He leaned forward, resting his forehead against mine. “It was too rough, Greer. First times are supposed to be tender. Slow.”
I shook my head against his, squeezing his hand. “I wouldn’t have had it any other way.”
The truth must have been clear in my voice, because he straightened up and looked at me warily as he helped me wriggle out of the dress that was still bunched around my waist. “You’re a dangerous girl.”
“Dangerous for whom?”
“Me,” he muttered, helping me down from the counter and leading me into the shower, but I caught a crooked flash of a smile when he turned away from me to close the glass shower door. My heart fluttered, and I realized he was the dangerous one. I would fall in love if I wasn’t careful.
“I meant what I said,” I told him, closing the distance between us. “I wouldn’t do anything differently. I’m glad it was you. I’m glad you did it the way you did.”
“And what is the way I take care of you now?” he asked. “Tell me what you need. Anything. After what you gave me, after what you let me take from you, anything.”
That vulnerable feeling again, that heart beating in the open air. “Can I stay with you tonight?”
The way his face looked after I said that, as if I’d broken his heart. “Jesus, Greer. You can stay with me for the rest of my life.” His hands found my ass, my waist, my hair, his face in an expression of combined awe and compassion. “Do you really think I’d kick you out into the night? Do you think that this evening meant so little to me that as soon as I came inside you, I’d want you gone?” He shook his head in disbelief. “And I’m over here wondering how much time I can steal away from you this week, wondering when it’s okay for me to ask for your number, meet your family, visit you at college. Yes, of course you can spend the night. I want you in my arms until it’s time to feed you breakfast in bed, and then I want you in my arms some more.”
He leaned his head down to brush his nose against mine, and I melted. “You are the most extraordinary woman I’ve ever met,” he murmured with a smile. “I’m not stupid enough to let you leave my sight.”
I suppose now it’s easy enough to guess the end of this particular story. Embry and I fooled around in the shower until I was a wild woman in his arms, and then he took me back to bed, where he made love to me as slowly and softly as the first time was rough and hard. It still stung and hurt, the tears came again, but the pleasure found me faster this time, and soon I was coming apart under his expert touch, shuddering in quiet release. He came inside me, and then we cleaned up and fell asleep, me wrapped tightly in his arms. We woke up once more and I was too sore for sex, but Embry slid down my body and tongued me to a vicious, exhausted orgasm, and when I reached for him afterwards, he pushed my hand away and knelt up over my stomach. Within six or seven strokes, he was shooting a painful, long release onto my belly, and the sight of him climaxing over me was so beautiful I wanted to memorize it forever.
What a man.
What a heartbroken, funny, charming, moody man.
And the eight-inch dick and muscled stomach and war hero past didn’t hurt at all.
I’d texted Abilene from the Ferris wheel to tell her I was out with a guy and planning to spend the night at his hotel—which I gave her the name and the address for, a girl can’t be too careful—but when I woke up early the next morning, Embry’s naked hairy legs entwined with mine and his warm breath ruffling the hair at the back of my neck, I figured I should go home and show my face to Grandpa and Abilene and find a fresh change of clothes. But after that…well, Embry had mentioned he’d be in Chicago for another week, and my pussy blushed at the thought of all that time together. Funny how the wound created by Ash didn’t hurt any less, didn’t feel any less jagged or deep, but somehow there was this new space for joy and excitement carved out in my chest. For the first time in so long, I looked forward to the future. Had someone to make each minute feel exotic and newly washed, simply because his memory was stamped upon it.
I extricated myself from Embry’s arms, biting my lip to still my huge smile as I looked down at him. He slept like a child, full lips parted ever so slightly, covers all kicked up and tangled around his long, muscular legs. I wondered if I would get to see him again like this, morning after morning after morning, my pussy aching from his attention and my heart thudding with nervous happiness.
God, I hoped so.
