by Misti Murphy
There’s one text message, which I open, only to find I wish I hadn’t. My father died when I was four, which is about the time my stepmother turned into a screaming banshee. Even her text messages are in all capital letters. And yet again she’s yelling at me for being a stupid piece of shit. But there’s one thing I did right. I got away from her. Once, I thought she might have loved me, but that lie died the same day my father did. I don’t know why I’m such a difficult person to deal with. Dropping my phone back in my pocket, I decide she’s yet another thing I can do without.
“Liam, you old dog. Pour us a shot, will you?”
My ears prick up. That voice, as strange as it sounds with some kind of accent I can’t place, I’d know anywhere. My heart beats funny for a moment, and I don’t dare turn around.
“Kaiser, you ginger fucking asshole. I haven’t seen you in years.” I side eye Liam as he fetches some cheap whisky off the bottom shelf, his grin breaking his face. “Nothing changes I see. Still fighting?”
There’s absolutely no way it’s not him. I only wish there was glass in front of me so I could see for myself without turning around.
“Gave it up after the last time I saw your ugly mug. Now, where’s my whisky?”
“All right. Don’t get your panties in a twist.” Liam’s pouring the shot, and I wonder, if they know each other as well as it seems, why the heck doesn’t Liam know the man only drinks Macallan?
“Here. You want this one.” I can’t help myself, I reach up and pull the bottle down before turning to face them, my pulse racing. Grabbing a glass, I pour three measures into it with a shaky hand while they both watch me in silence. The first thing that hits me is he’s not wearing a suit. The tight fitted T-shirt fits like a second skin, making me want to rub my hands all over it. If anything he’s hotter tonight than any of the nights before.
“No one drinks that, especially not this asshole,” Liam knocks a hip against the counter as his fist slams down on the wood. “You can’t be pouring expensive shit when any whisky will do.”
I almost take a step back. Almost. I probably shouldn’t have done that. After all, I don’t know Kaiser, but apparently Liam does. He knows more than the expensive suits and the weird fantasy games. It’s habit, I guess. “I’ll pay for it. It’s on me.”
That’s when Kaiser growls. It’s loud enough to draw my gaze to him, Liam’s too. “My beautiful Allie, what are you doing on that side of my favorite bar?”
Liam raises an eyebrow. “You know him?”
“Not really.” I give a half shrug. “I’ve served him a few drinks. That’s all.”
“That’s all?” Kaiser downs the Macallan, pushes the glass in front of me again, his voice guttural. “Another.”
I glance at Liam for help. I can’t afford to pay for his drinks, and he doesn’t have a tab here. And I certainly don’t want to take the bar out from between the two of us. The idea of being close to him scares me. I don’t know why this attraction to him takes over me when I see him. I try not to look at him, but I can’t help another fleeting glance. I didn’t realize he had tattoos. I’d never seen them.
“I’m good for it.” He pulls a roll of bills from his pocket and slams them down on the bar. “Now, Princess, are you going to come here or do I have to come get you?”
I’m tempted to tell him to come get me. Just to see what he does. Instead, I shrug at Liam and skirt the bar. I really don’t need a scene on my first day. This job is all I have.
He doesn’t even let me get to him before he grips my bicep and pulls me into his arms. I’m flush up against his muscular chest, his hands going to my hair. “You ran away, Allie. Dumped your shoes in my arms and ran. I didn’t like it.”
His green eyes are piercing and full of longing. My stomach flutters, my body warms under his attention.
“Who didn’t like it, Kaiser? I don’t know who you are, remember?” I take a moment to run my gaze over him. His grungy jeans stick to his thick thighs, highlighting the power there. A body that seems to be built for fucking. “The quiet man in a suit, the prince of charming a woman out of her panties, and now this.” I shove at his chest, but he only steps back enough that he’s holding me at arm’s length. “What is this anyway?”
His lips curve up and he pulls me tight against him again, his hand clasped to the back of my head as he pushes his mouth into my hair near my ear. “You want to know?”
