Playing Royal: A Vice Agency Novel Read online

  I glance around him, back to Kai who is staring in our direction, his phone no longer to his ear. He gives a half-shrug and smiles, and my belly flip-flops the way it always seems to around him. I’m so turned on and so self-conscious all at the same time, I can barely breathe. Darting my tongue over my dry lips, I try to hide a sudden gasp as the vibrations kick up a notch.

  “What’s your name?” the guy asks. He’s practically standing beside me now, close enough that he can put out his hand in an invitation for me to take it.

  “Allie,” I say, my voice breathy, and the sound ends on a little moan that has me cringing. Surely, he can tell that I’m aroused, that my insides are clenching with pleasure. I dart another glance at Kai, begging him to stop.

  “Cam,” the guy says, his gaze widening, his nostrils flaring. Oh God, he can totally tell. “Do you think you might let me buy you a drink?”

  “Uh.” Pressure builds with each new wave of pleasure, and I find it hard to continue the conversation as we step up to the counter. “No, thanks. I’m actually here with somebody.”

  “That’s too bad,” he says, and for a moment I swear I get a glimpse of genuine disappointment.

  But I can’t concentrate on him, can barely order drinks. My whole body is on fire. I can’t pay attention to anything but the pounding between my legs. It’s too much to bear, and I’m getting closer and closer to cumming from the vibe massaging my clit and inner walls. Every thought is focused on keeping myself together, to not giving in to the sensation, to not moan out loud again. My hands shake as I pick up the drinks. “Have a nice night, Cam.”

  His smile is genuine as he nods. “You too.”

  I make my escape from the crowd, moving as fast as I can, but every step adjusts where the pressure hits inside me. I can feel my wetness on my thighs each time I shift in the hopes of easing the pressure in my core, but it doesn’t let up. I’m panting by the time I cross the rope and set the drinks down on a table.

  Kaiser’s hand lands on my bicep, squeezes, and even that is too much. I barely manage to suppress a cry. The side of his mouth flicks up and he presses his body to mine, his lips to my ear. “Do you know how fucking perfect you look on the edge of cumming? Did you see the way that man looked at you?” His hand finds my hip and squeezes, wanders around my waist to hold me to him. “But you only had eyes for me. Do you know what that feels like? Do you know how hard it makes me to know the most beautiful girl in here only wants me?”

  His hardness against my ass, my breath hitches, and my muscles lock up. I can feel myself going cross-eyed. The warmth of his hand intensifying the thrumming need for release. Oh God, he’s going to make me cum while we’re standing in this room full of people, and I can’t find the will to care. The need for release drives me to grip the edge of the table. He could almost whip my dress up over my head and plunge into me and I wouldn’t care about anything but the release he’d give me. I’m so close, so very close.

  His name rushes out of me on a jagged cry, and he pulls me into his arms as the band starts again. But I can’t work out the words, can’t catch the tune. All I can do is fall into his embrace as he sways me to the music. My insides melt, the orgasm he’s kept me on the brink of pummelling me. My knees give out, and I sink against his chest as wave after wave of aching desire pour through me.

  When I can’t stop myself from crying out, he grasps my jaw and turns my head to the side so he can catch my mouth with his, keeping my pleasure for himself. I forget about the people crowded around us. I forget we’re in a public place, a room full of strangers. It is only he and I, and this blizzard of sensation that rages inside me. I don’t think there’s anything he could ask of me that I wouldn’t agree to.

  And when the night is over and he drops me home, when he tells me as much as he wants to make me cum again, as much as he wants to spend the night with me wrapped around him, that he wants one more fantasy first, I find myself agreeing.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Kaiser

  “What have you done to Saran?” Loz whispers as she takes a seat on my desk, a box of donuts opened on her lap. “I’ve never seen him like this.”

  I glance at his door, but I don’t tell her that I no longer work at Vice. That news will come shortly, once Saran and I are done with our little agreement. I shrug and steal a donut. “I got one over on him. He never saw it coming.”

