The voice was American, which at this very London party was enough to make me pause and look up. He was in his mid-twenties, wearing an Army dress uniform, and as he strode towards me, it felt like all the air left the room, like I couldn’t breathe, like I would suffocate, but suffocate in the kind of way where visions dance before your eyes as you die. Broad, powerful shoulders tapered into trim and narrow hips, and his face…it was a hero’s face. Chiseled jaw, strong nose, full mouth. Emerald eyes and raven hair.
He walked over, close enough that I could read his nameplate now. Colchester. A name that sounded strong and solid and a little chilly.
He squatted down next to me, his pants pulling tight over his muscled thighs. “Let me help.”
Say something, my brain demanded. Say anything!
But I couldn’t. I didn’t know how to make the words come out. I had never seen a man so handsome, so overtly masculine, and for the first time in my life, I felt overwhelmingly and painfully female. I felt slender and soft, yielding and pliant, and when he looked up from the glass to smile kindly at me, I wondered if I would fall apart, like a blown rose caught in a strong wind.
He stood and deposited some of the broken flute in a nearby wastebasket, and then he brought the basket over to me. He knelt down again to pick up more glass.
“She’s jealous of you, you know.” Colchester said it quietly, while keeping his gaze on the floor.
I thought I’d misheard him. “Jealous?”
He cleared his throat. “I hope you don’t mind, but I was standing outside when you first came in the room. I heard you exchange words.”
I frantically searched my brain, trying to remember if I’d behaved like an idiot. This man was so much older than me, so contained, so fucking hot, and the desire to impress him was as sharp as the shards of glass in my hand.
He shook his head, as if reading my thoughts. “Don’t be embarrassed. I was impressed with how calm you stayed, considering how angry she was with you. Of course, when I saw you, I understood immediately.”
“Understood what?”
“That she’s jealous.”
It took me a beat to understand what he meant. “Of me?” I let out an incredulous laugh.
I wasn’t in the habit of being falsely modest. This wasn’t me begging for compliments or trying to patch my insecurities with flattery, because two years with Abilene had trained me to accept her greater worth on nearly every level—save for the academic and in earning Grandpa Leo’s love. There, I excelled. But everywhere else—beauty, friends, personality—Abilene surpassed me. And any other girl at Cadbury would have agreed.
“Abilene’s not jealous of me,” I said with a smile. “She’s Abilene. I’m just me…I’m not like her. If you saw her, you’d understand.”
“I did see her,” he replied dryly. “She and her acquaintance took occupancy of the room while I was on the patio, which left me stuck outside. Red hair, blue dress, right?”
“Yes,” I said, my smile fading. “So you did see her. You do understand.”
“I did and I do. Let me see your hand.”
I gave him my hand without thinking, extending it out and offering him the small pile of broken glass I’d collected. With deft fingers, he plucked the shards out of my palm and dropped them one by one into the wastebasket. “I thought I told you to be careful,” he said.
I was staring at his face, mesmerized, and I had to tear my eyes away and look down at my hand. I’d cut myself somehow, driven a needle-thin point of glass into my fingertip while trying to clean up, and now blood welled around it, wet and sticky.
“Oh,” I whispered.
And I don’t know if it was the sight of the blood or the icy prick of pain or my sudden proximity to him, but my vision shifted and my perception sharpened, and for a minute, I saw him, the real him behind that striking face and decorated jacket. I saw him like I would have if we’d met in the stuffy clusters of the party, if we’d met while Grandpa Leo stood beside me, waiting for me to deliver my observations and deductions.
I saw the small cut along his jaw.
I saw his hand cradling mine, sure and strong, his skin rough and nicked from war.
I saw the dull glint of the Distinguished Service Cross pinned near his heart.
I saw the faint smudges under his eyes.
I saw it all, and the pieces pulled together and wove into a picture.
“They say meditation helps,” I said quietly. “With the insomnia.”
His gaze snapped up from my finger to my face, and his eyes—already the dark, clear green of a glass bottle—seemed to grow both darker and clearer.
“What did you say?”
“Meditation. It’s supposed to help.”
“What makes you think I have trouble sleeping?”
