Playing Royal: A Vice Agency Novel Read online

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Waiting for you.” I take her arm, pull her into me. So close I can smell the scent she wears, the subtle vanilla undertones making me want to inhale her. I hadn’t planned to come here, but I couldn’t get the idea of her on those streets alone out of my head. I couldn’t stand the idea of anything happening to her. “I’ll give you a ride home.”

  “I can make my own way home.” She tries to pull away, tilting her face so that her bangs hide her eyes.

  I can’t handle not seeing her face. For months she’s looked at me. Really looked at me, seen past the pretense, the hardness that I cultivate to keep people at bay. To have her avoid my gaze now makes me grip her tighter as I brush the hair out of her face. “Now you don’t have to. I don’t want you out on those streets by yourself this late at night.”

  “Are you kidding me?” She raises an eyebrow. “I don’t need to be rescued. I don’t need more fantasy putting holes in my reality.”

  “Maybe not.” I give her arm a yank so that she topples into my lap. “So here’s a little fact for you. I’m not going to lose anyone else because they think they can handle themselves in a dangerous situation.”

  “Your brother?” Her eyes soften, her hands bunching up on my chest. Every cell in my body becomes aware. Her heat, her softness floods my senses so that I want to be engulfed in her. My cock throbs when she squirms to bring her face closer to mine. “What happened to him?”

  “He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Somewhere he should never have been, but the dumb bastard thought he was untouchable.” I growl. “That better be enough for you, because I am taking you home.”

  “Kai,” her voice is almost as soft as the tips of her fingers on my jaw, but she doesn’t fight me. “Okay. Let me finish my shift.”

  It takes another hour for her shift to finish and for her to close out. Liam keeps whispering in her ear and smirking when she flicks glances at him. It makes me antsy. I want to get up and get in his face to tell him to back off.

  Once he and I had a certain camaraderie. He had street smarts, and I’d spent most of my youth fencing, boxing, and riding. Mostly I’d leave him broken, and he’d leave me bruised. We’d been competitive in the ring and when it came to women, though I’d let him believe he had the upper hand with the latter. But we’d also had each other’s backs, drank together, gave each other hell.

  I don’t know if his attention toward my Allie is in the vein of our old competitiveness, or if it’s something else entirely, but if I even get a hint that it’s something more he’ll find the old rules still apply. I’ll break him and walk away with the bruises. Only this time I’ll get the girl, too. I grit my teeth and grip the edge of the table until I can’t stand it anymore, then I head outside.

  Leaning against the wall, I light up and take a deep drag. This life of mine has been so much more and less than I could have hoped for. I wasn’t next in line for the throne, I wasn’t supposed to be the man the family looked at to continue our legacy. At least not while my brother was alive. Now, it all falls on me, and I shouldn’t be wasting my time getting tied up in knots over a girl who can never be my anything.

  My beautiful Allie.

  “I’m ready.” She shrugs into the jacket Gail gave her as she puts herself between me and the wall. “Are you okay?”

  Tossing my cigarette, I plant my hand above her head and lean in to run my mouth up the tender skin of her throat. Her pulse thrums under my lips. The steady beat speeds up, becomes wild as I wind an arm around her and pull her tight to me. “Distract me.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Allie

  Slipping off the back of the bike, I undo my helmet and pass it to him. This man is a riddle wrapped in an enigma. Always changing, but some things stay constant. The depth of seriousness that he gives with a glance; the sorrow, too.

  “Come on.” I take off up the quiet street, knowing he’ll follow.

  It doesn’t take long for him to reach me, to thread his fingers through mine and pull me tight to his side. “Where are we going?”

  “If you could have one fantasy, what would it be?”

  “That’s easy.” His mouth curves up on one side. “You already know the answer to that.” Tugging me into his chest, he grasps my ass and scoops me up, his mouth finding mine so that he can nibble on my lip. “You.”

  “Be serious.” I push away from him, squirm until he releases me. These stolen moments, whether they are real or not, get inside me. It’s an uncomfortable sensation. Not knowing if something is true. It’s far more easy to breathe when he’s not around. He confuses me, makes me think that maybe he cares. “What would it be?”

