Playing Royal: A Vice Agency Novel

by Misti Murphy

  I need to leave. I’ve almost talked myself into leaving her to it, but the tosser on the opposite side of the table sticks his foot out, tripping her before she has a chance to see it coming. She lands in his lap, her breath knocked out of her for a second. The shock blanking her face.

  It’s long enough for him to get both hands on her waist, and hold her down on his lap. “Give me a kiss, baby.”

  “No.” She hisses between her teeth, and that’s plenty sufficient to have me seeing red.

  “Come on, just one little kiss, and I’ll let you go.” The man in my cross hair sniggers as I stomp toward him.

  He doesn’t even have a chance to see me coming. But his friends do. Both men on the opposite side of the table gape, their alcohol flushed skin growing pale as I slam a hand down on his shoulder. Bending closer to him, I growl in his ear. “You might want to take your hands off the lady.”

  “Why don’t you mind your own business?” he snaps.

  I can tell by the way Allie’s eyebrows raise that he has no idea what he’s gotten himself into. “Last chance.”

  “Get lost. Bar’s closed. This is a private matter.” That’s when he glances over his shoulder. The scowl on his face drooping almost as quickly as his Adam’s apple bounces.

  He doesn’t move half as quick as I do, but his struggle to get up ends with Allie’s ass hitting the floor, and my arm wrapped around the asshole’s scrawny neck. I keep my voice low, even as I ask him, “Are you staying in the hotel?”

  “W-what?” His fingers dig into my arm, trying to dislodge me.

  There’s no possibility he’s going anywhere, except out of the bar, with his friends, and me as an escort. In case he didn’t understand me the first time I talk slow, enunciating each word as though he’s unable to comprehend English. “Are you and your friends staying here?”

  “No. We live in the city,” Limp Dick with the ring on his finger offers up. “We should be going.” He and the other guy are already shrugging into jackets. “Let him go, and we’ll get his drunk ass home.”

  “Of course.” I grab up his coat, push it into his hands, and then commence to dragging him across the bar. “Just as soon as he is out of her bar.”

  Allie gets to her feet and swipes her hands over the seat of her pants, her wide gaze firmly planted on me. Then she wraps her hands around her waist and rocks on the sides of her feet. She looks so vulnerable, shaken up, and yet she doesn’t fall apart.

  “You okay?” I push open the glass door. The heat all but gets sucked out into the cold where a scattering of white has fallen on the pavement.

  Biting her lip, she nods as I drag the guy, still struggling, out with me, his friends following close behind us.

  I toss him onto the concrete as the door closes behind us. “Get this piece of shit out of here.”

  Allie quickly moves to lock the door, and one of the guys hails a taxi, while the other hovers, shifting from foot to foot, waiting for the idiot to get up off the concrete. “Got it.”

  “And you fuckwits never pull that sorry behavior on a woman again.” Cracking my neck, I take a couple steps away from them, before turning and coming back. My fists are bunched tight, but I loosen them up, exhaling. “That shit doesn’t fly. Got it?”

  I’m done. I need to walk away, but that’s when it hits me. This is the last time I’ll see Allie. It shouldn’t matter, but somehow it does. I would have liked to have soaked up just one or two more words from her mouth, watched her lips as they moved. Now that won’t happen.

  There’s only a thin film of glass between us, but going back in there? Now, when I’m already uncomfortably agitated? And her all alone. That would be a lit match to gasoline.

  No, I need to remember who I am. I don’t do real people because there’s always the chance it gets complicated. This is the perfect opportunity to let go of whatever it is about her that intrigues me. That was always the plan. Don’t forget the plan. Don’t get involved.

  And for one girl, I’ve come dangerously close to doing both.

  Chapter Four

  Allie

  He left his coat on the stool at the bar. I didn’t notice until I was turning off the lights. He didn’t come back for it, didn’t bang on the door for me to let him in. I wanted him to. Hoped he would. I imagined being brave enough to have given him something to remember me by, if only he would walk back through the door. It probably wouldn’t have worked out that way though. Could I have really made that kind of move with a man like him? I want to believe so, but I’ve never been that bold.

