now

The White House is quiet as Belvedere and I walk up the stairs to the Residence; it goes even quieter as Belvedere tactfully melts away before I reach the living room.

Strauss is playing, softly enough that I can hear Greer’s laughter floating above it, along with the unmistakable clink of ice cubes in a silver bucket. There’s a low husk of male laughter that has my chest going hot and tight, and when I reach the threshold of the living room, I don’t walk in. I just lean against the doorframe and watch the charming scene inside.

Greer and Ash are dancing.

She’s wearing a simple white top and a caramel-colored skirt that shows off her long legs, her feet bare and her white-gold hair tugged to the side in a messy braid. He’s in a white button down and black slacks, also barefoot, his shirt rolled up to expose his sculpted forearms. I don’t know why, but there’s something so fascinating to me about the way his forearms narrow into his wrists, the way his wrists widen into those large, rough hands. Perhaps it was all those years at war, his hands in half-finger tactical gloves and hidden from sight. Maybe it’s just the masculine perfection of it all—the muscle, the bones, the hair. The dormant power.

I watch as those hands run over Greer’s arms, as they move back to a proper waltz position—one extended, the other at her waist. And as they dance, I watch the light catch in Greer’s hair, which is every shade of gold from white to honeyed to dark—just as it always gets in the fall. I remember the way it looked spread across my pillow in a Chicago hotel, how it gleamed in the moonlight when I rescued her from Melwas, and my breath catches.

Both of them. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.

In only a few seconds of observing, it becomes apparent why they were laughing. Ash keeps throwing off the swiveling box of the waltz steps, his movements as clumsy and stiff as a wind-up soldier’s. He never could find the music, never could let go of his mind long enough for his body to move on instinct. And I have to wince a teacher’s wince when I watch him attempt the dance, his feet crowding Greer’s delicate ones, his deliciously narrow hips moving barely at all.

I suppose all those dancing lessons during the war were in vain, I think. But then I remember the feel of him under my hands, the tinny echo of a CD player against stark mountain trees, how often he’d end up yanking my body flush against his and kissing me with ferocious, possessive kisses. Screw the dancing, he’d mumble, and within minutes there would be teeth and sweat and fingertips digging into muscle. I think I still have scars on my knees from all those impromptu mountain fucks; God knows I can still recall the blushing shame of asking the quartermaster for yet another uniform repair kit to patch the knees in my pants, and I have hardly ever blushed with shame in my life.

For a minute I allow myself to forget today, forget the last two months. The wedding, the blackmail, the green hurt in Ash’s eyes when I told him I was leaving him. I allow myself to believe that I’m just coming up to my wife and my husband after a long day at the office, that this sweet waltzing laughter is what I come home to every night, that when they catch sight of me, I will be rewarded with kisses both firm and soft.

In my little fantasy, I don’t have to wonder why Ash brought me here. In my fantasy, he brought me here because he misses me.

He brought me here because he loves me.

Greer finally catches sight of me as they turn, and her delighted smile lights a bittersweet flame in my chest. I give her a tentative smile back, my heart racing, and then I slide my gaze over to Ash.

A slow, warm smile spreads across his face. “Embry,” he says. “You came.”

I answer simply, “You asked me to come.”

His smile twists up ruefully. “If only it were that easy all the time.”

Before I can respond and spoil the moment, he bends down and murmurs something to his wife. It sounds like, “Go greet our guest.”

Her eyes flick up to his, as if silently asking a question, and then he nods, letting go and watching her cross the space between him and me.

And I’m entranced. It’s hard not to be entranced with Greer—there’s something about the way she carries herself, about the careful reserve of that exquisite face. Like no matter how you open her up and turn her pages, you’ll never know all of her. You’ll never read every secret; there will always be something out of reach and held apart. You could spend your entire life trying to learn every glow and shadow of her heart and mind and still never finish.

It’s been two months since her grandfather’s funeral, two months since I’ve been in the same room with her, and I’d forgotten. Forgotten the power of her moonlight eyes and sunshine hair. Forgotten how she makes my bones ache and my blood hot just by looking at me. All those shameful nights since Abilene drugged me, alone in my bed with nothing but memories and internet searches, jerking off to pictures of Greer—it’s almost blinding to be confronted with the real woman again, and not the ghost.

I stay completely still as she approaches, blood thundering everywhere and making me hot and full in the part that has missed Greer and Ash most. I’m not sure what to say or what to do or even why I’m here, but I do know that I want it. Whatever it is. Abuse, recrimination, punishment—if they want to spend the next hour yelling at me, it would be the sweetest symphony, and if they want to beat me, it would feel like a thousand beloved caresses. I’m starving for them.

