Modern Fairy Tale: Twelve Books of Breathtaking Romance

by Kristen Proby

  And so I wait, trying not to twitch with the agony of it. I’m used to keeping my mind and body busy, used to filling any empty time with grading or preparing lectures or research for my book, and this is worse torture than anything else I can think of, to keep my body still and wait.

  Without a clock or my phone, time seems to stretch and warp, and I have no idea how long I’ve been kneeling in this silent room—minutes or hours or years—and I have the creeping sense of loneliness that comes with silence and stillness. How long would I have to kneel here? Surely, Ash wouldn’t expect me to wait longer than a few minutes? Surely he wouldn’t want me to ache and itch and feel crazy with the pressure of my own thoughts?

  Except I know that’s exactly what he does want.

  Control. My submission flavored by discomfort, by my desire to please him.

  And I do want to please him, so badly.

  And with that realization, the position becomes easier to hold, the stillness easier to bear. There’s purpose in it now, a reason, and the reason is Ash, the only reason I ever want. I think of him as my knees whine at the press of the carpet, as my mouth gets drier, as goose bumps erupt over my skin at the chilly air of the room. I dismiss each sensation as it arises, my thoughts shrinking down to Ash and the low fire kindling deep in my core, and eventually everything else does fade away, leaving behind a distilled version of myself. A version that waits.

  I’m floating in place like this when the door to Ash’s bedroom finally, finally opens, and I don’t look up, but I do eagerly watch those shiny dress shoes as he walks in. And then stop breathing when a second pair of shoes follows.

  That second pair freezes in mid-stride, as if their owner is arrested by the sight of me kneeling on the floor with my arms behind my back and my nipples poking through the thin fabric of a man’s shirt.

  The door shuts and then Ash is squatting down in front of me. “You may lift your head now, angel.”

  I look up at him, at the man who has changed not at all over the minutes we’ve been apart even though I feel like an entirely different person. But then my eyes move past him to Embry, and I feel nothing but blind panic. Panic at being so exposed in front of him. Panic that mirrors the panic on his own face, the speed of his breathing as he looks at me and looks at me and looks at me.

  “I hope you trusted me,” Ash says. “And I hope you knew that I’d keep you safe while you submitted to me. I made sure no one else came up here while you waited.”

  I tear my stare away from Embry. “But you brought someone else with you. Sir,” I add at the last minute.

  Ash nods. “We have a couple phone calls to make, but I can make them from here. I didn’t want to leave you alone a second longer, but I also wanted Embry close by while I talked to our people near Carpathia.”

  “I can leave,” I say. I plead. “Or I can go wait somewhere else while you call.”

  Don’t make me be like this in front of Embry. I’m too weak to hide how much I’ll like it.

  “No,” Ash says. “I want you to stay.”

  “Ash…” Embry says from behind him, his face pale. “We can call first thing tomorrow morning. There’s no need for me to intrude—” His voice breaks off as Ash runs a finger up my thigh to my pussy and carefully slides it inside of me. Despite the deep unease at Embry’s presence, my deprived body responds immediately, and I try to push myself down onto the finger, squirming for more contact and more friction.

  “So wet,” Ash murmurs.

  Embry makes a strangled noise from his place by the door.

  Ash withdraws his finger and places it in my mouth for me to suck clean, which I do without question, lust overriding my better sense, the better sense that tells me there’s no way I can do any of this in front of Embry. It will hurt me and it will hurt him, and then Ash will see why it hurts us, and then he’ll be hurt.

  Ash wipes his hand on his tuxedo jacket and stands up. “Embry, we’ll use the phone by the sofa,” he says, gesturing to the two small sofas next to the television. “If you want to have a seat.”

  Embry looks at Ash and then looks to me. I feel the ghost of his hips between my thighs, the slickness of blood on my skin, his blindly passionate kisses that consumed us both with their single-minded want. My body keens for him, just as it’s keening for Ash, aching for one or both of them to the point that I can’t even identify how I actually feel any longer. There’s only the need. The want.

  “Embry,” Ash says. “The sofa, please.”

