Playing Royal: A Vice Agency Novel

by Misti Murphy

  “Or at least his dick does.” Scorch slides off my desk. “Just run an old play. It’s not like she’ll know.”

  “Yeah,” I mumble grudgingly as I let go of Loz who starts rearranging her hair while keeping a careful eye on Saran’s office door. Why the hell not re-run a plan? There’s nothing enticing about these fantasies at the moment. May as well just roll with it, until I get my equilibrium back. Or go home.

  No, I’m not ready to go back to Karovka yet. Not ready to take my rightful place, or deal with the mess I left behind. I’m only irritable because of Allie. That girl. Stop naming her, put her out of your head. It’ll pass soon, and then I’ll enjoy these days of freedom. The way I did before she locked that beautiful hazel eyed gaze on me.

  Chapter Six

  Allie

  Standing on the corner of North and Maine, I dart nervous glances around me, searching out his face. I can’t believe I’m doing this. I have his coat tucked over one arm as I shift from foot to foot. This is crazy. And what is he going to say when he sees who his newest client is? I check both ends of the street again.

  It’s not too late. I could walk away. He would never have to know I was here. I could just forget how incredibly insane the idea of seeing him again made me.

  “Allie?”

  I jump when I hear his voice, spinning around to come face to face with him, his hard body filling out a fitted suit in the only way a prime specimen of man meat can. It’s been a couple weeks since I saw him, but my heart still speeds up as he closes the distance between us. His scent hits me hard, and I inhale as he stops in front of me, close enough to touch.

  “Kaiser.” His name comes out far breathier than I mean for it to.

  “How are you doing, beautiful?” His shoulders tense, his hands are thrust firmly in his jacket pockets while his gaze roves over me. My insides warm, desire stirring through me, though I know he has no intention of touching me, at least not yet.

  “Fine.” I hold up his coat. “I thought you might want this.”

  His focus goes to the coat. Then his brow draws together roughly, lines forming in the center of his forehead, before he brings his gaze back to my face. “Do you carry my coat everywhere, or did you plan to run into me today?”

  His jaw clenched, he stares me down. There’s nothing sensual about the way he’s looking at me as he takes the coat from my hands.

  I swallow hard against the lump in my throat. He’s angry at me. I should have expected it, but I didn’t think past my own desire to see him again. Now, every fiber in my body wants to run away. “I knew you’d be here, but I’m not stalking you. I mean—”

  “Allie’s short for Alexandra, right?” The lights change, and he grasps my arm, dragging me across the road.

  His fingers dig into my bicep a little too tightly, making me flinch. “Yes.”

  “You took my coat. Found the card and decided you’d hire me to fulfill some little girl fantasy.” He marches straight ahead, not looking at me, not giving me time to get my feet under me or my balance back.

  “I thought...” I don’t know what I thought. When he says it like that it sounds crazy. It is crazy. He’s a stranger who sat in my bar a few times. An escort that women pay for sex. And yet, I can’t get him out of my head. I just wanted one night to do that, to destroy the mystery of him that calls me like a homing beacon. But he’s making it quite clear that I’m the last person he wants to see.

  “I thought you were better than that, Allie.” He lets go of my arm as we approach a sleek silver sports car and stalks ahead of me, before turning back. He covers the distance in three strides. “You have no idea what you’re doing do you?”

  Honestly, not a damn clue. “I’m hiring you to spend a night with me.”

  “Where’d the money to pay for this come from?” He grips my chin. “Be honest, Allie. You used my money for this, didn’t you?”

  “I used the tips you gave me.” His touch is like a brand on my skin, and though he looks at me with distaste, though his hold is almost painful, it sends a thrill through me. Even so, I fight a tremble that I don’t want him to see. “But it doesn’t matter where it came from. It’s my money, and I can spend it however I want.”

  His jaw softens a little, though his gaze doesn’t lose its intensity, and he brushes his thumb along the length of my bottom lip, which opens automatically under the pressure. “That money was to help you survive. Not to waste on something like this.”

