then

“It would be polite,” Merlin said, “to visit another parish in D.C. If you’re going to make such a point about going to Mass every Sunday.”

I leaned back in my chair. We were in the Oval Office, running through damage control about some ill-advised remarks one of our New Party senators had made, and then out of nowhere, Merlin had brought up my church habits. “It’s not a point,” I said, a little amused. “It’s a faith practice. I try to go every time I can.”

Merlin waved a disinterested hand. “It’s good for business, so I’m not trying to discourage you. But Mass is the same everywhere, right? It doesn’t hurt to make another parish feel special for hosting you.”

“Okay, I’ll have Belvedere make the arrangements,” I said, ready to move on to the next thing.

Merlin gave me a small smile, and in that smile, I got the sense that I was missing something important, that Merlin knew something I didn’t. “I’ve already made the arrangements,” he said. “Tomorrow you’ll be at St. Thomas Becket.”

* * *

It had been three weeks since Embry had pushed a ring back into my hand, and sometimes I didn’t know if I’d survive it. Loving him. Wanting him. Knowing that he didn’t love and want me as much or in the same ways, or if he did, that I’d never know why he couldn’t bring himself to marry me. It couldn’t be the politics, it just couldn’t—the man I loved wouldn’t pick something so petty and trivial over what we had—it had to be something else, something I couldn’t see or perceive.

But knowing there was a hidden corner inside the prince I’d spent fourteen years loving…Jesus, that hurt almost as badly as his rejection. I’d kept nothing from him, nothing except my relationship with God and the memory of a girl in London—and even those I’d shared as much as he’d asked for.

So at Mass that day, I wasn’t looking for a future wife, for the girl who stared up at Jephthah’s Daughter with me. I was looking at my prince. As we prayed, as we knelt. As he parted his lips for the priest and let the priest place a wafer on his tongue. I had to subtly adjust my swelling cock against my leg as I stepped up for my own turn, the sight of that white wafer on his pink tongue too much for my broken, hungry heart to stand.

And so it wasn’t until we were both back up in the balcony, watching the rest of the parishioners shuffle through the communion line that I noticed a glimmer of familiar hair in an impossibly complicated shade of gold.

Embry noticed at the same time, his shoulders stiffening over his folded hands and his eyes going bright. Alert.

Below us, the young woman took her communion, crossed herself, went back to her pew. She wore a sweater and a pleated skirt, not a blush-pink gown, and she was no longer a shy girl burning with desires she didn’t understand. She was lonely now. Cold. Pulled in, locked away.

Watching her made me sad and excited all at once. Sad because I’d never wanted to see that curious innocence dampened, but excited because I wanted to be the one to tease it back to the surface. She needed a Sir to care for her, to make her feel safe and loved so that she could blossom again. She needed someone to tend to her darkest needs, to transform them into something real and vital, she needed to be spanked and bound and fucked, and also petted and cherished and cuddled close to a Sir’s heart.

I could see it in every step, every sigh, every careful movement she made as she lifted the risers behind the pews into place or turned the pages in her missal. The same thing I’d seen in that London room years ago as she knelt in a sparkling pool of glass, the same thing I’d seen in Chicago when I fisted my hand in her hair and she said those magic words:

Yes, please.

And when I turned to Embry and saw that he was just as rapt as I was, gazing just as intently at her, his body just as tense and hungry, I should have known, I should have. But at the time, I thought it was only because she was beautiful and singular and so regal in her lonely, quiet prettiness. Who wouldn’t stare? Who wouldn’t be thinking about her throat under their lips or her hunched shoulders between their knees?

The air was heavy with that fateful God-feeling as I leaned over to Embry. “That’s Greer Galloway,” I whispered. “I…that’s her. That’s the email girl.”

And Embry’s eyes flared with something that looked like pain—and then they went still and dark. “If you’d like,” he said slowly, in a low voice that wouldn’t carry far under the priest’s prayers, “I could find her. See if she’d like to meet with you?”

“Yes,” I said, my eyes on her. “Yes.”

“It’s done.”

“She bled for me,” I said, for no reason in particular, other than I just wanted to say the words out loud. “I mean, it wasn’t really for me, it was for her cousin, but I was the one to pull the splinter of glass from her finger.” I run my thumb over my own pointer finger, remembering the feeling of the glass tugging free from her skin, the black pools of her pupils, the welling crimson salt that pooled on her fingertip. “I pulled it free and I tasted the blood there. And she let me. God.”

