I saw the faint smudges under his eyes.
I saw it all, and the pieces pulled together and wove into a picture.
“They say meditation helps,” I said quietly. “With the insomnia.”
His gaze snapped up from my finger to my face, and his eyes—already the dark, clear green of a glass bottle—seemed to grow both darker and clearer.
“What did you say?”
“Meditation. It’s supposed to help.”
“What makes you think I have trouble sleeping?”
How could I explain the way I knew things? The way I’d been trained for years to hold up a magnifying glass to everyone? I searched for the easiest answer. “It looks like you cut yourself shaving this morning. Like you were too tired to keep your hand steady.” And without thinking and without hesitation, I reached up with the hand he wasn’t holding and touched his jaw, lightly grazing my fingertips over the cut.
His eyes fluttered closed while his other hand came up against mine, holding it tight to his face. The long sweep of his black eyelashes nearly covered up the sleepless bruises under his eyes. The moment froze—the feeling of his smooth face warm against my palm, the blood still dripping from my finger, the muffled noise of the party through the closed door to the hallway.
“I’m sorry,” I offered gently. “If I could help you sleep, I would.”
He smiled, his eyes opening, and the moment unfroze, although I still felt it hanging between us. A palpable pressure, a prickling awareness.
A thawed energy.
Scared of its strength, I started to pull my hand away from his face, but he kept it there for a moment longer, looking me in the eyes. “I’ve never told anyone I have trouble sleeping,” he said. “I can’t believe you just knew.”
“Lots of soldiers struggle with it after difficult missions,” I said, looking down. He released my hand and I let it drop, keeping my gaze on the sparkling glass in my palm. “I just wanted to help. I’m sorry if I overstepped.”
“Not at all.” His voice was warm and filled with wonder. I risked a glance up at him and saw him staring down at me with an awed gratitude so intense it made me flush. “Actually, I should thank you,” he said. “It’s almost a relief to have someone know. To be able to quit pretending, just for a minute, that everything’s okay. That I’m still strong.”
“You are strong,” I whispered. “I don’t know what happened to you, I don’t know what you did, but I know that if you can stand in front of me tonight and still be kind, that makes you strong.”
He took in a deep breath at my words, those green eyes like emeralds in the dark, and then let it out. “Thank you,” he said.
“You’re welcome,” I said back.
And this time it was his turn to break our connection and look down, turning his attention back to my injured hand.
“This will hurt a little,” he warned, gently tugging the glass splinter loose. Another teardrop of blood oozed out, and without a word, he bent his head over my hand and drew the pad of my finger into his mouth, sucking the blood off my skin.
I could feel every flicker of his tongue, every soft scrape of his teeth. And every thrum of my pulse and every beat of my heart cried out for more, for something, for I didn’t know what, but parts of me knew. My skin erupted in goose bumps, and I wanted to press my thighs together to soothe an ache that seemed everywhere and nowhere all at once.
When Colchester lifted his head, a small drop of blood clung to his lower lip and he tasted it with his tongue, his eyes locked on mine. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak, couldn’t think. I could only feel, feel and then obey when he said, “Stand up.”
We both stood.
It was as if my blood and his gratitude had woven a spell around him. His pupils were dilated and dark, his lips parted—and it was those lips that captivated me now. A perfect mouth, not too lush or too pink, just full and ruddy enough to contrast with the hyper-masculine square of his jaw and the strong line of his nose. The sharp angles of the cupid’s bow on his upper lip begged to be traced, and for a minute, I imagined doing just that. I imagined reaching out with the finger he’d just kissed and running it along the firm swells of his mouth.
“That’s the last time you are allowed to hurt yourself for her, do you understand?” His voice was almost disciplinary.
It’s not his business, a wayward thought intruded, but I pushed it away. The moment I’d mentioned his insomnia, the moment I’d touched his face, he and I had gone beyond what could be called a normal interaction. And there was something so knowing in the way he said it, so caring, and I realized how I felt now must have been how he felt when I told him I knew he couldn’t sleep.
“Yes,” I said, meeting his gaze. “I understand.”
