Playing Dirty (A Bad Boy Sports Romance) (23 page)

Chapter 4

Andrew

Two things were guaranteed for me this morning.

One of them was a consequence of the night before, and the other happened every morning. The first was a hangover, because I’d been to an event last night. I couldn’t remember what it was, possibly a charity, but there’d been a lot of champagne and scotch. I took pride in the fact that I could hold my drink, and with the number of high-class events of one variety or another that a royal life entailed, alcohol had been a regular part of my diet for much of my life. But no one was completely immune, and I’d been profoundly bored at last night’s event, and so I had really
drunk
. I hoped I hadn’t done anything stupid, or that if I had it hadn’t been recorded by the tabloid photographers that swarmed these sorts of events.

I really didn’t need any more bad publicity.

The other thing I was guaranteed to wake with, and with which I woke every morning, was a massive erection. Colloquially referred to as ‘morning glory’, I had, since puberty, always woken with a full-blooded boner. Regardless of how much I’d drunk the night before or whatever else I might’ve done, my morning glory was always present and correct. I liked to think that this was because my cock was an optimist, eager for the new day and whatever opportunities that day might bring, and although those opportunities might not be present right now, there was no harm in being ready.

Just in case.

I also attributed my general happy disposition to this tendency; there was nothing like some morning wood to put you in a good mood for the day.

Right now that good mood was being thoroughly tested, however, as I hadn’t been gently awakened by time or the sun, nor even prodded awake by an urgent alarm. I’d been wrenched unwillingly from my slumber by the sudden roar of a vacuum cleaner. This was never a good way to wake, and for a man with a hangover it was doubly unpleasant, so I took a moment to remind myself that however much it felt like it, there was not a chainsaw being slowly pushed through into my ears.

“Fuck…what in the hell…?” I finally managed to grunt, prying sticky eyes open and looking for the evil perpetrator.

“Good morning, your Highness.”

I recognized the voice before the fuzzy outline resolved itself into a distinct figure through the haze of drink and tiredness. Keira smiled at me, and then continued to vacuum.

“Are you really vacuuming?” Either that or I’d been transported to the seventh circle of hell.

My head pounded as I sat up, and Keira smiled politely again. “Well spotted, your Highness,” she replied, her eyes gleaming.

When she was the one controlling the conversation, Keira was suddenly a whole lot cheekier and a whole lot less respectful. I wasn’t sure that was a good thing, but the thought of bending her over the bed and giving her a good spanking to teach her a lesson made my cock even harder.

“What time is it?”

“Eight o’clock.”

“In the morning?”

I’d been told that there was an eight o’clock in the morning, but I’d never personally wanted anything to do with it. I felt that one eight o’clock per day was enough, and the one in the evening suited me far better. “Why would you do this?” I asked, rubbing my head.

“It’s my job,” Keira pointed out.

“I was bloody well asleep.”

“Orders from the Queen,” she said. “Your room was to be cleaned whether you were awake or not.”

Through the fragments of my disordered mind, I wondered if I was being deliberately tortured by my mother or my maid. Both had the capacity to do it, both had the desire to do it, and though I was loath to admit it, both had cause.

Maybe they were even in it together.

“You couldn’t come back in…” I glanced at the clock. “Six hours?”

“Her Majesty seemed quite specific.”

It might have been my imagination but I was sure she was now revving the vacuum cleaner like a motorbike engine. Was that possible? I hadn’t had enough experience with vacuum cleaners to be sure.

Well, if she wanted to play dirty, then two could play at that game…

I threw back the covers to get out of bed and was pleased to see Keira almost drop the vacuum cleaner hose in shock. I didn’t sleep in the nude, but the boxers I wore did nothing to hide the erection currently tenting them. Keira’s eyes widened as she stared for what was obviously far longer than she intended to before snapping her gaze back to the vacuum cleaner and her work. She was bright red and flustered, far from the cocky girl she’d been mere moments ago, and I smiled to myself.

“Leave the vacuuming.” I felt that I had, quite rightly, regained the upper-hand. Somehow my prominent tumescence seemed to convey authority.

