American Queen

Embry looks down at me. “I’m afraid I wasn’t a very good date either. The whole time I was wishing I was with someone else.”

My throat tightens. Does he mean me? Or Ash?

Does it matter?

“I told Ash about us,” I blurt out for no reason. Well, no reason other than the thought of him longing for Ash’s touch across the ballroom sends electricity skating across my skin, almost more than the thought of him longing for me does. Electricity quickly followed by betrayed anger.

God, what the fuck is wrong with me that I’m turned on and jealous at the same time?

Embry sighs. “I know.”

“Have you guys talked about it?” I ask. “I feel like it’s this big thing looming over us, the fact that I’ve slept with both of you.”

He looks miserable. “I feel like that too. And no, we haven’t talked about it much. He told me on Christmas Eve. He told me that he knew and that he was jealous and that…” He stops, his vision growing hazy and his skin hot under my touch, and I realize he’s remembering the kiss. My skin also gets hot as I remember it. “Anyway, we haven’t had a chance to talk since then. So I don’t know where we stand.”

“Neither do I,” I say.

“And sometimes he’ll say things—like he’s trying to needle me or test me. Or maybe torture me.”

“Like what?” I ask, puzzled.

Embry’s eyes close, his skin still impossibly hot. “Like that you’re not wearing anything underneath your dress tonight.”

My breath stutters and he opens his eyes.

“Do you know what it’s like,” he says in a hollow voice, “to have him tell me things like that? Or to be in the same building and know that, at that very moment, he’s inside you? Or to remember what you taste like and not even be able to hold your hand?”

“Embry,” I whisper.

“I couldn’t go back to you in Chicago, not after he told me about seeing you. You know he read those emails every day? Rain or snow, hot or cold, on base or sleeping on rocks and pine branches. I’d find him with his miniature flashlight in his teeth and his hand on his belt. I’d hear him grunting in the shower stall next to me and know he was thinking of you. That went on for years…and then to find out this mysterious email girl was you. The girl I’d decided to marry after less than eight hours together.”

The girl I’d decided to marry…

His words sink like anchors, finding my most vulnerable depths, but I push them aside as typical Embry hyperbole. I have to. The alternative is taking them seriously, and if I take those words seriously, I might fly apart.

“I thought you didn’t want me,” I say slowly. “It…well, it hurt a lot. For a long time. Because I gave you something, and I don’t mean my virginity necessarily, but myself; you were the first person I allowed myself to be vulnerable with. That I exposed my heart to. And then you just vanished, like it had meant nothing to you.”

He gives an empty laugh. “You thought I didn’t want you…Greer, I burned with wanting you.”

My stomach flips over.

And then his lashes lower. “I still burn with wanting you.”

“Don’t do this,” I breathe. Because if he says the words out loud, if we drag this out into the open—

“I can’t pretend any more,” he croaks. “I thought it was just an infatuation—who wouldn’t be infatuated after a night like we had? But all the time I’ve spent with you these past few months has made me realize it’s worse than that. I’m in love with you. I’m consumed with you. And I’m in hell watching you with Ash.”

I look away, fighting the pain in my throat. He’s in love with me. And I think I might still be in love with him. Which puts us both in hell.

“But all the women…all those dates…” I can’t keep the pain and jealousy out of my voice, even though I’m desperate to. I keep my eyes on the other dancers, trying to distract my mind from the endless rotation of longing and betrayal. I see Belvedere dancing with Lenka, Melwas talking with our secretary of state, no trace of Abilene, who must be off grabbing a drink with her new acquaintance. But even an entire ballroom of political leaders can’t keep my eyes from sliding back to Embry. His sharp jaw and high forehead and invitingly wicked mouth, which is currently tight with emotion. “I just didn’t think you could want me if you were fucking all those other women.”

He looks at me helplessly. “I ache with wanting you. All the time. And at the end of the day, you two get to go fuck, and I have to know about it.” His voice grows frustrated. “Don’t I get something to take the edge off?”

A childish part of me wants to stamp my foot and yell “No!” Which is ridiculous and selfish for every reason under the sun, especially if he loves Ash too, if he’s aching for two people instead only one. I don’t answer him because I can’t answer with the thing I should say, which is do what you want.

“I won’t any more,” he breathes suddenly, “if that’s what you want. I won’t see anyone else. I won’t fuck anyone else. I’ll be completely celibate so that you can know exactly how fucking lost I am to you. Oh, Greer, please. Please just tell me if you feel the same way. Tell me this is eating you alive too and that I’m not alone.”

I should lie. I should lie and tell him that I don’t love him, that I don’t want him, that being around him isn’t torture. Because I see in the flutter of those long eyelashes and the agony written on his Darcy-esque brow that despite the carefully applied veneer he’s adopted as Vice President, he’s still no more in control of his emotions than he was five years ago. His passions and urges master him, drown him, and I see now that Ash has been trying to protect him. That he tells Embry things about me not to torment him, but to share what he can of me. To help soothe the constant storm contained inside this beautiful, vulnerable soul.