  “Maybe I’m not,” I tell him, digging my feet in. “Maybe I wanted to see how much stamina a man who uses five condoms in a night has.”

  “What did you do with them?” His words are rigid, focused, as though we’re talking about something much more important than the disturbing contents of a zip lock bag.

  “Your trophies? I tossed them in the trash.” I turn my nose up. “Why do you keep them?”

  “I don’t.” He breathes out in a slow whoosh. “I just don’t leave them lying around.”

  So he takes them home and disposes of them? I guess that isn’t as bad as I imagined. “That’s a lot of condoms to carry in your pocket. A lot of endurance. I couldn’t help but be curious about what kind of man can have sex that many times in one night.”

  His eyes widen, his pupils dilating, and I swear if I look down I’ll be able to see the outline of an erection behind the zip on his pants. “The kind of man who doesn’t want to play with you. You shouldn’t have done this.”

  “Fine.” I step out of his hold. Apparently, men don’t even want me for sex anymore, whether I pay for it or not. All his looks, his pretty words, calling me beautiful, had been nothing. Fuck, I’m so stupid. “I’m going home. Just pretend like you never saw me.”

  “I wish,” he growls. “But that’s not going to happen.”

  “Yes, it is.” I spin on my heel, tossing the words over my shoulder. “I’m leaving. I swear you don’t have to worry about me pestering you or anything. And it’s a big city. I doubt we’ll run into each other again.”

  “No.” He snags my arm, pulls me until my back is to his chest. I wasn’t wrong about the erection. His hardness presses against my ass, and my insides clench. Then his teeth graze my neck. “Get in the car, Allie. You want to play princess; you’ll be my fucking princess.”

  Then he’s pulling me toward the Porsche, opening the door and all but shoving me inside. I don’t understand why, if he’s so pissed off, he doesn’t just let me leave. But then, I’m not entirely sure how I talked myself into thinking this was a good idea in the first place.

  He doesn’t talk. Just drives, his hands clenched around the steering wheel. With a scowl, he weaves the Porsche in and out of traffic like he owns the road. I wrap my hand around the doorhandle, holding on as he takes yet another sharp turn.

  What the hell was I thinking? I wasn’t, obviously. Not really. I let my pussy make my decisions. That much is abundantly clear, because if I were using my head I would never have decided that spending a night with an escort who carries condoms around like he has some kind of paranoia was even remotely a good idea.

  “Allie, what am I supposed to do with you now?” He flicks a glance in my direction. The cold steeliness from before softening as he speaks.

  “You could pull over and let me out,” I mutter. All I want to do is go home and pretend that he never walked into my bar. Pretend I don’t find myself drawn to him, even now, while he’s being a royal dick.

  “Well aren’t you a firecracker?” He raises a brow, a little smirk playing at the corners of his mouth. “What happened to the girl who barely spoke?”

  “Oh, she spoke. You’re the one who likes his silence when he drinks.”

  “True.” He shoves a hand through his hair. “Would have been better if we’d kept it that way.”

  “Ouch.” I cross my arms over my chest and glare out the window. At least this ride to hell is making it easier to dislike him. By the time he lets me go, no doubt, I’ll be glad to see the back of this A-hole. “Just let
me out of the car and you won’t have to worry about hearing another word from me.”

  He down shifts as he takes another corner that flings me around in my seat. I reach out to grasp onto anything. My hand finds his bicep, my fingers curling tight as they encounter chiselled muscle. The heat of him zings through my palm. Then his hand covers mine, holds onto it as he pulls the car over in front of a house.

  When I look up, he’s staring. The way he did those nights in the bar, and my heart does this weird strangled flip. This is why I’m here isn’t it? My stupid pulse goes crazy, an insistent throb starting between my legs. Because there’s something in him that calls to me. An intensity I feel deep in my marrow, and pain, too.

  It steals my breath away, but that isn’t a good thing, is it? That his crazy calls to my crazy in such a way should be frightening. “Thank you. I’m going to go.”

  I try to snatch my hand away but he keeps it locked under his. “Sorry, Princess. That’s not part of the plan.”

