Double Team Read online

  18

  Belle

  I adjust my dress, smoothing the knee length skirt. It's a breezy material that moves with me, swinging around my legs at a respectable knee-length. Paired with nude heels and a jacket, it’s a perfectly appropriate outfit from my giant walk-in closet filled with perfectly appropriate clothing.

  What’s not appropriate is that I’m not wearing panties. I’m totally bare underneath, and even though I tell myself that it’s because I don’t want visible panty lines in a photo that’s part of my mother and Leo’s official press release announcing their engagement, the real reason has nothing to do with that.

  The real reason has to do with the envelope I’ve tucked away in the zipper section of one of the designer purses in my closet, stuffed into the only place I could think of where someone wouldn’t inadvertently discover it while cleaning and draw the inevitable conclusion that I’m some kind of pervert who keeps jizz-covered panties.

  I think I am some kind of pervert.

  I’ve never been one of those women who sleep with a guy and suddenly go off the deep end, becoming totally obsessed with dick. But now suddenly I am.

  And I haven’t even slept with Albie – I haven’t even seen his cock.

  Except in photos. I did look up those pictures after all, the uncensored version of Albie’s bare-it-all-for-the-press cock photos, the ones where he stands with his pants unzipped, proudly displaying the full monty for the press.

  And he should be proud of that thing.

  It’s not exactly small.

  So now, I’m one of those cock-obsessed, can’t-think-about-anything-else girls. And it just happens to be the cock of one of the most irritating, domineering, pompous men in the world.

  Who wants me to beg him for that cock.

  Well, that is just never going to happen, I tell myself as I apply a coat of bright red lipstick to my lips. This is not an appropriate shade of red at all, especially for a photography session. The rest of me is subdued, with my cream-colored dress and matching nude heels, hair pulled up into a smooth high ponytail.

  In reality, though, I’m far from subdued. I’m agitated, edgy, being driven to the brink by frustrated thoughts of Albie.

  And that’s the reason I walk down the hall to the photography session, wearing my appropriate dress with no panties.

  There, in one of the drawing rooms, the rest of my new family is already standing – my mother and Leo by a set of antique sofas, a photographer on his knees at their feet, camera in hand. The photographer's assistant hovers anxiously, jumping each time he barks a terse one-word order.

  I pause for a moment inside the doorway, and Albie and Alexandra both turn to look at me. Alexandra is scowling, texting furiously on her phone. She glances up at the overly happy couple, who gaze into each others’ eyes like a couple of lovesick puppies, and rolls her own eyes before returning to her phone.

  I purposely avoid Albie’s stare, even though what I want to do is stand there, taking him in with my eyes. I can feel the heat of his eyes on me, traveling up the length of my body from my feet to my head, until his eyes finally meet mine.

  He watches me as I walk toward him. He looks at me with hunger. Knowing he wants me makes me wet. It also makes me acutely aware of my aching emptiness.

  “You’re late,” Albie says, a small smile on his lips. “Busy schedule?”

  “You know what they say about idle hands.”

  As soon as I speak the word hands, Albie’s mouth turns up on the edges. He thinks he knows exactly why I was late.

  “Hey Alexandra,” I say, tearing my eyes away from Albie.

  “They’re supposed to finish up in a few minutes,” she says. “Family photos will be next. Apparently black was not an appropriate color for the pictures, so I'm stuck wearing this thing.” She rolls her eyes, finishing a text on her phone, and then looking up.

  “You look really pretty, Alexandra,” I say, meaning it. She’s wearing a cream-colored shift, tailored to fit her curvy figure, with matching nude heels.

  “Ugh,” she groans. “I’m like so blah beige.”

  “You’re stunning.”

  “It’s Alex, by the way,” she says, looking down at her phone when it vibrates. “Stop calling me Alexandra. That’s what my dad calls me, not my friends. I meant to say that to you the other day.”

  I nod, feeling pleased that she counted me as one of her friends. “Yeah. Don’t ever call me Isabella.”

  “Girls! Albert!” My mother waves us across the room.

  “Showtime,” Alex says, sighing audibly as she walks ahead of us, the click-click of her shoes more of a clomping sound as she stomps just a little too hard on the floor.

  “She’s pissed,” I whisper to Albie, while maintaining an appropriate distance from him. He smells like aftershave or cologne, I’m not sure which. All I know is that the scent might as well be an aphrodisiac, because I have the sudden inexplicable urge to rip his clothes off.

  “I like the lipstick,” he whispers softly.

  Arousal surges through me at the thought of wrapping my red-painted lips around Albie’s dick, down on my knees as he grasps a handful of hair, and pulls me onto his shaft.

  “I can let you borrow it if you’d like to wear it,” I say. “I mean, if that’s what you’re into.”

  “Nah,” he says. “You know what I want."

  "Oh?"

  "I want you on your knees. I want to see that bright red lipstick on my cock.”

  We’ve almost reached my parents, and I pause for a moment, leaning close to him to whisper. “I’m not wearing any panties,” I say, and I don’t wait for his response before walking ahead of him.

  My mother directs me to the side of the photo, and then I’m lost in the dizzying array of instructions, directions to turn my body slightly or adjust my chin, the photographer and his assistants styling and re-arranging us a thousand different ways in the span of thirty minutes.

  During the shoot, King Leopold makes jokes, the corny kind I thought were the type of thing that dads do, except he’s a king and not a regular dad, which somehow has the effect of making the lame jokes actually funny. The eighth one – something about an armadillo – has Alex, Albie, and I finally giggling, and earns a stern “Leopold,” from my mother.

  “Do you remember the time we got in trouble for coming in here when we were kids and jumping on the sofa?” Alex asks Albie.

  “Dad was going to blow a gasket,” Albie says, as a flashbulb goes off mid-sentence, bright white light practically blinding for a split second.

  “Dad was?” Alex says, laughing. “Mom took away your dessert for a week.”

  The mention of their mother changes the mood in the room almost immediately, and Leo smiles wistfully. “Yes, she did,” he says quietly, pausing as if he’s remembering her, and then speaks to the photographer : “I trust we have enough photographs at this juncture.”

  The photographer immediately lowers his camera. “Yes, Your Royal Highness,” he says. “More than adequate.”

  “Thank God,” Alex says, kicking off her shoes before she even gets a few feet away. “I’m out of here.”

  My mother puts her hand on Leo’s arm. “Shall we?” she asks.

  Albie and I trail behind everyone else, lingering, putting distance between us and them. When we leave, Albie walks behind me, his steps purposeful. I half-expect him to grab my wrist as we walk, to yank me back and pull my body flush into his, bringing his mouth down on mine. Maybe I half-hope that will happen.

  "You really should stop playing games, luv," he says.

  I look down the side of the hall, checking to see if any housekeeping staff have noticed us.

  But no one's there. The hallway is quiet and deserted, as if fate itself is giving us permission to flirt, to engage, to continue walking this lust-fueled tightrope.

  If I had any sense at all, I'd turn around and head for my suite. I’d call Raine and tell her that I'm going to buy a plane ticket, that I will meet her