  Embry steps over to Ash, studiously keeping his gaze away from me on the floor. “Are you sure this is what you want?” he asks Ash quietly.

  Ash gets closer to him, angling his body so that I can’t see Embry any longer, and leans in to speak in his ear. I can’t hear what he says, but I see Embry’s posture tense up, see his hand flex and clench, as if he’s keeping himself from doing something violent. Except when Ash pulls back, the look on Embry’s face isn’t violence. I don’t know what it is, but it makes me shiver and makes the memory of his body against mine all the stronger.

  Without another word, Embry goes to the sofa and sits, his face unreadable, his posture strangely easy. As if he’s done this before.

  Has he?

  Have they?

  Ash watches him, facing away from me with his hands in his pockets. His shoulders are relaxed, and his stride is full of unconscious power as he walks to the opposite sofa and sits, crossing his legs. His long, skillful fingers set to work tugging his bow tie free, and as he’s pulling at the fabric, he gives me a dismissive glance. “Crawl to me,” he says.

  His voice is offhand, his expression coolly indifferent, but all I feel is swelling desperation. This is something I’ve fantasized about for years, and he knows it, he has that letter memorized. So why dangle this in front of me when I obviously can’t do it? I can’t crawl in front of Embry; the overt submission and humiliation makes the act so undeniably sexual that it feels unfaithful to do it in front of anyone else.

  But if Ash is asking me to do it…then does that make it right?

  “Crawl, Greer,” Ash says, impatiently this time.

  I find my voice. “But Sir, Embry is here—”

  “He’s Mr. Vice President to you right now,” Ash interrupts.

  “Sir, Mr. Vice President is here,” I correct myself. “He’ll see me.”

  “And?”

  I don’t know how to answer that. It is its own explanation, there is no and. Embry is here and he’ll see me, and I’ll see him seeing me, and everything we’ve tried to keep suppressed the last week will surface.

  “Why are you doing this?” I whisper.

  Ash locks gazes with me. “Because I want to,” he answers simply.

  “But—”

  “No buts, Greer. Do you have something you’d like to say to me?”

  The safe word. He means the safe word.

  I search his face and find no trace of irritation or anger, and I know that he’s giving me the option to end things right now, no questions asked, no wounded feelings or resentment. He’s trusting me, I think, trusting me to vocalize my needs. To advocate for my boundaries. And that’s the heart of this, isn’t it? I trust him with control and he trusts me with my voice. I trust him to stop when I ask him to stop, and he trusts me to say stop before I’m hurt. His control means nothing without my consent, and my consent is meaningless if I don’t trust the man I’m giving it to.

  So do I trust him?

  And do I feel safe?

  Yes.

  And yes.

  I lower my face from Ash’s. “No, Sir, there’s nothing I’d like to say.”

  From his couch, Embry exhales—a sound of relief or dread, I don’t know.

  “Good,” Ash says. “Then crawl.”

  I crawl. Keeping my head down, so I can’t see whether Embry is looking at me or not, and doing my best to keep my breathing even, I make my way over to Ash’s feet on my hands and knees. I should feel demeaned—it’s meant to demean, after a
ll—but knowing that both men are affected by the sight of me slouching across the floor like a cat makes me feel strong. Sensuous. Female. There’s the air on my exposed cunt, the shirt riding up over my ass, the stray tendrils of hair hanging down around my face, and I can’t help it, it all makes me wetter. Hotter. Hungrier.

  Ash’s hand comes to rest on my head as I reach him. “Well done,” he says warmly, and I feel a flush of pleasure at his praise. “Up here,” he commands, patting his thigh.

  I manage not to look at Embry as I climb onto the couch, but I can hear him behind me, restless shifting and rustling fabric, as if he’s tugging at his bow tie as well.

  Ash takes my hips in his hands and sits me down so that I’m straddling his leg, my bare pussy flat against the hard muscles of his thigh, and I let out a low moan the minute my full weight settles on him. The pressure there is like gasoline to an already burning fire, and I have to force myself not to grind down against him.

