Prince

by Kathryn Thomas

  Prince nodded. “Yeah. Like with dogs.”

  Alyssa’s insides went cold. She had heard rumors about the Devil’s Fighters and their ring of organized underground fighting, but they were the only rumors about the gang that had remained just that—rumors. Nobody was sure that ring actually existed.

  “So it’s true, then,” she said, horrified. “Your club has a fighting ring.”

  “Rings,” Prince corrected, almost automatically.

  Alyssa’s eyes widened. “How many?” she asked before she could stop herself. “How widespread?”

  Prince shook his head. “I can’t tell you that; you’re safer not knowing.”

  Alyssa snorted. “Believe me, after today, I feel anything but safe.”

  “You’re not in any trouble for helping Rick out there,” Prince reassured. “No one’ll be pissed off about it.”

  “Yeah, I wasn’t talking about that.”

  Prince frowned, his eyes narrowing in suspicion. “What were you talking about, then?”

  Alyssa shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.”

  Prince hesitated, obviously torn between investigating and letting it go. He proved to be wiser than Alyssa would have given him credit for by choosing the latter—for the time being.

  “He’s my best friend, you know?” he said, busying himself with preparing coffee. He didn’t bother to ask whether Alyssa wanted some, and she didn’t bother to tell him that she would rather have tea; it was obvious that he needed something to do as much as she did, something to channel the tension into. “He’s a good man.”

  Alyssa arched an eyebrow. “Is he, now?”

  Prince sighed. “Yes, Alyssa. Not all of us are monsters, especially those who fight in the rings. We’re just honorary members because of our competitor’s status.”

  Alyssa looked up sharply and stopped brushing the bowl they had filled with warm water. “Wait, what?”

  Prince didn’t turn around from where he was watching the coffee brew. “You heard me.”

  “You’re a fighter?”

  “I sure as hell am no vice president.”

  Alyssa was speechless. She had come up with countless different scenarios to justify Prince’s role within the gang, but she sure as hell had never pictured him as a competitor in their fighting ring. Rings, as he had so promptly pointed out.

  “But why?” she cried, dumbfounded.

  Finally, Prince turned around. He shrugged. “Why not?”

  Alyssa looked at him incredulously. “I can think of at least twenty different reasons why not off the top of my head.”

  He smiled, amused. “It’s not all bad.”

  “‘It’s not all bad?’” Alyssa repeated, astonished. “Are you fucking kidding me? Do you want to go back to the living room and take another look at your friend and then tell me that ‘it’s not all bad?’”

  Prince cringed visibly. “It’s good money…” he tried weakly.

  “Oh my God,” Alyssa said, incredulous. She forgot all about the bowl. She turned off the water in the sink and wiped her hands dry. “Are you nuts? Did you know this is what you were going to do when you decided to join?”

  Prince had the good grace to look embarrassed. “I did.”

  Alyssa stared at him. She just couldn’t believe the words that were coming out of his mouth. It was one thing for him to have grown into a different person than the one Alyssa used to know, but this was just ridiculous; there had to be a limit to the amount of nonsense one could spew in under sixty seconds.

  “And you joined anyway?”

  “What choice did I have?”

  The words hit her like a sucker punch. “You had a choice, you bastard,” she spat out before she could stop herself. Unable to look at him any longer, she turned on her heels and strode back to the living room.

  “Shit,” she heard Prince curse behind her. “Aly, wait!”

  She rounded on him as soon as she hurried after her. “Don’t call me Aly!”

  “Okay,” Prince said quickly, trying to placate her. “I’m sorry. Look, I didn’t mean it like that. You don’t know—”

  “What?” Alyssa cut him off angrily.

  On the couch, Rick moaned, maybe disturbed by the raised voices. Alyssa bit her lip and strode back to the kitchen, Prince once again chasing after her. Once they were both inside, she closed the door behind them.

  “What is it that I don’t know?” she demanded, keeping her voice as low as she could allow herself when all she wanted to do was scream in his face.

  “You don’t know why I did it.”

