’s what she would have needed, little prince. Wanted too.”
I duck my eyes in shame.
“Ah,” he says. “And it’s what you wanted.”
My hands are shaking, and he gets to his knees and wraps my hands in both of his. They’re steady and warm, like him.
“I walked in and she was tied up—I mean, taped up. Ankles and wrists. A gag. She begged me, she cried—” My voice threatens to break, but I keep going, keep confessing my sins to my priest. My king. “I asked you for something like that once—how could I deny her? And she said she needed it, but Ash…I wanted it before I thought of all that. I wanted it the moment I walked into that dark room and my shadow fell across her body.”
“Did you have a safe word?”
“We agreed on snapping fingers because I…I put her gag back in her mouth.”
Ash nods, acknowledging that we’d done it safely, but his eyes are already growing distant. I wonder if he’s imagining it, picturing the lurid, fucked-up scene for himself. “Did you leave her taped up?”
“Yes.”
His sweatpants do nothing to hide his growing erection. “Did she fight you?”
Shame and arousal come in equal measure. “Yes.”
“And you fought back and won.” He closes his eyes.
I can barely breathe. “Yes.”
“Did you want that too?”
My words are ghosts. “I pretended to be you.”
His eyes snap open, and the green of them goes more vibrant than the forest outside. His breathing is ragged and so is mine. “I’m so jealous, little prince,” he whispers. “I’m angry with myself that I couldn’t be there to give my wife what she needed and I’m grateful to you, that you could give it to her. The thought of the two of you together like that…” His mouth twists up in a rueful smile and he lets me go to gesture at the outline of his cock pressing against his sweatpants. “Well, you know.”
I miss his touch. “Do you forgive me?”
The forest eyes soften the tiniest bit. “You saved her life, Embry. I’ll forgive you anything.”
I nearly perish with relief.
“Even if you’d mocked me and hated me the whole time you cuckolded me, I’d forgive you. Even if you reenacted every kink I’d ever done with her to erase the memory of me from her body, I’d forgive you. If you two had fucked and then both decided to leave me, I’d forgive you. But especially this. You took care of her in the way she needed.”
“I feel like shit about it,” I mutter, although the truth is more complicated that, and his lingering smile tells me that he knows it.
“I forgive you, so you need to forgive yourself. She asked and you said yes, because you knew she needed it. Because you needed something similar once. And because you wanted it. And because you knew I would have given her the same were I there.” He stands and offers me a hand, and I let him help me to my feet.
“Sit,” he says, pointing to the couch and walking behind his desk as I do. I’m feeling shaken, flayed open after my confession and submission and his forgiveness, and so I search for anything to talk about that isn’t what I’ve done with my lover’s wife.
“Did our deception work? Keeping her abduction quiet?”
Ash nods as he looks through one of the deep drawers of the old desk. “As far as anyone knows—save for a trusted few—Greer and I have been here on our honeymoon and you have been taking a much-needed vacation at your mother’s lake house. Although I don’t know how much longer I could have kept it up. The press is ravenous for pictures of Greer and me.” As always, he sounds puzzled with the media’s fascination with him.
“It must be Greer,” he concludes, opening another drawer. “They all adore her—rightfully so—and seem to be obsessed with her. The wedding coverage and the post-wedding magazine covers and Internet articles…I couldn’t turn on the television without seeing clips from my own wedding. Couldn’t do anything without seeing her face.” He takes a deep breath, looking up at me. “Thank you, Embry. If you hadn’t brought her back, if you hadn’t come back…”
The sun moves out from behind a cloud, filling the windowed room with green-gold light, highlighting the silver near his temples and the faint lines around his eyes. He’s only thirty-six, just now entering the prime of his life, but for a moment, I can see the toll it’s all taken on him—the war, the presidency, Greer and me. It all rests on his shoulders and it always has, and normally he wears it so easily, but I can see now how much he’s come to rely on Greer for strength. And maybe even me too.
But then he straightens up, clutching something colorful in his large hand, and he’s back to power. Back to easy strength and calm. He walks back over to me, running the colorful thing through his hand, the thick shape of his cock so deliciously visible through his sweatpants. I can’t stop staring at it, staring at the black line of hair running down from his navel and into the waistband, the barest peek of more black hair beneath that.
He stops in front of me. “See something you like, Patroclus?”