  “I told you I’d take care of your orgasm tonight,” Ash says. “This is me taking care of it.”

  “Sir?”

  “Ride me, rub against me, whatever you need to do to come. But you have to be quiet, since I’ll be on the phone.”

  I can’t help it; I look over my shoulder back to Embry. His eyes are on my ass, where it rests against Ash’s thigh, and when he realizes I’m staring at him, he lifts his eyes and flushes with shame. I flush with shame too; I wanted to catch him watching me. I look back to Ash, who’s watching me closely, those clear green eyes missing nothing. The shame goes deeper than my cheeks, sinking down to my stomach.

  “Is this some kind of test?” I ask, my whispering voice trembling on the last word.

  “It’s not a test,” Ash replies. But he says nothing else, merely keeps looking at me with those searing, perceptive eyes.

  A ping of real alarm now. He’s watching me carefully, and Embry too, and does he suspect? That we have a history? Or only that we’re attracted to each other?

  “Sir,” I whisper. “I don’t know if I can do this in front of him. Come in front of him.”

  Even though I’ve done it a few times before…

  “I think you want to,” Ash replies. “Deep down, there’s a part of you that wants him to see you all flushed and tousled, that wants him to see how well you can obey me, how pretty that pussy is. Isn’t that right?”

  The tear is formed and spilling out from underneath my eyelashes before I can stop it. “I don’t want to ruin what we have,” I mumble, looking down and away from his face. “I don’t want to displease you, I don’t want you to leave me. Over this.”

  “Oh, angel,” he says, voice soft. “You’ll never displease me. If this is too much, tell me. But if it’s not too much…then I want you to trust me.”

  I do trust you.

  I hesitate still, but then the phone rings, and Ash holds up a finger indicating I should be silent. I press my lips together as he reaches over to the phone and presses a button so that it picks up the call on speaker. “Colchester here.”

  Belvedere’s voice comes through. “Mr. President, I have our ambassador in Ukraine on the phone, and she’s on a non-secured line. May I put her through?”

  “Yes.”

  There’s a click, and then the voice of an older woman comes over the line. “Diana Cotter speaking.”

  “Hello, Diana,” Ash greets her. “I’m sorry for the unexpected call, but I wanted to touch base with you before the next couple days play out. And we have someone here without a Need to Know, so we need to keep it light.”

  “Of course,” she says.

  Embry, Ash, and the ambassador start talking, Ash quickly explaining the need to feel out the current political climate around Carpathia. True to his word, Ash doesn’t delve into anything requiring high-level security clearance, but it’s still fascinating. I’m listening in with my eyes glued to the phone, when I feel a thumb against my clit, hard and rough, rubbing small circles against the swollen bud. In an instant, all the banked desire from the last week is there. All-consuming, obliterating past and present, obliterating the future, destroying everything that isn’t the painful ache in my cunt as I push into Ash’s touch.

  He pushes back, hard, giving my clit a light pinch that sends my eyes rolling back into my head. He does it again for good measure and I gasp, clapping my hand over my mouth once I realize my mistake, eyes darting back to the phone.

  Ash arches an eyebrow at me—a can you keep quiet eyebrow—and I nod, a little frantically, desperate for him to keep doing what he’s doing. His thumb rubs steadily, the rhythm never breaking as he and Embry talk about border agreements and the UN and the Carpathian president, and I find myself rocking into his touch, squirming down onto his thigh to increase the pressure. His thumb stops as he leans over to end his phone call, but I keep rocking, tilting forward so that I’m rubbing my clit directly against his leg. It’s so shameful, so obscene and immodest, to be driven to the point that I don’t care that I’m rubbing against Ash’s leg like a dog in heat. That I don’t care that Embry is watching me debase myself so much, act so mindlessly carnal. There’s only the need, and if this is the way I’m allowed to slake the need, then I’m fucking doing it.

  Ash sits back, watching me with his elbow on the arm of the sofa and his head braced against his forefinger and his thumb. The erection tenting his slacks is massive, all the more erotic for the expensive tuxedo that frames it, but Ash’s face is perfectly controlled. Only the pulse beating at the side of his neck betrays his excitement. “Does that feel good?” he asks calmly as I grind against him.