  So why would tonight be any different?

  Because I’m probably never going to see him again and that kind of hurts. I glance around the bar one final time, my hand resting on his coat. I’ve worked here for the last three years and now I don’t know what I’m going to do. He must have sensed that because he left a tip that made me cringe with how large it was.

  I run my fingers over the soft wool of the coat. I really should leave it here, along with whatever it was that I felt around him. Instead, I pick it up. Shrugging into it, I pull the collar in front of my face and inhale his scent. Rich and spicy, with just a hint of sweet. Probably something in a glass bottle with a label that reads, ‘come fuck me’. Underneath there’s a tang of salt, and something earthy, like freshly mown grass. It hits me right between my legs, a pulsing throb in my clit. It smells like him, and he smells like orgasms. Like, take me hard until I cum, freshly fucked orgasms.

  I should put his coat back, but I’m reluctant to take it off. When he realizes it’s gone he’ll come here to find it, but what if there’s something in one of the pockets. Maybe, I can find him and get it back to him. And it’s so freaking cold outside. I stare out the window where the snow is starting to fall. He wouldn’t mind me borrowing it, and giving it back to him myself. He wouldn’t mind me wearing it while I got myself off.

  Okay, maybe he would, and that’s probably going too far. But the idea is tempting. Of having his smell wrapped around me while I fantasize about him touching me, my hand between my legs. “Crazy stalker much, Allie? You’re not some high school loser crushing on the hottest guy in school.”

  Except that’s exactly how it feels. Because I’m no better off than I was when I was seventeen and dreaming of a great big world. I’m still the same girl who is never going to get anywhere. I shed his coat, fold it and lay it on the counter.

  It’s a good thing he didn’t come back in the bar. Even better that I won’t see him again. I definitely shouldn’t be considering ways to put myself in his path. I finger the edge of the soft material. I’m not some naïve girl anymore, believing in fairy tales and princes. No, my fantasies are much better than the real deal could ever be.

  I fold his jacket over my arm and shut off the light, locking up behind me for the last time. Time to work out what to do next. Ducking my chin, I pull on his coat and snuggle into it as I head to the train station.

  ***

  I didn’t check the pockets of his coat until I got home. I don’t know why, though I probably should have checked them earlier. Now I’m sitting at my table nursing a cup of tea between my chilled palms and staring at, I can’t believe this, a baggy of condoms. But not just condoms. Used condoms.

  I’d thrown them across the room as soon as I saw what I held in my hand. Fucking disgusting.

  I shiver. What the hell? Who the hell? I can’t even… What type of man carries around his old condoms? I’d used kitchen tongs to pick the bag up and drop it on the kitchen table. They really belonged in the bin, but some twisted part of my mind was curious, and also in need of a cup of tea while I contemplated the weird package.

  I prod the bag with the end of a pen, as though it’s evidence from a crime scene. Maybe if it was one rubber. Like, if he’d been getting it on with someone in an elevator or something and had nowhere else to dispose of it. I could see that. Hell, I’d be kind of envious I wasn’t so lucky. But five?

  Five used condoms?

 
Are they all from one night? Are they all from tonight? Did he have sex with five different women before he sat and flirted with me at the bar? Or was it five times with one person? How does one even manage to go five times in a night anyway?

  I can’t wrap my head around it. I push the baggy as far away as possible, shake off the crawling sensation that creeps over my skin. Then I pick up the other thing I found in his pocket. A simple business card. Black. Nothing on it, except The Vice Agency on one side embossed in gold. A website on the back. I scrunch up my brow and flip it over again. There’s really nothing on it to suggest what this Vice Agency is all about. Setting it down, I type the address into the browser on my phone.

  The Vice Agency – Where fantasy becomes reality.

  I nibble the quicks around my nails as I scroll down the page. Kidnapping, castaway, princess for the night. Let us turn your fantasy into reality.