  “To just be.” He shrugs, ruffling a hand through his hair before shoving it in his pocket.

  “Exactly.” I wander away a little, moving further up the empty street until I find the gate I’m looking for. “So let’s just be. You be you, and I’ll be me.”

  “And how do you propose we do that?” He shifts behind me, his fingers playing with my hair as he smooths it out of the way so he can nip at my neck. A delicious shiver ricochets through me. God, how I want him.

  I fumble with the key before slipping inside with him on my heels. The yard is dark, and I lead the way by memory.

  “Whose house is this?” Kaiser asks, as I take the concrete stairs to the French doors along the back of the house.

  Inside a bundle of white fur bares its teeth and yaps. “Hush now, Lucifer.”

  “Lucifer?”

  “This is the house I grew up in.” I shrug, not wanting to explain why I live where I do when it’s obvious my family was well off. Now, my stepmother is well off, and I try to avoid her, but there’s one thing I never could quite let go off. Unlocking the door, I slip inside and turn off the alarm. “My stepmother’s in Paris. Her annual trip. And her housekeeper never stays past nine.”

  “Do you B and E often?”

  “I still have a key, and you asked me to distract you.” I smirk, turning on the outside lights and shutting the door on the still yapping dog before hiking across the wide expanse of lawn to the now illuminated inground pool. Shedding my jacket, I toss it over a lounge chair.

  Kaiser makes no move to do the same, just hunches further into his jacket. “It’s freezing. Are you trying to get sick?”

  “It’s heated.” I whip my shirt over my head and slip out of my pants. Standing in front of him in nothing but my bra and panties, I smile. “It’s been a long time since I’ve done this.”

  “What? Swim, in the middle of the night?” But he kicks off his boots and drops his jacket on top of mine.

  I can’t rip my gaze away when he yanks the thin cotton T-shirt over his head. The glimpse of tattoos I’d noticed beneath the hem of his shirtsleeves go further than I imagined. I want to touch them, to seek out the patterns and the meanings behind each one.

  Biting my lip, I’m suddenly aware of how little clothing is between us as he undoes the button on his jeans and pushes them down his powerful thighs before kicking them off. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything as beautiful as he is, standing there in a pair of boxer briefs under the glow of the lights, his eyes full of lust. My body tightens under his heated glance, my insides tingling with raw need.

  Turning away, I run straight for the pool edge and dive into the water. He is everything, and I am a girl, nothing more, nothing less. A girl with no power to intrigue a man like him. I shut my eyes and hold my breath, staying beneath the surface. What am I that I even let myself dream of moments with him? Living in a fantasy bubble, with a man who plays at being everything and nothing? I know I can’t have this fantasy forever, but I’m pretending for a moment that I can’t see beyond the persona he wears, that he could be my Prince Charming.

  He finds me under the water, his hands snaking around me to pull me into him. When I break the surface and open my eyes, he stares at me with his eyebrows squished together, his jaw slack. “Will I ever know you, Allie? Or
will you always surprise me?”

  The way he speaks makes me wonder if this could ever be more than some crazy game. If he wants to know me, then why is he so desperate to keep this thing between us an illusion? “I could ask you the same question. I don’t want to pretend with you. Tell me about the real you. Tell me who you are.”

  “If only it were that simple.” His jaw stiffens. Fascinated, I run my fingers over the hard line to feel his strong pulse beneath my fingertips. “Your life is simpler than mine, so you have no way of understanding that I can’t give you everything you seek. But I want you, so much I wonder how I can say goodbye when this bubble you and I have created has to pop.”

  “It doesn’t have to,” I whisper. The skin exposed to the cool air prickles and I press closer, winding my legs around his hips and soaking up his heat. His erection presses to my entrance, only the thin barrier of our underwear keeping him from plunging into me. Oh how I wish, I’d had the braveness to get naked before I jumped in the pool.

  Carefully, he pushes my hair from my face. Our mouths are so close I can almost taste him. “It does, Allie. But believe me, you make me want to be real with you for a little while. You have the man I am for now. At least that much is fact.”

