Page 55 of American King (New Camelot Trilogy 3)
IT’S four in the morning, and a soft October chill fogs the corners of the windowpanes. Outside, the sky is an inky gloom backlit by the tired blare of the city lights, and the wind is tugging at every crack in the building, blowing brittle leaves noisily by.
Inside, however, is warm and the kind of cozy dark that makes a man want to sleep forever, but I’m not asleep because I don’t want to miss a single second of this, I want all of it etched onto the metal of my mind, indelible and permanent.
After our intense scene, Ash spent a long, intimate hour with aftercare. He cleaned us with warm rags, he gave us cold water, he rubbed our legs and backs and kissed along every inch of Greer and me as we lay tangled and spent underneath him. And after he finished tending to every bruise and sticky spot, after he finished murmuring words of pride and affection to us—that we made him so proud, that we made him so happy, that we were so precious to him—he also stretched out on the bed next to me. And without preamble, Greer poured herself into the narrow space between us, threw a leg over my hip, hugged Ash’s hand to her heart, and fell immediately asleep, her rosebud mouth slightly parted and her hair—freshly brushed by Ash—gleaming on the pillow.
But I stayed awake to watch her, and Ash did too, and now we’re staring at each other over Greer’s head. He moves his hand from her chest and runs it over the muscles of my bicep and shoulder. And then he takes my hand. Not to bite or bind, not to use on his cock. He takes it to hold it, and that simple touch undoes me, breaks open whatever little armor I have left.
“Tonight,” I say.
“Tonight,” he agrees.
I think of being between the two of them, of being so in love and blown open that I forgot who I was. I think of holding Greer and kneeling before Ash, and I think of the long days ahead with none of that. With a cold bed and a lonely heart, shut off from the only two people I ever want to love, and tonight was a painful blessing, with every high underscored by the bitterest low.
“It was cruel to give it to me.”
“Maybe.”
“And kind.”
His thumb rubs at the back of my hand. “Yes.”
“Because you love me.”
His eyes look like captured shadows in the dark. “Because I love you.”
His fingers move to the band of metal around my ring finger, rotating the ring and caressing the skin around it.
I don’t know how it makes me feel to have his fingers on that ring. Not when that ring should have been his. It always should have been his, and I can’t even imagine how he feels right now, touching something that should belong to him.
I swallow. “Why did you invite me over, Ash?”
“You said it yourself,” Ash replies, still playing with the flat gold band. “To be cruel and to be kind. Because I love you.”
“But why tonight?”
Ash sighs, releasing the ring and threading his fingers through mine. “You can guess.”
“You were jealous. My wedding night should have been yours.”
“Yes.”
“And?”
He props his head up on his other hand, staring at me. “And what, Embry? What more do you want me to admit? Of course, I was fucking jealous. Of course any wedding night of yours should have been mine too.”
He stops, his jaw setting and his throat working and his eyes glassing with unshed emotion, and then he regains control. Blinks. Breathes. “But my jealousy isn’t important, and I can’t change the past, so instead I wanted to give you something. No bridegroom should be alone on his wedding night. Especially not my little prince.”
My throat tightens and I can’t speak and all I can do is raise Ash’s hand to my mouth and kiss it. Let him feel the tears slipping down my face. Because no matter how jealous he was, no matter how possessive and bitter and sadistic, I know that ultimately he always intended tonight as a gift. He knew tonight would be one of the loneliest nights of my life, when for most people it’s one of the happiest, and he wanted to make it better for me. He wanted to help me shoulder the burden for as long as he could, and I know without a doubt that he would take it all from me if I asked. If I told him I couldn’t bear it alone, I couldn’t live with all these hooks tethered in my soul, he would lay down down his heart and his life to make me happy.
In fact, I am certain he would do it even as I ran a campaign against him. He would let me into his arms at night even as I fought him during the day, he would love me and keep me even if I refused to stop running against him. All I have to do is ask, and it’s done. Forgiveness would be mine, and I’d have a place at his feet and in his bed once again.
But…I can’t. The thought is as bitter as it is true; I can’t deny it even as it slices a fresh gash across my already scarred heart. I can’t do it because it wouldn’t be fair to Ash. For me to demand his care and love with one hand while I fight him with the other, for me to solicit his protection and adoration while I smear and malign him when we’re apart. To make him love me as I try to steal everything from him.
Even I’m not that selfish.
He rubs his hand across my tear-wet cheek, along the early morning stubble roughing the edge of my jaw, and then brings his hand back to his face. I wonder what he’s doing and then I see the part of his lips and the slide of his tongue. He’s tasting my tears. Something I’ve seen him do a hundred times, and yet every time is as sexy and sweet and terrible as the last.
I can’t help it, I let out a groan as I watch the dart of his tongue and the press of his mouth. “You make me crazy,” I whisper, and I mean it in every good way and every bad way and every way in between.