  Alyssa folded her arms defensively across her chest. “Did you or did you not leave me to go be a competitor in a gang’s illegal fighting rings?”

  Prince swallowed visibly. “I did.”

  “Well, that’s all I need to know,” she said. “I don’t care why you did it. I don’t care what came over you.”

  “Really?” Prince said. There was something in his eyes now, a sudden glint that Alyssa didn’t have a name for.

  “Really,” she said.

  He stepped closer. “You don’t care why I did it?”

  “I don’t care why you did it,” she said, her anger dissipating and morphing into something she couldn’t define.

  Something was happening, she could feel it. The air in the room was crackling with electricity, but Alyssa did not dare to acknowledge it. Prince, meanwhile, was getting closer and closer. His eyes were looking deep into hers, refusing to let go. Alyssa felt shivers run down her spine.

  “You don’t care about me?” he said, his voice soft and dangerous, a danger completely different from the kind that rang, for example, in Bennie Lenday’s voice.

  Alyssa swallowed hard. Her throat and mouth were suddenly dry. “I don’t care about you,” she said.

  Finally, Prince stopped. He was only a couple of inches away from her face. His eyes were greener than she had ever seen them and darker than she could ever have imagined.

  “Liar,” he said.

  “What?” she said weakly.

  “You’re lying.”

  “I’m not.”

  “You care about me.”

  “I don’t.”

  “You’re in love with me.”

  Alyssa took a step back. “I’m not.”

  Prince’s hand shot out, lightning-fast. He grabbed her arm and tugged her closer.

  “You’re hurting me,” Alyssa said, even though it wasn’t really true. Still, his grip was scorching on the bare skin of her arm.

  “You’re in love with me,” Prince said. “I can feel it. I can see it. I know you are.”

  “You left me.”

  “I’m here now.”

  “You left me.”

  “So did you.”

  Alyssa froze. She felt shell shocked. It was as if a bolt of lightning had struck her. She had never once seen it that way. She wasn’t sure she saw it that way even now, but it was hard to argue with Prince’s touch on her skin and his eyes looking at her like that.

  She thought about something, anything to say now, but no words came to mind or, for that matter, to her tongue.

  As it turned out, however, she didn’t need any. Prince pulled her even closer—impossibly so—and kissed her. Alyssa’s brain, usually so sharp and rational, short-circuited on her. There was a small voice in some corner of her head telling her that this could not happen, that it was a bad idea, that it was a disaster. That voice died down quickly, as soon as Prince’s tongue was in her mouth.

  He didn’t taste like coming home. Theirs wasn’t the kiss of two long-lost lovers finding each other again. It was a kiss of pent-up emotions, of unspoken words, and of unexpressed feelings. It was a kiss between two virtual strangers, and that made it all the more intense.

  Prince let go of her wrist, his arm going to encircle her waist instead, his other hand coming up to grab a fistful of her raven-black hair as he deepened the kiss. Alyssa responded immediately. She grabbed at the front of his T-shirt—still
stained with his friend’s blood—with both hands and held on for dear life. She probably should have let go, but she couldn’t bring herself to.

  It felt as though her whole body was on fire, wracked with an all-consuming, electric energy that she had no other choices but to let out. She didn’t even notice they were moving until her back hit the door of the fridge—hard. Their hands roamed all over each other’s bodies, tugging at garments, touching skin, and grabbing flesh. It was as though they were trying to melt into each other.

  Alyssa didn’t fight it; she couldn’t have, even if she had wanted to—and if she were to be completely honest with herself, she really didn’t want to.

  Eventually, they emerged for a breath. They were both panting, and Prince’s green eyes had gone dark with something entirely different than his dark past.

  “Fuck,” he said, breathing heavily. “I want you, Aly.”

  “Don’t call me Aly,” she said automatically, but with no heat to it. “I want you, too.”

