Bad Boy Prince: A British Royal Stepbrother Romance (5 page)

“Kit,” I say. “You really shouldn’t be here tonight.”

Her cheeks are flushed this delicate shade of pink, her lips redder than fresh blood.

“You brought me here, Rex.”

I have to touch her; I think I’ll die if I don’t touch Kit, right this second. I can’t seem to stop myself from reaching out and pulling the silky blonde curtain of her hair back over her shoulder.

Her lips part on a soft gasp when I run my thumb over her collarbone, when I tug her earlobe, when I brush the sensitive underside of her jaw.

Her intake of breath is audible. She’s either about to moan or protest, and I can’t stand either, for very different reasons. Her protest won’t make any difference now, not when I’m so close to her.

And her moan, well… Kit’s moans still play in my dreams, sometimes. They’re that powerful, and I don’t want to lose control like that.

Not here. Not with this girl, the one fucking girl I shouldn’t have and certainly shouldn’t want.

So I don’t let her respond. I lean down and press my lips to hers. Her lips are just as warm and soft and perfect as I remembered. The male hunger in me is already thinking about just how those lips would feel wrapped around my cock.

One of many things that I never got to find out, before. Two fumbling teenagers desperately in love, sneaking away once or twice a month during palace functions to fuck in a broom closet.

It’s a miracle she ever let me have her more than once, little as I knew about pleasing women back then.

Kit’s hand comes up to close over mine, which is when I realize that I’ve been cupping her full, heavy breast through her dress. She looks at me, our gazes lock, and suddenly I know that if I don’t get the fuck away from her, we’re going to end up in serious trouble.

“I’m going to take a shower,” I tell Kit. “Make yourself comfortable.”

She leans back, lipstick smeared, chest rising and falling against the thin fabric of her dress.

For a second, I almost give in. For a second, I know that we’re going to fuck, that it’s going to be amazing. I lean closer, closer, until my lips brush hers again, our eyes locked, neither of us able to look away.

I know that she will fill the void inside me, the black hole that’s been eating away at me since the day of the accident. Longer, maybe. Since the day she left.

She will take all of this away, if I put it all on her. If I’m enough of an asshole to do that…

“Fuck,” she whispers against my lips, tears welling in her eyes.

What the hell is she thinking now?

I don’t find out out, though. Kit blinks and looks away, and the spell is broken.

I drag in a breath I didn’t know I desperately needed and step back, shaken.

I turn and storm to the
ensuite
bathroom, shutting the door behind me. I strip and get in the shower, feeling angry at what I almost did, at the fact that I’m still hard for her.

If she hadn’t pulled back…

She may have just saved us both, more than she can know. I am ashamed now, embarrassed at my lack of control.

Around the one person in my life…

Fuck, the one girl who’s made me feel like this before, right before she ripped my heart out and stomped on it.

Our parents, the royal bullshit, none of that need factor into it. Our own history is reason enough.

I can’t go around snogging fucking Katherine Saville.

I can’t want her, not like this. Not so fucking desperately.

And above all else, I absolutely fucking cannot actually
have
her.

I shower in frigid water, standing under the icy spray until my heart stops pounding, until my cock ceases its demand that I bury myself inside Kit and fuck her senseless.

When I come out, she’s dressed in the flannel pajamas and sprawled across my bed, snoring softly. Her dress is on the floor, along with a pile of silky lingerie that I refuse to let myself examine.

Too far
, I tell my libido,
getting creepy now.

Though I usually sleep naked as the moment of my birth, I pull on a pair of boxer briefs. Better not to tempt fate, not where Kit’s concerned. I walk around the bed, trying to figure out how to get in without disturbing Kit.

Unfortunately for me, she’s passed out squarely in the middle.

Figures.

With a sigh, I turn out the lights and push back the covers, then adjust Kit until she’s not quite so in the way. She stirs in her sleep as I situate myself, turning and wrapping herself around me in a majorly unfortunate way.

Mostly unfortunate for my hard-on, which has returned in full force.

She mumbles something in her sleep. I shift, trying to get comfortable, and she giggles.

“What’s that now, Kit?” I ask, amused.

“Rex is back,” she whispers. “Did you see him?”

“That I did, Kitten,” I tell her.

