Playing Royal: A Vice Agency Novel

by Misti Murphy

  He raises his glass to me, but I think he notices more than he lets on. His eyes get more hooded than they already are, and that flicker of a grin he wears so well, turns positively lush. “Not so committed then.”

  I have a feeling we aren’t talking about his routine anymore. That he’s telling me there’s no one in his life. And maybe he’s interested?

  I’m the first to break our connection. It’s too heated, too intense. I turn away, busy myself with wiping down every surface. I’m imagining things that aren’t there, because the more I see him the more I want him. Every look, every word makes me greedy for more.

  “Another, darlin’.” The glass scrapes on the wood as he pushes it in my direction.

  “Allie.” I top it up again.

  “What?”

  “My name. It’s Allie.” I don’t know what to do with my hands, so I straighten my hair, pushing a few lose strands behind my ear.

  “Allie.” The way he says it, like he’s rolling it around on his tongue, savoring the flavor of both syllables, makes my stomach flutter. “Didn’t anyone ever teach you not to talk to strangers?”

  “You’re not a stranger.” The words are out of my mouth before I can blink. The man in front of me looks like he could beat someone to death with only his hands, but the way he wears his suit, his mannerisms suggest he isn’t dangerous. At least not like that. “You’re in here three or four times a week. Have been for months.”

  A low chuckle vibrates in his throat and he downs the whisky, getting off his stool. “Beautiful name for a beautiful girl, Allie.”

  He thinks I’m beautiful. No one thinks that. I’m barely visible, let alone someone who men look at. And men like him? Never.

  Taking out his wallet, he slaps a hundred down on the polished wood between us. “Thanks for the drinks.”

  He’s almost to the door before I can clear my throat enough to speak. “What’s your name?”

  “Kaiser,” he says, then he yanks open the door and walks out into the night.

  I should have said thank you for the tip. I groan and slap my palm to my forehead. Instead of asking him his name, I should have thanked him for his generosity, but I needed to know who he was almost as much as I need to breathe.

  I clear up the rest of the bar and wipe down tables while I count down the last minutes of my shift, then turn out the lights and lock up before heading toward the train station. It’ll still be another forty minutes before I can crash into bed, my one and only true love.

  ***

  I step around the man on the stairs. His cheek is pressed into a pool of his own vomit, and he’s an odd shade of gray, but he makes these awful sounds that I’m pretty sure is snoring so I leave him to it. Last time I tried to wake someone in his position I took a couple punches for my efforts.

  Above, a man is yelling obscenities. Something thumps against the wall and glass shatters. Inside my apartment, I shut the door behind me, dead locking and hitching the chain across it before shedding my jacket and shoes. My bag topples over as it hits the sofa, spilling its contents. What I wouldn’t do to live somewhere other than here, but it’s all I can afford.

  Picking up my purse, I take Kaiser’s tip and wander into the kitchen where I add it to the envelope of hundreds I’ve saved over the months. Then I shove it back behind the fridge where no one will find it. I tell myself I’ll use that cash to find a better place to live, but truth is that’s a pipe dream. The money will only go so far, and then what? It’s not like I can count on the man to come into my bar forever.

  I pour water into the kettle and set it on the stove to heat before heading to the bathroom to clean up. I’m too tired to shower, so I splash water on my face and get changed into old sweats and a holey T-shirt. Good thing Mr. Mystery, Kaiser —I let his name waltz through my brain, enjoying the way it makes me feel breathless— will never see me as anything more than the bar attendant who pours his drinks. I’d be a complete let down to the entirety of the female population in this get up.

  The kettle whistles, so I go and make a cup of tea, which I carry into the bedroom. Settling into my bed, I take a sip and open my book. Just a few pages to unwind before I kiss my pillow. But the words swim in front of my face and I can’t concentrate on the story at all.