  “Oh.” I don’t know what else to say. His tone leaves no room for argument, but everything up until now tells me I need to get out of the Porsche and run away.

  When I try to yank my hand out of his again, he lets me go, and I fight with the door handle for two seconds before I’m bolting from the car. But I don’t get far. Not even to the end of the block before he catches up to me. “You started this, Allie. You’re going to finish it.”

  “I am finishing it.” I avoid his touch, knowing if he gets a hand on me I’ll melt into it. That I won’t care how stupid a mistake this was, I’ll want to continue to make more of them.

  “Just one evening.” His big hand wraps around my arm, pulling me toward him as his fingers graze my jaw. “We can do this. We’ve done it before. I won’t hurt you, Allie.” He lets his hand drop to his side, and glances over my head. “That’s all it is. One evening where you get treated the way you should be. Like a queen. Then it’s over, okay?”

  “Okay.” It’s all I want. Not really. There’s a part of me that’s greedy, that’s shouting loudly that one night won’t be anywhere near enough. And the whole idea of being treated like anything more than I am only makes me want to hide under a rock.

  “Good.” He grasps my hand, leading me back past the Porsche and up to a house.

  It’s nothing particularly special. A small cottage style place with a garden full of lavender and hydrangeas. We’re greeted by a woman dressed head to toe in black, long blue hair swinging down her back to her ass. “Kaiser, I wasn’t expecting you. You should have let me know you were coming.”

  “Last minute change of plans.” He kisses her on both cheeks, before pushing me in front of him. “Gail, this is Allie.”

  “Allie.” Her cat-like green eyes sparkle as she pulls me into the house, and inspects my faded, torn jeans and stretched out sweater. “Is this your first fantasy?”

  “Yes.” I cringe as she lifts a handful of my hair up for closer inspection. She’s taller than I am, even in bare feet. “That easy to tell?”

  Her laugh is melodic, almost whimsical. “I don’t usually get first timers. This is going to be fun.”

  “What’s going to be fun?” I try not to let the butterflies in my stomach overwhelm me as she continues to scrutinize me from every angle.

  “Kaiser, coffee, stat.” She clicks her fingers in the air. “I’m going to need a double shot of whisky in mine if you don’t mind. Then call Neil and Moira.”

  “Sure.” He marches past us, heading further into the house with only a quick glance at me over her shoulder.

  “What’s going on?” I ask Gail as she clamps her hands on my shoulders and ushers me in the opposite direction. I thought the whole point of hiring an escort was to spend that time with the escort, not with some woman who is critically appraising every inch of me. I feel about ten inches tall under her assessing gaze.

  “Oh sweetie, did you even read the packet? At least tell me you know your safe word to break the fantasy if you need to.”

  “Pumpkin,” I murmur. I hadn’t been able to think of one to be honest. Everything had seemed so lame, so I’d left it up to the woman who had emailed me the forms from Vice. She’d chosen pumpkin.

  “Fitting.” She stops us in front of a door. “Well, Allie, every good rags to riches fantasy has to come with a makeover, doesn’t it?”

  “I guess.” I’m beginning to get the picture, but I’m not sure I like it. I smooth my sweaty palms on my jeans. The soft denim is comfortable and familiar, and I want to tell her that she’ll be prying them off my dead body, but I signed up for this when I booked this adventure into the twilight zone, and I told Kaiser I would go along with it. Not that I’m sure why either of us is continuing forward with this game when it’s obvious neither of us want to.

  Then Gail pushes open the door to her studio. “And I’m your fairy godmother. At least for today.”

  Sewing machines are set up on workstations along one wall of the room. Racks and racks and racks of clothing along another. An entire wall holds designs for dresses that belong on supermodels and celebrities.

  A riot of colors, patterns, and fabric fill the room. I’ve never seen anything like it. And then there are the shoes. The woman makes shoes as well? Wooden shoe racks stretch to the ceiling, holding all styles of shoe. I glance down at my worn boots, the fronts so scuffed there’s no hope for them and wish I could disappear into the floor. “You’re a designer?”