I ducked my head to catch my breath. I’d forgotten, of course I had, after a year with Embry, after years of marriage, I’d kept the memory of her like a cherished pearl, a priceless heirloom, but I’d forgotten her power over me in real, vivid life—

“I’ll bring her to you,” Embry said in a strange voice. “The girl who bled for you. Say the word and I’ll do it.”

* * *

I had to wait for three days after he met with her. Pure agony. But the moment I heard her slide into the pew behind me, heard the quiet rise and fall of her breathing as she watched me pray, I knew it had been worth it—the wait, and everything else that came before. All that I had wanted to do to her after the first time we met—chain her to my bed and carry her every place she ever wanted to go—I still wanted.

And miracle of miracles, she wanted it too.

Even now I don’t presume to know God’s plans or thoughts, but it was impossible not to see the shape of his hand in my life as I slept a full night’s sleep for the first time in too many years to count with her in my arms. It was impossible not to see that Greer fit me, or I fit her, and the ways I was around her shaped me into a better person. Perhaps love is a mystery in this way, because the love strung between Embry and me had been mysterious too, only different in the parts of me that it fed. Which almost felt like a betrayal to both Embry and Greer.

I still wanted them both, I still loved them both.

My heart still beat and my bones still ached for them both.

Perhaps it was that first night that truly drove it home, what I’d always suspected but hadn’t been able to prove until then—that Greer wanted me in the same ways I wanted her, that our keening urges met and mated at the same place deep inside our souls. She wanted to be dragged to the edge and I wanted to take her there, she wanted to be bruised and I wanted to bruise her, she wanted to crawl and I wanted to watch every slope and dip of her body as she did.

It was different with Embry.

My prince had knelt to me and had felt the uncontrolled sear of my burning needs, but I knew that whatever mechanism drove my prince’s submission was a complicated one. Greer knew herself, she saw herself with a clarity and self-knowledge that made me trust her implicitly—she said she wanted all that I was, and because I trusted that she knew herself, I could believe her. I could give it to her.

But to say that Embry didn’t know himself like Greer knew herself would be an understatement. Yes, I relished the fight with him, I relished the relief shimmering in his snowdrop eyes when he finally gave in to me and himself and surrendered to what he really needed—and perhaps a part of me even loved him because of the fight. But with Greer, our exchange was so deliriously mutual, so deeply consensual and offered freely from each of us…it was a fairy tale. And who among us doesn’t want to love like that at least once in our lives? Where nothing is held in reserve, and every moment of pain and pleasure and obedience and power feeds on itself to create a brimming cup of generous spirit?

Is it so strange that I would want to marry both of them? Exchange hearts with both of them?

No, of course not. Maybe not every man would, but I am not every man. I require the whole world, and one person alone never could have given it to me.

It wasn’t until the night of the State Dinner that I began to see that one person wouldn’t have to.

* * *

Embry paced restlessly around the room as I sat on the sofa enjoying a glass of Macallan 12. After the third or fourth time he checked his watch, I set down my glass.

“Everything okay?”

He looked up a little guiltily, as if I’d caught him doing something he shouldn’t. “Um, yes. Yes, everything’s okay. Just keeping an eye on the time. Maybe I should go down without you and Greer, just to start talking and shaking hands.”

I rested my head against my fingers as I looked at him. He was strangely chatty tonight, jittery almost. It was unlike him, and only one thing about tonight was unlike any other night.

“Is this about Greer?” I asked softly. “I know it’s only been a month since the lake. If it’s too much, too soon, I can find another way.”

Embry made a strangled sigh. “Are you asking me if it’s hurting my feelings that you have a girlfriend after I dumped you? Dammit, Ash.”

“What?”

He ran a hand through his hair and picked up my glass where I’d set it down. He took a fast, messy drink and then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and I wanted to crowd him against the wall and do things to him that would send the glass tumbling across the floor. “You have to stop worrying about me,” he said. “It makes me feel even shittier about what happened between us.”

“I’ll never stop worrying about you,” I told him. “Patroclus.”

“Don’t. God.”

“Tell me if it’s her.”

“So then what will you do? Break it off to spare me the pain of watching you with someone else? Stay with her, but hide your joy from me? I don’t want either of those things; they would gut me.”

“Then what do you want, Embry?”

“I want…” He put the glass against his forehead, closing his eyes. “I don’t even know. It’s too tangled up now. You. Her. Me.”

Her.

Why would she tangle him up?

I watched him carefully, sensing rather than seeing something revealing itself, a floor of ice between me and him finally thinning and cracking.