“But I…”

“There’s plenty of other cleaning to do—quieter cleaning. We both know you didn’t have to start with the vacuuming, but you damn well chose to. Very funny, but the joke’s over. Now make the bed.
Please.
”

For a moment, Keira looked in two minds, somewhere between capitulation and slapping me. Her discomfort at my sleazy behavior had seemingly swiftly turned into disgust and seethed from there into anger. But what could she do? This was her job. And right now, given how she had treated me, I was quite happy to exploit the weakness.

My erection leading the way, I stalked across the room to a chair and flopped down in it, still making no effort to hide myself, my boxers now looking like the big top at a circus.

“The bed,” I repeated.

Keira did as she was told, vitriol clearly bubbling beneath the surface.

I watched. The maid’s outfit of a matronly black dress, white apron and black stockings had been designed more for practicality rather than visual appeal, but Keira’s curves still made it sexier than anything, and as she bent across the bed she inadvertently displayed more and more leg. They were great legs, I considered from my vantage point, my arousal showing no sign of diminishing.

“You’ll never get it done from there,” I pointed out.

The beds at Richmond were of course king-sized, and then some. They were enormous, which was odd as they were also antiques, and weren’t people supposed to be smaller in the past? Whatever the reason, they were huge beds and even I would’ve struggled to reach the middle if I were standing at one side. “You’ll need to get up on the bed,” I added.

Keira shot back a look of pure disdain but I saw that, if only for a split second, her eyes darted down to my still-proud erection. She crawled up onto the bed and my eyes widened in appreciation as her dress became more skewed. She set to work, straightening and tidying, unavoidably bending over and twisting this way and that, and I stared in voyeuristic pleasure with a half-smile quirking my lips up. Her skirt was now disarranged such that I could almost see straight up it, and it was a quite a sight. She had an ass that more than surpassed that of Kathy the stewardess from the other week, and I resisted the urge to walk right over and lightly spank it before pinning her to the bed and tearing off her stockings with my teeth.

I was willing to admit that staring at her like this was a morally grey area. On the one hand, she shouldn’t have woken me from a hangover with a vacuum cleaner, and on the other, I simply couldn’t look away. She was more than desirable; more than stunning….she was fucking beautiful.

With the bed now properly made, Keira turned, and for the first time, she seemed to notice my appreciative gaze. She blushed a deep crimson, embarrassment and anger mingled, and she scrambled off the bed and hurried for the door.

“Don’t go yet,” I called, enjoying the fact that I was making her blush so much. It was fucking adorable. “There’s still something that needs a good polishing.”

Keira stopped, almost unwillingly, turning in unspoken question. “What is it that needs polishing?” she asked.

“My royal scepter,” I said, still grinning as I gestured to my boxers.

Keira’s blush deepened further, and she hissed angrily at me. “You really are a bastard!”

She rushed for the door.

“Keira! I was kidding! I was just…” the door slammed and cut me off. “Kidding,” I finished lamely.

As my optimistic morning glory shrank, I wondered if maybe I’d pushed her too far. I’d thought she deserved to be taken down a peg, but I suddenly felt very guilty, which wasn’t an emotion I was even remotely accustomed to. Why did this girl make me feel so…I couldn’t even put a word to it, honestly. What the hell was so different about her? And just how long would I let her drive me wild before I couldn’t resist her for a second longer?

Something told me it wouldn’t be long now…

Chapter 5

Keira

Cheeks still burning hotly, I hurried away from Andrew’s room, vacuum cleaner in tow. What the hell had I been thinking taking this job? How could I have thought that working in the same place as that man-whorish sleaze would be anything other than a horrible trial? Well, no more. I would go to Rogers now and resign, or at the very least I’d request to be moved to another residence. I’d kept my temper and resisted the urge to knee my boss in the groin, as Rogers had suggested, but I couldn’t tolerate such behavior anymore. I didn’t care that he was a member of the royal family; that didn’t give him the right to be an ass.

