American Queen

“Did you ever hurt Jenny or do anything outside her consent?”

“No.”

“Did you do your best to love her and take care of her?”

He closes his eyes. “Yes.”

“Then I’m not rethinking anything,” I assure him, stroking the side of his neck. “You should have been honest with her, and I don’t think it’s right that you fantasized about me so much while you were married to her. But given the circumstances, it’s forgivable, and not something I think will happen between us.”

“Fuck no, it won’t,” Ash says softly, and God, that word on his tongue. My nipples pull into tight buds at the sound of it.

“So what happened when Morgan brought you to this sex club? After years of denying yourself the kind of sex you needed?”

“First things first, Greer. I didn’t have sex there—or anywhere else. I haven’t had sex with a woman since Jenny died. You’ll be my first.”

A flutter of relief, of flattered excitement.

“But yes, the club was where I was able to dominate openly for the first time. Morgan introduced me to experienced Dominants who showed me how to exert control and inflict pain safely, and then I was able to meet submissives there who wanted control and pain from me. That first night though, I hadn’t met anyone else yet. We got to the club, and right there in the open, Morgan stripped naked and put a flogger in my hand.” He smiles ruefully at me. “After three strikes, I was hard. After five, I could remember the sound of my own voice. And after ten, the hands that held the flogger were my own hands again. I was back in my body. Somehow.”

“But you didn’t have sex?”

A look of fierce distaste, so fast and fleeting I almost wonder if I imagined it. “It was the dominating, not the woman, that got me hard. I didn’t touch her, and if I hadn’t been so fucked up from Jenny’s death, I never would have allowed it to get that far. I dropped the flogger and called a cab home, left her naked in that room. I called her the next day. I told her I wouldn’t touch her again, but that I needed to come back. Which suited her well enough—she’s actually a Domme, you see, she’d rather be on the other side of the pain—and I’ve been to the club many times since then with her, but never like the first time. We’ve flogged subs side by side, taken turns whipping and paddling, but we never touched again, via whips or otherwise.”

This satisfies me, but only a little. “I don’t understand how she can hate you so much, but can still be willing to be flogged by you. Especially if she’s a Domme.”

“It was a big gesture for her,” he concedes, “although all the Dominants at that club are required to submit to whippings and beatings at least once or twice as part of their training. But as for the why…Morgan and I are unfortunately connected in unique ways that we can’t help or change.” Ash shrugs. “I imagine that as much as she hates me, there was a part of her that felt compelled to offer sympathy or relief. And I think it’s the way she knew best, and she remembered enough about our time together to know it was what I needed, too. We may be enemies out here, but on neutral ground, we respect each other. We have a lot in common, after all.”

I nod. I think I’m beginning to understand Morgan’s place in Ash’s story, although the understanding does nothing to dull the jabs of envy I feel thinking about them at a club together, knowing they’ve had sex.

“So have you been flogged as part of your training?” I ask curiously. It’s hard to imagine my tall, muscular soldier bound and chained in place, submitting quietly to whips and paddles.

“I have had everything done to me that I would want to do to someone else. It’s not safe or fair to do something to another person without knowing exactly what it feels like.” He leans close to my ear. “And everything was a pretty long list, Greer. I hope you’re ready.”

“God, yes.”

He pulls back with a smile. “I knew you would be.”

“And this club—your identity is safe? Morgan can’t go to the press and tell them that you were there? There aren’t pictures floating around?”

He laughs. “My little political princess. Of course that’s where your mind goes, straight to potential scandal. Yes, my identity was—and is—safe. This club caters to congresspeople, ambassadors, and foreign dignitaries. Their non-disclosure agreements are damning; violate yours and you’ll find yourself ruined in every possible way. Trust me—the man who runs this club is more powerful than I am. And I’m not the first president who’s been a guest there.”

I make a face, thinking about the previous president, a balding, squat Democrat with wild eyebrows and rumpled suits. “Ugh.”

“Yeah.”

“Mr. President,” comes a voice from nearby. We stop dancing and turn to see a tall black woman walking towards us, a silky emerald dress clinging to her slender curves and fluttering around her ankles. The entire room seems to watch her cross the nearly empty dance floor partly because she’s beautiful—dark, dark skin, high cheekbones, natural hair several inches long that bounces as she walks—and partly it’s because she’s Kay Colchester, Ash’s foster sister and his chief of staff. She wouldn’t interrupt our dance unless it was for something crucial.

“Kay,” Ash says. “What is it?”

“There’s been military movement along the Carpathian border with Ukraine. No borders have been crossed, but there’s definitely an increase in the number of troops. Our satellite experts only just now picked up on it; it was that well camouflaged, which means this isn’t for show. They’re planning something and they don’t want anyone to know about it.”