  “That’s right. And I get to fit you out for tonight.” She pulls a gold sheath dress off a hanger and holds it in front of me, hemming and hawing, before tossing it aside. “Be a doll and undress, will you?”

  “What if I don’t want to dress up?” I pull the sleeves of my sweater over my hands and curl my fingers into them. “I didn’t expect, didn’t think—”

  “Whatever plan Kaiser has for you is going to be amazing. You’re going to have so much fun, but you really need to be dressed for the occasion.” She approaches me with something in pink, once again flicking her gaze between the dress and me. “Besides, it’s only a night, little one. It’ll be worth it, I promise, and then you can go back to your normal self tomorrow.”

  Only one evening. I exhale. And I spent all that money, and I still want that man to get into my pants. I can put up with the discomfort of not being myself for a few hours to get what I want.

  I strip down quickly to my underwear.

  That gains a clucking sound from my fairy godmother. “You can afford to play with Vice, but you can’t afford decent underwear?”

  “I couldn’t really afford it.” I hug myself tightly, trying to keep her prying gaze off my tatty bra. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  “You were thinking you needed something for yourself. Something amazing just for you.” She strides over to where several boxes sit in a stack in one corner. Lifting the lid, she starts pulling matching lingerie sets out and lining them up on a counter. “Hmm, blue I think. Or red?”

  “Red.” Isn’t that the color of sex, or something? And that’s why I’m here, right?

  “No, blue.” She picks up the dark blue bra and panties. “Definitely blue.” Then she’s rifling through the clothing racks again, pulling out a white fitted sheath dress with a dark lace like print on it, which she brings over to me and drops in my arms. “Now you get dressed, and I’ll go make sure Kaiser hasn’t drunk all my whiskey.”

  Chapter Seven

  Kaiser

  Normally, I have a plan—and a backup plan—when it comes to giving women what they want, within the confines of my rules. Not that it’s hard. Most of them would be happy if I showed up naked with a bow tied around my dick. But this is different.

  This is fucked up.

  I thought I’d gotten that girl out of my head. Allie. Then I saw her, and I knew it wasn’t going to be that simple. Probably the only way to get her out of my head, is to get her under me, and I’m honestly not sure that will make it better or worse.

  I pour another sh
ot of Gail’s cheap whisky into my coffee cup. The coffee went almost immediately, and then I moved onto shooting whisky alone. Saran would undoubtedly want to murder me if he knew. Especially since I’m driving another of his prized possessions. But what the hell, by the time we’re done here the alcohol will be out of my system. Unlike her.

  I thought I liked quiet Allie, with her secretive eyes and her seductive mouth, but the girl who got fired up earlier was something else, and I don’t think it even scratched the surface of what she’s capable of. I would have liked to find out. I wanted to push her to see how fiery she could get.

  Leaving the kitchen, I let myself out into the back yard. Neil and Moira arrived not long after I called, and the four of them are holed up in Gail’s studio, letting me simmer in my own musings while they do whatever they’re doing to make Allie look perfect. I’d rather they didn’t, because I don’t want to see her fit the part. I don’t want to imagine what it would look like to have her be part of my life. But she wanted to play this little game, so we’re going to. All the way to its end.

  There’s a stone bench at the back of the overcrowded garden, and I stalk toward it as I tap a cigarette loose and stick it between my lips. Planting my ass on the bench, I inhale until a buzz creeps in my veins. No, I don’t want to see the girl I can’t stop thinking about looking like a princess. And I don’t want to see her naked later tonight either.

  She was safer in those damn baggy jeans and oversized sweater, with her mouth closed. Not that it stops me from imagining peeling her out of them, or anything else she wears, or wanting to slam her up against a wall and fill her with me in every way I can. Hell, the moment I got a glimpse of her smart mouth I wanted it wrapped around my cock, wanted to fist her hair and push into her. It was almost to the point I considered pulling off the road and having her in the car.

  “She’s ready, Kaiser.” Gail wanders between the shrubbery toward me. “Have you worked out your plan for the rest of this fantasy?”