“You call this clean?” The sharp voice of Prince Michael echoed down the corridor, and I peered cautiously around the next corner. The younger prince was taking a pair of maids to task over the standard of their work. “I could have done better myself!”

You should try it sometime
, I thought to myself. I wasn’t exactly getting a good impression of the British royal family, or at least not its younger generation. At the moment I wasn’t sure who I disliked more, the snob or the sleaze, but neither of them had made a good first impression on me at all.

Prince Michael continued his tirade from around the corner. “I think I shall have to have a word to
all
the new staff! You’ll all be lucky if you even have jobs by tomorrow!”

In another mood, I might have gone around the corner and told the prince exactly what I thought of him, or I might just as equally have suffered his unpleasantness in silence and got on with my job, reminding myself that it was well paid and I had a trip around the continent to finance. But after my earlier encounter with Prince Andrew…though it galled me to admit it, his behavior had really got to me. It had upset me, and I was feeling fragile, so I didn’t want to face another obnoxious prince if I could possibly avoid it.

I hastily ducked through a door, and somehow found myself in what appeared to be my very own personal paradise. The room was a large gallery, lined with paintings. I recognized the artists from their style and had seen some of the pictures in books, but to see the actual articles, there in front of me, works of art that so few people ever got to see…a lump rose in my throat and I suddenly felt like I might actually cry.

I had a job to do, duties to attend to, things to clean, but I couldn’t leave without taking a proper look—it just wasn’t within me. A few minutes wouldn’t hurt, after all. I began to circle the room, moving slowly and yet far more quickly than I would have liked, for fear of being missed or caught. They were portraits for the most part: former Kings and Queens, ancestors of the Arlington family, nobles and notables from history. The British royal family insisted on nothing but the best, and in artistic terms they’d received exactly what they’d paid for.

A thin veil of dust laid across the frame of one studious-looking gentleman of the sixteenth century, and I used my duster to gently wipe the label clean, proclaiming the identity of the artist and sitter.

“Be careful. These things are irreplaceable.”

I jumped at the voice and then jumped still higher as I turned to see the Queen herself strolling across the gallery towards me, dressed in a tweed skirt and a somewhat frumpy jumper.

Oh, crap.

Panic seared through me—this was turning into a hell of a morning!

“I’m so sorry, your Majesty,” I said. “I didn’t hear you come in. I mean, not that you shouldn’t—your house and all. But I…I wouldn’t have...if I’d known. I’m probably not supposed to be in here.”

“I don’t know if you’re not supposed to,” the Queen said mildly. “But people seldom seem to come in here anyway.”

“Really?” I said, momentarily forgetting exactly who I was speaking to out of surprise. “You’ve got…I mean, look at…”

“I take it you like them,” the Queen said with an arched brow as my voice trailed off.

I nodded and pointed to a nearby painting. “I do. This is Velazquez, isn’t it?”

The Queen seemed intrigued. “It’s unsigned and there’s no label.”

“But the brush strokes…and the…”

Words failing me again, I tried to put what I was thinking into an expressive mime, describing the style of the Spanish master, Diego Velasquez. I wasn’t altogether sure it was successful.

The Queen observed in silence, a little smile on her thin lips. “Indeed. And yes, it is Velazquez. Very well spotted, young lady.”

“Oh, it’s probably quite obvious,” I mumbled, embarrassed at how excited I’d gotten.

“Only to some. You really do have quite an eye for art.”

“Thank you. I studied it in college.” Despite my trepidation at the situation, there were questions I felt I had to ask. “Did Velazquez paint any of the household staff for the British royal family? Like he did for the Hapsburgs?”

“He did,” the Queen affirmed, her small smile widening almost imperceptibly, like the movement of continental shelves. “But those are kept in the Long Gallery.”

“I’d love to see them.” I’d gasped out the words before I really had a chance to think them through. “When I’m off duty,” I added, my cheeks burning. “And if that’s all right with you, your Majesty.”

She nodded. “Of course. These paintings are meant to be seen. We lend some of them to galleries around the world on occasion, but transporting such precious things is so dangerous, and the insurance so ruinous. I fear there are many that have never left this house, and it’s such a shame.”