  “Not possible.” She shakes her head. “The man knows everything.”

  Except he didn’t have a clue who I was. I’d made sure of that when I’d signed on. My papers had been exceptional fakes, my life laid out like a road map on social media. An easy thing to do when your family didn’t want anyone to know you were avoiding your responsibilities. I’m still waiting for the media to cover that story. But there’s been nothing, except the occasional story with a quote from my father about how his son is working to do good in third world countries. I honestly have no idea how they’ve kept my disappearance quiet in Karovka, but here it’s easy because few would recognize me without an entourage. “Does he?”

  “I’m sure he does.” She blushes under my scrutiny as a crash comes from behind the closed door of his office.

  He’s been like this for a couple days now. But I know behind that closed door he’s destroying any bit of evidence that puts me here. Every bit of paper that I’ve had my fingers on is going in the shredder, every file I’ve worked on is being fixed so that I’m nothing but a ghost.

  “He won’t let me sign you on for any games.”

  “Except Alexandra Whittaker’s.” I growl. That’s the line I drew when I told him why he had to wash his hands of me. Allie may be oblivious, but this thing with us, it isn’t a Vice thing. It might not mean much in the scheme of things, it certainly won’t once I return to deal with my duties, but until then it’s the only thing I can focus on. I don’t want to mar it with this line of work any longer. She’s my last hurrah to a freedom I’ll never quite entirely experience.

  “Except her.” She peers at me keenly. “Does this, whatever you did, have to do with that girl?”

  Yes, and no. “It’s not like that, Loz.”

  “Not like what? That girl signs on to have you fulfil her fantasies, and I’m suddenly doing refunds and setting up new games through a mysterious bank account. Something stinks, Kaiser.”

  “Maybe you should lay off the caffeine. I think it’s rotting your brain.” I push away from the desk as Saran starts cursing like a sailor. Loz has been a friend to me, the other guys I work with too, but it’s easier if I slip quietly away without them knowing who I am. Or maybe I want to be remembered as being this person, not as a prince, not as the man who will inherit a throne and a country, but as a man. Only a man. As the man who lived up to the expectations of those around him.

  “Whatever you did, I hope you find a way to fix it and soon.” She slips off my desk and goes back to what she was doing. “I don’t know how much more of this I can take.”

  Me either. Not of Saran in his current state. In some ways it amuses me, in others I feel awful for bringing my problems to his door. But it’s some kind of limbo, being stuck between fantasy and reality, wanting a woman I should have no interest in and filling her head with things that aren’t real, but are so very true. Knowing I only have so much time before I must go back. There’s a statute of limitations on my time with Allie, and yet there’s going to be no easy way to walk away from this. Something I already don’t want to do. I can’t even imagine saying goodbye to her.

  ***

  “Ready, Princess?” I encase her slender hand in mine, allow my gaze to wander over her.

  She’s, as always, beautiful, with her hair swept up and curled to the side, her body hugged by a dress that shows off her curves.

  “I thought we agreed I didn’t want to fantasize about being something I’m not.” She screws up her brow, her lip pinched between her teeth.

  “We did, but remember, this last fantasy is mine, not yours.” I press my palm
to the small of her back as I guide her away from Gail’s house to the limousine I have waiting. I tell myself this feeling in my chest, the slight sweat that’s broken out on my brow is nothing to do with her, but I’m a liar. At least it’ll be over for real when the clock strikes twelve. This is our last fantasy. It has to be. I don’t know how much longer I can differentiate between what I want and what the acceptable course of action is. “I want to imagine what it would be like to have you in my world.”

  “What were you? What does your family do, that you moved in such luxury?” She tugs at the strap of her dress. “Gail told me this was supposed to be for an A-list celebrity, and now it’s mine? Just like that?”

  “My family is worth millions, but you’re worth more,” I tell her while the driver opens the door for her to climb in.