She burrows into the crook of my arm, happy as a fucking clam, and goes to sleep.

Me, on the other hand? Good thing I have a lot of training functioning on very little sleep, because I don’t see any happening for me.

Not tonight, not with Kit in my arms.

T
he first thing
I see when I open my eyes is a steaming mug of fragrant coffee, hovering in front of my face.

The second thing I see, once I sit up, is Rex’s smug fucking face.

“Oh, god damn it,” I immediately say. Ignoring the coffee, I flop back on the bed and pull one of the pillows over my head to block him out of my vision.

Except, when I inhale, it smells unmistakably of
him
.

“FUUUUUUCK!” I scream into the pillow, thrashing a little for good measure.

When I’m done, I heave a big breath and sit up again.

Rex’s smirk has morphed to an expression not unlike that he’d give a misbehaving child.

“Do you want the coffee or not?” he asks, growing impatient.

I reach out and take it from him. I glance at it and wrinkle my nose, but I don’t say anything. I sip it and let the warmth wash through me.

“What?” he asks. “You don’t like coffee anymore?”

It was one of the things we bonded over in school. We both used to sneak off school grounds and run into one another at the closest coffee shop, both jiving for some caffeine.

“I do. I just… I drink it black, usually.”

Rex’s dimple flashes.

“I seem to remember you drinking the girliest, sweetest lattes they had. Triple peppermint mocha frappa-whatsits,” he teases.

“You remember that?” I ask, frowning when I realize that he’s fully dressed. Not just dressed, but wearing a vest, dress pants, and a button up with a tie.
Damn, he does clean up nicely
. “Where are you going?”

“Not me,
we
. We have been summoned to the palace. I called Marj and had your suitcase brought over,” he says, glancing at me. “Much as I like you in my pajamas, Kitten.”

“Rex…” I growl.

“
Don’t fucking call me that
,” he says, doing an unflattering imitation of me. “Get dressed. Actually, take a shower, Grandmother will be livid if she gets within a foot of you. There’s vodka coming out your pores, Kitten.”

I close my eyes and take a big sip of the coffee. It’s super sweet, but at least it’s
coffee
.

When I open them again, Rex is shoving a towel into my free hand.

“We have to be at the palace in an hour,” he says. “Get fucking moving.”

I set my coffee on his bedside table, jump up, and grab my wheeled suitcase. As I head for the bathroom, he stops me.

“Go to the guest bathroom,” he says, looking at me with derision. “This is my flat, not your university dorm. Jesus.”

I flush, but I’m not about to give him the fight he’s so clearly angling for. I don’t have time for it. No one, and I mean
no one
, is late to see the King and Queen.

And yet, somehow, when we step into the anteroom where we’re supposed to wait… we are late. I run a hand down my white peplum dress, the only thing in my suitcase that was presentable enough for being called to stand before Courtland’s sovereign rulers.

It’s not my fault we’re late, not really. The water ran cold, the dress had to be de-wrinkled, my makeup took forever. Then we had to stop for gas…

None of which the queen will care about, I’m pretty sure.

Then there was the silence in the car. I can tell that there’s something on Rex’s mind, something other than our being summoned to the castle.

That
bit can’t be new to him; I admit that I’ve stalked him a bit online here and there, and it seems like he’s been in trouble just about every minute since I left. I imagine that his grandparents have given him more than an earful about it, not that Rex seems to have paid a lot of attention.

Still, he snapped at me repeatedly on the way to the palace, so now we’re sitting in uncomfortable overstuffed chairs, glaring at the golden wall paper in this tiny sitting room. Waiting to be called into the queen’s sitting room.

Sometimes it hits me suddenly:
my life is really fucking weird sometimes.

“Are you going to tell me why you’re mad?” I ask, staring straight ahead.

“No. I’m not mad.”

I glance at him, he’s gripping the arm of the chair so hard that I can see every vein popping out of his hand and wrist.

“Liar.”

He doesn’t respond. I wait, but nothing. There’s this horrible tension between us, sucking up all the air, strangling us. I wonder if it’s like an infection, that we need to purge and cleanse in order to heal.

Then again, what do I really care? My story with Rex ended a long time ago. It’s over and done.
I need to start a new chapter…

What, with a new beau? Alone, traveling the world?