I left him a quick note on the hotel stationary—my number and hotel name and room number and promised I was just leaving to reassure my relatives that I wasn’t bobbing facedown in the river. I told him I wanted to see him today as soon as he woke up, and I’d be waiting for his call.
I signed my name, and added:
ps. I wouldn’t do any of it differently. Any of it. I can’t wait to see you again.
But I didn’t see him again.
He didn’t call, didn’t come to my hotel, didn’t write. Didn’t try to contact me or find me. I spent the week curled up in bed while Abilene brought me ice cream and counseled me through what she thought was a normal post-one-night-stand heartbreak. My grandfather flew back to Manhattan with me and tried to cheer me up by taking me to my favorite restaurants, my favorite Broadway shows, and for him I tried to fake smiles and happiness, but the moment I boarded the plane to London eight weeks later, I let the mask fall from my face and shatter at my feet.
For the first time, I considered that Merlin’s admonition against kissing was meant for my own well-being. Perhaps he knew, with whatever foresight he seemed to possess, that I was simply doomed to heartbreak. That no matter how isolated I tried to make myself, the men I would invariably trust with my body and my heart would treat those gifts carelessly.
Well, I wouldn’t make that same mistake again, I vowed. No more kisses, no more men. No more trusting and giving and hoping. No more of that girl who craved rough and wrong and reckless, no more wanting to crawl or be held by the neck and dominated. That Greer was over, through, suffocated and dead and buried. There would be books and libraries and manuscripts—things that I could trust—and I would build a life all by myself, without anyone else, without the chance of getting used up and brokenhearted again.
I never stopped waiting though. For Embry to call. For Embry to show up with his crooked smile and colorful pants and the best excuse for not coming after me that week in Chicago.
He never did.
Except, of course, five years later when he strolled into my office at Georgetown and asked to take me to dinner.
14
The Present
I wake up expecting Ash to be long gone, for the bed to be cold and empty next to me, but that’s not what happens. Instead, I wake up nestled into a warm chest, a heavy arm draped over my side. For a moment, I forget where I am—when I am—and squint at the tall windows at the edge of the room, expecting to see the looming outline of Chicago skyscrapers. But no, it’s the weakening fall sunshine overlooking the South Lawn, and I’m not in a hotel room with Embry, I’m in the White House. In bed with the President.
I roll over to look at him, taking care not to wake him up. He stays fast asleep, his breathing deep and even, his face relaxed and vulnerable. I stroke the thick black hair brushing against his forehead and finally indulge my urge from ten years ago and trace his mouth with my fingertips. Against my belly, I feel his sleepy erection, impressive and thick even at half-mast.
My fingertips on his face wake him.
His eyes blink open, finding my face immediately. “Greer,” he says, his voice sleep-rough and warm.
I snuggle into him, kissing the warm space below his collarbone. “Good morning, Mr. President,” I say.
“I fell asleep,” he says, sounding surprised. “I fell asleep with you.”
“Wasn’t that the idea?”
He kisses the top of my head. “The idea was for you to sleep in my bed. I haven’t had a full night’s sleep since my first tour of duty.”
I pull back to look up at his face
. The thought sends a pleasant warmth to my chest, that I was able to give him something, that he had something with me that he hasn’t had in fourteen years. “Maybe I’m your sleeping lucky charm.”
“In that case,” he says with a smile and a sudden move so that he’s on top of me, “I might have to keep you in my bed forever.”
He pins me with his arms and kisses me, and my sighs turn into moans as he rocks his hips against me.
“I want to stay in your bed forever,” I breathe. “Please.”
And with the pert rap of awful timing, a knock sounds at the door, followed by Belvedere’s exasperated voice. “Mr. President, please. I’ve called every phone you own, and I more than anyone am happy you’re still in bed, but you have a meeting in your office in thirty minutes. It’s time to peel yourself away from Ms. Galloway and get in the shower.”
