American Queen

And then he moves off me, disappearing into the bathroom and returning with a washcloth. He cleans me gently, meeting my eyes.

“Are you okay?”

I nod. “Are you?”

“I don’t know.”

He returns the washcloth, and to my great relief, joins me back in bed, wrapping me in his arms. “Are you mad at me? At Embry?” I ask.

He lets out a long breath, his chin resting against my head. “No.”

“But you’re feeling something.”

“Oh yes,” he answers. “Definitely that.”

“Jealousy? Because you don’t need to be jealous, I swear to you.”

“I know you believe that.” A hand sweeps up my back and strokes along my spine. “Jealousy is such a limiting word, isn’t it? Because there’s so many kinds of jealousy. There’s feeling possessive, which I do of you…but then again, I also feel possessive of Embry. There’s insecurity—that maybe Embry was able to give you something I can’t, and that you’re able to give Embry something that will change his relationship with me. And then there’s this strange kind of desire—thinking about you with him makes me hard. I don’t know why. It just does. And I know desire doesn’t always make logical sense, that it’s inherently politically incorrect, that sometimes we crave depraved things.”

The hand moves to my hair, loving and lazy and indulgent. “But even knowing all that, I couldn’t have predicted how I would actually feel knowing that he fucked you. Desperate and hard and a little angry and scared and…excited. Jealousy on its own can’t hold all of those feelings, but I don’t know what other word can. So I suppose it’s good enough for now to say that yes, I am jealous. Of both of you.”

I know how that feels, don’t I? To be jealous of Embry and Ash at the same time, jealous of them having each other in a way that I’ll never have, with their war history and fraternity and close working relationship. It’s a circle I’ll never be inside of, and it stings, stings, stings.

“Go to sleep, Greer. We have all the time in the world to think about this.”

I want to protest, want to resist him, because there’s no way I can fall asleep after our first time having sex, after he learned about Embry and me. No way at all, no matter how languid my limbs are, how thoroughly and utterly wrecked my body is, no matter how warm Ash’s arms are and how steady and reassuring his breathing is…

I wake up alone, the bed cool next to me. Ash must have gotten up to work—is it morning already? I blink at the clock on the nightstand for a moment, waiting for the numbers to make sense. 11:13 p.m. I’ve been asleep for three or four hours, and my stomach reminds me that I didn’t eat before that. I sit up and stretch, and then hunt through the room for pajamas and slippers.

I won’t bother Ash if he’s working, but I plan on bothering the shit out of some crackers and cheese. I open the door and head out towards the living area, seeing the twinkly-gold light of the Christmas tree spilling out around the corner. There’s nothing better than that light on cold winter nights. Cozy and quiet and joyful.

I turn the corner with a smile on my face and then freeze.

Ash is standing underneath the mistletoe.

Kissing someone.

My blood pounds in my ears and my throat is immediately tight with pain, but I can’t look away and I can’t interrupt. I’m as useless as a pillar of salt, doomed by my inability to look away.

Ash is wearing a thin T-shirt and low-slung pajama bottoms that highlight his flat stomach and narrow hips. His hair is tousled and even from here, with only the light of the Christmas tree, I can see the stubbled outline of a day-old beard. His hand is fisted tight in the shirt of the person he’s kissing, yanking that person close and holding them there.

And when they turn I see that the person is—inevitably, fatefully, tragically, wonderfully—Embry. Still in his sweater and jeans, barefoot and rumpled, with his hands underneath Ash’s shirt and digging into the small of his back.

The kiss is so slow and lingering and deep. They meet and explore, and then their lips pull apart and there’s fluttering eyelashes and long breaths, and then they’re kissing again. There’s both a familiarity and a hesitation there, as if they’re relearning something they used to know. Ash will come in, his lips a breath away from Embry’s, his body and face painted with longing, and then Embry will press forward, all passion and no thought, kissing hungrily until Ash slows him down, his hand going flat on Embry’s chest and his mouth pulling back just the tiniest bit until Embry cools off. And then Ash moves in again, these soft, gorgeous noises coming from his throat.

After a few minutes of this, Embry’s hand finds the waistband of Ash’s pajama pants and moves down. I can’t hear what he says to Ash, but I hear a small groan and I can guess.

And with that groan, my brain sputters back to life like a neglected engine, and I wish I could turn it back off because there’s too many thoughts, too many questions, all contradicting each other, all fighting each other.

I’m aroused.

I’m angry.

I’m curious.

I’m betrayed.

I don’t ever want this moment to stop.

And seeing this now, in this way, I realize I already knew. Not consciously maybe, but the knowledge was there like a shipwreck waiting for the sands to shift, waiting for me to finally turn my head and see what part of me has suspected from the beginning.