Greer stops just in front of me. Slowly, she puts her hand flat against my chest, right over my heart. I realize I’m still in my tuxedo, my unknotted bow tie hanging rakishly around my neck. I feel ashamed of it, ashamed of my wedding clothes, ashamed to be here in such a visible reminder of what separates us.

But Greer moves closer and rises up on her tiptoes and buries her nose in my neck. Smelling me.

The raw carnality of it has me fighting back a groan, a fight I lose when I look up and see Ash watching us with glittering eyes, his arms folded across his impressive chest and his erection pushing against the front of his pants.

And then Greer’s lips are against my throat, my jaw, as I stand completely still, not sure what I’m allowed to touch. What I’m allowed to enjoy. I dip my gaze to the woman kissing my jaw and then lift it back to Ash.

Can I?

“Say please,” he says.

“Please,” I breathe, without the slightest hesitation.

Ash gives me a nod, and that’s enough permission for me. I yank my queen in against my body, one arm banded around her waist, the other behind her neck, and I press my hungry mouth to hers for the first time in what feels like forever.

“God, you taste amazing,” I mumble against her mouth. “Fuck.”

In response, she slides her arms around my neck and pulls herself up, wrapping her lean legs around my waist, and it’s instinct that has me catching her under the thighs to support her.

It’s curiosity that sends my hands sliding up her legs to her ass.

No panties.

Shit.

Shit.

My hands are as hungry as my mouth, and they’re currently filled with the delicious flesh of her bottom, and I am squeezing and plumping under her skirt as my lips finally slot against her own in a way that coaxes them to part. And then I’m truly tasting her mouth—sweet champagne and the clean taste of her, just her—in the first real kiss I’ve had since…since when? Since that night in Ash’s office? When he’d crushed his body into mine, guided my hand to where he wanted it?

And how long since the three of us? It must have been Camp David, after I brought Greer home and before I flew to Seattle. Almost five months.

Five months. And I am so fucking tied in knots over just a kiss from Greer. How am I going to survive the rest of my life without her? Without him?

I kiss her for a long time. Long enough for a full waltz to play, long enough for my muscles to remind me that I’m carrying her weight on my arms, long enough for me to refamiliarize myself with the swells and swerves of her mouth—the tiny vaults between teeth and tongue, the silky arches of lips, the heat, the taste, the taste. She moans against me, squirms against me, the center of her heat right against my stomach, and I hate every fiber of the fabric that separates my skin from hers.

“And what about me?” Ash finally asks. “Do I get a greeting as well?”

Greer unhooks her legs and slides down, squeezing my hand as she steps off to the side. The look she shoots me is encouragement and lust and everything I don’t deserve, and somehow I’ve ended up in some upside-down world where it doesn’t matter. I’m here and they’re here, and that’s all there is.

I meet eyes with Ash, still standing across the room, still obviously and deliciously erect. I see the corner of his mouth twitch, just a flash of that hidden dimple, and then he lifts his chin the tiniest bit. The meaning is clear: he won’t come to me. I have to go to him.

I shouldn’t. I shouldn’t for more than one reason: I’m not the man who kneels for him any more; I told him to his face that his authority no longer held moral value for me. I shouldn’t because I know better than I did years ago, and I know now that the bedroom games we play always have power in real life.

I shouldn’t go to him. But I do.

I walk to him, the waltz music swirling gently around us and the thick carpet crushing audibly under my shoes, and when I get to him, I stop when I’m just out of reach.

“How would you like to be greeted?” I ask, not sure what I want the answer to be—not sure of anything, actually, except that I never want to leave. I want tonight to play on a loop for the rest of my life; I want to live inside it forever.

“Oh,” Ash responds, “I think a kiss would do quite nicely.”

My heart lifts, I step forward, and I’m caught immediately by a hand at my shoulder. “Not my mouth,” Ash says. “That will take some earning.”

I stare at him, not comprehending at first, half expecting him to push me down to my knees and make me unbuckle his belt. But he doesn’t do either of those things, and out of the bottom of my eye, I see the movement of his foot.

I eye it doubtfully. “You’re joking,” I say.

“Hardly.”

I look back up to him and see his hidden dimple flash. “It’s just for fun, little prince,” he says quietly. “I won’t interpret your kiss as anything other than what it is.”

“Good,” I say. “Because this changes nothing.”