I burst into giggles, and Ash grins down at me. “I should fire him,” he says, leaning down to bite my earlobe.
I run my hands up the wide, muscled lines of his back, trailing my nails back down to his ass, regrettably covered up by his boxer briefs. “You should go,” I whisper.
He nods, giving my earlobe a final nibble and then rolling off me. He goes to the door, opening it to an impatient but amused Belvedere. “I’m up, I’m up,” he says. “I’ll be down in twenty-five minutes.”
“Sure,” drawls Belvedere. “You won’t have any temptation to linger while there’s a warm, sleepy blonde in your bed. Maybe I should stay.”
“Goodbye,” Ash says firmly, closing the door on him and turning back to face me.
I’m already up, searching for my clothes to get dressed and leave, but Ash walks over and pulls the dress out of my hands, tossing it on the bed. “Shower. Now.”
My body tingles at his words, and I scramble to obey, shedding his T-shirt and my panties as I go. I step into the glass-walled shower just as he enters the bathroom, stripping off his boxer briefs as he does, and I have to force myself to breathe. Even though I had his cock in my mouth last night, this is the first time I’m confronted with his body completely naked, and there’s almost too much to take in all at once. Those vast expanses of warm skin, the irresistible curves of muscles and delectable lines of tendons, those angled lines of muscle coming down from his hips to his penis. And that part of him is mesmerizing all on its own, thick and proud even at rest, the crown wide and flared.
“I’m up here,” Ash says amusedly as he steps into the shower with me, walking past the knobs without turning the water on.
I drag my eyes up from his cock, barely making it to his face for all the distracting ridges of muscle and flat, brown nipples and wide, powerful shoulders. “You’re beautiful,” I tell him honestly. “I want to stare at you forever.”
“We don’t have forever,” Ash says. “We have about ten minutes. And those ten minutes are going to be for me.”
“For you?” I ask to clarify. I don’t understand, even though I can’t think of anything he’d do that I would object to. And I have my safe word if he does.
“Turn around,” he orders. “Hands on the wall, legs spread. This is the first time I get to see you naked too, don’t forget, and I’m not going to miss a thing.”
With a happy shiver racing down my spine, I do as he asks, trying not to feel self-conscious as I feel his hands on my ass, squeezing and separating so that the most basic parts of me are exposed for his viewing. He squats down behind me, to look at my cunt more closely. “Perfect,” he says in a whisper, kissing me there. I moan and shove my hips back, wanting more, and he stands up with a laugh and slaps my ass. “Turn around, angel.”
I turn and he catches my wrists in his strong hands, moving both above my head. “Keep those there,” he says as he lets go and takes a step back to look at me. The posture has my chest jutting forward, my breasts pert and high, and my stomach stretched taut, and his gorgeous cock thickens and stirs. He doesn’t take it in his hand though, and neither does he touch me. He simply takes in every shadow and curve of my body, every inch, every secret and public place.
Finally, when my nipples are hard under his gaze and my cunt wet and swollen from wanting him, he comes close to me. He fingers the ends of my hair, idly, almost like a horse buyer does with a horse’s mane. “This is all mine now, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” I pant.
“This hair and these tits and that pussy—all mine.”
“Yes, Ash, all yours. Please—”
He gives me a stern look. “When I want you to beg, I’ll tell you.”
My cunt is so tight it hurts. “Yes, Sir.”
“Good,” he nods, looking back down at my hair between his fingertips. “On your knees.”
I kneel, the cold tile hard on my knees, but I ignore it, enraptured by the man in front of me. His hands are running through my hair, smoothing and stroking it, and then it’s only his left hand while his right slowly fists his cock. Slowly moves from the root to the crown, as surely and deliberately as Ash does anything. I’m lit on fire by the sight of that hand, strong and big and scarred. There is the faintest dusting of dark hair on the back, only near the wrist, hair a shade lighter than the black hair leading like an arrow down from his navel. Everything about him—legs shoulder-width apart, muscles in his arm flexing as he strokes himself, that insatiable dick ridged with veins—is so male and rough and greedy.
