Page 102 of American King (New Camelot Trilogy 3)
“I’ll never stop worrying about you,” I told him. “Patroclus.”
“Don’t. God.”
“Tell me if it’s her.”
“So then what will you do? Break it off to spare me the pain of watching you with someone else? Stay with her, but hide your joy from me? I don’t want either of those things; they would gut me.”
“Then what do you want, Embry?”
“I want…” He put the glass against his forehead, closing his eyes. “I don’t even know. It’s too tangled up now. You. Her. Me.”
Her.
Why would she tangle him up?
I watched him carefully, sensing rather than seeing something revealing itself, a floor of ice between me and him finally thinning and cracking.
“Did she submit?” Embry asked, eyes still closed. “When she was here the other night? Did she submit to you?”
“Yes.”
A pause. “Does she do it better than me?”
“That’s like asking which ocean is better. You are different in the way you let me love you. She gives. You fight.” And I need both, I wanted to add, but I didn’t.
The only response I got was a mumbled, “Everyone knows the Pacific is the best ocean.” The ice got thinner and thinner as Embry opened his eyes and saw me staring at him. His pupils dilated as I ran my tongue along my top teeth.
“Are you jealous of her?” I finally asked.
“No,” he said.
I studied my hands for a moment. “Is that the truth?”
Another pause. “No.”
I widened my feet, planting my dress shoes farther apart on the carpet so that there would be plenty of room for a grown man to kneel there. “Get on your knees and tell me the truth.”
He set down the now-empty glass, his eyes flashing. “No.”
I was on him before I even knew I was going to do it, my fist in the shoulder of his tuxedo jacket and my other hand cupping the back of his neck, and it was only a moment’s work before he was panting on his knees. I kept hold of him, wary that he might bolt at any moment.
“Now tell me the fucking truth.”
He looked up at me with pain and defeat in his face. “Does it matter?”
“Everything about you matters to me. Why shouldn’t your jealousy?”
He didn’t answer.
I traced the line of his lips, and he shuddered beautifully at my touch. “It’s more than jealousy then. Something else, something you don’t want to tell me. What could that be, Embry? What do you want to hide from me?”
His eyelashes swept up in the most mesmerizing arc, twin spots of color pinked his cheeks. And he was so handsome, still so mine, and if I pulled him to my mouth right now, I’d be able to kiss him, I’d be able to kiss the lies and the secrets right out of him.
How? How could I want that so much at the same time I still wanted Greer so much? I felt it but I didn’t understand it, and I knew it was as unfair to them as it was necessary to me, and there had to be way forward that was fair to all of us, healthy for all of us.
Embry was about to answer me, and I leaned even closer because I don’t know that I still hadn’t ruled out kissing, and then we heard a woman’s voice around the corner, and it was Greer, and as she stepped into the room I kept my eyes on Embry and I saw it.
I saw the truth.