“Nothing,” agrees Ash.

And I get to my knees and I bend down and I kiss his foot. The skin is warm and clean, and underneath the slight pressure of my lips, I feel the slender rods of bone and plump give of veins and rigid ropes of tendons. How can a mere foot radiate so much power? So much perfect masculine strength? And yet it does, it does, and I could kiss his foot for so much longer than a few seconds—and I have in the past—but he pulls his foot away from me.

“Thank you, I enjoyed that,” he says, walking over to the bar cart by the window. I stay where I’m at on my knees, touching my lips, not ready to give up the feeling of his skin against them.

“Do you want a drink?” he asks. “We put some champagne on ice for you, although Greer’s already taken care of the first bottle.”

“Champagne sounds nice,” I say distantly, my mind still replaying the feeling of my lips on his feet. One day, I need to figure out why the fuck I love that feeling so much.

Greer floats past me to help Ash at the bar, and I stand and lean against the back of a nearby sofa, trying to regain some measure of control over my feelings.

“Have a seat,” Ash says over his shoulder. “We’ll be right over with your champagne.”

So I sit and watch the cutely domestic tableau of Ash opening the bottle and Greer hunting under the cart for three flutes. She jumps ever so slightly when the bottle pops, and Ash laughs at her, and then she sticks her tongue out at him, and his eyes darken into a shade I know all too well. “Careful, little princess,” he murmurs. “Or you’ll get yourself into trouble.”

Judging by the smile she can’t hide, even with her eyes cast demurely down, trouble is exactly what Greer wants. And I know the feeling.

Soon, the two of them are joining me in the sitting area, Ash handing me a flute of champagne and Greer settling on the sofa at a right angle to mine—I could reach out and touch her arm if I wanted. Ash stays standing in front of me.

“We should toast,” he suggests. “What to?”

“Not my wedding,” I say, and then realizing how much that revealed, I feel the tops of my ears warm with embarrassment. “Please,” I add. “Anything else.”

“Let’s toast to tonight then. The three of us together.”

“To tonight,” Greer says, leaning forward with an extended glass.

“Tonight,” I echo. And our glasses clink together with a bright, happy sound that I don’t deserve.

Ash and I drain our glasses and Greer sips hers and sets it aside. Then Ash settles on the sofa across from me, stretching an arm along the back and crossing a long leg over the other.

“I missed you,” he says straightforwardly. “I’m glad you came.”

“Me too,” I admit. “It was a long day. And it’s been a long couple of months.”

“Abilene and the baby are well?” he asks.

“Yes.”

Beside me, I feel Greer flinch. She called me about six weeks ago, after Abilene had showed up at her office uninvited and done what Abilene does best—disturb people. Greer had warned me that she thought Abilene was unstable (no surprise there) and also to haltingly apologize for assuming I’d betrayed her. We’d come to a painful understanding about it, painful because the truth no longer had the power to make a difference. There would still be a baby. I would still run against Ash. And she’d confessed then how much she wished she was pregnant too, how jealous she felt of Abilene for stealing that privilege away from her, and the worst, basest parts of me wanted to beg her to meet me, lay with me, give me as many chances as it would take to plant a child in her. Prove to her that it had always, always been her I imagined carrying my child, ever since that night in Chicago.

I didn’t beg her to do that, of course. Yes, Ash had made it clear that Greer and I were free to see each other, but I think both of us knew then—and still know—that seeing each other without him would eventually sow a harvest too bitter to reap.

And there was already enough bitterness in bloom.

I explained to her why I had to run against Ash, exactly how I believed he couldn’t keep her safe, and what I would do in his place if I had the power to do it. And nothing was more terrible than the silence on the other end as I talked, than her expressionless I see when I finished.

What are you thinking? I’d asked, hating how insecure I sounded.

Her voice had been careful when she answered. Are you asking for my approval?

I had been, I had realized with a touch of shame…and with a touch of indignation. Why shouldn’t I? It was for her, after all. Yes, Greer. I need to know that you know why I’m doing this.

Embry, I love you completely, and I always will. But I’m never leaving Ash’s side, and I think you were wrong to.

What else could be said after that? I told her I loved her, and then we ended the call.

We haven’t spoken since.

What the hell. Tonight is make-believe anyway, an unreal fantasy, just for fun, as Ash said, and so there’s no reason for me not to reach over and wrap Greer’s slender fingers in my own. I don’t say anything as I do it, but when I meet her eyes, she gives me a faint smile.

“I know,” she says, without me having to say anything. “I wish knowing made it easier…but I know.”

