Page 70 of American Prince (New Camelot Trilogy 2)
“Yes,” I breathe back. “Yes.”
He squeezes one of my breasts hard. “I need you again.”
I can feel his need against my thigh and I obediently spread my legs. This time he kicks his pants off all the way, but the bed and the kissing don’t make it any less urgent, any less brutal. He fucks me until I come again, he fucks me until sweat rolls down his chest and his lungs heave for air and finally, at last, something seems to let go of him. He comes with the force of a man returning back to himself, with the force of an exorcism. This time he empties himself inside me with a jagged breath that seems drawn from his very soul.
I’m almost sad when his green eyes light on mine and I see them filled with concern and love. He flicks on a brighter light and stands up, inspecting my cunt, examining the welts on my ass. Then he asks, “How do you feel right now?”
It’s standard check-in talk, the kind of question he’s asked me countless times before, but we both know this time is different, that we edged close to a cliff we’d always kept well in the distance.
“Delirious,” I say. “And a little shaken.”
“I pushed you hard tonight,” he says. “I count on you being honest with me. I count on you stopping me if it’s too much.”
I shake my head before he even stops talking. “It wasn’t. I’m not ashamed to safe out or ask you to pull back. But Ash, I—” I stare up into his strong face, noticing the way the stubble shadows his cheeks this late into the day, the tousled waves of his hair. The glint of his wedding ring on his hand. “—your anger is more frightening than a riding crop.”
He sits next to me on the bed and I sit up too, drawing my knees up to my chest. His eyebrows pull together. “Because you’re worried I’ll go too far in my anger?”
My chin quivers and I have to look away. “Because it hurts my heart.”
He makes a noise, and then I’m being drawn into his arms. “I’m so sorry, little princess. I should have told you what—I—I needed you. I needed what you do for me.”
I breathe a sigh of relief. “So you weren’t angry with me.”
It’s his stillness that tells me. His silence. I pull back and find him watching me carefully. “Ash?” I say, my voice trembling.
He tucks a piece of hair behind my ear. “Let’s take a shower. And then there’s something I need to show you.”
The thing that drove Ash upstairs to punish my body is a three-minute video. It’s night vision, all greenish-hued and glow-eyed, but it’s clear enough. My blond hair is like white fire in the video, the silver duct tape flashing in the barely there light.
I had guessed there were cameras—why hadn’t I thought of that when I begged Embry to fuck me? Why hadn’t I guessed that Melwas would keep trying to destroy my life?
“You know I never held this against you or Embry,” Ash says apologetically, as if this video is all his fault. He closes the laptop on the coffee table in the living room and pulls me close to his body on the sofa. “But when I saw it, when Merlin told me, I was furious. At Melwas mostly. But also at you and Embry for being so careless. And Greer, if I’m being honest, there was a difference between simply knowing about it and then having to watch it.”
Suddenly, I need space from him. I stand up and cross my arms, walking over to the window. Panic is a fist clenched in my chest, but my voice comes out calm. “I’m sure there is a difference.”
“Greer, this isn’t just about us now.”
I press my fingers into my eyes, wishing I could drive out the shame with the pressure, squeeze it out of my head. “I know. Merlin has seen.”
“Not just Merlin. Not even close. It’s on the Internet. All the major outlets have seen it. Merlin, Kay, Trieste, Linette and Embry will be here tomorrow at seven for us to figure out a media defense.”
“So everyone will know I let Embry fuck me, but they don’t know about the kidnapping and nothing about that video suggests that it took place in Carpathia. And the video is date-stamped, so it looks like I fucked him while I was on my honeymoon with you.”
“You did fuck him, Greer. Be honest about that at least.”
That stings. His bitterness stings like acid. “Screw you,” I whisper.
He drops his head into his hands. “I’m sorry,” he says. “God, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. I just…”
The distance between us suddenly feels vast, and the things I feel about myself I’ve never felt before, not like this. With Ash, I always felt safe in loving two men, whole and healthy and happy. And for the first time, I wonder if he thinks I’m a slut. I wonder if he thinks I’m a whore, and not in the playful bedroom talk way, in the way men think it about women they don’t respect.
I wonder if I think it about myself.
After all, I did fuck his best friend. I did it after my wedding. I enjoyed it. I’d do it again. And now the whole world knows.
Ash looks up at me, his face miserable. “Greer.”
“It’s my fault, my mess. I’ll deal with it.” My voice is as cold as my stomach is hot with pain, and I turn to wheel into the bedroom. I can’t be around him right now.
