Page 9 of Prince Albert

  chestnut-colored eyes wide, taking the corner of her lower lip between her teeth uncertainly, sends an almost irresistible desire to kiss her ricocheting through me.

  Fuck. I want to do a hell of a lot more than just kiss this girl.

  “Playing it safe is boring,” I say, not wanting to take my eyes away from hers. I watch transfixed, as she takes a deep breath, her breasts rising under the thin fabric of her t-shirt, and I swear to God, that single breath makes my cock rigid.

  Hell if a girl has ever been able to make my cock hard as a rock with one look, with a single inhale of breath.

  Then Noah clears his throat noisily, reminding me that Belle and I aren’t the only ones in the car. “We’re here, sir,” he says. “Miss Kensington.”

  Beside me, Belle laughs, the sound light. I think it might be the best sound I’ve ever heard. “I’m not Miss Kensington,” she says. “That’s my mother. Everyone calls me Belle.”

  Noah nods. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Okay, ma’am is totally worse. Please never ever call me that again. I'm not that old,” she says, before turning to me. “Where are we going?”

  “It's the start of the summer festival,” I say. “This is the real Protrovia.”

  Noah tails us from a respectable distance as we meander through the festival, among the throngs of families and tourists playing carnival games, listening to music, and eating traditional Protrovian food.

  Belle is mostly silent, contemplative, but I watch her take everything in as she walks, pausing occasionally to talk to a vendor or run her fingers along a handmade craft being sold on one of the tables. “This version of Protrovia is a ton better than the palace one,” she says, turning toward me.

  Behind her, someone squeezes past, pushing her into me. Her body presses up against mine, and she doesn't jump away, not immediately. Instead, she lingers a fraction of a moment too long, and when I reach for her elbows to steady her, my hands land on her waist instead. It’s completely inappropriate, touching her like this out here, in the middle of everything, even for a moment.

  She looks up at me, eyes framed by dark lashes, and I know she can feel how hard I am, my body’s immediate response to her pressed against me. Rock hard seems to be my default response to anything this girl does. But in that moment, I know she wants me just as much as I want her.

  Then Belle steps away, looking down at the ground and tucking her hair behind her ear self-consciously. Her cheeks are flushed, pink lightly dusting her cheekbones, and she tries to put distance between us, but the thickness of the crowd causes her to slow down. Then I'm behind her, my lips close to her ear. “I know you could feel how hard I am for you,” I say, my voice low.

  The flush she gets when she’s embarrassed, the one that is usually relegated to her face, spreads all the way to her ears. I can see it from where I stand behind her, and the sight makes me inexplicably harder.

  I’ve slept with models, actresses, socialites. Women throw themselves at me. They offer threesomes and foursomes. They offer me anything I want.

  And some American girl wearing jeans and sneakers and a t-shirt makes me harder than I’ve been in my damn life, with a mere blush.

  Belle doesn’t respond. She clears her throat and makes the same self-conscious move again, tucking her hair behind her ear as she walks forward through the crowd. When I catch up to her, I put my hand on the small of her back.

  “What are you doing?” she asks, glancing behind her. “There are a million people here watching us.”

  I let my fingers slide just underneath the bottom of her t-shirt, grazing her skin, hot to my touch, just for a moment, before I draw back my hand.

  Propriety, I remind myself.

  I should give a shit about propriety. I should give a shit about the fact that Belle Kensington is my soon-to-be stepsister. She’s part of the royal family. I should keep my dick in my pants and my hands to myself.

  The problem is that I’ve never been very good at doing the things I “should” do, anyway.

  When the crowd surges ahead, I take Belle’s arm and pull her to the right sharply, ducking between a group of large men drinking beer before disappearing into another group of tourists. We veer to the side and down a narrow passageway between two brick-sided buildings. The alley is empty, and Belle pauses, backing up against the wall and looking at me with a mixture of apprehension and lust.

  “We lost Noah,” she says, her voice soft.

  “Are you worried about Noah?” I ask.

  “Shouldn’t you not be ditching your bodyguard?” Belle asks the question, her voice breathier than it was before, and I’m not sure that’s entirely the result of darting through the crowd.

  “There are a lot of things I shouldn’t do,” I say. I trail a finger down her chest, toward her cleavage, and she doesn’t stop me. Instead, she sucks in a deep breath, her chest rising under my touch.

  It’s the breath that undoes me. It’s the sound she makes when she inhales the way she does -- sharp, between her teeth -- that is going to be my unraveling, and I know it. It holds the promise of everything that’s inevitable between us – my tongue on her skin, the taste salty-sweet, the tangle of limbs, her slickness as I slip inside her.

  I can picture all of it – hell, I can practically taste her on my lips now, without even touching her – just by listening to that inhale. It’s the sound I imagine she’ll make when I’m plunging my cock into her, my lips near hers, as I watch the expression on her face.