“That hair,” he says, wrapping it tighter around his hand. I begin to feel the tug on my scalp, but I don’t mind. I want my hair pulled, I want my eyes to water, and more than anything I want to see Ash come.
He wastes no time, his hand working hard and fast, his eyes searing trails from my face to my tits to my bare knees on the tile and finally landing on the skein of blond hair circling his hand. He lets out a low exhale, the furrowed lines of his stomach tensing, and then those dark eyelashes flutter as he comes, aiming not for my tits or my face, but for the hair he’s so obsessed with. I watch in hungry fascination as he erupts, thick and hot and long, my gold hair now seeded with the white pearls of his climax.
I could stay like this forever, I think dizzily. On my knees, marked by him, beside him.
But we don’t have forever. I have to fight off a serrated bite of frustration as I remember how limited his time is and will be for years to come. There will be no days where I’m his only focus. No long lazy mornings in bed, no time spent without an eye on the clock. I’ll never be anything more than a ten-minute mistress when he’s married to a nation.
I reach for his legs and bury my face in his hip, trying to hide my thoughts, and he lets me for a moment, stroking my head and allowing me to nuzzle against him. My wet desire has receded in the wake of this desperate need to be close to him, to reassure myself that he’s real, that right now, in this moment, he is mine to press against and I am his to use and pet as he sees fit.
After a long minute like this, he tugs my head back by my hair—gently this time—and searches my face. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t ask me what’s wrong, and he doesn’t need to. He gives a small nod to himself, as if he saw what he expected, and then reaches for my elbows to guide me to my feet.
“Stay there,” he says. In a few seconds’ work, the water is on and warm and he’s guiding my head under the spray. He doesn’t let me do anything myself—he wets my hair and then massages in the shampoo. Rinses it and then massages in the conditioner. I relax and let his strong fingers do all the work, washing away the traces of his orgasm.
The shampoo and conditioner are for women’s hair, brand new, and I wonder if he had them sent for as early as yesterday afternoon. As early as a few days ago, when I told Embry I’d meet him. And I’m about to remark about how skilled he is at washing a woman’s hair when I remember that he’s a widower. He was married for years. Of course he’s done this before.
And of course I’m not jealous of a dead woman. Of course not.
In any case, he’s as efficient as he is gentle, and within a few minutes, we are both washed and cle
an and wrapped in towels. I sit down on the bed and watch him get dressed, the act of fastening cufflinks and knotting his tie almost as erotic as anything else we’ve done in the last twelve hours.
I’ve almost worked up the courage to ask when I can see him again when he turns to face me, fixing a silver tie bar into place. “I hate this as much as you do, you know,” he says, looking at me. “I hate squeezing you into the margins. I hate that I can’t give you all of my time. All of myself.”
He walks over to the bed, tugging at my towel, rendering me naked and damp. Goose bumps erupt everywhere, my nipples hardening into stiff furls. “You deserve more than me. You deserve a whole man, not a man who can only give you scraps of himself.”
“I’ll take whatever you can give me,” I say, shuddering with pleasure when he runs a pensive finger down my neck to my nipple.
“I know,” he says, and his voice sounds almost sad. “But it isn’t kind to you. Lie down and spread your legs.”
I shift on the bed, opening myself to him, the act of such wanton obedience still triggering a wave of modesty and shame. But I cling to the shame, delight in it, and let it guide me.
His fingers caress my pussy, parting the petals to find the wetness within. “I want to give you everything it’s possible for me to give. I want to give you everything I can. And I don’t want you to be a secret.” His long middle finger slides inside me, and my back arches off the bed. He sits next to me and then there are two fingers, crooking expertly against my sensitive front walls as the heel of his palm grinds against my clit. My body takes to his touch like dry tinder, sparking immediately.
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