American Queen

by Sierra Simone

  I bit my lip, scanning the crowd for any sign of dark red hair, but I saw nothing. She was long vanished into a sea of tuxedos and circulating cocktail trays. I reluctantly allowed Grandpa to pull me deeper into the party.

  Women cooed over me and men complimented me, their eyes trailing along my body in a way that I wasn’t used to, and I knew it was all because Abilene wasn’t next to me. They couldn’t see how marred my face was, how boring my body, without a gorgeous redhead the same age standing beside me for comparison. This thought should have made me happy, that without Abilene’s radiant charm, I could finally bask in the kinds of compliments she gathered so effortlessly, but it didn’t. I only felt more miserably aware of her absence. After an hour of this, I excused myself from Grandpa and a circle of guests to go find her, and that’s when I ran—literally—into Merlin Rhys.

  He reached down to steady me by the elbow, keeping the amber drink in his other hand from sloshing as he did so. “Pardon me,” he apologized, even though it was my fault.

  “No, it was my mistake,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  He peered down into my face and something shifted in his expression. “You’re Leo Galloway’s granddaughter,” he said. No inflection, no follow up. Just that one fact, the one fact that identified me wherever I went, as if the ghost of President Penley Luther was standing right behind me.

  “Yes,” I said. “We met once, you and I, but I was a little girl.”

  You predicted my parents’ deaths.

  You warned me never to kiss anyone.

  “I remember,” Merlin replied, and the way he looked at me almost made me feel as if he could read my thoughts. Like he’d heard them as clearly as if I’d spoken them aloud.

  “Merlin!” A man in military attire appeared next to us and clapped a hand on Merlin’s shoulder. Merlin smiled tightly at him. “I was wondering when I’d catch up to you. How have you been?”

  Merlin turned to answer the general, and I took the opportunity to vanish, my heart pounding in my chest.

  Merlin unsettled and frightened me, and through all these years I thought it was because I’d met him as a little girl, at an age when almost anything can seem scary. But he still scared me at sixteen. There was something about him…not hostile necessarily, but aggressive. You felt his mind pushing at yours, challenging the walls around your thoughts, slithering through the defenses you kept around your feelings. It made me feel exposed and vulnerable, and I’d had enough of that from Abilene tonight.

  I found my cousin in the townhouse’s library—a large lovely room with open French doors leading to a wide patio outside—with an empty champagne flute dangling from her fingers as she let a man older than her father kiss a trail of sloppy kisses down her neck. I cleared my throat and he straightened up, embarrassed. He beat a hasty retreat with a muttered apology in Italian, leaving Abilene against the wall looking livid.

  “Who the fuck do you think you are?” she demanded once he left the room. “I told you to leave me alone, not barge in here and ruin my life!”

  “I’m not trying to ruin your life!” I exclaimed. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

  She snorted in disgust. “Yeah, right.”

  “What is going on with you tonight?” I asked. “You’ve been angry with me since the hotel.”

  “I’m not angry,” she maintained, her nostrils flaring. “I just don’t want to be around you right now. God, why is that so fucking hard to understand?”

  “It’s not—”

  “And you know what, you always do this,” she went on, her eyes starting to shine with unshed tears. “You always push and push and push, like you have to know fucking everything, and one of these days, you’re not going to like the answer.”

  I raised my hands, as if to show I meant no harm. “I don’t want to push you. But I know you’re angry. And I know it has something to do with me. I want to fix it, Abilene, let me fix it, please.”

  “You can’t fix it,” she hissed. “Just stay away—”

  “I’m not going to do that, I can’t do that—”

  “Just leave me alone!” Her shrill voice rebounded through the room, and as if to punctuate her statement, she threw the champagne glass to the floor, where it shattered like ice on the polished parquet.

  “Abilene,” I whispered, because I had never, ever seen her like this, so angry that she would act like this in someone else’s house, and there seemed to be a moment where it caught up with her too, where her eyes widened and her pale skin went even paler.

  And then she stormed out of the room.

  For a long minute, I stared at the mess on the floor. It glittered and flashed in the deafening silence that followed her exit, and it filled my vision, filled my mind and my throat and my chest, until it shrank back to normal size and I could breathe again.

