“I’m going to—it’s too—I’m gonna—”

“Show me.”

I couldn’t breathe. Actually couldn’t breathe; the air twisted in my chest and grew claws, there was no blood or oxygen anywhere in my body but in my throbbing cock, and it felt like my soul was being pulled out through my groin. All pressure and heat, and down down down, and then I was crying out and bucking underneath Ash, jetting ropes of cum onto the floor. My hands scratched against the tabletop and my hips were jerking so hard with each pulse that the table itself was moving across the floor. I’d have bruises on my hips the next day, but I didn’t care, couldn’t care, the twin spots of discomfort lost in the thick, milky waves that pulled at me, jerked out of me, and I was helpless against it, against him.

He stayed in control right up until the very end, but my orgasm pushed him over the edge, and at the very last he let loose with a series of brutal thrusts that kept me throbbing and throbbing until I drained my balls of every last drop. And then right before he emptied himself into me, he stilled his thrusts and whispered my name.

“Embry.”

And then he spilled with a grunt, his fingertips digging into my already bruised hips.

I savored every moment of it—the wet heat, the thick slide, the residual throb in my groin. Every sound and sigh he made, every flare and pulse of him in the most secret part of me. How had I forgotten what it was like to be fucked by Ash like this? The peace and quiet that followed? The way I felt more like myself than at any other time?

How loved I felt by him and how much I loved him in return?

His movements slowed and stopped, until it was just the two of us breathing, still joined together. I risked a look back at his face and almost wished I hadn’t because what I saw there undid me.

“Little prince,” he said in a voice that could move mountains.

But I didn’t want the mountains moved, not yet. I didn’t want to talk about Jenny or Morgan or anyone else, I didn’t want reality and history to intrude. I just wanted this. Him, us, the release only he had ever been able to give me. And I knew that was selfish. He had a wife who’d just died, he had a campaign to win, we both now shared a sister.

A good man would have cleaned up, given Ash a drink, and unselfishly listened to everything he needed to say. A good man wouldn’t grab Ash’s still wet shirt and drag him into the bedroom for more. A good man wouldn’t spend the next five hours in rough, filthy embraces without any thought of the ring still on Ash’s finger.

But I already told you at the beginning of the story:

I am not a good man.

The truth was this, in those five hours, I swore over and over again my undying loyalty and fealty. I swore it with my fingers and lips and all the muscled flats and curves of skin I offered up to his loving, fierce abuse. I swore it without his asking, I offered it to him because of his grief and his shame over what he’d done with Morgan, I pledged it because in those five hours, he’d been more himself than he had in the last five years.

And I refused to let reality intrude. Maybe there was a campaign, maybe there was still my sister, maybe there were a thousand reasons I could never truly be Ash’s and he could never truly be mine. But that night, none of it mattered. What mattered was that he was my king and I was his prince, and I would always, always be by his side.

27

Embry

after

Greer left this morning to take care of her grandfather’s penthouse, and so the Residence is quiet when I walk up the stairs, save for the soft strains of a Viennese waltz drifting from Ash’s study. My heart clenches at the sound, at the memories of that first dance, the first time I held him against me. I have to pause in the hallway and force myself to forget. If I remember how we danced in those early days, I won’t have the guts to do what I need to do, and it must be done.

But I don’t account for him looking like he does when I walk in, shirtless and barefoot, stretched over his desk reaching for a folder. For a moment, I just lean against the doorframe and watch him. The taut skin, the firm swaths of muscle working in his shoulders and back. The trail of hair leading down from his navel.

“Strauss again?” I say.

He looks up, soft surprise at my presence replaced by a smile so warm and happy that I have to look away. “It reminds me of you,” he says fondly, and then I have to fight the urge to cover my face with my hands. I am so powerless in the face of it, always, the ways in which he loves me; something as innocent as him listening to a song for this reason still has the power to weaken my knees. Still.

Be strong.

He straightens up and stretches, and I stop looking away. It might be the last time I ever get to see the braided muscles of his abs working, the tempting way his pants pull against the lean lines of his hips. “You’re making it hard not to walk over there,” Ash says gruffly, “looking at me like that.”

“Why can’t you walk over here again?” I don’t know why I say it. I do know why he can’t walk over here—I know more reasons why than he does. But at the moment, we’re just two men hungry for each other, two men who happen to be alone.

“I forget why,” Ash murmurs, walking around his desk and over to me. “Something to do with you being an insufferable bastard.” He braces one hand on the doorframe next to my head, and I can smell smoke, I can feel the heat burning off all that bare, muscled skin.

“You always did know how to punish me for being a bastard.”