Prince Albert Read online

  hooking up in the pool house. Using the vibrator."

  "I see," I say. Except I don't see at all. "This is upsetting because…"

  "Because she doesn't seem like an ex," Belle says. "Am I helping you cheat on her?"

  "You're asking because you don't remember being the one to hook up with me in the pool house?"

  This girl is kind of crazy.

  Why the hell do I find her jealousy cute? I should find it irritating, and the implication that we’re in a relationship claustrophobia-inducing.

  But I don’t.

  Erika was never jealous of other women, not in this way. Even during the couple of months we were officially together, she only had a problem with the idea of me being linked publicly to someone else. She expected me to have “little dalliances,” as she called them – which, in retrospect, makes sense, since she was having her own.

  Belle sighs. "Of course I remember that," she says.

  "You're so jealous."

  "I'm not so jealous," she says, rolling her eyes. "I'm saying that I don’t want to be aiding and abetting a cheater."

  "Jealous."

  "You're so annoying," she says. "This is why I'm in the library, by the way."

  "So you can avoid me holding up a mirror to your jealousy?"

  "Not jealous."

  "Not telling the truth." I sit down beside her on the sofa, too close for comfort – hers or mine. Shoulder to shoulder with her, I catch the faintest whiff of her perfume. I haven’t smelled it in days, and I inhale deeply. The scent is already burned into my brain, and it reminds me of the last time I was close enough to smell it.

  When I had my arms wrapped tightly around her.

  When I had my cock buried deeply inside her.

  "You're avoiding giving me a straight answer," she says. She's looking at her book – some kind of thriller – but I know she's not reading it. She just stares at the pages, pretending to read, all the while sitting perfectly still. But her chest rises and falls more quickly than before, as her body betrays how she obviously feels about me.

  "If I give you a straight answer, will you tell me exactly how wet you are right now?"

  "No," she says. But she licks her lip. Her tongue lingers on her lower lip the way it does when she’s aroused.

  "Okay,” I say. “Then I won’t tell you how hard I am just sitting here next to you. Or how I want to reach over there and lift up the side of that little skirt you're wearing, slide my hand between your legs, and find out for myself exactly how wet you are."

  She crosses one leg over the other, causing her skirt to ride up high on her thigh. "Nope. I’m not wet at all," she says. "And you should go sit on the other side of the room before someone sees us."

  "Look around, luv," I say. "This library is completely deserted. Our parents have retired to their residence, so they're otherwise occupied."

  Belle puts her hand on my thigh, pushing me away with a sigh. If my cock weren't rock-hard before, her touch would certainly remedy that. "Eew, gross, Albie," she says. "Talking about our parents doing it means I'm definitely not wet now."

  “So you admit you were wet, then?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  But she uncrosses and crosses her legs again.

  "No one is going to walk in on us."

  "There are still a million people in this place."

  "At least now you're considering letting me slide my fingers under your panties," I say. "Wait. Panties or no panties?"

  "I did not say I was considering it."

  "Erika is not my girlfriend, Belle," I say. "She's very firmly in the ex category. Your mother and whoever else assumed that it was Erika and I who used the pool house, but I can correct her, if you like. I'd be happy to let her know what really happened."

  "No!" she blurts out before clearing her throat. "I mean, no. That won't be necessary. And I'm not jealous. I'm not insane enough to think that just because we screwed around that I have any kind of claim over you. I just don't want to be the other woman."

  "What if I want you to have a claim over me?" I ask.

  I don't know where the fuck that just came from.

  "Erika hinted that you guys will be engaged soon," she says.

  "She did what?"

  Belle exhales heavily. "What Derek did to me was shitty. I would never do that to anyone else. So if there's supposed to be an engagement between you two – even if it's a political arrangement…"

  "Whatever Erika told you, she's crazy," I say. "There's no engagement, real or political. This isn't the eighteenth century, Belle. There are no arranged marriages in Protrovia. And I'm not engaged to Erika."

  "It's not really any of my business – "

  I don't want to hear what else she has to say. I interrupt her, taking her hand and placing it on my hardness. "This is yours," I say. "I'm not fucking around with anyone else. And this…"

  I slide my hand across her thigh, my fingertips touching the crease at the edge of her bikini line, but not going any farther. She breathes in sharply.

  "This is mine," I say.

  "My thigh is yours?" she asks, her tone lighter now. But she doesn't move her hand away from my cock.

  "Your thigh," I whisper, then slide my hand further between her legs. "Your wet pussy."

  She inhales sharply, squeezing reflexively around my cock as I roll my fingers over her clit. "Yours," she whispers.

  "Mine."

  Then I withdraw my hand from between her legs. She looks at me, eyes already pleading, and I think I hear her whimper, but I might be imagining it.

  I’m not going to give it to her that easily.

  Even when she turns toward me, fumbling with the zipper on my pants.

  "I'm not finished, luv," I say, pushing her back against the seat. I trail my hand up her stomach and proclaim it mine.

  She tenses underneath my fingertips, but she says what I want her to say. "Yours."

  Tracing the curves of her breasts through the thin fabric of her dress, I let my finger trail lazily over each one. I linger on her nipples, slowly circling them, watching as they harden to my touch. “Mine.”

  When she answers, it’s a whisper, breathy as she looks at me. “Yours.”

  At the top of her shoulder, I tug on one of the straps on her sundress. When it doesn’t budge, I take it between my hands and tear it right off her shoulder.

  "What are you doing?" she squeals.

  Damn, I love that squeal.

  I pull the fabric down over her breasts, covering her nipple with my mouth before she can protest the state of her dress any more. Running my tongue over her nipple in circles, I only pull away when she moans just a little too loudly. “Just in case I wasn’t clear,” I say, covering her breast with my palm. “This is mine.”

  "Yours," she whispers, looking at me with hooded eyes.

  "This neck," I say, kissing softly along the side of her neck until I reach her ear. My tongue presses against the place just below her earlobe that I know makes her wet. "Mine."

  "Yours," she says. But this time, it's a groan.

  Gripping her jaw, my thumb tracing over the bottom of her lip, I pull the edge of her lush lip down, and she sucks my finger into her mouth the same way she did with my cock in the throne room.

  My dick throbs its response, straining against the fabric of my pants. I want to tear off her clothes and plunge my cock inside her right here in the library. But I force myself to be restrained.

  Even though she’s aching to be touched, the top of her dress pulled down, exposing her erect nipples.

  Even though she’s arching her back, putting her perfect breasts on display.

  "Your lips," I say, barely choking out the word. My lust for her is practically robbing me of any sense at all. "Mine."

  "Yours."

  I can’t wait for her any longer, not when she’s saying she’s mine.

  She barely gets the word out before I bring my mouth down on hers, kissing her with all of the violence and passi