“Did she submit?” Embry asked, eyes still closed. “When she was here the other night? Did she submit to you?”

“Yes.”

A pause. “Does she do it better than me?”

“That’s like asking which ocean is better. You are different in the way you let me love you. She gives. You fight.” And I need both, I wanted to add, but I didn’t.

The only response I got was a mumbled, “Everyone knows the Pacific is the best ocean.” The ice got thinner and thinner as Embry opened his eyes and saw me staring at him. His pupils dilated as I ran my tongue along my top teeth.

“Are you jealous of her?” I finally asked.

“No,” he said.

I studied my hands for a moment. “Is that the truth?”

Another pause. “No.”

I widened my feet, planting my dress shoes farther apart on the carpet so that there would be plenty of room for a grown man to kneel there. “Get on your knees and tell me the truth.”

He set down the now-empty glass, his eyes flashing. “No.”

I was on him before I even knew I was going to do it, my fist in the shoulder of his tuxedo jacket and my other hand cupping the back of his neck, and it was only a moment’s work before he was panting on his knees. I kept hold of him, wary that he might bolt at any moment.

“Now tell me the fucking truth.”

He looked up at me with pain and defeat in his face. “Does it matter?”

“Everything about you matters to me. Why shouldn’t your jealousy?”

He didn’t answer.

I traced the line of his lips, and he shuddered beautifully at my touch. “It’s more than jealousy then. Something else, something you don’t want to tell me. What could that be, Embry? What do you want to hide from me?”

His eyelashes swept up in the most mesmerizing arc, twin spots of color pinked his cheeks. And he was so handsome, still so mine, and if I pulled him to my mouth right now, I’d be able to kiss him, I’d be able to kiss the lies and the secrets right out of him.

How? How could I want that so much at the same time I still wanted Greer so much? I felt it but I didn’t understand it, and I knew it was as unfair to them as it was necessary to me, and there had to be way forward that was fair to all of us, healthy for all of us.

Embry was about to answer me, and I leaned even closer because I don’t know that I still hadn’t ruled out kissing, and then we heard a woman’s voice around the corner, and it was Greer, and as she stepped into the room I kept my eyes on Embry and I saw it.

I saw the truth.

He wasn’t just jealous of her—he was jealous of me. He wanted her too, and of course this must be shredding him—his ex-lover and a woman he wanted together in front of him. Who wouldn’t be upset? And the thoughts came unbidden and hot, the idea of watching him move between her legs, of watching him pet and caress her. Of watching him service her at my command.

My cock went hard so fast I forgot to breathe.

I watched the two of them at the dinner that night, the first time I’d been able to witness them together, and what I saw fascinated me, because it wasn’t only that Embry was clearly drawn to Greer. It was reciprocal; I could tell by her flushing and laughter that she was just as attracted to him, and of course she was, because he was Embry Moore, handsome and delicious and princely.

What really fascinated me was the current running between them. It was subtle, momentary, like a silver fish darting through dark water, it could only be perceived in glimpses and guesses. But it was there, and it pointed to something more than casual attraction.

I considered this.

Just as I considered Greer’s blush as we danced and I explained how Embry had taught me to dance, we took turns being the man, and I didn’t miss the brief gnaw of hunger in her eyes as she thought about it.

And so I made a choice that night. A choice to see. It was an idea or a hope, but it was still unformed and dangerous—but oh God, it would be more dangerous not to do it, not to explore this a little bit. Not to confirm what I suspected to be true.

It was in their faces the moment they saw each other, the moment I walked through that door with Embry. I could feel it between them, and yet it also included me. I didn’t feel apart from it, walled off from whatever hunger they had for each other. That’s not to say that I wasn’t jealous—I was that very much—but underneath and over the jealousy was something terrifyingly sacred. Glorious and dirty and fated. I couldn’t quite feel my way around the edges of it yet, but I knew it was there, and I knew I yearned for it.

“Are you sure this is what you want?” Embry had asked me, his posture tense and unhappy, trying to look everywhere except at the beautiful woman kneeling on the floor with her wet cunt open to view.

“I know you want her,” I leaned in and whispered. “I know she wants you.”

Embry let out a pained breath.

“And little prince, I want both of you. I want the two of you to want each other. It gets me hard. And I think the idea of the three of us gets you hard too.”

Sure enough, when I pulled back, Embry’s face was a vivid painting of lust and defeat, and I knew I had his surrender, I knew I’d won. Won what, I still wasn’t sure, but it would either show us heaven or burn us alive, and I couldn’t wait to see which it would be.