American Queen

“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.