“No.” Yes! He’s too confusing, too much of an assault on my senses. This mystery that wants to drag me back in. “I’m not interested in playing with you.”
His hand slides down my back, a smooth flow of heat along my spine while he brings me close again, but it’s not his touch that does me in. It’s the suffering I see in his face, the rasp of his voice. “You want something real from me? That’s what you said when you ran away like you were Cinderella. That the guy in the bar was real.”
“How am I supposed to know?” Keeping my palms between us, I curl them into soft cotton. I’m not sure whether I’m holding him close or trying to push him away. My entire life I’ve spent dealing with people who pretended to be something other than what I thought they were. People who pretended to care for me, until it was no longer useful to them. Just because he’s the most beautiful man I’ve ever met doesn’t mean he’s different.
Grabbing my arm, he pulls me outside and pushes me up against the brick wall. Both hands are in my hair, our lips so close the heat of his breath brushes my face. “Here’s something real for you, Princess.”
Then his mouth is on mine, his tongue lashing over the crease of my lips, ordering me to open up for him. He’s consuming, a hot thrill that takes over my mouth, and surges toward my toes. He finally quiets the kiss, groaning as he leans into my body, his hardness pressing against my belly as he sucks on my bottom lip. “You’re making me break my rules, making me want you.”
“I know that.” I press my fingers to my lips, swollen and bruised from his kiss. My head spinning with how much I want him. “Saran filled me in. You should have told me it was against Vice rules. I’m sorry if I caused you trouble.”
“Not Vice rules. My rules.” He lets out a strangled huff. “My fucking rules, Allie.” He rests his forehead against mine, his voice dropping to almost a whisper. “Five years ago I walked away from everything, my family, the life I knew. I found myself here, sitting in front of Liam and drinking my ass into oblivion. That was three years before I started at Vice, and even then I lived by them. I learned to be someone else and protect my new life by keeping to those same rules you’re pushing me to break.”
My heart goes out to him. What he’s telling me is real. I’m sure of it. The guy in the bar is the real deal, and it makes me waiver on the decision to walk away without knowing him more, though I just swore off dealing with phony crap and people less than twenty minutes ago. I wonder if this weariness and the strange rules he lives by are because of whoever he lost. I clasp his face between my hands, his scruff pricking my palms. “That bad, huh?”
“Worse.” He grimaces. “But, I’ll tell you if you want to know.”
“Yeah, I want to know.”
“Then come find me. You know how to do that.” He slides his thumb along my lower lip, pressing down as they part under the pressure. “Just one more time. You make me want to break my rules, Allie. You make me want to tell you things no one else knows.”
And as easy as that I’m drawn back in.
Unable to find the strength to pull away from the wall, I watch him stride over to a bike, get on and roar out of the parking lot. Fantasy, reality, insanity? Who knows? But he makes me want to take on the whole damn trifecta.
Chapter Eleven
Kaiser
I’ve handled things the only way I could see how. By trying to tempt her into the game again. I wanted the confines of Vice’s rules, the structure that will keep this from getting too real. I need the fine edge of fantasy, to keep my eye on reality. And that reality isn’t her. It’s a crown, a thr
one, a country that will need a queen with the appropriate lineage to suit me. Nothing good will come from forgetting that.
Only one week without seeing her and I was ready to lose my mind. On top of that Saran took me off rotation because of my dick. It was my own fault for lying to him, but there was no way I was going to tell him the truth. That I’m losing my mind over a girl.
I’d kind of hoped I could clear my head of her and get her off my taste buds by throwing myself back in the game. A good fuck might have loosened this ridiculous hold she has on me, but I doubt it. If I was anyone else she’d be mine, in every sense of the word. That’s the kind of ideas I get in my head around her, and why I’m not giving up like I should. Why I think the only way out of this is through her.
