Page 41 of American King (New Camelot Trilogy 3)
He brought me here because he loves me.
Greer finally catches sight of me as they turn, and her delighted smile lights a bittersweet flame in my chest. I give her a tentative smile back, my heart racing, and then I slide my gaze over to Ash.
A slow, warm smile spreads across his face. “Embry,” he says. “You came.”
I answer simply, “You asked me to come.”
His smile twists up ruefully. “If only it were that easy all the time.”
Before I can respond and spoil the moment, he bends down and murmurs something to his wife. It sounds like, “Go greet our guest.”
Her eyes flick up to his, as if silently asking a question, and then he nods, letting go and watching her cross the space between him and me.
And I’m entranced. It’s hard not to be entranced with Greer—th
ere’s something about the way she carries herself, about the careful reserve of that exquisite face. Like no matter how you open her up and turn her pages, you’ll never know all of her. You’ll never read every secret; there will always be something out of reach and held apart. You could spend your entire life trying to learn every glow and shadow of her heart and mind and still never finish.
It’s been two months since her grandfather’s funeral, two months since I’ve been in the same room with her, and I’d forgotten. Forgotten the power of her moonlight eyes and sunshine hair. Forgotten how she makes my bones ache and my blood hot just by looking at me. All those shameful nights since Abilene drugged me, alone in my bed with nothing but memories and internet searches, jerking off to pictures of Greer—it’s almost blinding to be confronted with the real woman again, and not the ghost.
I stay completely still as she approaches, blood thundering everywhere and making me hot and full in the part that has missed Greer and Ash most. I’m not sure what to say or what to do or even why I’m here, but I do know that I want it. Whatever it is. Abuse, recrimination, punishment—if they want to spend the next hour yelling at me, it would be the sweetest symphony, and if they want to beat me, it would feel like a thousand beloved caresses. I’m starving for them.
Greer stops just in front of me. Slowly, she puts her hand flat against my chest, right over my heart. I realize I’m still in my tuxedo, my unknotted bow tie hanging rakishly around my neck. I feel ashamed of it, ashamed of my wedding clothes, ashamed to be here in such a visible reminder of what separates us.
But Greer moves closer and rises up on her tiptoes and buries her nose in my neck. Smelling me.
The raw carnality of it has me fighting back a groan, a fight I lose when I look up and see Ash watching us with glittering eyes, his arms folded across his impressive chest and his erection pushing against the front of his pants.
And then Greer’s lips are against my throat, my jaw, as I stand completely still, not sure what I’m allowed to touch. What I’m allowed to enjoy. I dip my gaze to the woman kissing my jaw and then lift it back to Ash.
Can I?
“Say please,” he says.
“Please,” I breathe, without the slightest hesitation.
Ash gives me a nod, and that’s enough permission for me. I yank my queen in against my body, one arm banded around her waist, the other behind her neck, and I press my hungry mouth to hers for the first time in what feels like forever.
“God, you taste amazing,” I mumble against her mouth. “Fuck.”
In response, she slides her arms around my neck and pulls herself up, wrapping her lean legs around my waist, and it’s instinct that has me catching her under the thighs to support her.
It’s curiosity that sends my hands sliding up her legs to her ass.
No panties.
Shit.
Shit.
My hands are as hungry as my mouth, and they’re currently filled with the delicious flesh of her bottom, and I am squeezing and plumping under her skirt as my lips finally slot against her own in a way that coaxes them to part. And then I’m truly tasting her mouth—sweet champagne and the clean taste of her, just her—in the first real kiss I’ve had since…since when? Since that night in Ash’s office? When he’d crushed his body into mine, guided my hand to where he wanted it?
And how long since the three of us? It must have been Camp David, after I brought Greer home and before I flew to Seattle. Almost five months.
Five months. And I am so fucking tied in knots over just a kiss from Greer. How am I going to survive the rest of my life without her? Without him?
I kiss her for a long time. Long enough for a full waltz to play, long enough for my muscles to remind me that I’m carrying her weight on my arms, long enough for me to refamiliarize myself with the swells and swerves of her mouth—the tiny vaults between teeth and tongue, the silky arches of lips, the heat, the taste, the taste. She moans against me, squirms against me, the center of her heat right against my stomach, and I hate every fiber of the fabric that separates my skin from hers.
“And what about me?” Ash finally asks. “Do I get a greeting as well?”
