I pulled him into a hug.

I don’t know why I did it, how I overcame that twisting, awkward agony that came with being near him, but he sounded so pained, so burdened and haunted, and my heart had known no other way to tell him it’s okay. I’m here and I know and it’s okay.

So I wrapped my arms around his waist, turned my face against his broad chest, and pulled him close. There was a moment, an exhale that sounded like a breathless groan, and then his arms were around me too. I felt his lips against the crown of my head, lips and then his nose and his cheeks, as if he were rubbing his entire face against my hair. As if he was marking himself on me or I was marking myself on him, as if he wanted to make a life for himself in the tousled waves.

“It seems you are always meant to be comforting me somehow,” he said, lips moving against the golden tresses.

“I like making you feel good,” I whispered. Better, some distant part of my mind said, you meant to say that you like making him feel better. But that wasn’t entirely true, maybe not at all true, because making Ash feel good conjured all sorts of lip-biting images in my mind. And whatever images it conjured for Ash seemed to be lip-biting as well, because I could feel a thick erection beginning to press into my lower belly.

I pushed against it, eliciting a real groan from Ash this time, and then his hand was in my hair, fisting at the nape and yanking my head back, just like I’d imagined at the restaurant. He didn’t say anything, simply stared down at my parted lips and exposed neck, breathing hard, his erection now like steel against me.

He didn’t ask me anything, didn’t say a word, but his whole face seemed like a question, his whole body, his hard cock and his rough hands. Do you like this? his face seemed to ask. Do you want more? Would you crawl for me? Bleed for me?

He didn’t say the question out loud, but I said the answer out loud.

“Yes, please.”

His hand tightened in my hair, his pupils widened, and for one perfect moment, I thought he was going to kiss me. I thought he was going to toss me to my hands and knees in the middle of the sculpture courtyard and give me a reason to stop bewailing my virginity. I thought he was going to drag me by the hair back to his hotel room and show me every single shadow that flickered in those forest eyes.

And then the moment crested and broke, like a wave. The energy dissipated; his hand loosened in my hair and then was gone, he stepped back and ran a shaking hand over his face.

“That was inappropriate,” he said unsteadily, his thumb moving to rub against his forehead. “That was wrong. I’m so sorry.”

I stepped forward, my heart in my hands. “It wasn’t wrong, I said yes, Ash—”

But what I would have said next—what he would have done—became nothing more than a barely legible entry in the diary of what might have been, because at that moment my grandfather strolled into the courtyard, beaming at us both, totally oblivious to what had just happened between Ash and me mere moments before.

“Major Colchester! I wondered if you’d vanished to take in the art too. A shame to come here and eat in a place meant for looking.”

I let my grandfather pull me in a side hug and give me a whiskery kiss on the temple. “Ash—I mean, the major—was explaining this statue to me. It’s a very sad story.”

Ash stopped rubbing his forehead, and it seemed to take great effort for him to pull himself together. “It’s a story from the Hebrew Bible,” he said, almost absently.

“Ah, say no more,” Grandpa said. “All those Old Testament stories are too grisly for my tired bones. That’s the part of Mass when I usually dart off to use the bathroom.”

“Oh, Grandpa, you do not,” I said.

“But wouldn’t it be funny if I did?” he asked, eyes crinkling. “Anyway, I am stealing Greer away for the time being, but I won’t apologize, because you’ll have her back tonight for more Old Testament horror stories.”

“Tonight?” Ash and I both asked at the same time.

“Merlin’s fortieth birthday party, of course,” Grandpa boomed. “I’m bringing my granddaughters, and I know you’re coming and bringing that excellent Captain Moore with you. You’ll have even more time to talk then.”

Ash’s lips parted and pressed together. And then parted again. “Yes. Greer and I need to talk.”

The look he gave me was nothing less than urging, pleading almost, and I could feel the ghost of his fingers in my hair. God, I wanted him to urge me to do anything, plead with me for anything, and I wanted it so much that I almost felt ready to make my own rash vows.

“I’m looking forward to talking,” I said, somewhat pointlessly.

But Ash didn’t look satisfied at that. He looked miserable.

“Goodbye, son,” my grandfather said, and I gave Ash a wave as Grandpa and I started for the doors. Ash waved back, once again wrapped in his unreadable stillness, and I gave a little shiver as I turned around and walked out of the courtyard.

What exactly had just happened?

12

Five Years Ago

Abilene squealed and threw her arms around my neck, strangling me into a hug. “A party with Maxen Colchester!”

I had just told her about Merlin’s party tonight and how Grandpa wanted us both to go. Her dark blue eyes had simmered with excitement, had taken all of three seconds to boil over, and then she was shrieking and hugging me, jumping up and down as she did.

“Oh my God, just you wait and see how fantastic this going to be!” she exclaimed. “This is so perfect, it’s too perfect. Maxen Colchester. I’ve been dying to meet him for so long.” And then she added, as if realizing that I was still there with her, “And maybe he’ll bring his cute friend, the one they have on the news all the time.”