  Those green fuck me eyes, that beautiful smile fills my head. And the way he said my name. I shut the book and set it aside as I slip under the covers. Letting my hand wander over my breast I recall the way he stared at my ass with such blatant intent. Oh God, I felt so naked in that moment. I imagine undressing for him, slowly, seductively, watching his pupils dilate, his lids get heavy, highlighting the desire in them. I imagine how heavy his hand would be on my skin as he touched me.

  My nipples get hard, ache for attention, and I pinch them between my fingers, rolling the tight peaks as I breathe in deeply. I’m already wet, have been since he came into the bar tonight. I smooth my palm down over my stomach and under the waist of my sweats. What is it about him that thrills me deep down inside?

  A shiver claws its way up my spine, as I pretend my fingers are his, dipping below the slight prickly three-day growth from my last date with a razor to press against my clit. I wonder what he’d prefer. What kind of man is he when it comes to pussy?

  I wiggle out of my sweats, leaving them bunched around my ankles. Dropping my knees to the sides, I slide my fingers lower, push the tips inside me with a whimper. It’s not enough. Slowly, I slide them along my slit, over my clit, immersed in my fantasy of him. Of his fingers trailing all over my wet pussy, taking his time exploring the sensitive areas that beg for his attention. Each stroke, each caress of his digits becoming firmer, demanding. I arch under my own hand, over and over. Getting so close to the edge, but I want more. I’m greedy tonight. I need cock deep inside me. I need to feel full of him.

  But that’s a dream I don’t expect to come true. Taking a moment, I fish my vibrator out of the bedside drawer. I’m already sufficiently lubricated that when I press it to my entrance it slides in easily. I groan at the sensation of being full, and turn it on. The hum of it as the nub vibrates against my clit fills the silence, almost blocking out the traffic on the street below.

  My hand wrapped around the end of it I fuck myself with it, fuck myself the way I want to be fucked, by him, in long hard strokes that have me panting as I get closer and closer to cumming. When I do, my entire body quakes, but I don’t stop, not until every vibrating touch to my clit is like an electric shock. With a cry, I pull it out of me and fling it to the other end of the bed, my body a screaming mass of twitching nerve endings.

  Exactly how I imagine it would feel to be used up by him.

  Chapter Three

  Kaiser

  For four weeks I’ve spent my down time with a bar attendant named Rob. He’s never skinny on his shots, and he knows when to keep his mouth shut. Sure he’s not pretty, but the conversation with the older man tends toward a nod of the head and a rough grunt of acknowledgement. That’s what I should be looking for in the person who doles out Macallan in the hour after midnight.

  Instead, I have a mind full of whisky colored hair, hazel eyes, and a line of poetry scrolled on a pale span of hip bone. Allie. Sweet, beautiful, totally fuckable Allie.

  I eat, breathe, and sleep with the image of her. From the way she caught my gaze in the glass at the back of the bar, to the way she tried to hide how much she wanted me. The muscles in her thighs bunching as she tried to hide her body’s response to the thoughts I could see written on her face. The same thoughts that were running through my head. The same ideas I considered enacting right there on the bar. And then she asked me my name, and I wanted to tell her. Not the name that I go by, not even my real name, but who I am.

  Fucking royalty. A man whose life is as good as planned out for him. A man who can’t deny his fate forever. A man who would never consider a girl like her for more than a bit of fun. And yeah, she’d be fun. That much I’m certain of, but there’s that definite somethi
ng about her, that thing I can’t put my finger on, that tells me it would never be that simple. Hell, it took nothing to get me to want to tell her things I haven’t told anyone, and she’s a complete stranger. So what that we’ve seen each other for months over the top of the bar?

  No there’s no room for an Allie in my life. There never has been and never will be. That’s why I do what I do for Vice. There are no strings, just a paycheck and a good time. I walk through this life like a ghost, experiencing, enjoying all the things I never could with a crown on my head, and I’m not interested in complicating this one small taste of freedom, the only one I’ll get.

