He opens his eyes and smiles. “Me too. Arms up.”
I don’t miss the way his gaze sweeps hungrily over my breasts as I raise my arms, and I hope that he’ll change his mind about having sex tonight, but despite the erection bulging the front of his slacks, his self-control is ironclad. He pulls the T-shirt over my arms and head, and then gives me a little smack on the bottom. “There’s a spare toothbrush in the bathroom cabinet. Brush your teeth and then get in the bed.”
I obey, walking through his dressing room and into the bathroom. As I brush my teeth, I can’t help but gaze around, trying to wrangle the surreal feeling of brushing my teeth in the President’s bathroom. The bathroom is as modern as the dressing room is traditional—clean lines of black marble and white tile, clearly recently renovated. But the dressing room still retains its antique feeling, with an ornate fireplace in the corner and richly red drapes hanging around the windows. An unused vanity sits against the wall next to a tall window, its mirror spotless and its surface clean, except for one picture frame. I remember seeing pictures of First Ladies sitting in here, at this very vanity, and my chest feels hot. I never wanted this, never pictured myself living here, either as a president or the First Lady, yet for a moment, I see it. I see it and I don’t hate it. Not for the fame or power or even the beautiful old house, but for Ash. For Ash, I think I might be able to live here.
I wander a little closer, looking at the picture. It’s Ash with two women, both black, one old and one young. I recognize the young one right away—Kay Colchester, Ash’s foster sister and current Chief of Staff. The older woman must be Ash’s foster mother. I scan the picture for every single detail, as if it contains a biography of Ash’s life, but it all it shows me is love and warmth. All three of them grin at the camera as the sun shines on a tidy little bungalow behind them, and even though the media always painted Ash’s orphan backstory as nobly tragic, there’s nothing sad or tragic about this picture at all. Ash had a happy childhood. That touches me in a very deep place, so deep that I almost want to cry, but I don’t.
Instead, I turn abruptly from the vanity and go back into the bathroom to finish up. Ash joins me, and while I want to stay and watch him brush his teeth, he waves me away with a look that tells me he hasn’t forgotten that he gave me particular instructions. With a stifled pout, I go to the large four-poster bed and crawl under the soft, gray blankets.
When Ash enters, he’s only wearing his slacks, the white shirt and tie abandoned somewhere along the way. My mouth gapes a little at the sight; those powerful muscles shifting under all that warm skin, the lines of his hips tapering in from his wide shoulders, the V that disappears into the low waist of his tailored slacks. Smiling at the way I’m gawking, he unzips his pants and steps out of them, draping them over a low sofa, and stalks toward the bed.
I can’t believe this is happening. That this is real life right now. The President—the Ash of my dreams for ten years—wearing tight boxer briefs and walking toward me with a hungry look in his eyes. Maybe I’m dreaming. Maybe I’m hallucinating.
But no. He clicks off the light and slides into the bed, his iron arm snaking around my waist and then pulling me tight into him, my back to his chest. I let out a happy sigh at the feeling of his long, big body curled protectively around mine, and then I wriggle my hips suggestively when I feel the thick rod of his erection nestle against my ass. He gives me a light pinch. “Don’t be naughty,” he breathes in my ear. “I’ve had ten years to dream up punishments for you, and I can’t wait to try them out.”
“Neither can I.”
“I think you really mean that. And it pleases me more than you can know.” He pulls me a little tighter and kisses the back of my neck. “Have you ever slept in a bed with a man before? Just slept?”
As much as he loves knowing he’s my first at things, I can’t lie. I nod my head against the pillow. “Yes. The night I lost my virginity.”
He stiffens a little, and I can practically feel his jealousy roiling through him.
“You’re not…mad…that I’m not a virgin, are you?”
“Oh, Greer, of course not. How could I be when I was married to someone else? I begrudge you nothing. But him—whoever he was—I begrudge him fucking everything.”
There’s a kind of dark bitterness to his words that thrills me, with my craving to be possessed. But they also scare me. Because for some reason, just now, it hits in a real and concrete way.
Ash doesn’t know I slept with Embry.
Ash doesn’t know that the man he wants to begrudge everything is also his best friend.
The quiet worry I pushed aside this afternoon comes back, no longer quiet but shrill and keening. I no longer feel as if Ash is holding me by the neck, forcing me to face some reckless, unknowable fate, but that I am holding him. That we are both on the precipice of some terrible and beautiful and inevitable destiny, and that if I don’t stop us, we’ll both go tumbling headlong into its welcoming teeth.
I shift, suddenly restless, at odds with my own thoughts, and Ash is there with a kiss to my shoulder. “Keep still for me, angel,” he murmurs. “Let me hold you for a few minutes longer.”
How can I deny him—or myself—that? I still my limbs and relax back into him, deciding to muffle my thoughts about Embry until tomorrow. My body folds into Ash’s as if it was made for it.
“I have to tell you that I’m still not a great sleeper,” he says after a couple of quiet minutes, and I remember noticing the smudges under his eyes this afternoon.