Double Team: A Menage Romance Read online

  "What the hell?" he asks. "When did you become a monk?"

  I shrug, attempting to exude a nonchalance I don't feel. "Sorry if I don't want to stick my dick where a thousand other guys have been."

  "Twins, Albie," he says, rolling his eyes as he leans back against the upholstered sofa. He swallows several fingers of vodka in a single gulp. "Since when have you ever given a shit about who you put your dick in?"

  "Shut up." I can't think of a single time, other than the crazy ex, when I'd even bothered to get a girl's name. Well, maybe a few times, when I screwed women I already knew socially – countesses, duchesses, people like that. But they were forgettable.

  They've all been forgettable.

  Until now. Until Belle. And I'm not even screwing her.

  Apparently, now I can't get her out of my mind, even when I try.

  "You're ignoring me." Standing behind her in the tearoom, I whisper the words into her ear. I speak softly, mindful of the room full of people, an event for whatever the hell we're hosting today that my presence is mandated for. At this point, the events are a blur, and I just show up wherever my presence is requested, like a dutiful robot prince.

  Belle doesn't turn around. She doesn't move or turn or acknowledge that she heard me, standing motionless with her teacup and saucer in her hand. From where I am behind her, I catch a whiff of the perfume she wears, something light with just a hint of something floral – jasmine maybe, or gardenia. She smells like summer.

  Her dark hair is down, tumbling over her shoulders in waves to the middle of her back, over the pale blue tailored suit jacket she wears that matches her fitted pencil skirt. The outfit is made for a forty-year-old woman. It's conservative, respectful, and appropriate.

  And I don't even need to look at the front of it to know that it's the hottest fucking thing I've ever seen. The way the skirt skims over her curves, caressing her ass like it was made for her, makes me crazy.

  My cock stirs.

  I'm at an afternoon tea, in a room filled with people I should care about impressing -- and I'm getting a boner looking at Belle's ass.

  The problem is that Belle has been avoiding me for the past few days. I swear she's doing it on purpose, making sure we're never in the same room together for more than a few minutes. Last night at the club, I could have gone home with the Lara twins. I should have gone home with them, fucked my brains out until they erased every thought of Belle from my head.

  That would be the smart thing to do. Instead, I jerked off, thinking about Belle.

  And now, seeing her here, all I can think about is yanking that far-too-appropriate skirt up around her waist and coming all over that perfect ass of hers.

  Belle finally half-turns toward me, her eyebrows raised. "Oh?" she asks, holding a teacup to her perfectly glossed lips. "I wasn't aware you needed my attention."

  The way she speaks is laden with meaning, her words practically dripping with innuendo.

  "I think you're mistaken," I say softly, my words barely audible. "It's the other way around. You need my attention."

  Belle brings the tea cup to her lips, slowly taking a sip, her eyes trained on mine as she swallows, then licks her lips. The gesture is subtle, yet somehow the most sexual thing I've ever seen.

  She glances down toward my cock, where my growing hardness is evident, and then back up at me. "You're lying, Your Highness," she whispers, then straightens. Her expression changes to a professional one as an older man in military regalia walks toward us with his wife on his arm.

  “Miss Kensington,” I say, my voice excessively formal, while I’m willing my hard-on to deflate, “May I introduce the Count and Countess of Etier?”

  Belle smiles – primly and properly. She laughs at one of the Count’s jokes, and talks with the Countess about gardening or something.

  I’m not paying a damn bit of attention to what we’re talking about, because the only thing I can think about is Belle’s ass.

  “I don’t need your attention,” she whispers, as soon as they leave. “Or your fingers. My fingers have been working just fine.”

  I nearly spit out my tea. The image of Belle in bed, with her perfect legs spread, her fingers inside her wet pussy flashes into my head. When I glance at her, she smiles smugly.

  I notice someone else important walking toward us, so I whisper in her ear quickly, before they arrive. “You should touch yourself in front of me,” I say, my voice barely audible. “Since we both know you’re thinking about me when you do.”

  Belle’s face flushes, but she looks straight ahead, smiling appropriately as another dignitary approaches us. “Oh, I think that might be arranged, Your Highness,” she says, her voice sweet. “But only if you beg.”

  From the corner of my eye, I glance at her as I greet yet another person of interest to my father. When Belle catches my eye, she smiles.

  Little Miss Do Gooder has more of a backbone than I thought she did.

  16

  Belle

  I wipe a towel across my forehead – navy blue monogrammed with the royal crest in gold stitching. Even the towels in the gym are excessively formal, perfectly placed in a little pyramid on an antique table against the wall.

  Five miles on the treadmill.

  That’s what it took to run off the frustration caused by seeing Albie today at tea. Five miles a day for the past few days, since we got back from the summer estate. If I keep this up, if I keep running until I’m nearly exhausted in order to run off the overpowering attraction and sexual tension between us, I’m going to be a damn marathoner.

  I could go back to the States, I think as I walk back toward my room. I could return to the States and put all of this behind me.

  “Isabella,” my mother calls, her voice echoing down the hallway. I turn around to see her walking toward me in a tailored silk suit and a matching pillbox hat. “I texted you, but you didn’t respond.”

  “My phone is in my room,” I say. “I was in the gym.”

  “There’s a foundation,” Sofia says, handing me a packet of paperwork. “I’d thought you might like to be involved with it.”

  “What is it?”

  She waves her hand dismissively. “Reading?” she asks, absently, pulling out her phone and scrolling over the screen. “Or refugees? I’m really not sure. There’s a packet of information. Charity is your thing. You should organize a dinner, fundraising or something. You can use your time at the summer estate to plan something for the fall, when we return to the palace. Nothing that takes attention away from the wedding, of course.”

  “Fundraising isn’t really my thing, mother,” I say, but she’s looking at her phone, her brow furrowed. And you're assuming I'm going to stay until Fall.

  “I have to run, I’m afraid,” she says. “There’s a crisis with the event tonight.”

  “What event?” I ask, as she draws me in, kissing my cheek.

  “Read the packet, darling,” she says. “I’m late.” I roll my eyes as she starts to walk away. Then she pauses, turning back to me. “Oh, I almost forgot to ask. How are you adjusting to everything?”

  “Fine,” I lie. Thinking about returning home is what I deliberately leave out. Except the problem is that I’ve been living overseas the past two years, so I'm not exactly sure where home is anymore.

  “Protrovia will grow on you,” she says. “Albert is taking care of you?”

  My face flushes and I cover my reaction with a fake cough.

  Albie is not taking care of me, I think. I’ve been taking care of myself. Every night. While thinking about how I’d like Albie to take care of me.

  “Yeah, sure,” I say, my voice faltering.

  She walks toward me, and speaks, her voice quiet. “Alexandra has…problems,” she says. “Albert can show you around. He was in Afghanistan, you know. He’s more serious now. Responsible.”

  I choke back a laugh as my mother whirls around without waiting for a response from me. She walks down the hallway, every step of hers purposeful