How could I explain the way I knew things? The way I’d been trained for years to hold up a magnifying glass to everyone? I searched for the easiest answer. “It looks like you cut yourself shaving this morning. Like you were too tired to keep your hand steady.” And without thinking and without hesitation, I reached up with the hand he wasn’t holding and touched his jaw, lightly grazing my fingertips over the cut.
His eyes fluttered closed while his other hand came up against mine, holding it tight to his face. The long sweep of his black eyelashes nearly covered up the sleepless bruises under his eyes. The moment froze—the feeling of his smooth face warm against my palm, the blood still dripping from my finger, the muffled noise of the party through the closed door to the hallway.
“I’m sorry,” I offered gently. “If I could help you sleep, I would.”
He smiled, his eyes opening, and the moment unfroze, although I still felt it hanging between us. A palpable pressure, a prickling awareness.
A thawed energy.
Scared of its strength, I started to pull my hand away from his face, but he kept it there for a moment longer, looking me in the eyes. “I’ve never told anyone I have trouble sleeping,” he said. “I can’t believe you just knew.”
“Lots of soldiers struggle with it after difficult missions,” I said, looking down. He released my hand and I let it drop, keeping my gaze on the sparkling glass in my palm. “I just wanted to help. I’m sorry if I overstepped.”
“Not at all.” His voice was warm and filled with wonder. I risked a glance up at him and saw him staring down at me with an awed gratitude so intense it made me flush. “Actually, I should thank you,” he said. “It’s almost a relief to have someone know. To be able to quit pretending, just for a minute, that everything’s okay. That I’m still strong.”
“You are strong,” I whispered. “I don’t know what happened to you, I don’t know what you did, but I know that if you can stand in front of me tonight and still be kind, that makes you strong.”
He took in a deep breath at my words, those green eyes like emeralds in the dark, and then let it out. “Thank you,” he said.
“You’re welcome,” I said back.
And this time it was his turn to break our connection and look down, turning his attention back to my injured hand.
“This will hurt a little,” he warned, gently tugging the glass splinter loose. Another teardrop of blood oozed out, and without a word, he bent his head over my hand and drew the pad of my finger into his mouth, sucking the blood off my skin.
I could feel every flicker of his tongue, every soft scrape of his teeth. And every thrum of my pulse and every beat of my heart cried out for more, for something, for I didn’t know what, but parts of me knew. My skin erupted in goose bumps, and I wanted to press my thighs together to soothe an ache that seemed everywhere and nowhere all at once.
When Colchester lifted his head, a small drop of blood clung to his lower lip and he tasted it with his tongue, his eyes locked on mine. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak, couldn’t think. I could only feel, feel and then obey when he said, “Stand up.”
We both stood.
It was as if my blood and his gratitude had woven a spell around him. His pupils were dilated and dark, his lips parted—and it was those lips that captivated me now. A perfect mouth, not too lush or too pink, just full and ruddy enough to contrast with the hyper-masculine square of his jaw and the strong line of his nose. The sharp angles of the cupid’s bow on his upper lip begged to be traced, and for a minute, I imagined doing just that. I imagined reaching out with the finger he’d just kissed and running it along the firm swells of his mouth.
“That’s the last time you are allowed to hurt yourself for her, do you understand?” His voice was almost disciplinary.
It’s not his business, a wayward thought intruded, but I pushed it away. The moment I’d mentioned his insomnia, the moment I’d touched his face, he and I had gone beyond what could be called a normal interaction. And there was something so knowing in the way he said it, so caring, and I realized how I felt now must have been how he felt when I told him I knew he couldn’t sleep.
“Yes,” I said, meeting his gaze. “I understand.”
He nodded. “Good girl.”
I flushed again, pleasure curling deep in my chest for reasons I didn’t understand, and he let out another long breath, his eyes on my pinkened cheeks.
I felt like a live wire, like a hot beam of light, all energy and vibration with no direction or outlet. A few minutes before, I’d felt female, but now, I felt young. He was a man, and I was still very much a girl, and that difference was so deeply erotic to me, so delicious, and I just wanted to melt into it. Dissolve into him.