Am I going to Eat, Pray, Love myself into being a better, happier version of me?

I give an amused snort.

“What?” Rex sighs.

“Nothing. Having my own private thoughts, over here.”

He scowls, sinking lower in his chair.

“You are insufferable,” he tells me, completely unamused.

I cant my head, watching him for a moment.

“That’s what it is,” I say, my lips pulling into a frown. “You’ve lost your sense of humor.”

“That’s not true,” he says, pressing his fingertips to the bridge of his nose.

“It is. What little you have left is morbid.”

He looks up at me, his sapphire eyes flaring with rage.

“Well,
Lady Katherine
, maybe if your best friend had died in your arms, you’d be morbid too.”

“Oh, Rex, I didn’t mean—”

“Stop. Talking.”

I pull up short at his tone.

“You’re a dick, Alasdair Westwood.”

He flashes those perfect teeth in a dangerous smile.

“Now you’re getting it, Lady Katherine.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“There’s no making you happy, is there? I already knew that, though.”

My mouth opens in outrage, but at that moment the Queen’s secretary sweeps the doors open.

“The Queen awaits you,” he says, giving us a little bow.

I snap my mouth closed and rise, trying not to fidget. I’ve done all I can to be impressive physically, now I need to dazzle with my personality.

Assuming that the regents aren’t about to announce that I’m being beheaded, or something.

Can that still happen in modern-day Courtland? I don’t think it can. I hope not, anyway.

Rex trails behind me as I sweep into the Queen’s sitting room. To my shock, she’s dressed in a nearly informal steel-gray pantsuit, sitting and waiting…

With my mother and Prince Archie at her side. Prince Archie is dressed in his usual drab suit, his bald head gleaming in the morning sunlight. Mum is dressed in a conservative navy skirt suit, her hair in a low knot and her makeup subdued.

It’s a far cry from her usual vibrant sundresses and colorful accessories, that’s for sure. Come to think of it, I’ve never seen her without her trademark faux eyelashes.

She looks like a stranger.

I rub my bare arms as I continue into the room, already overwhelmed. The King is nowhere to be seen, presumably too busy for an audience with the likes of me and Rex.

“Katherine,” the Queen says, giving me a downright regal nod. “Alasdair. Sit, please.”

I know that I’m twenty four years old and by this age it shouldn’t thrill me to be so close to the Queen herself, but I can’t stop myself from grinning like an idiot as I take my seat.

Queen Alison folds her hands in her lap and gives us a grave look.

“You two are in serious trouble, I’m afraid.”

I literally start to sweat. I can’t help it; this is the
monarch
of my
country
.

I glance at Rex. He is completely impassive, and I find myself itching to strangle him.

Bastard. How can he walk through the world so unaffected by everything around him?

“Darling, the press caught every single thing that happened last night,” my mother says.

She leans forward and shoves a few tabloids into my shaking hands. I look down at them, and they are pretty awful.

Me, taking at swing at Charles. Me, red-faced and screaming, pointing my finger in a photographer’s face.

Damn, I look drunk. Not exactly my best side.

“And Alisdair… I don’t even know where to start,” Prince Archie growls. “After the conversation we had only
yesterday
…”

The Prince holds up a huge glossy magazine that shows Rex carrying me in his arms. Our surroundings are so dark and the angle is so bad, you actually can’t tell that it’s
me
.

PRINCE MAGNUM ABDUCTS MYSTERY BLONDE, the headline screams.

I wince and glance at Rex apologetically. I fully expect him to sell me out, give me up with a bit of his usual asshole snark.

But he doesn’t. He examines the photo and then shrugs.

“That’s it?” Prince Archie asks. He starts to go red at the collar, baring his teeth as he speaks. “Alasdair, I don’t think you appreciate just how bad this press is for us.”

“For you, you mean?” Rex asks.

He doesn’t move, doesn’t cross his arms or pout, but his voice is openly hostile.
I wonder what that’s about.
Prince Archie has always been a blowhard, but he and Rex used to have a kind of respect between them.

Before I can linger on that topic, Prince Archie shoots to his feet. He comes to stand over Rex, uncomfortably close to both of us. He shoves a finger in Rex’s face and proceeds to absolutely lose his cool.