“It’s a boy, right?” Ash asks. “Any names yet?”

I keep my eyes on Greer as I answer, trying to gauge if this topic upsets her, but she seems calm enough.

“Abilene wants something old-fashioned,” I say. “Percival or Alistair or Chauncey or something like that. I’ve been trying to talk her into something more sensible, like, you know, John. Or Jacob. But she wants something that sounds chivalrous, I guess.”

“I’ve always liked the name Galahad,” Greer suggests. “He’s the knight who finds the Holy Grail. More chivalrous than Lancelot or Percival or even Arthur himself.”

“Or how about George?” I counter. “Or Gary? Those start with G too.”

She laughs, squeezing my hand. “It would be an unusual name, I admit, but you can’t have higher aspirations for your child than wanting him to see the face of God on Earth.”

She’s right, and I’m not religious like Ash and Greer, so I don’t need my son to chase after any grail, holy or otherwise. But I do want the entire world for him, and everything in it, and I want to raise him to deserve it.

It occurs to me that I have a privilege Ash never had: the right to know my son from birth. Even though I haven’t met him, even though his mother scares the shit out of me, I feel a raw twist of pain in my stomach at even the hypothetical idea of missing a moment of his life.

How much Ash must feel that with Lyr.

“You’re right,” I answer Greer as I look back to Ash, who’s staring thoughtfully at his hands. “Morgan tells me she’s still considering your request to meet Lyr,” I say to him.

He nods. “I’d like very much to meet him,” he replies. “And I’ll respect Morgan’s wishes—though if Abilene goes public with what she knows, I think it will be less traumatic for him if he’s already learned the truth.”

“I’ll do what I can to keep her quiet,” I promise. “For you and for Morgan and for Lyr.” I think of the solemn-eyed boy who used to love games of chase, of the smart, bored teenager he is now. “He deserves better.”

“I appreciate that,” Ash says, then smiles. “I’m sorry. I didn’t bring you here to talk about the upsetting things between us. Would you like another drink?”

“Yes, please.”

He gets to his feet and scoops my flute from the side table, and while he’s refilling it with champagne, Greer threads her fingers through mine.

“I’ve missed you,” she says, looking down at where our hands braid together. “I don’t know how I got so used to having what we had, when we had it for such a short amount of time, but I did. And I got used to having you here, with us, even before the wedding.” Her throat works, a delicate, silent swallow. “Every day. Every day I miss you.”

What can I say to that? To her naked, vulnerable pain? So much of it is my fault, and the guilt is like slick oil all over me, because I never wanted to hurt her. I want to keep her safe, I want to make sure no one can hurt her ever again, and yet all of that feels too abstract to explain right now. Too pitiful.

But why? Shouldn’t I just tell her these things? Maybe face to face, she’d understand, not like over the phone. If I could look into her eyes and just explain…but what if it didn’t change her mind? What if she still thought I was wrong?

“I miss you every day as well,” I say instead, like a coward. “I’ve missed every single part of you.”

“I think I can guess which parts,” she laughs.

“I mean it,” I insist. I slide off the sofa to kneel by her feet and press her hand to my lips. “I haven’t—well, you know I haven’t with Abilene, and not with anyone else either, but that’s not what I mean when I say I miss you. It’s not just the fucking that I ache for. It’s your voice, your gaze, your touch. Even your highlighters and Post-Its scattered everywhere. I’m miserable without you.”

But I can endure it because I know I’ll make you safe.

“I’m sorry for all of it,” I finish. “But I love you, and that will always be the end of our story.”

She drops her eyes, her eyelashes brushing against her cheeks. “For me too, Embry,” is all she says. I kiss the back of her hand again and then press my forehead to it. There’s not a river wide enough or deep enough to contain everything I feel for this woman.

Ash returns with my drink, and I reluctantly push myself away from Greer and back to my seat. Ash hands the champagne to me over the back of the couch, and as I take it from him, I swear I feel a fingertip ghost across the back of my neck. But when I turn, he’s gone, already folding that powerful body back to a seated position on the sofa across from me. And somehow I know from the way those aventurine eyes look at me that he heard my conversation with Greer. That he correctly interpreted my supplication at her feet.

And that the night is about to change.

“Where’s my hospitality?” he asks in a voice that is dark and playful and mockingly polite all at once. “I’ve offered you a drink, but surely there’s more that my weary traveler needs?”

“I’m fine,” I say automatically, watching as he snaps his fingers. In an instant, Greer is kneeling demurely by his feet.

