Stealing Beauty (Possessing Beauty Book 2)

I tried to shake it off. I’d gone back to my own room and collected myself, frowning as I dressed to go out. I’d hit the clubs, and I’d tried to lose myself in the eager, willing women who surrounded me, but it’d been useless.

Something was broken in me. I had no interest in the girls draping themselves all over me, willing to bend over backwards to get just a taste of me. It suddenly seemed cheap, and boring. Fuck, I wasn’t even hard.

I’d gone home alone that night. And the night after. And the one after that.

I’ll skip to the end: I’d gone home alone for the last four weeks, ever since I’d laid eyes on Claire.

She’d possessed me somehow. She’d captivated me, and hooked me deep like I didn’t think I could be hooked. After all, there were a lot of willing women in the world, and I had ten solid inches for each of them.

Not anymore, apparently. Because apparently, my magnum only got hard at the thought of one woman now.

Oh, right, and she didn’t exist. The reason Claire D’Claire sounded like too weird of a name for someone to have was because it was too weird of a name for someone to have. The name was bullshit, and the room had been paid for via an encrypted online transfer that even I couldn’t glimpse at.

All I had was a fake name, a memory of her burning into my head, and the few things she’d left in the room when she’d run — some clothes, her orange blossom scented shampoo, and her high-heels. Well, one of them at least. I had one shoe of hers, as if this was some sort of fucking fairytale.

Of course, a fairytale wouldn’t involve me wrapping the pair of panties she’d left behind around my cock and stroking myself until I’d emptied my balls at the memory of her.

I’d done it about two dozen times since that night.

I shook my head as I followed my friends up the front steps to the palace.

Of course, I had a reputation to uphold, especially to my three best friends. Hell, I was Prince Magnum. I dropped panties left and right, and I bedded a different woman nightly. The fact that I’d been lying to by best friends about this for weeks, and literally making up fake hook-ups was depressing, not to mention sad. But I couldn’t tell them the truth. I couldn’t tell them I was hung up on some mystery girl I’d never even slept with — one who’d left me a fake name, a few pairs of panties, shampoo, and a shoe.

This night was going to suck. I was going to have to fuck around and pretend I was trying to get into the panties of a bunch of random princesses. I didn’t really pay attention to the latest who’s who of the royalty in the world, and though I knew of King Lucian of course, I knew his daughters mostly stayed out of the limelight, and certainly out of the tabloids.

Wonderful. I was going to have to dance and flirt with a cloud of prudish, plain-jane, shut-in princesses all night, all while my head and my heart was stuck on my mystery Claire.

The storm clouds around my head only darkened, my mood only souring as we stepped down the lavish hallways of the palace towards the sounds of the crowd in King Lucian’s enormous ballroom. I grabbed two champagnes off a waiter’s tray, slugging back one and keeping the second as I took a deep breath and stepped in. Time to put on my mask, act the part, and —

And whoa.

My heart jumped in my chest. My head spun. My whole world stopped for a second. My cock throbbed rock hard in my tuxedo pants.

Impossible. It wasn't possible. She wasn’t real. She didn’t even exist, to the point where if I didn’t have her shoe and her panties, I’d assume she’d been a figment of my imagination.

Expect here she was. Here, in Avlion, at King Lucian’s suitor’s ball, standing with some other girls, looking fucking radiant and gorgeous and sexy as hell in that green and gold dress, with her red hair falling around her shoulders and her green eyes sparkling. My mystery girl.

Claire D’Claire.

I was aware of slugging back the rest of my champagne, pushing away from Caspian and Cade, even though they were talking to me about something or other, and stalking right across the ballroom towards her.

I ignored everything else. I didn’t even see anything else as I shouldered my way right through people towards her. I was a few steps away, when suddenly, she turned, and her eyes went wide.

Oh, she remembered me alright.

She’d run from me once, but Claire D’Claire, or whoever she really was, wasn’t getting away from me again. Tonight, she’d be mine, come hell or high water.