I can’t put off going back to Karovka indefinitely, but I can put it off long enough to have a fling with a beautiful woman. A woman who makes my dick hard just thinking about getting my hands on her. I’ve already broken my rules; all three of them. What could it hurt to enjoy myself with her for a little while?
Considering I’m the one who tracked her down to the old bar I used to spend time in, probably a lot. It hadn’t been easy, either. The manager at The Den hadn’t been able to tell me where she went. I’d had to chase down the owner to find out who he’d given references to, and even then I’d needed to pay for the information. Finding out she’d ended up at The Palace, the bar I’d spent my time at when I’d first moved here, had been eyebrow raising. I certainly hadn’t expected her to choose to work in a place like that.
“Stupid fucked up shit.” I slam my hands against the desk, sending pens and files flying. Even the stapler jumps from the onslaught. It’s been three days since I found her, and she still hasn’t called. I thought I’d given her sufficient incentive, but I might have to go back to The Palace tonight. Kiss her again, maybe tell her something real. A titbit of information to make her curious.
“What’s your problem? Not enough sugar today?” Loz looks up from her computer, smirking.
“I’m sick of being stuck in the office.” I get up and stalk to Saran’s office. I’m done. I need something physical to do, whether it’s a game or something for the security side of this business.
I yank open the door and step inside to find him on the phone. He stares me down, one finger up to tell me I better not say a word. Right now I want to pull rank and give the bastard a piece of my mind, order him to let me out of the office. Instead, I grind my teeth. If he knew who I was there’s no way he’d let me do what I do. Me being here, it’s dangerous for him. It could bring the whole place down around us. Not to mention how it would look. It’d be a media circus if it came out that I was royalty.
“What do you need?” He puts the phone down.
I prowl to the desk, lean on it, my hands fisted. “You need to give me a game, or put me on a mission, or something. I need out.”
“I haven’t got anything for you.” He’s brilliant at screening his expression. A little too good.
That’s how I know he’s holding something back. “Bull shit. I’m losing my mind here. Give me something.”
He leans back in his chair, steepling his fingers as he continues to hold eye contact. “See Doc, and I’ll consider letting you out again.”
We’re in a battle of wills and not many people win against Saran. I know I’ve already lost. That he didn’t believe me when I told him I couldn’t get it up. “Just say it.” I growl. “You knew I was lying.”
“The question is why?” He raises an eyebrow.
Fuck. I sink into a seat opposite him. “I don’t know. She felt like my business, not Vice’s, and my dick was the first thing that came into my head.”
“That wasn’t so hard was it?” He grins, getting up and walking to the door. “Laura, can you call Allie back and tell her we can schedule her.”
“On it,” she sings back.
“You can be a real bastard sometimes. Do you know that?” I scowl at him. She’d probably called straight after I left her, and he’d kept her from me for days. “She asked for another fantasy and you said no because I lied to you.”
Sitting back down he slides a file in front of me. “Run your eyes over this. If I’m going to put you into a game, there’s a few things we’re going to cover first.”
***
Pulling up in front of Gail’s cottage, I climb off the bike and hot foot it up the path to her front door. This game’s going to run a little differently from the last one. Taking Allie to places like the Lux hotel isn’t going to work for her. Not when the only reason she agreed to one last simulation is because she expects me to be real.
If only she knew that the Lux is nothing compared to the place I come from. That my lifestyle as a prince was so far removed from the structures of normal society. That the princess fantasy she balks at is the closest she’ll ever get to the man I am supposed to be. But that’s fine with me. I don’t plan on telling her the whole truth, just enough to have her for as long as it takes for the attraction between us to dissipate.
Gail opens the door before I can knock. “She said you took her to the light garden.”
“Yeah, thank you so very much for that.” I brush past her. “Is she ready?”
“Nearly.” She has both palms wrapped around a large white mug, her blue hair piled up high on her head, her eyes lined with dark liner that makes her appear cat-like. “Went well then, obviously.”