  “This is definitely one of those ‘shouldn’ts’,” she says. But she doesn’t move. She stays where she is, paused with her back against the brick wall, her breasts arched up.

  Everything about her screams yes.

  “Prince fucks his royal stepsister,” I whisper, reaching down to flick open the button on her jeans. "It's a definite shouldn't."

  Belle’s lips fall open in a slight “O”. But she doesn’t protest. I almost expect her to slap me. I’m waiting for her to call me a pervert, a manwhore. I'm waiting for her to tell me to go screw myself, to get the hell away from her.

  “I’m not your stepsister,” she whispers. “Yet.”

  I unzip her jeans, pulling them down slightly around her hips, angling my back toward the entrance of the alley to shield her from any wandering eyes. “So you’re okay with the fucking part, then,” I say, as I slip my fingers inside the front of her panties, my eyes never leaving hers, even though I have the almost irrepressible impulse to see what her panties look like.

  This is high up there on the list of ‘shouldn’ts.’

  I’ve done a lot of bullshit – flashing the press, hooking up with random girls – but I’ve never screwed one in public. Always in private. I might drop my pants for the press, but I’ve never been caught with my pants around my ankles because of a woman. That’s because whatever kind of whoring around I do, I’ve always been able to contain myself.

  Belle has me going crazy. Pulling her into an alley, sliding my fingers down the front of her pants.

  This is not what I do.

  “My mistake,” I say. “Prince fucks his almost-stepsister. His wife.”

  “No fucking,” she whispers.

  “No fucking,” I repeat, not a statement but a question, rolling my fingers over her clit and watching her lids fall to half-mast, then widen. She catches that lower lip of hers between her teeth again, and I swear that all I can think about is kissing the fuck out of that mouth of hers.

  I can think of a hell of a lot of things I’d like to do to that mouth.

  “There’s not going to be any fucking,” she says. But the last word – fucking – comes out of her mouth in a moan, and the sound is so wanton, so desperate, that I almost lose my shit right here.

  I want to tear her fucking clothes off, right here in this alley. I want to rip her shirt off. I want to fuck her hard against the wall, with her legs wrapped around me, her tits in my face.

  I want Little Miss Do-Gooder, Miss Does Everything Right, to

be mine in the filthiest way possible.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Belle

  “There might not be any fucking right now, luv,” he says. “But there will be. I can promise you that much.”

  I watch his mouth move – those lips of his that are so lush it's criminal – but for the life of me, I can’t hear what he’s saying. He touches me, lightly, his fingers rolling over my clit, sending waves of heat pulsing through my body, billowing over me so quickly I can’t think of anything except that I want him to touch me more.

  I want him his hands all over my body.

  I want him inside me.

  I hear myself moan – a sound that's very nearly feral, embarrassing in its intensity – and I think he groans.

  Growls is more like it.

  Then he brings his mouth down on mine. It’s so hard, so fierce, that I nearly lose my breath, as his tongue seeks out and finds mine immediately. Without a second’s hesitation, he thrusts his fingers inside me.

  Pleasure washes over me, the feeling so intense it’s agonizing. It’s been so long since I was touched.

  And never like this, not the way Albie does, his fingers inside me, finding the most sensitive spot, pressing against it like he knows exactly what I want.

  What I need.

  Everything about this is wrong. In my head, I know that. Nothing good can come of this. Nothing good can come of my jeans hitched over my hips, of being pressed against the side of a building in a filthy alley, with my soon-to-be stepbrother’s fingers inside me.

  My manwhore stepbrother.

  The Crown Prince of Protrovia.

  Nothing about this is right. All it would take is one person to walk by, to glance down the alley and recognize him. All it would take is one photograph, and he would be ruined. I would be ruined. My mother would be destroyed.

  The thoughts flood my head, swimming around and momentarily distracting me from Albie's touch.

  Albie seems to sense the internal shift in me, and he pulls away to look at me, his fingers continuing to dance inside me, his movements sending pulse after pulse of pleasure through my body.

  "No words anymore, Belle?" he asks, his voice low. Guttural.

  "Words," I say stupidly. What were we talking about, before he slid his fingers inside me?

  Albie chuckles. "I like the speechless version of you," he says, his eyes trained on mine as he reaches underneath my t-shirt and cups my breast, the warmth of his hand enveloping me. He doesn't take off my bra, doesn't slide his hand under the fabric the way I desperately want him to do.

  My skin aches to feel his skin against mine, and I hate myself for wanting him the way that I want him right now. I curse my body for its obviously appalling taste in men.

  "Not…speechless," I say, the words coming out in gasps, despite my attempt to produce a coherent sentence. Albie makes a 'come hither' gesture with his fingers, applying more pressure to the perfect place inside me, and I clutch his muscular biceps tightly, my fingers digging into his skin as increasingly powerful sensations wash over me.

  "You're so fucking wet for me," he says, squeezing my breast just a little too hard, sending a twinge of pain through my body that somehow has the effect of heightening the pleasure.

