Prince Albert (A Step-Brother Romance #4)

“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,” I say. “Seems like a weird fetish.”

“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 Raine and tell her that I'm going to buy a plane ticket, that I will meet her and Phoenix in Amsterdam and pretend none of this ever happened.

I'll forget I'm a soon-to-be princess.

I'll forget that I'm Albie's soon-to-be-stepsister.

I'll forget that I'm his wife.

If I had any sense, that's what I'd do.

But I don't.

Albie grabs my wrist, right in the hallway, and pulls me into the nearest room. It's a game room filled with antique furniture like every other room in the palace. Except this room has old chess sets and a gilded billiard table. In the center of the room sits a circular gaming table topped with cream and gold marble, surrounded by gilded antique chairs.

Albie pulls me into the room, walking briskly around the area without a word before going to the door and securing the lock. He turns to me, his back against the door. "You and I need to stop this back-and-forth," he says. "We both know you’re dying to have me.”

I back up until my back is flush against the marble topped table, taking Albie in. He's wearing a dark suit, tailor-made for him, that sets off his blue eyes and dark hair perfectly, as if he stepped off the pages of a fashion magazine. But what I see in those eyes is nothing like what I'd see in a magazine. It's intense, feral. Filled with lust.