I choked backed a sob that I hadn’t even known was coming, and the Queen put a hand on my shoulder. “My dear, are you quite all right?”

God.
My first proper day on the job and I was already cracking like an egg.

“I…yes. Just a bit overwhelmed,” I replied, trying my best to compose myself. “You’re very nice, and…well, it’s been a crazy morning.”

The Queen’s face stiffened into something sterner. “I see. Which one of my sons acted like a prick?”

It was an extraordinary phrase to hear in that posh upper class accent, but adding on the fact that it was spoken by the Queen almost robbed me of speech entirely.

“I…”

The Queen nodded. “I see. Both of them. Don’t.” She held up a hand, as I’d been about to speak. “You’re either about to defend them, which I won’t believe, or you’re about to tell me what they did, which I don’t want to know. I know I should probably find out, but it’s just depressing. These days I prefer to just know when they did something wrong, without specifics, give them a clip round the ear and be done with it. Honestly,” she sighed, “it feels like I was too lax on the first and overcorrected on the second.”

I had no idea what to say. I hadn’t expected to be having any sort of conversation with the Queen at all, let alone listening to her confide anything about her two sons.

“They are both decent,” the Queen seemed sad as she spoke. “In their way. They just don’t know how to behave, you know? I was lucky. My father became King during the war and that gave him a quite different view of people, so he raised me accordingly. My husband was the same. Perhaps if he had lived longer…” She broke off. “But why am I telling you this? I’m sure you have better things to do than listen to an old woman go on about what imbeciles she raised. Come, tell me more about my paintings. Your tasks can wait a while longer.”

Walking around the private gallery and discussing art with the Queen had to rank as one of the more surreal hours of my life so far, but it was the most enjoyable time I’d had since I’d come to Richmond and perhaps since I’d arrived in Britain. While not an art student, the Queen clearly knew her collection and was as enthusiastic and passionate an art lover as I was. It was nice to see how art could bond people, whether they were continents apart or in vastly different social classes like we were.

“Well,” the Queen finally said, glancing at her watch, “I must get back to work. There’s a mountain of paperwork in my office and somewhere in this house there’s a pair of offspring to be taken to task.”

I opened my mouth to speak but was again silenced by the Queen’s raised hand—the woman had an unsurprising authority in everything she did.

“I shan’t mention your name to my sons, so don’t trouble yourself. They’re always doing something stupid so they’re never surprised when I tell them off. I fear it may have lost its sting.”

She reached out a hand which I took, gingerly and uncertainly, and she shook my hand firmly.

“I have very much enjoyed our chat, Keira. Perhaps when you’ve finished work tomorrow afternoon, we might go to the Long Gallery to see some of the paintings you were asking about. I could certainly use your eye for art to teach me some more things, and I think you will be quite impressed with the paintings.”

“Thank you, that’d be really lovely, and an absolute honor,” I replied, blushing again.

She nodded. “I grew up here and it still takes my breath away.” She looked at me with a grave countenance, suddenly seeming older than she was. “It’s a privilege, you know. And not one that I take for granted. But I wasn’t always so appreciative of that fact. One day my sons will have the epiphany that leads them to understanding just what it means to be royalty.”

I nodded. “I think there’s a lot of good in them.”

I felt more than a little presumptuous in saying it, but the Queen smiled. “I hope so.”

With that, she turned on her heel and strode out, leaving me dumbfounded. The day so far had been one of extremes; I’d somehow seen the worst of working here and also the best. On top of that, I’d seen the worst of royal privilege and also the best. I wasn’t leaving this job, I knew that now. There was no way that I could leave before I’d seen more of the artistic treasures that this palace had to offer.

But that wasn’t the only reason why.

Given our encounter this morning, it seemed ridiculous that I would be thinking this at all, given what a royal prick he was, but something told me that I wasn’t yet finished with Andrew. There was something about him keeping me interested, although I had no idea what that could possibly be, and as much as I hated to admit it, he continued to play on my mind.

I just wished he’d play elsewhere…