  “Yes,” I pant.

  A sharp slap on my ass. I jolt and moan.

  “Yes, Sir,” I try again.

  “Good. My thigh is all you get right now. If you behave, you can earn more. My mouth maybe. Would you like that?”

  My shudder is all the answer he needs. He looks past me to Embry. “She’s a good girl, isn’t she, Embry?”

  His friend’s voice is hoarse when he answers. “Yes.”

  Ash looks at his friend, his finger rubbing at his forehead. “Do you still want to go, Embry?”

  Once again, Embry takes a long time to answer, but when he does, it’s definitive. “No. I want to stay.”

  A smile curls Ash’s mouth. “I thought so. Would you like to see more of her? Maybe without the shirt?”

  There’s a pause, a pause that seems to last forever, and in that pause I hear five years’ worth of agony.

  “Yes,” Embry finally replies.

  Ash looks back to me, and while there’s not satisfaction in his face necessarily, there is something else. Confirmation, maybe. Like it wasn’t what Embry said but how he said it that told Ash what he needed to know. “You heard the Vice President,” Ash says, running a finger down the placket of the shirt. “Take it off.”

  Even in my need-to-come haze, I hesitate. “Can…can you take it off, please?”

  “No.”

  He’s going to make me do it. Just like the crawling. Each step of tonight is a crossroads—past what, I don’t know—but Ash is making sure that I’m the one taking each step. That I’m acutely aware of my own role in this.

  I meet his eyes, every pleading, angry thought written on my face, and I feel his hand slide up my thigh and give it a reassuring squeeze. His eyes are so clear and so green, his pupils dilated into huge black pools of hunger. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t push, but keeps his eyes on mine, his hand gentle and sweet on my thigh.

  He’s giving me a chance to safe out. One word, and I could end this misery for all three of us.

  But oh God, I can’t bear to. Sometimes misery is better. Sometimes the forbidden fruit is just too sweet not to bite.

  I lift my hands and begin unbuttoning the shirt, and both men exhale simultaneously. I should hate the rush of power that gives me, the rush of lust, but I don’t. It feels right. As right as kneeling, as right as crawling. As right as standing before a class or thumbing through books older
than the college I teach at. Like I was born for it.

  I take my time, not to be intentionally seductive, but because my hands are shaking so much that each button is a struggle. It’s worth it though, when I finally tug the shirt free from my shoulders and I see Ash’s control almost break. He shifts underneath me, his hand squeezing my thigh so hard I know I’ll bruise, and he bites his lower lip.

  “Touch your tits,” he orders after he regains his composure. “Slide your hands over them and then pull on your nipples. Yes, like that. Fuck.”

  He shifts again, that erection looking so mouthwatering even inside his pants, and I want it. I want it in my mouth, I want it in my pussy. I want to ride it until my legs shake, I want it so deep inside me that I can’t feel anything else. When will we have sex? Surely tonight. Surely he can’t bear to wait any longer, because I know I can’t. I started birth control the moment we started seeing each other so we wouldn’t have to wait a moment longer than we had to.

  “What is it, angel?” he asks, eyes lifting from where my hands are on my breasts to my face.

  I don’t answer right away, and he gives me a light pinch on the ass. “You can always answer me honestly, Greer. I won’t ask if I don’t want to know.”

  “I want your cock,” I blurt. “I want to be fucked by it. Please. Please fuck me. Please, Sir.”

  His eyes glow with something like amusement, but his voice returns to the nonchalance of earlier. “My cock is a privilege, angel. Being fucked is a privilege. And all privileges have to be earned.”

  I must visibly deflate at this, because he strokes my arm. “When I take your pussy, it’s going to be special. We only get one first time together, and I know exactly when I want that to be.”

  “What’s wrong with right now?” I whine.

  That earns me another swift smack on the ass. “Turn around and face Embry. He wants to see those gorgeous tits of yours. He wants to see your face when you come.”