  I can tell from the way she gazes at me and the way she moves her lips ever so slightly that she’s curious and wants to ask more. I wait for her questions, knowing I’ll disappoint her with my non-answers.

  Then she turns and slips into the car. I climb in after her, relieved when she still doesn’t ask the questions that must be burning in her mind. If I could I would give her everything, simply because she deserves it, but I can’t give her the answers she wants any more than I can get her out of that shitty apartment and set her up with enough money that she’d never have to worry about anything long after I’m gone. Because it wouldn’t be satisfactory, not when all I really want is to be with her. She’s somehow become worth more than all the money my family has. I push the thought away with a knuckle rub to my brow. Why the hell did she have to go and be so intoxicating? She deserves to be happy, and so do I, but not together. That’s something I can’t give her.

  “I’m nothing special, Kai,” she dusts the bottom of her dress with one hand as the driver guides the car into traffic. “I’m no different from anyone else. We’re all just trying to do the best we can.”

  “No, you are different. You don’t see it?” I wrap an arm around her possessively. “Most people have ideals in their heads, aspirations built on the expectations of others. They work toward them like their goals, or they try to actually live up to what other people want. They never truly are who they are.”

  Like me, before her.

  I stare out the window, the flicker of street lamps a pattern on the dark window. And when I go back I have to be the man who fills my brother’s shoes, the man who doesn’t make the mistakes Leo did. I have to find a way to bear the expectations of my father, of an entire country, and somehow live up to them.

  “That must be hard. Knowing you have to live up to other people’s expectations.” She rests her head on my chest, her face upturned so that I catch glimpses of her pensive expression.

  “You have no idea. I’ve tried to forget the needs of my family, the things they expect of me. It’s not so simple. I can’t just wish for what I want and have it be.”

  “The freedom to be whoever you want.” She kneads my leg and my cock jumps to attention.

  “It used to be all I wanted.” Now, it’s not exactly the truth. I press my face to her hair, inhale that soft vanilla scent that clings to her tresses. Every hour I spend with her makes me want more. I would kill for a way out of this mess my heart is in, all because I can’t get her out of my head.

  “Maybe who you are isn’t so far from their expectations. Perhaps if you talked to your family you could come to some kind of understanding. Five years is a long time to hold onto so much bitterness, Kai.”

  “Perhaps.” I run my fingers up and down her arm, feeling her skin prickle under them while I consider where to guide the conversation next.

  I could talk to her for hours, for days about the things that burden me, about the things that make her happy, but every word I utter makes me want to tell her more. More facts, less pretend. We spend the rest of the ride murmuring to each other about little things that don’t particularly matter. About how she doesn’t like strawberries, and I’m not a fan of baseball. We talk about things that don’t mean anything, but just knowing more about her makes me smile, and makes me dread the end of our time together more and more with each passing moment.

  When the limo pulls up, I help her onto the curb in front of the art gallery I picked to start off our night and wait for the curator to unlock the door for us.

  “Oh.” She squeezes my arm as I usher her through the wide front door. “Are we the only people here?”

  “The place is closed, except for us. Vice pulled some strings. I wanted it to be just you and I.”

  “This is amazing.” She beams with happiness.

  “You like art?”

  “Like? Love.” She glides toward a giant marble statue in the center of the floor. “When I was little I wanted to be an artist.” Wrapping her arms around her waist, she bites her bottom lip and smiles. “I was atrocious.”

  “Surely not.”

  Turning to me, she flutters a hand on my bicep. “I could paint by numbers well enough, but anything else was beyond awful.”

  “I would have liked to see your paintings.” I let her lead the way as she flits from piece to piece. “My brother had a knack for it.”

  “He was an artist?” She glances over her shoulder at me.

  Her beauty tugs at me, and I close the space between us, settling my hands on her hips. “No. He had talent, but it was only ever a hobby.”

  “And you?”

  I chuckle at the idea of even having the patience to draw. I’d almost flunked that particular class when I was younger. “Nope. Give me sports. Fast cars, motorcycles, fighting.”