He nodded. “Good girl.”
I flushed again, pleasure curling deep in my chest for reasons I didn’t understand, and he let out another long breath, his eyes on my pinkened cheeks.
I felt like a live wire, like a hot beam of light, all energy and vibration with no direction or outlet. A few minutes before, I’d felt female, but now, I felt young. He was a man, and I was still very much a girl, and that difference was so deeply erotic to me, so delicious, and I just wanted to melt into it. Dissolve into him.
Perhaps he felt it too, because he murmured, “You’re trembling. Are you scared of me?”
“I don’t know,” I whispered. It was the truth.
He liked that answer, it seemed, because he smiled. “I’d like to touch you again, if that’s okay.”
I thought of his lips on my finger, the bruises under his eyes, the heavy ache somewhere deep in my body. “Yes, please,” I said.
His hands came up under my elbows, cradling them as he searched my face. He must have seen what I felt, the echo of my words stamped all over my face:
yes please
yes please
yes please
And then he pulled me closer, those large, warm hands sliding behind me, one planted firmly between my shoulder blades and the other against the small of my back, and I could feel every curve of my body pressed against the wide, hard expanse of his chest. My head tilted back of its own accord, and his eyes dropped to the long arch of my throat.
“Stay there,” he breathed. “Don’t move until I tell you.” And then he bent down to press his lips against my neck.
I shivered—no one had ever done that before. Everything he was doing to me, every command and touch and caress—it was all new.
Virgin territory.
“What’s your name, angel?” he asked. I was still frozen like he’d asked, and he was clearly enjoying it, running his lips down to my collarbone.
“Greer.”
“Greer,” he echoed, nuzzling into me. “Tell me, Greer, do you like my lips on your skin?”
“Yes,” I responded, a little breathlessly. “And—”
“And what?”
“You telling me to do things. Ordering me. Moving my body.”
He groaned at that, lifting his head from my neck and pressing me closer to him. Even through the uniform jacket and my own dress, I could feel the firm lines of his chest and stomach. And for the first time, I could smell him. He smelled like leather and woodsmoke. He smelled like a fire burning.
Burn me, I thought, a little wildly. Consume me.
His gaze fell down to my mouth, and his eyelids hooded.
“You’re so young…” he whispered.
Somehow, I knew what was coming next, I knew what he’d say. In the same way he’d asked for permission to touch me, he’d need to know it was okay to do more. He’d need reassurance that I was old enough, that I was an adult, that my consent would have legal weight.
I wanted to lie. I needed to lie. Because if I told him what he wanted to hear, I knew he’d kiss me. And nothing seemed more important than that right now, nothing seemed more urgent and necessary. I needed him to kiss me, if he didn’t, my body would curl into ash like kindled paper and disappear, please plea
se please—
Except I wasn’t a liar.
Except I wasn’t supposed to kiss anybody, that was the promise I made to myself nine years ago after all, and anybody included handsome American military officers.
Except I was certain that—somehow—he’d know I was lying. I knew those green eyes would blaze into mine and illuminate the outline of every lie and half-truth I’d ever told.
“Tell me you’re eighteen,” he whispered.
“I’m not.”
He swore.
And then he tilted my face back up to his, and his mouth came down over mine anyway.
I’d never kissed a boy or a girl, never even tried, and now I had a man’s lips firm and warm over mine, insistent and demanding. If I had been thinking clearly, I might have worried that I would be bad at kissing, that I would be laughably awkward and a disappointment to this beautiful stranger. But I wasn’t thinking clearly, the only thoughts I had were single words—fire and leather and more—and I didn’t need to know what to do.
He knew. And that was how it was supposed to be.
One warm hand cupped the nape of my neck while the other pressed against the small of my back, and his lips parted my own. I gasped the moment I felt him lick inside my mouth—it tickled.
It was soft—dangerously soft—silken, and warm. Every nerve ending I had came frighteningly alive, crackling with need.
And all from one lick of his tongue.
I opened my mouth more to him, sighing as he pressed me closer, so close that I would have lost my balance if he let go of me. It felt so right to open to him, to mold against his body, and I wanted to offer him every inch of my skin. The column of my neck, the space between my breasts, my inner thighs…everywhere.