“Are you sure?” he asks with a raised eyebrow once she’s settled. “Something to eat, maybe? I can easily call down to the kitchen and have them bring something up.” His hand drops to idly stroke Greer’s head and neck. My eyes follow his fingers, jealousy curling smoky swirls inside my mind. I’m jealous of both of them—of Ash for touching Greer and of Greer for being touched by Ash. It’s a knot that I can never fully untangle, a riddle I can’t unpuzzle; I can only hope to survive it with my soul intact.

“No, I’m not hungry,” I finally answer. Though I think of Greer’s heat against my stomach as her heels dug into my back earlier tonight, and I want to add at least, I’m not hungry for food.

Ash is toying with her braid now, brushing the tail of it along her jaw, giving it a sharp tug whenever she shivers at the touch. “More comfortable clothes? A shower maybe?”

Both sound amazing, actually, stripping and washing away this terrible day, but I don’t have the right to make myself at home here any more, not even for pretend.

Ash seems to anticipate the shake of my head and tilts his own head with a slow, satisfied smile. “Then I know what. Greer, our guest needs something from you. Go make him feel comfortable.”

There’s no hesitation in her voice when she answers, “Yes, Sir,” and no reluctance or shyness when she rises gracefully from her knees to walk over to me. My mouth goes dry as she gets closer, as she gives me a lip-biting smile and then turns to face away from me. With sleek movements and a flirty flounce of her skirt, she’s on her hands and knees on the coffee table in front of me, and it takes me a moment to process what I’m seeing. The clean, pink soles of her feet, the toned swells of her calves. The soft skin of her thighs, the hem of her skirt just barely covering the naked pussy underneath. My skin is erupting into a thousand thousand needy goose bumps; my cock is swelling fast and hungry against my tuxedo pants.

I can’t breathe.

Ash stands up, looking at me from across the slender flat of Greer’s back. He once again rubs her head in idle affection, and she pushes her face against his thigh like a purring cat.

“Go on, Embry,” he says calmly. “I want to be a good host.”

I’m still sitting, still several steps behind whatever’s happening right now, and he seems to sense it. Giving Greer’s hair a final caress, he walks over to me and extends his hand. I stare at it a moment, not sure what I’m agreeing to if I take it. But when have I ever not taken his hand when it was offered? I press my palm to his and grip tightly, and then he’s helping me to my feet.

He runs a finger along the hem of Greer’s skirt, nudging it up ever so slightly and then letting it drop back down, over and over again. Our hands are still clasped tight, but neither of us lets go.

How good it feels simply to hold his hand. How electrifying to stand here with him behind the woman we both love.

“It was Greer’s idea,” he says, in a voice still full of the play-dark and the mock-polite. “And I rather like it. Don’t you?”

“I—” My mouth is so dry that it takes more than one attempt to get the words out. “I still don’t know what the idea is.”

His finger runs along her hem again, lifting it higher this time, and even standing above her as we are, there’s a tease of folded flesh and a narrow glimpse of pink. And I’m hard for it, so fucking hard. I haven’t felt anything other than my own hand for so long—no soft and slick cunts, no clever and wet tongues, no masculine fists full of Vaseline and cruelty. Not even the hair-rough thrusts against a lover’s thighs, like I used to have once upon a time.

“Well,” Ash explains, again with that cool, polite voice, as if he’s explaining something ordinary and mundane. “I wanted you to come here tonight after your wedding, and when I told Greer, she reminded me of certain ancient customs regarding hospitality.”

With an expert flick, he flips the hem of her skirt up and over, so that the heart-shape of her ass is completely exposed. As is the welcoming split between her legs.

I’m back to not being able to breathe.

Ash lets go of my hand, the air unpleasantly cool and vacant against my fingers after he does, and then he smooths his hands over his wife’s bottom.

“She tells me that in biblical times, the custom began with a man leading the guest to a private tent. The man’s wife or sister or daughter was inside, waiting.” Ash’s fingers dent her skin ever so slightly and he pulls her cheeks apart, opening up her cunt for my inspection. She’s already wet, and the sight of it is like a punch to the chest.

“Then the woman would rub the guest’s feet and legs with butter. I did say no to that, you understand. Some of the rugs in here are antiques.”

One of his thumbs rubs across Greer’s inviting slit, smearing her arousal across the outer labia. “But after that part, the guest had the right to relieve his needs with the woman the host had provided.”

