Page 113 of American King (New Camelot Trilogy 3)
How could I have thought I could say goodbye in one night? When I could spend years and years and never get enough of her?
I’m crying again.
I kiss her hard, kissing down all the questions and worries I know she must have, and then I clap a hand over her mouth as I move my lips to her jaw, to her throat, to her collarbone. And there I do my goddamned best to make a farewell of her body, my hand stifling her moans and my body keeping hers still as I nurse at her breasts and lick into the little well of her navel. I don’t pull my hand from her mouth until I’m moving down to her hips and her thighs, leaving no place unkissed, untasted, not even the backs of her knees or the rough pads of her toes.
I flip her over, making the same tour over her warm, spanked ass, over the dimples in her lower back, up to the angel wings of her shoulder blades. Kisses and bites and licks and sucks, anything a hungry mouth can do to a sweep of willing flesh, all the way up to her neck. I kiss her ears, the base of her skull, the winding loops of her cool, silky hair, remembering with pained fondness all the times I’ve rubbed that hair over the most private parts of me just to feel the cool silkiness on my most sensitive skin. Wrapped around my cock, sliding against my sac. Tickling my inner thighs. It would make her eyes glow with lust as she laid her head on my thigh and watched my face as I despoiled her hair. It would make her so wet that I could see the arousal shining on her thighs, so wet that I could smell the faint honey scent of it on the air.
Tonight, however, I move back down her body, kissing down the pearl necklace of her spine until I reach the spot I want to be. I grab her hips to hoist her up, and then I part her cheeks and give her a flat, long lick from clit to ass.
She cries out, rocking from side to side, and I give her a little swat. “Hold still, angel. This part’s for me, not you.”
“Mmph,” she says, pressing her face into the blanket as I return to her seam and begin fucking her with my tongue. “Mmph!”
I wasn’t lying though, beca
use this part is for me. I can’t imagine dying without tasting her one last time; I can’t imagine leaving this life without the lingering memory of her on my tongue. She tastes so fucking sweet, with just that bit of salt and earth that makes her all woman, and I’m so hard as I eat her, as I wonder which parts of her taste are uniquely hers and which are uniquely Embry’s.
I must have tasted her at least once a day since we’ve been married, but it will never be enough. Fuck. Never ever.
I make her come like this…then a second time, rolling her to her back so that I can see her face as I peer up at her over the rise of her pussy. It’s not a position I’ve used often, which is partly because it’s a very passive, docile way to eat a woman, although I meant what I said to Embry about positions being irrelevant to the heart of kink. No, it’s more that the temptation of her is too great like this, when I can see her lips working silently and her gray eyes massive with lust and love—and the minute I make her come again, I’m unfastening my pants and sliding home.
Every part of it I savor. Every part I commit to memory. The gasping way she says my name. The frantic rock of her hips when I slow down. The tremors in her thighs after I pinch her ass for being an impertinent slut and moving when I didn’t tell her to.
The wet, sweet clench of her cunt as she comes a third time.
And finally, the look in her eyes as I surge over her and give her everything, everything of me.
Perhaps Embry’s always had the part of me that wielded the sword, but she…she’s always owned the part that wears the crown.
My little princess, my submissive, my professor and my angel.
My queen.
And maybe, if I’ve gotten to find her and Embry in a second life, I’ll get to find them in a third. Maybe tomorrow I’ll close my eyes and when I wake, we’ll all be together again, starting all over, heartbreaks and wars and all. Because one thing’s for fucking certain—while my heart beats, it will beat for them, no matter which life we’re in.
I will find them again and I will love them again.
And if I have to, I will die for them again.
TWENTY-NINE
ASH
now
Greer is attending the debate with me, and I can’t find it in my heart to wish her elsewhere. I want her close, I want her near, and as much as I don’t want her to see what comes next, I take a small cinder of comfort in knowing that Embry will be here. He will take care of her afterwards, and she of him. I think back to my phone call with Merlin last night and swallow.
I should take pride in what will happen after I die. Take joy, even. This is all new, all different from my other life.
For once, at least two of us will have a happily ever after. And perhaps the letter I gave Merlin this morning to mail to Seattle will give Lyr some closure as well. I only had the chance to be his father for such a brief time, but I still want him to know that I treasured that time, that I loved him, and that I have every bit of faith in him and his future. All the things I never had a father tell me.
The pre-debate process is much the same. Makeup, notes, bustling. Merlin is there, silent like me, as Belvedere and Kay talk. They don’t know. No one knows except us, and I have a flash of empathy for Merlin. How has he borne it all these years, knowing things no one else did? Knowing horrible, ugly sins and terrifying futures?
It’s a very lonely feeling.
Finally, Greer is kissing me for good luck, and she looks surprised but happy as I seize her close and kiss her hard, sliding my tongue between her lips and tasting her to my satisfaction. When I let her go, I take her left hand in both of mine and hold it to my chest. “I love you more than life itself,” I say quietly, seriously. “And I always want you to be happy. Watching you and Embry love each other has been the greatest joy of my life. My love for the two of you exists inside your love for each other—when you love each other, you are loving me. Promise me you’ll remember that.”
“Ash, I—” Her brow is furrowed and her eyes are frantically searching mine.