The thought made me bold, and I realized I wanted to kiss him back. He groaned as I tentatively licked inside his mouth, and I felt his entire body shudder as I did it again.
He tasted sweet and clean, like mint and gin, and the more I kissed him, the more I could taste the lingering salt-tang of my blood. My finger stung from the cut, and I wanted him to suck on it again, I wanted it so badly, and so I pressed it against his lips and into his mouth.
His eyes burned as he closed his lips around my finger and sucked, and everything felt throbbing and swollen—especially the space between my legs. And then his lips were hot on my neck, covering the dip of my clavicle, nibbling on the lobe of my ear.
“Greer,” he breathed. “God, where did you come from?”
I don’t know, but I feel like I’ve always been waiting for you.
And then his forehead fell against my neck. “And why aren’t you eighteen?” he mumbled into my skin.
“How old are you?” I asked.
He lifted his head, resignation and regret in his eyes. “Twenty-six.”
His grip on me loosened, his hands sliding away from my body. I made a noise as he let me go, a noise of pure pain and loss, and he gave a breath like he’d been punched in the gut.
“Please,” I begged. “Please.”
He inhaled raggedly. “You don’t even know what you’re asking for.”
“I don’t care. Anything—I’ll let you do anything to me.”
“I believe you. That’s why you’re so dangerous.”
We stared at each other, and I lifted my fingers to probe at my lips, which thrummed with blood and heat, swollen and soft. “That was my first kiss,” I said, more to myself than to him.
His own lips parted in surprise. “It was?”
“I haven’t…” He doesn’t need to know you’re a virgin, Greer. It’s embarrassing enough that you’ve never been kissed. “Yes. You gave me my first kiss.”
His eyes blazed a deep green, a summer forest about to catch fire, and there was a moment that I thought he was going to reach for me again. As if the idea of being the first man for me ignited a sense of possession in him. But at that moment, the door to the library opened and Merlin Rhys came in from the hallway.
Keep your kisses to yourself.
Tell me you’re eighteen.
Oh my God, what have I done?
We both froze, and then Colchester stepped back and cleared his throat, slipping back into cocktail party mode. “Merlin, hello. Ah, this is Greer…um…”
“Greer Galloway,” Merlin supplied, and his friend swiveled his head to look at me.
“As in Vice President Galloway, Greer Galloway?” Colchester asked me, his strong face both interested and vulnerable.
“Former Vice President,” I mumbled, not for the first time in my life and certainly not for the last.
“Ah, okay. And Greer, this is Merlin Rhys. He’s a family friend and invited me here tonight. I’m in between assignments, but I didn’t want to go home, so he graciously let me tag along.”
“Much good it did if you spent the night hiding on the patio,” Merlin said mildly.
Not the whole night, I wanted to say, but then Merlin’s dark eyes raked over my lips, and somehow—somehow—he knew. He knew that I’d kissed his friend. He knew that I wanted to do it again. He knew that I wouldn’t have stopped, would have surrendered every bit of myself right here in the library.
“We should go,” Merlin said shortly, his eyes still on me as he addressed Colchester. “It’s getting late.”
Colchester stepped away and then looked back at me, biting his lip. It made him look almost boyish, almost my age, until I looked closer and could see that he bit his lip not out of uncertainty, but to control himself.
Merlin sighed and left the room. There was a second when I was certain Colchester would follow him right away, catching the closing door in his large hand and ducking out without a word of goodbye, but then the door closed. And my stranger was still in the room with me.
He was on me in a second, pressing me against the wall, stoking my body to flames once more. “I don’t want to leave,” he told me, tracing his nose along my jaw.
“Then don’t,” I practically pleaded, and he swallowed my pleas with his mouth, kissing me and kissing me and kissing me until there was nothing but his hot mouth and the blood pounding deep in my core.
He stepped back with a heavy breath. “I have to go,” he said with genuine regret, after running a hand through his short hair. He looked as put together and collected as when he’d first strolled in from the patio, as if the kissing hadn’t even happened. As if I hadn’t even happened.