Perhaps he felt it too, because he murmured, “You’re trembling. Are you scared of me?”
“I don’t know,” I whispered. It was the truth.
He liked that answer, it seemed, because he smiled. “I’d like to touch you again, if that’s okay.”
I thought of his lips on my finger, the bruises under his eyes, the heavy ache somewhere deep in my body. “Yes, please,” I said.
His hands came up under my elbows, cradling them as he searched my face. He must have seen what I felt, the echo of my words stamped all over my face:
yes please
yes please
yes please
And then he pulled me closer, those large, warm hands sliding behind me, one planted firmly between my shoulder blades and the other against the small of my back, and I could feel every curve of my body pressed against the wide, hard expanse of his chest. My head tilted back of its own accord, and his eyes dropped to the long arch of my throat.
“Stay there,” he breathed. “Don’t move until I tell you.” And then he bent down to press his lips against my neck.
I shivered—no one had ever done that before. Everything he was doing to me, every command and touch and caress—it was all new.
Virgin territory.
“What’s your name, angel?” he asked. I was still frozen like he’d asked, and he was clearly enjoying it, running his lips down to my collarbone.
“Greer.”
“Greer,” he echoed, nuzzling into me. “Tell me, Greer, do you like my lips on your skin?”
“Yes,” I responded, a little breathlessly. “And—”
“And what?”
“You telling me to do things. Ordering me. Moving my body.”
He groaned at that, lifting his head from my neck and pressing me closer to him. Even through the uniform jacket and my own dress, I could feel the firm lines of his chest and stomach. And for the first time, I could smell him. He smelled like leather and woodsmoke. He smelled like a fire burning.
Burn me, I thought, a little wildly. Consume me.
His gaze fell down to my mouth, and his eyelids hooded.
“You’re so young…” he whispered.
Somehow, I knew what was coming next, I knew what he’d say. In the same way he’d asked for permission to touch me, he’d need to know it was okay to do more. He’d need reassurance that I was old enough, that I was an adult, that my consent would have legal weight.
I wanted to lie. I needed to lie. Because if I told him what he wanted to hear, I knew he’d kiss me. And nothing seemed more important than that right now, nothing seemed more urgent and necessary. I needed him to kiss me, if he didn’t, my body would curl into ash like kindled paper and disappear, please please please—
Except I wasn’t a liar.
Except I wasn’t supposed to kiss anybody, that was the promise I made to myself nine years ago after all, and anybody included handsome American military officers.
Except I was certain that—somehow—he’d know I was lying. I knew those green eyes would blaze into mine and illuminate the outline of every lie and half-truth I’d ever told.
“Tell me you’re eighteen,” he whispered.
“I’m not.”
“Damn you.”
And then he tilted my face back up to his, and his mouth came down over mine anyway.
I’d never kissed a boy or a girl, never even tried, and now I had a man’s lips firm and warm over mine, insistent and demanding. If I had been thinking clearly, I might have worried that I would be bad at kissing, that I would be laughably awkward and a disappointment to this beautiful stranger. But I wasn’t thinking clearly, the only thoughts I had were single words—fire and leather and more—and I didn’t need to know what to do.
He knew. And that was how it was supposed to be.
One warm hand cupped the nape of my neck while the other pressed against the small of my back, and his lips parted my own. I gasped the moment I felt him lick inside my mouth—it tickled.
It was soft—dangerously soft—silken, and warm. Every nerve ending I had came frighteningly alive, crackling with need.
And all from one lick of his tongue.
I opened my mouth more to him, sighing as he pressed me closer, so close that I would have lost my balance if he let go of me. It felt so right to open to him, to mold against his body, and I wanted to offer him every inch of my skin. The column of my neck, the space between my breasts, my inner thighs…everywhere.
The thought made me bold, and I realized I wanted to kiss him back. He groaned as I tentatively licked inside his mouth, and I felt his entire body shudder as I did it again.
He tasted sweet and clean, like mint and gin, and the more I kissed him, the more I could taste the lingering salt-tang of my blood. My finger stung from the cut, and I wanted him to suck on it again, I wanted it so badly, and so I pressed it against his lips and into his mouth.