  And yet, I stand on the pavement outside The Den, watching her bustle about behind the bar while I set a light to the end of my cigarette. I turn up the collar on my overcoat and hunch my shoulders, fighting against the nipping cold while I take a drag on the butt and put a call through to Saran. “I refuse to work with that woman again.”

  He grumbles on the other end of the line. I hear the clink of glass against glass. It makes me antsy, wanting my own drink to end out this shoddy night. “What happened?”

  “She brought a friend. The guy was waiting in the hotel when we got there. You know I don’t sign on for that.”

  “Jesus, Kaiser. Tell me you didn’t do anything stupid.”

  “Nah, man. I told him to wait in the other room. I don’t care if he wants my sloppy seconds, just as long as I don’t have to see his ass naked. But, I’m telling you, you either ban her from our services, or you get someone else to do it, because I sure as hell won’t anymore.”

  “Fine.” Saran exhales. “I’ll get it sorted out.”

  Hanging up on him, I see her face turn to the door, and her shoulders sag. A quick glance at my watch and my chest feels lighter. Does she wait for me? Even after four weeks, does she hope I’ll come through those doors?

  I don’t even finish my cigarette before flicking the butt into a tray of sand near the hotel entrance. She looks tired, sad too. I want to see her smile, want her eyes to light up. I don’t have a choice but to go in there tonight. Tomorrow, I’ll go back to spending my time with bartender Rob.

  She doesn’t glance up when I enter. The heat from a small fire at the back of the bar has the room warm enough that I shed my coat before crossing to take my usual seat where I watch her for a few moments. Maybe this is a mistake. Perhaps she’s finally given up on waiting for me to show up. I should leave before she sees me. “Evening, beautiful.”

  When she turns around, for one brilliant moment, her face lights up so much that I want to jump the bar and kiss her.

  “Oh.” Then her face falls, and her voice comes out quiet and sort of brittle. “Three fingers, Macallan?”

  “Please.” I narrow my gaze on her as she turns and grabs the bottle from the shelf. I’m not sure if she’s giving me the cold shoulder or if something else has happened in the time I’ve done my best to steer clear of her. Whatever it is, it grates on me, making me want to chew out whoever or whatever has upset her, even if it’s me.

  When she places the drink on the polished wood, I ignore the instinct to catch her hand before she can shift away. I want to ask her what’s wrong. Instead, I wrap my fingers around the glass, lifting it to my lips so I can drain it. The fact that I came here tonight tells me I’m already on the edge of forgetting reason. To touch her would be to give into something I have no interest in pursuing, and I would pursue her. It’d be a mistake breaking my rules because I’m attracted to her, and yet, I can tell I’d do exactly that despite my better judgement.

  The glass clunks lightly against the wood as I set it down. My muscles tight with frustration, I grumble, “Another.”

  She makes short work of it, darting glances at me, but not speaking. I know she wants to, can see she has something to say, but she keeps to the relationship we set up before the night she asked for my name. It’s better that way. It’s for her good as much as mine.

  But that doesn’t help when what I want is to hear her say my name. On repeat. Over and over. It doesn’t help when I want to listen to her voice get breathy, and see her face light up the way it did that night, like it did when she first saw me tonight. “Allie, beautiful, what’s wrong?”

  She purses her lips, blows out a breath while she fiddles with a few stray locks of her hair. Then she plasters a smile on her face that is as fake as my identity. “I’m fine.” She goes back to wiping down her already sparkling work area. “I didn’t expect to see you again.”

  I get a little self-satisfaction from the fact that she was sad about that. Can’t help the grin that tries so hard to take over my face. “And that’s a problem because…”

  “It isn’t. It’s not you.” She exhales. “It’s just odd that you chose my last shift here to come back.”