“Wait!” I called out as he reached the door to the hallway that Merlin had walked through moments earlier. “I just realized…I don’t know your first name.”
He paused with his hand on the doorknob and looked down at it. “Captain Maxen Ashley Colchester.” He bowed his head. “At your service.”
“Maxen,” I echoed.
He glanced up and a shy smile crossed his face. “I think I’d like it if you called me Ash.”
And then he was gone.
Chapter Six
Ten Years Ago
Dear Captain Colchester,
I hope it’s not too forward of me to email you—or too awkward. But I asked my grandfather if he could find your email address for me, since Merlin is a mutual friend, and I wanted to tell you that it was really nice to meet you last Saturday. I know we didn’t talk about it very much, and it’s probably nosy of me, but I was thinking more about your insomnia and I thought you might like a couple of the attachments about meditation I have at the bottom of the email.
I hope you’re enjoying London!
Sincerely yours,
Greer Galloway
Dear Ash,
Is it okay if I call you Ash? You said so the night we met, and I would like to, but it also feels strange to call a near-stranger by their first name. Especially a military stranger, because Grandpa Leo has so many military friends that I’m pretty much trained to salute whenever I see a uniform. I also hope I didn’t bother you by not mentioning my last name while we were talking. Sometimes at parties like that the Galloway name means certain things—usually that pe
ople want me to pass on messages to Grandpa or ask for favors. Sometimes it means they don’t want to talk to me at all because they hate my grandfather and his political party. Or sometimes it just means that I can’t start from scratch when I meet someone new. I know that seems like a silly thing to care about, but my whole childhood I was introduced to the world as Leo Galloway’s granddaughter. Here at Cadbury, I’m always ‘Abilene’s cousin’ or ‘Abilene’s roommate.’ I’m never just Greer, and I got to be that with you, and that was special for me. I hope you don’t feel like I was trying to hide something from you?
Anyway, if you’re still in London, I hope you’re having a good time.
Sincerely yours,
Greer Galloway
Dear Ash,
I wasn’t going to bother you any more since it’s been almost three weeks since I sent my first email (and I was certain that I was annoying you) but when I was watching the news about the Krakow bombing last night, Grandpa Leo called. We talked about what the bombing meant for Europe and NATO and America, and then he mentioned that you’d been reassigned back to the Carpathian region the week after the party. I feel so terrible for emailing you such trivial stuff when you were back on duty, and I just wanted you to know that I had no idea. I’ll make sure to light a prayer candle in church for you and pray a rosary for you every night.
Be safe please.
Sincerely yours,
Greer Galloway
Dear Ash,
It’s a real war now. Officially. The Carpathian problem has been around for so long that I’m not sure even Grandpa Leo ever thought it would really come to a head like this. But the Krakow bombing last week—over nine hundred dead—there’s no way war wouldn’t be declared. At least that’s what Grandfather said.
Did you know that my parents were killed by Carpathian separatists? Almost ten years ago now. They blew up a train bridge and killed almost a hundred people, my parents included. All that death, my childhood completely torn apart with God only knows how many other children’s, and for what? A small chunk of land squashed between Ukraine and Poland and Slovakia? It makes no sense to me.
Except, in a weird way, it does. I have every reason to hate the Carpathians, but I can’t. I can’t actually transpose my own pain and grief over the images of the war I’m seeing. Instead, I keep thinking of the Carpathian children who might lose their own parents. I keep thinking about how peaceful and quiet I feel when I remember my childhood in Oregon, when I remember what home feels like. There’s no doubt that a handful of the militant separatists have done terrible things, and I understand why there is war now. But part of me wishes that we could simply sit down and grant them what they want—their home. Sovereignty is a complicated thing, and creating a new nation is a fraught prospect in a region already as carved up as Eastern Europe, but what if there could be a way forward without war? I’ve been raised in politics and I’m not naive enough to believe that we can erase killing and violence, but even if we could reduce it just a little…wouldn’t that still be worth trying?
Modern Fairy Tale: Twelve Books of Breathtaking Romance Page 24