  It was all they needed. Once their mutual desire was finally expressed out loud, all taboos were lost. Alyssa pulled Prince to her, and he didn’t fight her. She didn’t fight herself, either.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Prince’s body was not like coming home either. It had changed, too, and if you asked Alyssa, it had changed for the better. He always had a smoking body, but back then it had been the body of a boy. This was the body of a man, and it was driving Alyssa wild just to run her fingers over it. Prince was lithe, muscular, and powerful. Perfect.

  So perfect, in fact, that Alyssa didn’t even comment on the Devil’s Fighters’ red Satan tattooed on his muscular, flawless back. It was like having sex with a wet dream, except that Prince lying on top of her on the kitchen’s floor in her parents’ house was very, very real.

  For a split second, Alyssa considered telling him just how often she had fantasized about him being on top of her, but she quickly decided to keep her mouth shut. Besides, her mouth was busy kissing him or gasping for breath as his lips went on an exploration trip of her body.

  His breath on his skin was warm, and it was almost enough to drive her mad right then and there. Every now and then that annoying little voice in her head would pop up, telling her to push him away, telling her that this was madness and that she would so regret it in the morning. But she shushed it quickly each time, because for once in her life Alyssa didn’t want to think—she just wanted to feel.

  And it was impossible not to feel Prince. He was everywhere—over her, around her. In that moment, he was all of her perceptions, and Alyssa decided that she wanted it that way. In fact, she couldn’t wait for him to also be inside of her.

  “I dare you,” Prince said as his hands traveled down her belly and his fingers began to dance in a tantalizing rhythm. “Tell me that you don’t care about me. Tell me you want me out of your house and out of your life. I dare you, Aly.” He smirked down at her, his dimples making him impossibly sexy. “Tell me not to call you Aly.”

  Alyssa didn’t say any such things. She looked up at him, enthralled. Even if she had been able to find her voice and say anything to him at all, she realized then with startling clarity that all she wanted was for him to never walk out of her life again.

  She didn’t tell him that either. Instead, she told him, “Shut up.”

  Not very sexy, perhaps, but it did the trick. Prince’s grin widened. “Yes, ma’am,” he said, and he shuffled down until his head was at level with her navel.

  Groaning in anticipation, Alyssa spread her legs to better accommodate him. Her whole body was on fire with a kind of energy she had not felt in a while—perhaps she had never really felt it at all. She craved Prince’s touch in a way that she had never craved any other man’s.

  The tip of Prince’s tongue teased her navel, and he took his sweet time before he actually began to deliver what he was promising. He let his hands roam all over Alyssa’s naked figure, his fingertips leaving what felt like streaks of fire on her skin whenever they touched her. It was as if he was trying to learn her every curve with his hands, and Alyssa was more than happy to succumb to his sweet exploration.

  Before he finally concentrated on her awaiting clitoris, Prince came up for yet another kiss, one of his hands cupping her cheek as he did so, his thumb stroking her cheekbone. There was a passion behind his every move that Alyssa had never experienced before, but there was also tenderness, a gentle touch that she could only hope stemmed from the same feelings for her that she had been harboring for him for over eight years despite her best efforts.

  When he finally moved to the southern area of her body and stayed there for a while, Prince revealed herself to be a more skilled lover than Alyssa could ever have imagined. Once again, he took his sweet time, but Alyssa surely wasn’t in any hurry for him to finish. The tip of Prince’s tongue was a thing of beauty, teasing her in ways nobody had ever teased her before. It was a gradual process—gentle brushes of his tongue over her clitoris at first, followed by more energetic flicks and tantalizing little licks.

  Prince knew that he couldn’t just rush into it. He knew Alyssa needed to feel that this wasn’t a race, but rather an experience they were enjoying together. Damn her if she knew how he knew that, but he did. He sure seemed to be enjoying every minute of his maneuver, gently but steadily coaxing her into readiness.

  Alyssa had never had an orgasm from oral sex alone. In fact, she almost thought those oral sex-induced orgasms were mythological creatures, like gargoyles or chimeras, but she came incredibly close this time. In fact, she probably—and happily—would have tipped over the edge if Prince hadn’t stopped—so sudden that she could not hold back a groan of protest.