  My eyes burned with tears and my throat itched with all the things I wanted to scream at my supposed best friend, but I didn’t do any of that. I didn’t cry and I didn’t yell. I dropped to my knees and began picking up the shards of glass, sliver by tiny sliver, picking up after Abilene like I always did.

  “You’ll cut yourself if you’re not careful,” an unfamiliar voice said from the patio door.

  5

  Ten Years Ago

  The voice was American, which at this very London party was enough to make me pause and look up. He was in his mid-twenties, wearing an Army dress uniform, and as he strode towards me, it felt like all the air left the room, like I couldn’t breathe, like I would suffocate, but suffocate in the kind of way where visions dance before your eyes as you die. Broad, powerful shoulders tapered into trim and narrow hips, and his face…it was a hero’s face. Chiseled jaw, strong nose, full mouth. Emerald eyes and raven hair.

  He walked over, close enough that I could read his nameplate now. Colchester. A name that sounded strong and solid and a little chilly.

  He squatted down next to me, his pants pulling tight over his muscled thighs. “Let me help.”

  Say something, my brain demanded. Say anything!

  But I couldn’t. I didn’t know how to make the words come out. I had never seen a man so handsome, so overtly masculine, and for the first time in my life, I felt overwhelmingly and painfully female. I felt slender and soft, yielding and pliant, and when he looked up from the glass to smile kindly at me, I wondered if I would fall apart, like a blown rose caught in a strong wind.

  He stood and deposited some of the broken flute in a nearby wastebasket, and then he brought the basket over to me. He knelt down again to pick up more glass.

  “She’s jealous of you, you know.” Colchester said it quietly, while keeping his gaze on the floor.

  I thought I’d misheard him. “Jealous?”

  He cleared his throat. “I hope you don’t mind, but I was standing outside when you first came in the room. I heard you exchange words.”

  I frantically searched my brain, trying to remember if I’d behaved like an idiot. This man was so much older than me, so contained, so fucking hot, and the desire to impress him was as sharp as the shards of glass in my hand.

  He shook his head, as if reading my thoughts. “Don’t be embarrassed. I was impressed with how calm you stayed, considering how angry she was with you. Of course, when I saw you, I understood immediately.”

  “Understood what?”

  “That she’s jealous.”

  It took me a beat to understand what he meant. “Of me?” I let out an incredulous laugh.

  I wasn’t in the habit of being falsely modest. This wasn’t me begging for compliments or trying to patch my insecurities with flattery, because two years with Abilene had trained me to accept her greater worth on nearly every level—save for the academic and in earning Grandpa Leo’s love. There, I excelled. But everywhere else—beauty, friends, personality—Abilene surpassed me. And any other girl at Cadbury would have agreed.

  “Abilene’s not jealous of me,” I said with a smile. “She’s Abilene. I’m just me
…I’m not like her. If you saw her, you’d understand.”

  “I did see her,” he replied dryly. “She and her acquaintance took occupancy of the room while I was on the patio, which left me stuck outside. Red hair, blue dress, right?”

  “Yes,” I said, my smile fading. “So you did see her. You do understand.”

  “I did and I do. Let me see your hand.”

  I gave him my hand without thinking, extending it out and offering him the small pile of broken glass I’d collected. With deft fingers, he plucked the shards out of my palm and dropped them one by one into the wastebasket. “I thought I told you to be careful,” he said.

  I was staring at his face, mesmerized, and I had to tear my eyes away and look down at my hand. I’d cut myself somehow, driven a needle-thin point of glass into my fingertip while trying to clean up, and now blood welled around it, wet and sticky.

  “Oh,” I whispered.

  And I don’t know if it was the sight of the blood or the icy prick of pain or my sudden proximity to him, but my vision shifted and my perception sharpened, and for a minute, I saw him, the real him behind that striking face and decorated jacket. I saw him like I would have if we’d met in the stuffy clusters of the party, if we’d met while Grandpa Leo stood beside me, waiting for me to deliver my observations and deductions.

  I saw the small cut along his jaw.

  I saw his hand cradling mine, sure and strong, his skin rough and nicked from war.

  I saw the dull glint of the Distinguished Service Cross pinned near his heart.

  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 a
nd 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 please 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.