American Queen
He lifted his head, resignation and regret in his eyes. “Twenty-six.”
His grip on me loosened, his hands sliding away from my body. I made a noise as he let me go, a noise of pure pain and loss, and he gave a breath like he’d been punched in the gut.
“Please,” I begged. “Please.”
He inhaled raggedly. “You don’t even know what you’re asking for.”
“I don’t care. Anything—I’ll let you do anything to me.”
“I believe you. That’s why you’re so dangerous.”
We stared at each other, and I lifted my fingers to probe at my lips, which thrummed with blood and heat, swollen and soft. “That was my first kiss,” I said, more to myself than to him.
His own lips parted in surprise. “It was?”
“I haven’t…” He doesn’t need to know you’re a virgin, Greer. It’s embarrassing enough that you’ve never been kissed. “Yes. You gave me my first kiss.”
His eyes blazed a deep green, a summer forest about to catch fire, and there was a moment that I thought he was going to reach for me again. As if the idea of being the first man for me ignited a sense of possession in him. But at that moment, the door to the library opened and Merlin Rhys came in from the hallway.
Keep your kisses to yourself.
Tell me you’re eighteen.
Oh my God, what have I done?
We both froze, and then Colchester stepped back and cleared his throat, slipping back into cocktail party mode. “Merlin, hello. Ah, this is Greer…um…”
“Greer Galloway,” Merlin supplied, and his friend swiveled his head to look at me.
“As in Vice President Galloway, Greer Galloway?” Colchester asked me, his strong face both interested and vulnerable.
“Former Vice President,” I mumbled, not for the first time in my life and certainly not for the last.
“Ah, okay. And Greer, this is Merlin Rhys. He’s a family friend and invited me here tonight. I’m in between assignments, but I didn’t want to go home, so he graciously let me tag along.”
“Much good it did if you spent the night hiding on the patio,” Merlin said mildly.
Not the whole night, I wanted to say, but then Merlin’s dark eyes raked over my lips, and somehow—somehow—he knew. He knew that I’d kissed his friend. He knew that I wanted to do it again. He knew that I wouldn’t have stopped, would have surrendered every bit of myself right here in the library.
“We should go,” Merlin said shortly, his eyes still on me as he addressed Colchester. “It’s getting late.”
Colchester stepped away and then looked back at me, biting his lip. It made him look almost boyish, almost my age, until I looked closer and could see that he bit his lip not out of uncertainty, but to control himself.
Merlin sighed and left the room. There was a second when I was certain Colchester would follow him right away, catching the closing door in his large hand and ducking out without a word of goodbye, but then the door closed. And my stranger was still in the room with me.
He was on me in a second, pressing me against the wall, stoking my body to flames once more. “I don’t want to leave,” he told me, tracing his nose along my jaw.
“Then don’t,” I practically pleaded, and he swallowed my pleas with his mouth, kissing me and kissing me and kissing me until there was nothing but his hot mouth and the blood pounding deep in my core.
He stepped back with a heavy breath. “I have to go,” he said with genuine regret, after running a hand through his short hair. He looked as put together and collected as when he’d first strolled in from the patio, as if the kissing hadn’t even happened. As if I hadn’t even happened.
“Wait!” I called out as he reached the door to the hallway that Merlin had walked through moments earlier. “I just realized…I don’t know your first name.”
He paused with his hand on the doorknob and looked down at it. “Captain Maxen Ashley Colchester.” He bowed his head. “At your service.”
“Maxen,” I echoed.
He glanced up and a shy smile crossed his face. “I think I’d like it if you called me Ash.”
And then he was gone.
6
Ten Years Ago
Dear Captain Colchester,
I hope it’s not too forward of me to email you—or too awkward. But I asked my grandfather if he could find your email address for me, since Merlin is a mutual friend, and I wanted to tell you that it was really nice to meet you last Saturday. I know we didn’t talk about it very much, and it’s probably nosy of me, but I was thinking more about your insomnia and I thought you might like a couple of the attachments about meditation I have at the bottom of the email.
I hope you’re enjoying London!
Sincerely yours,
Greer Galloway
Dear Ash,
Is it okay if I call you Ash? You said so the night we met, and I would like to, but it also feels strange to call a near-stranger by their first name. Especially a military stranger, because Grandpa Leo has so many military friends that I’m pretty much trained to salute whenever I see a uniform. I also hope I didn’t bother you by not mentioning my last name while we were talking. Sometimes at parties like that the Galloway name means certain things—usually that people want me to pass on messages to Grandpa or ask for favors. Sometimes it means they don’t want to talk to me at all because they hate my grandfather and his political party. Or sometimes it just means that I can’t start from scratch when I meet someone new. I know that seems like a silly thing to care about, but my whole childhood I was introduced to the world as Leo Galloway’s granddaughter. Here at Cadbury, I’m always ‘Abilene’s cousin’ or ‘Abilene’s roommate.’ I’m never just Greer, and I got to be that with you, and that was special for me. I hope you don’t feel like I was trying to hide something from you?