  Vice will create a simulation so life-like, you’ll believe your fantasy has come true. Our team will cater to your every expectation, your every desire. For more information, click on any of the options.

  There’s a whole range of options at the bottom of the page, and I hover over each link, but I keep coming back to princess for a night. Is that what Kaiser does? Act the prince charming for women who want to be swept off their feet? Mr. Mystery starts to make more sense in my head the longer I stare at the link. The way he kept to himself, the money he tossed around like it grows on trees, the fact that he didn’t quite look the part.

  Finally, I click on the line. Wait for the next page to load. There are profiles on four different guys. All of them good-looking, well-built men. I read their profiles, taking my time when I get to Kaiser’s. Not that there’s much there. His stats. That he was a fighter once. Nothing really that tells me more than I’ve already figured out.

  I glance at the bag of condoms again. He’s a glorified, what’s the word for male prostitute? Escort. Maybe. And by the looks of it his customers are more than satisfied. I put my phone down on the table, and use the pen to draw the bag closer. He has stamina, I’ll give him that. A whole lot of go.

  I squirm in my seat, a tingling sensation starting in my core as I imagine him undressing me, his hands everywhere as he peels away my clothes bit by bit. I wonder if he’d thrust me up against a wall and take me hard. Or would he throw me down on the bed, taking me from behind while his hands squeeze my hips, dragging me against him over and over.

  If the evidence in front of me is anything to go by it would probably be both, and then some. Surely I shouldn’t be turned on by this. I should be grateful he kept his distance and that I’m not going to see him again. But it doesn’t stop my body from responding with need, or keep my mouth from watering while I remember the way he stared at my ass the last time I saw him. I wonder what exactly he’d been imagining doing to me.

  It’s been a long time since anyone looked at me the way he did. Shit. I derail my thoughts, jerking back to reality. I’m salivating over a man I should have no interest in. But then the unobtainable was always my crack. My stepmother would be laughing right now if she knew what I was thinking. Just like she did the day I packed my bags to follow Lucas, the guy I dated in high school.

  Alexandra, no man in his right mind will ever want you for more than sex. You’re nothing, and you’ll never be anything.

  And she was right.

  I thought we had something special back then and that’s why he asked me to move away from the city. Away from my family, my friends, the only life I knew. I’d given him my heart, but he’d thrown it back at me so quickly. Mere weeks it took him to find someone else, to decide that his future was no place for me. He’d only needed me because he’d been worried about being alone, but as soon as he’d realized he could do better he’d tossed me aside. Moving home had been torturous; returning without anything to go back to other than my stepmother’s derision over how right she was had been, excruciating.

  But this is different. Because this isn’t about happy ever afters, or even love. He’s an escort. This entire thing can only ever be about sex. I could be the one in control of this. It’s just, he’s so damn beautiful, I can’t get past it. And that means the only way to stop fantasizing about him is to go through him, or let him go through me.

  There’s a weight in my chest that disagrees with the idea of my being able to control my feelings for him. Whatever they are, they’re intense, even now. It would be stupid to even give myself another moment with him.

  Only, I need to return his coat. I click on his profile, add it to the cart. Maybe somewhere near the end of this website there’ll be a contact number. I can just ring up and find out the address for The Vice Agency. That’s what I’ll do. I’ll send him his coat and then I won’t have to see him again.

  Instead, I’m taken straight to check out. I gasp, my eyes bugging out at the price tag. Insanity. What kind of people can afford that for one night?

  I glance at the condoms again. “One hell of a night, though.”

  Pushing away from the table, I get up and cross to the fridge. Carefully I peel the envelope out from where I stuck it and count out the notes inside. It’s a lot. More than enough to spend one night with him if I wanted to. Which I don’t. I tap the envelope against my fingers. “Think practically, Allie.”

  This money is almost all I have to get through until I find a new job. That’s what I need to do. Not go on one wild sex charged night with the man I haven’t been able to stop thinking about, fantasizing over.