  “So be that man.” I shove him with mock playfulness, trying to pretend I don’t feel that punch to the chest, knowing how serious he is about keeping our time together temporary. “Don’t tell me where you came from, or where you’re going. Tell me who you are, right now, in this moment.”

  “Fuck.” He groans, his lips seeking mine as he guides me to the edge of the pool. “I’m just a man, a man who would give his country for one more minute with you.”

  Slamming his mouth to mine, with a thrust of his tongue, he commands me to open up. My lips part readily under his attack, and I grasp his face to deepen the kiss. I’m starving for every bit of attention he shows me. It’s almost shameful how greedy I am for him. His stubble bites into my palms, creates a prickly sensation along my lips while he kisses me like he could consume me. When he pulls back, he sucks my bottom lip between his teeth, bites gently as his hands wander to my ass and slip under the elastic of my panties.

  Tugging them off, he drops them on the side of the pool before lifting me up on the ledge. With one hand planted on my hip, he spreads my knees with the other. I shiver from the chill in the air, or maybe with the heat of desire that roars through me, making me temporarily forget about anything but his hands on my thighs and the wickedness in his gaze.

  Slowly, determinedly he pushes me back until I’m braced against the damp cement surrounding the pool, my arms holding my weight. “I’m going to make you cum, beautiful. I want to see you fall apart for me again.” Pulling me closer to the edge of the pool, until my ass is precariously balanced on the lip, and my legs are draped over his shoulders, he rolls his thumb over my clit. “I want you in my mouth, need to taste you.”

  His hand cups my breast, pinching the nipple between his fingers as he blows on my clit. The warmth of his breath in stunning reality to the cold makes me whimper as arousal sweeps through me, leaving me trembling for him. “Now, Kai.”

  Then he puts his mouth to my core, not moving for one long moment. I can feel his mouth curving as he inhales me. “You smell like heaven.”

  I shudder as he licks the length of my slit, a soft, slow rasp of his tongue. He makes a lazy loop over my clit and back to my core, over and over until I’m squirming, my arms shaking. Pressure builds up inside me, a sweet ache that has me panting with need.

  “This is mine.” Pressing his fingers to my pussy lips, he parts them. “Say it, Allie. I want to hear you say it. I want you to promise me that you’ll always remember.”

  A moan catches in my throat. How can I say that when this thing between us will end? How can I tell him that I’ll never forget the way he made me feel when it’s only a matter of time before we both have to let go? And yet, it’s the truth. “Always.”

  Just once I’d like to believe in fairy tales and true love. Just once I’d like to convince myself that someone could feel that way about me. But not him. This is only a brief interlude from the bitterness, and I refuse to let myself forget that.

  “Say it again, Allie. Scream it for me when you cum from my tongue in you.” Then his mouth is on me, his tongue thrusting deep into my pussy. He licks every inch of my wetness from me, demanding and unrelenting while he fucks me with his tongue until I’m arching up for more. Begging, with my hips mashed to his face, for release.

  His fingers dig into my sides as he picks me up, standing there in the pool with my legs wrapped around his shoulders while he pushes deeper inside me, the wet sound of his tongue dragging in and out of me accompanied by the soft murmur of water lapping the edge of the pool.

  I scream for him and dig my fingers into his hair, as he takes me higher. My entire body gets heavy with the need to cum, and my pussy throbs under the assault of his mouth until it’s too overwhelming, too sharp a need. Then he sucks my clit into his mouth, biting gently but not easing up with the pressure, and I come undone.

  I cum hard. So fucking hard. His name tumbles from my lips, and maybe an unintelligible form of the words always and forever.

  When he slides me down his body, the warmth of the pool envelops me. I’m liquid in his arms. A molten mess, I cling to him. And still, his hardness between my legs has me greedy for more. I squirm a little with his cock head pressed to my entrance. We’re so close it almost feels like he’s pushing inside me. The heat of him makes me want to sink down on his erection.