“You are such a WORTHLESS piece of GARBAGE, you know? And of course the second SHE is back in town, you’re running around with her!”

I am the very picture of shock when the Prince points to me, bringing me right into it all.

“Father, don’t.” Rex’s voice is flat, and he’s ignoring the screaming and finger pointing, but I can see him starting to flush with anger.

“I thought we SETTLED this already! You are to stay out of the FUCKING PAPERS. You are to marry a RESPECTABLE GIRL. And you are to stop being such a FUCKING PROBLEM for the family. If your mother could see you now—”

“Don’t talk about her,” Rex growls. “You don’t talk about my mother, you prick.”

For a second, I think Prince Archie is going to actually go apoplectic, pop a vein in his big bald head or something. I look over to my mother, trying to gauge her reaction to the Prince’s complete loss of self-control.

She’s looking off in the distance, like suddenly this painting of King Gregor XVI is
super interesting
. Avoiding the whole situation, just putting it out of her mind.

No concern that he’s actually partially screaming at her own daughter in the process…

“GROUNDED!” he screams.

“Now, Archie,” the Queen says, looking a little worried. “Don’t overdo it. Your heart, you know.”

“What.” Rex sighs the word at his father, and it’s not a question.

“You and Lady Katherine are GROUNDED. Her things will be moved into your flat at Canal Place. You two are going to stay there, together. And you’re not LEAVING, with the exception of royal events to which you have been SPECIFICALLY invited,” Prince Archie declares, turning to pace the room.

“For how long?” Rex asks, a muscle ticcing in his jaw.

“Three months! Until the wedding is past,” the Prince says, a satisfied gleam in his eyes.

What? Three months, trapped in an apartment with Rex?

No no no, that cannot happen.

“Mum…” I say, trying to get her to jump in and intercede.

My mother inhales, nostrils flaring, and then forces a bland smile.

“It’s for the best, honey,” she tells me, not meeting my gaze. “It’s this, or head back across the pond to the States.”

My face heats. I’m starting to get pissed now. The grounding is one thing; Mum refusing to stick up for me is a whole other issue.

“What about my new job?” I ask, crossing my arms. Unlike Rex, I am more than happy to show my displeasure through childish posture and pouting.

“Katherine,” my mother says, clearing her throat. “You’re working on a fashion line. You can have your office at Canal Place, I’m sure. The point of this isn’t to make a thousand little rules, it’s to keep you out of the press.”

Prince Archie seems to have calmed himself somewhat by now, and he comes back around to stand behind Mum’s chair with a smarmy smile.

“I’ve spoken with King Percival at length on this matter, and he agrees. If either of you steps out of line, you’ll be stripped of your title.”

“You can’t!” I say, shoving out of my chair.

It’s not as impressive when I do it, being all of five feet. Archie sneers at me, even as he presses a hand to my mother’s shoulder.

A clear display of possessive dominance, if I’ve ever seen one.

“I absolutely can, and certainly will,” he says grimly, crossing his arms and giving me a considering look. “Honestly, after all the trouble you’ve caused, your mother is the only reason you’re standing here right now instead of reading a letter discussing your loss of rank. I’m sorry to say that I think you run rather closer to your father’s temperament than your dear mother’s.”

How
dare
he bring my father into this?

I make a strangled sound, anger shaking me to my core. The only thing that keeps me from launching myself at Archie and trying to hurt him is Rex’s hand on my wrist.

Rex reaches out and grabs me, yanking me a step closer to his chair.

Prince Archie, the Queen, and my mother all lock onto where his hand grips me. All three of them look at us with such disgust and disdain, like Rex touching me is somehow wrong.

Like Mum and Archie are the center of the universe, and the rest of us just gravitate around them. They can make all the rules, rewrite history…

A history they don’t even
know
about, when it comes to me and Rex.

Queen Alison recovers first, giving us a forced smile.

“So. You two are responsible for one another now. Where one goes, the other goes. If one falls from grace, so does the other.” She pauses and purses her lips. “Have I made myself perfectly clear?”

“Crystal,” Rex and I say in unison.

The Queen gives us a skeptical look, then shakes her head.

“You’re dismissed. We will see you both at the charity gala.”

She stands, and then everyone is standing and bowing, and the Queen’s secretary is shooing Rex and I out the way we came.