  Taking the envelope to the table, I dump it out and count the notes into stacks. Half. That’s how much will be left if I do this. Another darted glance at the condoms. I wrinkle my nose. Still gross. What does he keep them for? Is he some kind of sicko who takes them home as trophies? Does he have a collection of them? Some kind of way of counting how many times he’s given a woman what she wants?

  Shaking the thoughts away, I stuff the money back into the envelope. Some fantasies are better left to the imagination. Like this one. No good could come from spending a night with him.

  Except, maybe I could finally scratch the itch that’s taken hold of me these last few months.

  Chapter Five

  Kaiser

  “Got a new client for you, Kaiser.” Loz glances at me over the computer monitor.

  “Something different I hope.” I lounge back in the leather chair. Ever since the night Allie disappeared from my life, I’ve been bored as fuck with the games I’ve been booked for. Honestly, I probably was before she came along, I just hadn’t known it. “I’m sick of playing a rich asshole.”

  I’ve been back to The Den a couple times since that night, the first to get my coat, which wasn’t there, the second… it was the closest I could get to her. I swear her scent lingered, weeks after she’d been there. That subtle vanilla and something that was pure Allie, hidden under the smell of alcohol, but somehow tantalizingly close. It had gotten caught in my throat, making the Macallan taste like dirt, and my mood turn sour.

  “Only because you’re not.” Loz’s blue eyes twinkle. “I bet you wouldn’t say that if you were really a millionaire.”

  “Apparently, you don’t know me very well.” I shove my hands behind my head, and grin at her to soften the frustration that comes with her remark. Because she doesn’t know, none of them do, about who I really am. A million is nothing compared to my family fortune. And I gave that up to experience being a normal human being, and experience a normal life for a while. Fighting was the closest I got to that normal life. It was something I was good at where people didn’t ask questions. No one wanted to know my story, they wanted to see me take another man down or be taken down.

  And then I’d stumbled over Saran. Literally. He’d been beside the ring as I walked away from another fight. Sweat and blood dripping into my eyes had blurred my vision, and I’d collapsed against the tall well-dressed man. He’d pushed a card into my hand, saying something about how I was wasting my abilities and that I should give
him a call.

  The next thing I knew I was slinging fantasies for women who wanted nothing more from me than a good time. It was about as far from the life of a Prince as I could get. It was exactly where I wanted to be. “So what have you got for me?”

  “Another princess for the night.” She smiles softly, getting up from her desk and bringing me a file. “A woman by the name of Alexandra Whittaker.”

  Grudgingly, I take it from her and flip through it. It’s sparse. The barest details filled in. No pictures, nothing to give me any real clue as to what kind of woman this Alexandra is.

  “At least she signed the disclaimer,” I grumble, tossing the file down. I prefer when they go into detail about their preferences, their expectations. It makes it easier to work out what to do with them. This Alexandra, whoever she is, gives me nothing.

  “Take it as a challenge.” Loz grins as she flounces back to her desk. “Surely even you could work out how to woo a woman for less than twenty-four hours.”

  “Who’s wooing a woman?” Scorch asks, entering the office at the tail of our conversation.

  “I am.” I smirk. “I’m wooing your woman. Told you she was supposed to be mine. I saw her first.”

  “Ah. So there is an actual woman. Not just a client?” Scorch’s blue eyes dance with humor as he parks his ass on my desk and ruffles a hand through his dark hair. “Never thought I’d see the day some woman looked past your ugly mug, you ginger fuck.”

  “You’re just jealous I get more pussy than you,” I throw back at him, though we both know I’m full of shit. “Nah, there’s no woman. New client. That’s all.”

  I shove the file in his direction, and he scans through it. “Not much here.”

  “Nope. Nothing to work with.”

  “He’s a little put out that he has to actually do some work on this one.” Loz laughs.

  “That’s it.” I jump out of my seat, grabbing her up and ruffling her hair until it’s messy, while she screeches at me. “I do a hell of a lot of work thank you very much.”