He lets go of her ass and her wetness is again hidden. He gives her flank a fond slap and straightens. “It sounded…” he trails off as if searching for the right word, and then he shakes his head with a smile as he fails to find it. “Well, I wanted it, is all. I just wanted it.”

He makes it sound as if offering up his wife is a favor to him and not to me, a pleasure he wants for him, and all I can do is stare. At this woman, who I want above all women, at this man, who I want above all men.

“Ash, Greer, I can’t say yes to this. We…we’re not—”

Even now, it hurts too much to say aloud what we’re not, so I say instead, “This isn’t something we can do anymore.”

“Things are different now,” Ash acknowledges, “which is why Greer suggested giving this to you as a guest-right, and not as something that belongs to you already. Even though—” he closes his eyes for a minute “—even though it does belong to you. My wife’s body and my body. My wife’s heart and my heart. Still belong to you.”

The back of my eyelids burn and I blink fast, trying to keep the keep the tears back, trying to keep the pain fisting in my throat from choking me.

Greer goes up on her knees and turns, so she can slide her arms around my waist and pull herself tight to me. “I know all the reasons why we shouldn’t do this,” she says quietly, her face tilted up to mine. “Which is why it’s easier if it’s a game, you see. I don’t expect anything to be different when you leave here later, I don’t expect you to change anything. Ash and I—we knew you had a separate room at the Four Seasons. Ash wanted to see you, and I wanted to touch you, and together we wanted to give you this as a…well, the word gift sounds high-handed, considering how selfish it is, but a night then. A night when we could play and pretend, and make the hurt feel good, at least for a few hours.”

My lips are already in her hair, and I’m holding her so tightly she might break from it, but I don’t care.

“Are you sure?” I ask. “Both of you? God knows I want it, but I don’t deserve it. I don’t deserve to be treated like a guest.”

“Embry, we’d treat you like a prince if you’d let us,” Greer says against my chest. “Please, please. Just for tonight. Just for pretend.”

And then, as the coup de grace, she takes my hand and guides it under her skirt, where she is wet and willing, and from the way she rocks against my hand, I can tell it won’t be long after I’m inside her that she’ll be tightening and coming on my dick.

I pulse in response to the thought.

“Okay,” I say. “I trust—” The word is too revealing, and I interrupt myself. “I mean, I understand. I want my guest-right. Please.”

Ash takes a deep breath, and at first I think it’s to settle his nerves, but then I realize from his straining erection and his blown-pupil eyes that it’s because he’s struggling for control. And Ash at the edge of his control is beyond dangerous, beyond arousing, dosing up my blood with all sorts of fevered hormones.

Greer rearranges herself back on the table, flipping over her own skirt with a saucy look, and then facing forward, once again Ash’s perfect submissive, still and obedient.

“May I?” Ash asks, his hands dropping to run along the waistband of my tuxedo pants. His fingers scald my skin through the fabric, and my voice is shaky when I answer, yes, you may.

And then I realize his hands are shaky like my voice, trembling as they slowly work open the front of my pants, exposing the silk jersey of my boxer briefs and the dark wet spot made by my leaking, neglected cock.

My former king handles me with infinite care, pulling my boxers down far enough to reveal the fat head of my cock with its wet slit, then the thick, veined shaft. I’m so hard that I actually bob right into his hand once I’m freed, and the feeling is like nothing else. I moan. Then his other hand cradles my balls, cupping them with the perfect amount of pressure, and my eyes flutter closed.

“Feel good?” Ash asks.

“Yes,” I manage, my voice as tight as my sac, which has drawn up high to my body, ready to release at any moment.

“How long has it been since you’ve fucked someone?” Ash asks, his voice as tempered and mild as a doctor’s, like this is a check-up, like this is a routine procedure.

“Camp David,” I say hazily. A wide, warm fingertip is probing the delicate flesh behind my balls, and I can’t remember any moment before this, can’t remember any words that aren’t about skin and touch and heat.

“That’s a long time for a man to go without,” Ash says, and I can’t tell if there’s reproach or sympathy in his words. He gives me a loose and lazy stroke, looking pleased as I nearly buckle from the feeling. “I think you really need this, Embry. Let us make you more comfortable.”

“Yes.” I don’t know which part of it I’m saying yes to, but it doesn’t matter. Yes to all of it. Yes to everything. Yes until I die or until morning comes, whichever happens first.

Ash’s hands leave my penis, which is the worst feeling in the world, but then he puts them back on Greer’s ass and pulls her cheeks apart to show me the best sight in the world. “She’s got an amazing cunt,” he says conversationally, as if I really am a guest, as if I really don’t know for myself exactly how Greer feels underneath me. Impaled, squirming, wet.