  “I want in you.” His wet hand plastered to my face, tendrils of my hair caught between his fingers, he groans. “But I don’t have anything. Protection. I only planned to make sure you got home safely, I didn’t plan for this. It’s not part of the fantasy.”

  I pause, the crown of him pressing to my clit. He’s fighting desire, his arms trembling around me as he surges in minute strokes that have arousal seeping through me again. I’ve seen him carry used condoms around in his pocket. He must carry packets of them for the women he sleeps with as part of his work, but he doesn’t when he’s being himself? “I thought you’d always carry them for clients, for their fantasy games.”

  “Yeah, I play games.” He exhales, putting me down so my feet touch the bottom of the pool. “I only ever play games. In case you haven’t noticed this isn’t one of those times.”

  It isn’t? It’s so hard to know what’s going on between us. One moment I think he’s playing me, the next… “What about those other times. When it’s not, you know?”

  Thinking about him with anyone else clogs my throat, though it shouldn’t. He isn’t mine. I have no claim on him. I’ve known this from the moment I looked up the Vice Agency from the card I’d found in his coat pocket. Even if this moment isn’t part of the fantasy I asked for, it doesn’t change what he told me can and can’t be.

  “I don’t get involved, Allie.” His expression hardens for the briefest flash, and I swear I almost imagine it. “I haven’t gotten involved with anyone, until you. I’m a little out of my depth. I didn’t expect to end up here with you, though I should have. I was only concerned with you walking those neighborhoods alone late at night.”

  For some reason that warms me, and I bite my lip as I slip my hand into his boxer-briefs to run my fingers over his erection. “Let me?”

  He nods, his breath catching and his cock pulsing in my palm, getting even harder. I almost can’t wrap my fingers around it, as I run them loosely from the base up over the head of him and back down. Even with me barely tugging him, his hips follow. Slowly, I edge backward through the water, moving closer to the shallows, until he’s standing thigh deep in the water, my hand wrapped around him slapping the water as I stroke him. Pre-cum leaks from the crown, making it easier to glide my hand up and down his shaft as I gradually tighten my grip.

  Each tug gets him closer, and he grinds his hips to my hand, thrusting into my grip while he groans in my hair
, his hands plastered to my face. A tremor shoots through his arms. “You feel so good. This isn’t going to last long.”

  I reach up to kiss him, to bite on his lip as I pick up the pace. I don’t need this to last, I want to see his face when he climaxes. I want to see the effect I have on him. “Cum for me. Give me this.”

  His hooded gaze eats me up, and his large hand covers mine, adjusting the rhythm. A feral growl falls from his lips, and a thrill shakes loose inside me. Then his jaw tenses and releases as I swipe my hand up over the head of his cock while he cums for me.

  We stand there like that, my hand on him, his fingers locked around mine while he stares into me. It’s this unguarded moment, when I swear I can read so much more into his eyes than I should be able to, and I no longer feel insignificant. Then it’s gone. Burned up under a ripple of hardness that masks him from me.

  “We should get the hell out of here. It’s freezing.” He grips my wrist, removing my hand from his cock. The look on his face is confusing, like he’s upset or maybe a little angry with what we just did. Or maybe it’s me.

  I’m not sure what I did wrong. “Kaiser?”

  “Just get out of the pool, Princess.” He glares at me.

  I do as he says, not because he said it, but because I have his cum all over my hand, and despite the fact I want to taste him, I need a towel to clean up. Besides, I don’t want to be this close to him when he’s angry. I seem to have a habit of pissing people off, though I’m never entirely sure how.

  “What’s with the tattoo? The poetry?” he grumbles, coming up behind me as I move to the towel cupboard.

  Ignoring his questions, I snatch up a towel and wipe my hand before getting another to wind around me. My skin goose bumps from the cold. “Why are you mad at me?”

  He grabs the towel I hold out to him and rubs at his hair. Drops of water cling to his body. “I’m not mad at you.”

  “Then what?”

  “Be a damn ghost,” he says. “I don’t like to leave parts of me behind. Don’t like to leave my DNA lying around. But that didn’t even cross my mind while I was so close to pushing into you bare, or when you had your hand wrapped around my dick.”