  She stares at me, her eyebrows scrunching together while she plays with a curled tress of her hair. Then her face lights up. “Fact. You scared me half to death that first ride I took with you.”

  “The motorcycle?”

  “No. The Porsche.” She moves on to another display.

  “I was angry.” I shove my hands in my pockets and root myself to the floor. “I knew you were trouble.”

  “I feel like I should apologize,” she whispers, keeping her gaze glued to the art in front of her. “But I couldn’t help myself.”

  “No apologies.” Not yet. Drawn to her side again, I slide my palms down the silken skin of her arms to tug her closer and graze my lips over her shoulder. “I’m finding I can’t help myself when it comes to you, either.”

  She turns in my grip, her breasts pressed to my chest. I want so much from her. I want her naked and underneath me, her moans on my tongue. I want her lush curves pressed to my side, my hand on the small of her back no matter where we are. She enthrals me in a way that makes it hard for me to fight this need to consume her. It’s an insatiable swelling in my chest. A need that demolishes me.

  Slamming her up against the wall, my back shielding her body from the large front windows where traffic passes in sporadic bursts, I take her mouth. She yields willingly as I pin her hands above her head in one of mine and slide my knee between her thighs. I ravish her mouth, immerse myself in her taste and the way she’s not only eager for me but also demanding. She sucks my tongue into her mouth with a throaty moan that has me surging my hips against hers so she can feel how hard she gets me. “No more fucking around, Allie. I’m going to be inside you tonight.”

  “Tell me,” she pants. “Tell me what you want. Your fantasies.”

  My fantasies? I cup one of her breasts, enjoying the weight of it in my hand as I circle my thumb over the nipple. I’m going to get my mouth on them again, until she’s writhing, begging me for more. I blink slowly, trying to concentrate on the answer to her question, not just the desire to plunge into her wet cunt. “You, Allie. Like this, your back to the wall while I plunge my cock inside you. I want to hammer that hot pussy of yours until you cum. Then I’d turn you around, and do it all over again.”

  She shivers, her knees buckling, and I can feel the heat of her against my thigh, her arousal dampening my pant leg while she whimpers, “More.”

  “I
don’t think I’d ever be finished with you.” I let out a growl. “I’d want you on your hands and knees, your ass up, your back arched. You’d be so fucking perfect like that. Touching yourself while I took you from behind.” I slide my hand under her dress and grip her ass, my fingers digging into the cleft of her cheeks. “I’d want that too. Your tight little asshole stretched around me. You’d let me have it all, wouldn’t you?”

  “Kai.” Her breath hisses between her parted lips, her body shuddering although I’m barely touching her.

  I slide my hand between her legs, dig my fingers under her panties and push two digits into her. She’s drenched, and takes them easily. “You’d give me whatever I wanted?”

  She jolts on my fingers with a moan, her eyes fluttering shut. “Yes.”

  I bury my face in her neck, licking and sucking at her skin while I finger fuck her. “I want to be in you. Buried up to my balls in your pussy, skin on skin. Nothing between us. That’s my fantasy, Allie. You, and only you, wrapped around my bare cock over and over until I fucking die from too much pleasure. Can you imagine how good it would feel?”

  “Oh God.” Her inner muscles clench around me, pulsating as she gets close to orgasm.

  After she cums, I’m taking her to the hotel I booked for tonight. I’m going to fuck her until her entire body is one long sweet ache she’ll always remember, and then I’m going to find a way to do it again. I don’t think I’ll ever want to let her go.

  “That’s it, mina cauere.” My heart, I whisper in her ear as I finger fuck her with deep, determined strokes. “Cum for me. Let me see how much you want to be mine.”

  She cries out and I cup my hand over her mouth. The gallery might be empty, but the curator is in the building somewhere, and I don’t want to share any of the sweet sounds Allie’s making as her pussy clamps down on my fingers with each wave of her orgasm.