American Queen

Ash’s fingers tighten around my hand, and he easily pulls me into him, his other hand holding his tumbler of vodka perfectly steady.

“You must trust this man very much to allow him unfettered access to such a beauty,” the Polish president says in a thickly accented voice.

I feel Embry’s posture stiffen behind me, feel the rush of blood to my cheeks.

“I do,” Ash responds. “I trust him with my life.”

“Really, it’s that I trust the Vice President to have such unfettered access to Maxen,” I joke to cover over Embry’s and my discomfort, but Ash doesn’t laugh along with everyone else.

Neither does Embry.

I look to him and then back to Ash, catching them glancing at each other. My heart crashes against my ribs, and for no reason at all, I’m reminded of how tight and hungry my cunt feels right now. How empty.

“Greer, I don’t think you’ve formally met the president of Poland,” Ash says, picking up the thread of conservation before our guests could notice the troubled tension hanging between the three of us. “Greer, this is Andrezj Lewandowski. President Lewandowski, this is Greer Galloway, a lecturer at Georgetown and a very important woman to me.”

Lewandowski leans in to brush a quick kiss against the back of my hand before releasing it, and it’s right then that Belvedere comes up to us. “Mr. President, they’re ready for you on the dance floor.”

“I suppose that’s our cue,” Ash says. “President Lewandowski, would you and Mrs. Lewandowski care to join us?”

The foreign leader looks less than thrilled, but nevertheless he finds his wife, and the four of us take to the dance floor. The band strikes up an orchestral version of a famous Polish folk song, and then I’m in Ash’s arms, my hand curled around his warm neck and his hand on my waist. We start moving, and I giggle a little at how woodenly Ash dances.

He makes a face at me. “Don’t make fun of me. I had to work hard to be this bad; I used to be much worse, you know.”

“I don’t see how,” I laugh as I steer us clear of the Polish couple. “I think I need to have a word with your teacher someday.”

“Any time you want,” Ash says, eyes twinkling down at me. “He’s right over there.”

I glance over to where Ash tilted his head and then laugh even harder. “Embry taught you to dance?”

“There’s a lot of dead time to fill when you’re deployed,” Ash says mock-defensively. “We had to entertain ourselves somehow.”

“So he taught you how to dance?”

“We took turns being the man, if you’re wondering.” Ash says it jokingly, but I can’t help but remember his hand fisted in Embry’s tuxedo jacket, Embry’s knees on the floor between Ash’s shoes.

Ash notices my flushed cheeks before I do, reaching up and brushing my cheek with the backs of his fingers. “You’re blushing,” he remarks.

“I—” No. There’s no way I can tell him the things that are flashing through my mind. “I’m just warm.”

He looks at me for a moment, and I see him shelve this away for later. Instead he says in an offhand voice, “You and Embry seem to have become fast friends.”

Well, if I was flushed before, I’m sure my face is bloodless now. I can only manage a nod as a voice inside my head screams tell him the truth, tell him the truth!

“It makes me happy to see you get along so well,” he continues. “You’re the two most important people in the world to me, besides my mother and sister, and I want us all to be close.”

You have no idea how close Embry and I are, I want to say. I should say. But the words stick in my throat.

Embry and I aren’t together and we’ll never be together now…so what difference does our past make? If I tell Ash about that night in Chicago, it will just add more tension between the three of us, and apparently there’s enough of that already.

Stop rationalizing. You know lying is wrong. Tell the truth.

But the moment has passed, and we’re spinning across the dance floor and then Ash says, “I heard you also had the pleasure of meeting Senator Leffey.”

“Yes,” I answer, a bit sourly. “She and I are not going to be fast friends, in case you were wondering.”

He laughs. “No, I didn’t think you would be. What did she say to you?”

Here, I decide to be honest. “She told me that you two used to fuck. She told me you’re a liar. And she warned me that I was in over my head with you.”

Ash blinks in surprise. “Wow. She really dove right in there, didn’t she?”

“Yeah.”

His face turns pensive. “Morgan doesn’t like me very much, I’m afraid.”

“Why?”

He sighs. “Lots of reasons. Too many to name. In fact, she has so many reasons to dislike me that it almost feels like fate. We’re destined to be enemies.”

“I’m guessing those reasons weren’t around when you fucked her?”

His hand is suddenly tight and possessive on my waist, pulling me so close that I can feel my dress catching on his legs as we move. “Jealousy looks good on you,” he says, leaning his head down to speak into my ear. I shiver at the feeling of his warm breath on my skin.

“But you don’t need to be jealous,” he finishes, straightening up again. “It was a very long time ago. We haven’t had sex in fourteen years.”