“Would you like to sample for yourself? Have a taste?” Ash asks, again in that polite, gracious voice like he’s merely inviting me to taste a prized scotch or enjoy the city view out of a certain window.

I nod, and then his hand is on the back of my neck, and it is the most natural thing in the world to let him push me to my knees, to have him guide my mouth to his wife’s pussy. It’s indecent, I recognize that, obscene and maybe even sinful, but it is the way the three of us were made, and in this moment, I’m ready to forsake everything else I believe just to have this forever.

I can feel Ash’s breathing change the moment my lips touch the peach-like split between Greer’s legs, and I can feel his hand tighten against my neck, his fingers splaying across the back of my head and pushing me harder into her. Greer lets out a low whimper as I open my mouth and kiss her with an eager tongue, determined to re-explore and re-conquer every soft fold, every wet secret. My hands go to her thighs, one of them tangling with one of Ash’s, our fingers sliding through each other’s and gripping tightly, holding on to each other as he holds my face to his woman’s cunt.

Greer is all delicious give and tension, her pussy soft and opening to my mouth and her lissome legs and arms shuddering tight as I eat her. And beside me, Ash is volcanic, about to rupture with heat, his entire body as hard and sharp as obsidian glass. I wish he would rupture, I wish he would explode. I want him naked and demanding and greedy, I want him lost to himself, his control gone, his eyes gone with lust, his desperation incinerating everything that’s not the three of us. I want to provoke him past the edge of his restraint and then lap up all the misery he wants to unleash on me, breathe in all his violent delights and drink up all his violent ends.

But before I can figure out how to make this happen, he’s pulling me away from Greer, hauling me back up to my feet by the back of my jacket. “That’s enough tasting,” he says, his cool voice at odds with his storming eyes and his body wound tight and trembling. He comes around to stand behind me, one of his large hands wrapping around my shaft once again, his other hand sliding past my waist to hold tight to Greer’s hip.

I stare down, fascinated at the pornographic sight of him fisting me and now slowly rubbing my tip against the private softness of his wife. The feeling of his fingers tight on my erection and Greer’s slick entrance at my head is pulling every bit of heat, every drop of blood, down to this one part of me, and then his hips behind nudge me forward and before I can really absorb what’s happening, he’s guiding me inside Greer, his hand giving me one last squeeze before he lets go and I’m fully enveloped.

In front of me, Greer gasps, and I can feel her toes wiggling against my legs as she struggles to adjust. I know the feeling—my own toes are curling in my dress shoes and my chin is in my chest as I struggle to take deep breaths and not lose it right away. But I’m fighting against more than the months-long dry spell, more than the cinch of a woman around my member. I’m fighting against the press of Greer’s thighs against my own and the adorable scrunches of her toes, the dip and curve of her slender waist under her skirt and the golden light of the room making her white-gold hair glow like an angel’s halo. I’m fighting against Ash next to me, his voice husky and burning when he asks, “Does she feel good?”

“Fuck yes, she does,” I breathe. I pull out the tiniest amount, push back in, not trusting myself to do more yet, barely trusting myself to even look at her or Ash.

Ash steps back, sitting with graceful strength on the sofa behind him and keeping his gaze on us the entire time. He leans an elbow on the arm of the sofa and props his head against two fingers and his thumb in the pose of a man casually observing something interesting. His tented slacks and flashing eyes tell a different story, however, and I have no doubt that my favorite version of Ash, beastly and wild, will be uncaged before long.

It’s a thrilling thought, and I have to work even harder to keep myself in check. With my eyes still on Ash, I finally start moving inside Greer, letting her inner walls kiss along my full length for the first time in so very long. I want to savor it…and I also don’t. I want to fuck her sweaty and fast until she’s gasping in between moans and squeezing around me in climax.

Savor. I don’t know when I’ll get to do this again. If I ever will.

I look down to Greer and run appreciative hands over her ass and hips and thighs, trying to imprint every single second of this, every inch of her, onto my memory. The night my king let me fuck his queen in front of him.

“There’s no need to go slowly,” says Ash, reading my thoughts as always. “This is for you.”

It is for me—but also for him and for Greer too, and I wonder if as much as I want to see Ash completely wild, they want to see me the same way. Do they fantasize about me being feral and mindless with lust? Does Greer ever get wet thinking about how rough and reckless I was with her in Carpathia? Does Ash miss the times he had me panting like a dog, shameless and blind with need?