  “You’re not working here anymore?” I pick up a coaster. The kind that is just thick cardboard with The Den insignia embossed in gold. It falls apart in my fingers, shredded in quick jerky movements until there’s nothing but a pile of small pieces littered on the bar. It’s good news that she’s leaving. That after tonight I won’t know where she is. There’s no temptation to see her if I can’t find her. Nothing to consider each time my fingers itch to brush along the creamy skin of her thumb and wrist. Or that spot on her neck where her pulse flutters. There’s no need to remind myself every time I stare at that strip of skin with the tattoo that she’s not the kind of woman I’m interested in, or that I don’t want to admire the parts of her I can’t see. And there’s really no justification why the whole idea of her not being here should have me wound so tight, but for some reason it does. “What happened?”

  “The manager’s son needed a job.” She smiles tightly, but it doesn’t remotely reach her gaze. Eyes as warm as amber, with flecks of gold, green, and orange.

  Eyes I cannot stop myself from staring into. “What will you do now?”

  With a quick shrug, she busies herself with cleaning up the mess I made of the coaster. “I don’t know. I’ve got some money saved. I’ll get by until I find another job.”

  “That’s good.” I don’t know what else to say to her. I could offer her the world, all the money she’d need to never work again, to always have the security she seems to lack. Instead, I focus on my hand wrapped around the glass. Sure, I could do that, but I won’t. What the hell is wrong with me that I even consider offering up that much of myself to a person like her?

  A guy steps up to the bar beside me. Cheap suit. Even cheaper shoes. There’s a thick gold band on the finger on his left hand, resting on the edge of the counter. “Hey, gorgeous. My friends and I want another round, okay?”

  Allie gives a curt nod and lines up glasses, pouring shots into each one while the man beside me wanders his gaze all over her.

  “This is last call. We’re closing soon.”

  “Then make it quick, gorgeous.” The asshole actually leers at her tits when he speaks to her. “Be a doll and bring them over to the table.”

  For one vivid second I imagine gripping the back of his neck and slamming his head into the bar for the way he looked at her, the way he spoke to her. She doesn’t deserve that from him, no one does.

  “Okay,” she tells him, and I watch him until he’s back at the table with his friends before I let the tension ease from my shoulders.

  That limp dick bastard should be able to tell by one look at her that he doesn’t stand a chance. I’d stand right in his path if he even tried.

  Allie skirts the bar, blowing out a breath as she picks up the tray. Her gaze flickers to the drink in my hand. Almost finished. She understands I’ll be gone while her back’s turned. Then she does something that slays me so fucking hard, I lose the ability to breathe. She reaches out and touches my shoulder. A soft careful press of her palm that I can feel through my shirt, the heat of it sinking through muscle and bone while she gives me one last smile to remember her by. The kind that breaks like dawn, is so beautiful it hurts. “It was nice knowing you,
Kaiser.”

  I don’t even try to fight the need to touch her hand, to curl my fingers around hers, but my hand lands on my shoulder. Hers is already gone, and all I can do is watch the way her hips sway as she crosses the room. “You too, Allie.”

  Downing the rest of my drink, I get up and drop the usual tip. Then I lay another 100-dollar note on top. She needs every cent she can get, but that’s all the cash I’m carrying tonight.

  “Please take your hand off me.” Allie yelps, her voice rising several octaves as I turn to find her prying limp dick’s hand off her ass.

  “Come on, you know you want to join us. Have a shot on me, gorgeous.” Reflexively, I take a couple steps toward them.

  There aren’t many things that infuriate me, but this idiocy with men thinking they can do whatever they want because most women aren’t built to fight back is up there at the top of my list.

  Not that she needs me to defend her.

  “It’s time for you to all leave. I need to close up.” She digs her fingers into his wrist and twists his arm until he lets go of her.

  This probably isn’t the first time she’s had to deal with a dick wad like him. I keep my distance, enjoying the way she handles him, instead of him handling her. I’m almost, but not quite, envious. Just to have her touch me again. But the only way that would end is with her on me, all over me. Her naked body pressed to mine. I take a deep breath and will my cock to go down. It isn’t the first time I’ve gotten a hard on for her, here in The Den, at home while I’m lying in my bed.