American Prince

I can’t stop myself, the hunger, the yearning, the body that’s starved for fucking and love. I press back against him, my hands pulling on his tie and yanking impatiently at his jacket. He presses back against me with a groan, his erection hard against my hip, and he tilts his head to allow me access to his neck so that I can kiss and suck him there. His hands are strong and demanding, grabbing the narrow brackets of my hips, the swells of my biceps, cradling my face so he can kiss me with the kind of claiming ferocity he loves.

I want to be owned. I want to be destroyed. I want him to carve his quiet and his calm into me. I want there to be nothing but his breath and my breath, his pulse and mine.

“Do it,” I beg against his mouth. “Just do it.”

But he doesn’t do it. With a shuddering breath and pained reluctance written in every line of his body, he steps back, bracing his hands against my chest to put some distance between us. My stomach drops, my chest tightens.

“I ruined it,” I say, to myself more than him. I somehow managed to fuck up the best thing in my life, only days after getting it. And I should have known, should have known, because isn’t that what I do best? Fuck things up? Fuck people over?

“I want to,” Ash says, pupils still massive, pulse still thrumming under his loosened collar. “God, I want to. But it would hurt her.”

It’s there in my mouth, pressing against my lips, the awful, insidiously logical suggestion. She doesn’t have to know. We don’t have to tell her. I hate myself for even thinking it, because it’s so below Ash, it’s so below Greer. It’s so beneath the three of us and what we promised each other on that night—clarity and love and hard work and honesty. Secret fucks with her husband after I’ve broken her heart…Christ. Can I sink any lower?

I suck in a deep breath. “I don’t want to hurt her any more than I have.”

Ash’s voice is thick when he says, “I know you don’t.”

I run a hand through my hair, readjust my jacket and tie and insistent cock. Ash does the same, and there’s a moment where the bitterness and pain fade as we perform this familiar ritual. How many times have we emerged from a random corner disheveled and smiling, heat high in our cheeks? How many times in this very bathroom have I struggled back into my trousers? Searched for every stray cum splatter only to find one on my tie in the middle of a meeting with the Director of the National Economic Council?

There’s still pain, there’s still Greer and Abilene and Melwas between us, but I catch Ash’s eye and grin. “Just like the good old days, right?”

He grins back, the hidden dimple in his left cheek flashing. “It’s a wonder we got any work done those first few months.”

“It’s a wonder we didn’t get caught. At least, mostly.”

A touch on my shoulder. I look at the hand there and remember that once upon a time, I would have given anything to have that hand touching me. I still would.

“I have a plan for Melwas, Embry. I’m figuring it out, but until I do, I need you to trust me. Can you do that?”

In the barely-there light seeping in from underneath the door, I study his face. It’s a face of strong angles, striking eyebrows, full lips. It’s the face of a king.

Can I trust my king?

I sigh. “I’ll try.”

He nods. It’s enough for now.

We step out of the bathroom into the empty office one at a time, a habit of timing perfected after an awkward moment when Kay witnessed us coming out of the bathroom together smelling like KY and sweat. And then Ash settles himself back at his desk, and I leave without saying goodbye. I’ll see him later today, and the day after that, and the day after that. So much seeing doesn’t need a goodbye.

So much seeing is cheap when I’m shut out from the love I want.

It’s when I get to my office that I realize Ash never answered my question, my is it ruined? Did I ruin it? And he didn’t because we both knew the answer already. It hums a jarred, pained hum deep in my bones, reaches into my marrow.

Yes. I did ruin it.

Greer won’t look at me even though we’re only separated by a narrow church aisle. Instead, she keeps her eyes on the priest at the front, singing and praying along, kneeling when it’s time, standing when it’s time, looking like a Grace Kelly fever-dream in her knee-length black dress with its tailored bodice. Her hair is pulled up a ballet bun, exposing the long, graceful lines of her neck, and despite her calm self-possession, she looks young, so much younger than Ash next to her.

She’s as composed and pale today as she was flushed and furious in her office when I told her about Abilene, and it pains me for reasons I can’t describe. Seeing her so unbent and calm at her grandfather’s funeral—it’s just so very Greer, that regal reservation, that indefatigable poise. It invites breaking and disruption, it makes me recall all the times I had her red-faced and squirming underneath me or on top of me, all the times she’s privileged me by allowing me to see her tears. I’m jealous of those tears now, the idea that Ash is the man who gets to wipe them from her face and hold her as she surrenders to her pain.

It’s the kind of jealousy that brings me close to tears myself.

Next to me, Abilene is also the picture of old money equilibrium, slender and cool in a tight black dress and tall heels, her red hair pulled back into a long, smooth ponytail. There was a moment this morning when I picked her up when it seemed like Abilene might cry; for a change, she had nothing cutting or flirtatious to say, and she spent the ride staring out of the window and running her fingers along the edges of her clutch. It was basic human courtesy that made me ask how she was holding up.