  He grinned down at her. “Don’t worry, Aly,” he said, and once again she didn’t dream of correcting him. “I’m not done with you.”

  “I should hope not,” Alyssa said, shivering in anticipation.

  The tiles of the kitchen’s floor had been cool against her skin at first, but now they had grown warm with the heat of their naked bodies. For the first time since she had been back in Louisiana, Alyssa didn’t mind the heat one bit.

  Prince once again moved to her mouth. She could taste herself on his lips, but she didn’t mind that either.

  “Do you want me to finish what I started?” he asked, his voice rough with his own desire. He ran the tip of his index finger from her collar bone all the way down to her pelvis. “Or do you want me inside you?”

  Oh God. “I…uh…” Try as she might, Alyssa found that she couldn’t form a coherent sentence.

  Prince grinned. “How about both?”

  Alyssa moaned her assent, and he didn’t have to be told twice. In no time, he was back to give her clitoris and other lips his undivided attention. He was more eager and less delicate this time—but still gentle enough to not hurt her. His tongue twirled and swirled to create patterns that Alyssa had never known and that drove her crazy.

  It was all-consuming, and when she finally came, she learned that an oral sex-induced orgasm was like a lightning bolt. She welcomed the aftershocks and the sensation of her pelvic muscles clenching and unclenching repeatedly.

  When she finally regained enough coordination, Alyssa reached up and tugged Prince down for a deep kiss. His hunger matched hers at first, but then he slowed the kiss down to something so intimate that Alyssa actually shivered. She cupped his face with both hands, stroking his cheekbones in the same way that he had done hers. It was personal in a unique way, and she simply couldn’t get enough.

  Their bodies moved on their own accord then, bringing things to an escalation. Alyssa’s hips arched and Prince’s hips lowered until they met each other and began a slow, tantalizing dance of their own.

  Alyssa heard herself moan. She wasn’t normally a moaner, but with Prince she couldn’t help it. He was simply too…well, everything. God, but she wanted him. She wanted him in her life, and she wanted him inside of her. She had spent most of her life wondering what that woul
d feel like, and she simply couldn’t wait any longer to find out.

  She moved her hand until her palm was resting on the small of his back; he had dimples there too. Then, she pressed down to pull him even closer.

  “I need you, Prince,” she said. Whether she meant physically or emotionally, she couldn’t have said—perhaps it was a little (or a lot) of both. “I want you. Now.”

  The last word came out in a growl, and for a moment he looked taken aback by her sudden aggressiveness. Then, his impossibly sexy grin came back.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he murmured, kissing her again, long and deep and oh-so-eager. He pulled back just enough to put himself in the right position, and then, for the first time since they had started whatever this would turn out to be, he looked lost as he threw a look around.

  Alyssa arched a black eyebrow. “I’m afraid we won’t find any condoms on the floor of my parents’ kitchen,” she teased. She reached out and stroked his face tenderly. “It’s okay, anyway. I’m on the pill.”

  He relaxed instantly. His green eyes flashed mischievously, and just like that they were both back in the moment.

  When he finally—finally!—slipped inside of her, the glorious feeling of it took Alyssa’s breath away. She had tried to imagine this moment a million times, and yet none of her fantasizing could ever do it justice. “Glorious” didn’t even begin to describe it. It was as if Prince simply belonged there, and for some reason he seemed to know exactly how to move to drive her wild in a matter of seconds.

  Alyssa pressed her head back into the hard floor, and she arched up into Prince. She couldn’t get enough of him, and she was all too eager to let herself go completely and abandon herself to his every touch and movement.

  Prince danced a dance that Alyssa discovered she not only loved, but she also knew how to dance, too. Soon they were playing off each other and finding their own rhythm and cadence together, teasing each other with strokes and flicks, with clenches and swiveling of hips. They moved between hungry thrusts and slow, languid strokes that were Alyssa’s favorite. The continuous and unexpected changes in pace were driving Alyssa mad—and she wouldn’t have had it any other way. Prince thrust deep inside of her, and Alyssa was always ready and eager to accommodate him.