His eyes burned as he closed his lips around my finger and sucked, and everything felt throbbing and swollen—especially the space between my legs. And then his lips were hot on my neck, covering the dip of my clavicle, nibbling on the lobe of my ear.
“Greer,” he breathed. “God, where did you come from?”
I don’t know, but I feel like I’ve always been waiting for you.
And then his forehead fell against my neck. “And why aren’t you eighteen?” he mumbled into my skin.
“How old are you?” I asked.
He lifted his head, resignation and regret in his eyes. “Twenty-six.”
His grip on me loosened, his hands sliding away from my body. I made a noise as he let me go, a noise of pure pain and loss, and he gave a breath like he’d been punched in the gut.
“Please,” I begged. “Please.”
He inhaled raggedly. “You don’t even know what you’re asking for.”
“I don’t care. Anything—I’ll let you do anything to me.”
“I believe you. That’s why you’re so dangerous.”
We stared at each other, and I lifted my fingers to probe at my lips, which thrummed with blood and heat, swollen and soft. “That was my first kiss,” I said, more to myself than to him.
His own lips parted in surprise. “It was?”
“I haven’t…” He doesn’t need to know you’re a virgin, Greer. It’s embarrassing enough that you’ve never been kissed. “Yes. You gave me my first kiss.”
His eyes blazed a deep green, a summer forest about to catch fire, and there was a moment that I thought he was going to reach for me again. As if the idea of being the first man for me ignited a sense of possession in him. But at that moment, the door to the library opened and Merlin Rhys came in from the hallway.
Keep your kisses to yourself.
Tell me you’re eighteen.
Oh my God, what have I done?
We both froze, and then Colchester stepped back and cleared his throat, slipping back into cocktail party mode. “Merlin, hello. Ah, this is Greer…um…”
“Greer Galloway,” Merlin supplied, and his friend swiveled his head to look at me.
“As in Vice President Galloway, Greer Galloway?” Colchester asked me, his strong face both interested and vulnerable.
“Former Vice President,” I mumbled, not for the first time in my life and certainly not for the last.
“Ah, okay. And Greer, this is Merlin Rhys. He’s a family friend and invited me here tonight. I’m in between assignments, but I didn’t want to go home, so he graciously let me tag along.”
“Much good it did if you spent the night hiding on the patio,” Merlin said mildly.
Not the whole night, I wanted to say, but then Merlin’s dark eyes raked over my lips, and somehow—somehow—he knew. He knew that I’d kissed his friend. He knew that I wanted to do it again. He knew that I wouldn’t have stopped, would have surrendered every bit of myself right here in the library.
“We should go,” Merlin said shortly, his eyes still on me as he addressed Colchester. “It’s getting late.”
Colchester stepped away and then looked back at me, biting his lip. It made him look almost boyish, almost my age, until I looked closer and could see that he bit his lip not out of uncertainty, but to control himself.
Merlin sighed and left the room. There was a second when I was certain Colchester would follow him right away, catching the closing door in his large hand and ducking out without a word of goodbye, but then the door closed. And my stranger was still in the room with me.
He was on me in a second, pressing me against the wall, stoking my body to flames once more. “I don’t want to leave,” he told me, tracing his nose along my jaw.
“Then don’t,” I practically pleaded, and he swallowed my pleas with his mouth, kissing me and kissing me and kissing me until there was nothing but his hot mouth and the blood pounding deep in my core.
He stepped back with a heavy breath. “I have to go,” he said with genuine regret, after running a hand through his short hair. He looked as put together and collected as when he’d first strolled in from the patio, as if the kissing hadn’t even happened. As if I hadn’t even happened.
“Wait!” I called out as he reached the door to the hallway that Merlin had walked through moments earlier. “I just realized…I don’t know your first name.”
He paused with his hand on the doorknob and looked down at it. “Captain Maxen Ashley Colchester.” He bowed his head. “At your service.”
“Maxen,” I echoed.
He glanced up and a shy smile crossed his face. “I think I’d like it if you called me Ash.”
And then he was gone.