“It went.” The stupid garden had only cemented this irrational need to get close to Allie. Something I’d fought so hard against.
“Kaiser.” Allie steps out of the studio where Gail keeps all her costumes. She’s wearing jeans so tight they might as well be painted on, along with a sheer white cami and leather jacket. Her hair is pulled back in a high ponytail that curls at the end. A tiny blue headband is threaded through the front.
I freeze, blood thundering through my veins. Every last drop heading in one direction. Down. Straight to my dick. Why the hell was I even trying to pretend I wasn’t going to end up between those shapely thighs? Why did I think for one minute that I could taste her and not want to come back for more?
This girl is no princess, no pretend royal. This woman in front of me is a fucking queen.
I am so screwed.
“Ready, beautiful?” Thrusting a hand out, I wait for her to take it, my breath caught in my chest, my skin buzzing with the need to touch her.
“I think so.” She smiles shyly, a first for her. She’s always been so open, and I’ve been the one that’s closed off, but it seems our roles have been reversed.
She doesn’t take my hand as she sails past me. So I follow her, putting my hand to the small of her back as soon as we’re outside. I don’t want to waste a moment where I can get my hands on her.
“Have fun,” Gail calls out as I lead Allie to my bike.
“I’ve never been on a motorcycle before,” she says, halting in front of it. “Are you sure it’s safe?”
“I used to race competitively.” I pick up a helmet and push it over her head. “For a few years. I’ve ridden since I could walk though. You’ll be safe.”
“Fact.” Her gaze is warm, and she bites her lip as I buckle the strap.
“Yeah, Princess.” I run a finger over her jaw. “That’s a fact. Now, climb on behind me and hold on.”
Once she’s securely behind me, her arms wrapped tight around my waist, I tear out of there. As we ride she snuggles in close, her helmet pressed to my shoulder, her hands moving over my abs. I can’t fight the grin that takes over my face at her attempt at subtle exploration. My cock twitches, and I cover her hands with one of my own. We’ll have more than enough time to get to know each other’s bodies, and I plan on being completely focused on her when we do.
We ride to the edge of the city, then take a few dirt roads that wind up through the hills. Maybe she isn’t into the upper class social pursuits that most women who imagine themselves as princesses are, but I have a feeling she’ll be mor
e than happy with what I have planned.
A large ranch spreads out in front of us, horses mouthing the grass in the front paddocks. We pull up in the circular gravel driveway, and I wait for her to dismount, before taking her helmet. “How do you feel about teenage boys?”
She screws up her face. “Honestly, I don’t know. The last time I dealt with teenage boys, I was a teen.”
“Not much has changed.” I take her hand as we make our way to the wide steps at the front of the house. “They’re still scary, but I’ll protect you.”
She laughs nervously. Then the door is thrown wide open and several heads come into view at once. One of them, a tall boy with tattoos on his neck stares at Allie for a full minute before giving a low whistle. “Hey guys, you should see the hottie Kaiser brought with him.”
Chapter Twelve
Allie
“Tell me about your parents.” His hands gripping my waist to keep me balanced on the bike, he steps between my legs.
We’re parked a little way from the road. It’s peaceful, quiet, and the few cars that have passed in the hour we’ve been sitting here have been staggered, only the hum of their motors reaching us in our little hideaway between the trees.
This isn’t something I talk about. “Not much to tell.” I shrug, pretending to concentrate on the view of far-off skyscrapers jutting into the sky, an odd stack of Lego-like buildings I can see through the trees. They straddle a large part of the horizon in the distance, but still seem close enough to touch. Like reality. This might be fantasy, but the reality of the situation plays around the edges of my mind.
It feels odd that he would ask about something so personal when he doesn’t know me, not really, not at all. And I’ve spent so much of my life protecting my truths from people who want to tell me I don’t remember things accurately, but I find myself answering him anyway.
“I told you my mother died when I was born. My father when I was four. I don’t really remember them, or life with them, more just the feeling of being loved.”