I finally manage to find my voice. “Do you like watching this?” I ask. “Watching me fuck your wife?”

It’s not meant to be insulting or goading, and it doesn’t come out that way. It comes out like I mean it: is this how you wanted it? Are we pleasing you? Let us please you.

Ash smiles against his fingers. “Oh, yes. I enjoy watching this very much.”

Greer in front of me is voiceless, presumably as part of the choreography she mapped out for our night, but she wriggles and bucks back against me, and I remind myself of the game. I’m a guest and Ash is my host, and Greer is the prized scotch he’s letting me taste. His most cherished possession opened up for me and made available for my use, for my guest-right.

It’s easy to sink into the fantasy now, easy to fuck into this gorgeous woman while her husband watches. Easy to let all those lonely days and bitter nights go, fuck them gone, fuck them right out of existence. There’s just Greer in front of me, her obedience fracturing along predictable lines as she glances over her shoulder to watch me and to watch her husband watch us, every part of this torrid scenario lighting her up. There’s just Ash, his stupidly handsome face still cradled against his fingers, his perfect jaw tense and his other hand slowly balling and flexing beside his thigh, as if he’s struggling not to touch something. Himself, maybe, or us. And right now it doesn’t matter, because there’s only an us. No matter the configuration, no matter how we tessellate limbs and join bodies, it’s all as a three. As an us. Even from three feet away, Ash is fucking Greer as surely as I am, and even from three feet away, I know he can feel every thrust and slide as if he were doing it himself. And I wonder, in the delirious corners of my mind, if he’s thinking about what it would be like to be Greer right now, bent over and shivering with sweat along his back as I moved behind him in a rumpled tuxedo.

Fuck.

“You should play with her clit,” says Ash from the couch. “When she comes on your cock, it’s quite something.”

It is quite something, I know that from experience; in fact, I was the first person to feel that something ever on the planet Earth, but it doesn’t matter right now, because that’s not the game. The game is that I’m taking my guest-right, and beyond the game, if tonight is my last night with Greer, I need to her to come hard, I need her body sore and hungry with the memory of me.

I slide a hand over her ass, following the curve to the supple line of her thigh, following that to where thigh meets body. The moment my fingers strum across her clit, her back arches up and she’s making this noise of hers that’s somewhere between a moan and kitten’s mewl. Every time I hear it, I have to grit my teeth to stop myself from coming right then and there.

And you know what? If I were really a guest and this really were my right, I’d be able to fuck her any way I wanted, and right now I want more of her. All of her. I slide an arm high up on her waist, just below her breasts, and I wind her braid around my hand, and I pull her upright using both until her back is flush to my chest.

My hands are greedy, fondling her breasts over her shirt with rough plumps, moving with pressing fingertips over her waist and hips and shoulders and collarbone. Everywhere, I want to touch her everywhere, and it’s not long before her shirt feels like the worst thing that’s ever happened to me, a curse, a punishment, and I yank it off her body with impatient tugs. Then I’m dragging down the cups of her bra, rolling and plucking at her nipples, which earns a low noise of approval from Ash.

It earns me lots of squirms and gasps from Greer, and I need to see her, I need to see her face, so I pull us both down on a sofa, rearranging her so that she straddles me. I strip off her bra and skirt, so that all of her is available for my mouth and eyes and hands, and as I drink her in, she starts moving on top of me, lithe and undulating movements that have us both straining and sweating in a matter of moments. I lean forward and suck on the tips of her breasts while she cradles the back of my head; she wraps a hand around my throat to keep me still; eventually I lock her wrists behind her back, forcing her tits to jut forward and her hips to tilt toward mine. At some point, Ash comes to sit next to us, murmuring the most maddening things in my ear:

I can tell you need to come, I see how much it’s killing you to hold back.

Isn’t she sexy? Isn’t she beautiful? Doesn’t she feel good?

Don’t you want to come inside her? I’d let you, you know, I’d let you come as much as you needed to.

He takes over holding her wrists behind her back, which means I have a hand free to toy with her firm little clit, all full and needy for attention. It only takes a minute or two with my thumb, and the blush creeping up her stomach and down her chest ignites into a real, frenzied heat. And it only takes another minute for that heat to combust into a pure flaming delight that leaves her gasping and shuddering on top of me, and Ash says in my ear give it to her and I do, I give it all to her. I fuck up into her with three hard thrusts, and with a strangled cry and with a painful shudder deep inside my body, I throb and pulse and spill five months worth of waiting into the woman I love.