  Is this what I like – pleasure mixed with pain? Fucking someone I'm not sure I even remotely like?

  "There's going to be no fucking." I blurt out the words again, my voice breathy. I'm not sure if I'm trying to reassure him or myself.

  I can't think clearly. I'm so close, so on the edge. All I know is that I want to crash over. I want him to send me over the edge.

  But he just smiles.

  He slides his fingers slowly – excruciatingly slowly – from my wet pussy, and I think I hear myself whine, but that can't be true, because I don't whine. I definitely don't whimper, brought to the brink of orgasm by a man and then denied. He presses his fingers against my clit, but doesn't move. He just pauses there, his fingers pushed against me, the heat from him radiating into me.

  I hear myself begin to whimper again and I bite my lip to stop. I won't do it.

  "I already told you, Belle," he says, squeezing my breast. His thumb grazes the skin above the fabric of my bra, and I can’t help myself. I arch my back, pressing against him. His fingers are so close to just slipping inside the cup of my bra that covers my nipple.

  “Told me what?” I ask, my voice breathless. I tell myself to ignore the throbbing between my legs. I tell myself that I should take this momentary pause as an opportunity to shut down what's happening between us.

  But my body seems to have a mind of its own when it comes to Albie.

  “I told you,” he whispers, bringing his lips close to my ear. I close my eyes lightly, savoring every sensation as his warm breath caresses my ear and my neck. He strokes me with the tip of his finger, gentle now, a feather-like touch. “I’m going to fuck you. That wasn’t an idle promise, Belle. You’re going to beg me to fuck you, luv.”

  “I…don’t…beg.” I somehow manage to whisper the words, barely able to form a coherent sentence with Albie’s breath against my skin, teasing, promising more. My body feels on edge, every nerve ending more sensitive than they’ve ever been, brought to the precipice by him.

  But hell, I have my dignity.

  Even if I’m standing in a back alley with my jeans pulled down over my hips while a man with a fake seventies pornstache has his hand inside my panties.

  “I’ll remember you said that,” he says, slipping his hand out from between my legs. I look at him with a mixture of confusion and disbelief as he takes away his fingers – his glorious, magical fingers – from where they were a second ago, pressed against my clit.

  “Wha –“ I start, my words trailing off as I watch him bring his fingers to his mouth. He makes a show of slowly licking them, his eyes closing as he makes a satisfied sound.

  “All you have to do is ask, luv,” he says, his voice low. The corners of his mouth turn up, a smile that has to be the smuggest, most arrogant expression I’ve ever seen on anyone’s face. Or maybe it’s just compounded by the fact that I’m the most sexually frustrated I’ve ever been in my life.

  “You’re such a…jerk,” I say, unable to think of a word more clever than that. I’m pretty sure that all of my brain cells have evaporated, or have been turned to mush because of this man.

  I yank my jeans back up, fumbling with the button, my hands shaky and my heart pounding wildly in my chest as adrenaline pumps through my veins. Smoothing my hair, as if by that simple gesture I can calm my rebellious body, I look at him through narrowed eyes.

  And the pompous ass just grins. He’s thoroughly pleased with himself. The fact that he’s so damn smug, as if he’s planned this the whole time, sends a surge of irritation through me.

  “Just remember that,” he says, bringing his fingers to his lips again. “I’m going to fuck you, Isabella Kensington. That’s a foregone conclusion. And I’m going to lick that sweet pussy of yours until you’re begging for release. And when I give you permission, when I say you can come, you’re going to come on my tongue.”

  My face flushes red. I can feel the heat rise to my cheeks, the throbbing between my legs so insistent now that I swear I consider saying “please.” I actually consider asking him to finish what he started, to plunge his fingers back inside me and make me come. But I don’t. I’ll never beg. “Permission?” I ask, choking out the word. “I don’t know what kind of women you’ve been with in the past, but you’re not giving me –“

  He cuts me off, putting his fingers – the fingers that were just inside me – on my lips to silence me. “Shhh,” he says. “I’m not finished. You should let me finish, Belle.”

  I push his hand away. “I’m not listening to –“

  Before I can react, his hands are on my wrists, pushing me against the wall, and my heart races. I’m not sure whether I’m frustrated, angry, or aroused. All I know is that I can’t stop thinking about him inside me. And, despite t

he rational part of my mind that screams ‘walk away,’ every part of my body is crying out for his touch. I want to know what he wants to do with me.

  I want him inside me.

  “You’re going to come on my cock, Belle,” he says. “I’m going to own you in every way possible. And you’re going to beg to be mine.”

  A secret thrill rushes through me at his words, and I hate myself for it. I steel my jaw, wrenching my wrists from his grasp. “Never,” I say. “And you’re delusional for thinking that.”

  And yet, in spite of myself, I’m already wondering what he means by saying he wants to own me “in every way possible.”

  He chuckles, and the self-satisfied sound makes me want to slap