Royally Mine: 22 All-New Bad Boy Romance Novellas Read online

  “Shay?” Katelin called, wanting to make sure her friend was all right. She could see her bloody knees from where she was standing and wanted to make sure she was okay going with Cain.

  Shayla bit her lip, looked up at Cain, then back at Katelin. She nodded and her lips quirked up in a small, reassuring smile.

  Katelin returned her friend’s nod, then looked up at Cale. “I’m okay. I just wanted to check on Shay.”

  “She’s in good hands with my brother. He’ll take care of her just like I’m gonna take care of you,” he said confidently. “Come on, let’s get you cleaned up.” With a hand on the small of her back, Cale steered her down the hallway to a set of double doors at the end. He opened one, without taking his other hand off of her, and gestured for her to enter ahead of him.

  Despite the fact that she’d experienced intense fear at a man’s hand a short while ago, Katelin wasn’t afraid of this man. Cale had done nothing but treat her gently. Yes, she’d been assaulted, but Cale had been there for her. He’d proven, through his actions after he’d beaten up her attackers, that he wouldn’t hurt her. She wanted to be with Cale. Was happy to be right where she was and if he, by some miracle, showed any interest in her, she was all for it.

  Katelin stepped inside the room and gasped. She’d never seen anything so beautiful in all her life.

  The entire room was decorated in shades of black, gray, and white. The walls were white and there were black-and-white photos sprinkled around the space. Beautiful mountainous landscapes. On the far side of the room was a king-size bed with gray sheets and a black comforter. It was on a raised platform, and Katelin knew she’d have a hard time getting up on it without some sort of step stool. It was messy, as if Cale had thrown back the covers and left them where they landed earlier that morning when he’d woken up.

  There were gray, black, and white pillows on the bed, and even on the floor around it. The carpet was light gray, and Katelin just knew it would be softer than anything she’d ever stepped foot on in her life.

  There were two small tables on either side of the bed, and white lamps hovering over the black cushioned headboard. Two dressers stood next to what had to be a walk-in closet, and the most comfortable-looking chair, almost big enough for two people to sit next to each other, sat in a corner. There was a tall bookshelf next to it filled to the brim with books haphazardly placed on the shelves. A black rug made out of some sort of fur lay under the chair, making the nook seem even cozier.

  The room was warm and inviting, and it made Cale seem even more human and less…princely than ever. Katelin wanted to go to the chair and sink down into the dark cushions and never leave, but Cale didn’t give her a choice.

  “Come on. I’ve got a first-aid kit in the bathroom. I want to make sure you’re not hurt.”

  “I’m not hurt,” Katelin said immediately, but went along with him without protest.

  He flicked on the light to the bathroom and she gasped again. She’d been impressed with the bedroom, but she was blown away by the opulence of the bathroom. Along a wall of windows was a claw-foot tub. It was big enough to easily hold two people. To the right was a shower that had to be as big as her and Shayla’s entire bathroom back at their apartment. The walls looked like marble and it was one of those showers with no door or curtain. The wall around it curved, keeping the water inside the space, while allowing for maximum room inside.

  Katelin could see two nozzles hanging down from the ceiling, and could just imagine there were several more inside the shower itself. The entire showering experience would be just as decadent as the room itself was.

  On the left side of the room were two sinks and a door, which probably led to a toilet. Everywhere her head turned, all Katelin could see was opulence. She would’ve felt awkward and out of place, but it was obvious Cale actually used this room. It wasn’t for show. His toiletries were strewn all over one side of the counter near one of the sinks. The mess made him seem more human…and less like a famous man whose picture regularly appeared in magazines.

  “Sit here,” Cale ordered, not waiting for a response, simply hoisting her up until she was sitting next to a sink. He gently spread her legs, making room for himself, then placed his hands on the marble countertop at her hips and leaned into her. She felt surrounded by him, and safe.

  “Tell me what happened,” he ordered.

  “Um, well…” Katelin was having a hard time thinking with Cale so close. He smelled awesome. She had no idea what cologne he was wearing, but it was driving her crazy. She wanted to bury her nose into the space between his neck and shoulder and get a bigger whiff.

  Cale put his finger under her chin and forced her eyes up to his. “Talk to me.”

  “We were walking home as usual and those guys just showed up behind us. They pulled us into the alley and were going to…you know…then you showed up.”

  Katelin stared into Cale’s dark blue eyes and tried to keep her hands to herself. She wanted to reach up and trace the lines in his forehead. She wanted to put her palms on his face and see if his beard was as scratchy as it looked. She wanted to trace his full lips with her fingers and then run both hands through his too-long light brown hair.

  She took a deep breath, and Cale’s eyes flicked down to her chest.

  Katelin froze as his tongue came out and licked his lips as if he were thinking about putting them on her. Slowly his gaze roamed down to her lap, then back up to her face. One of his hands moved from next to her hip, up to her face. He smoothed his palm from her forehead, over the top of her head, and down to her nape. His fingers curled there, his touch muted with her hair between his palm and her skin.

  She shivered under his intense gaze.

  “He had your panties in his hand.”

  His words were so far from what she was thinking, Katelin’s brow furrowed and she asked, “What?”

  “That asshole had your panties in his hand when I got to him. Did he hurt you?”

  “Oh…um. No. I mean, he was going to, I have no doubt.”

  Cale moved the hand that wasn’t at her nape to her hip. Katelin jumped when he touched her.

  “Easy,” he murmured. He stoked over her hip where her panty line would’ve been…if she still had them on. “Does this hurt?”

  She shook her head.

  “Hmmm. He had to have pulled pretty hard to get them to rip, I’d imagine. You’ll probably bruise.”

  Wanting to reassure him, Katelin said, “They were cheap cotton. And I bruise easily. I’ll be fine.”

  At that, Cale’s eyes came up to her face as if examining her. “The other guy had his hand pretty hard over your mouth.” Then he brought his hand up to her face and gently ran his fingertips over the skin around her mouth. He didn’t touch her lips, and suddenly she wanted that more than anything else.

  “If you bruise, I’ll kill him.”

  His words were harsh, but his touch was gentle.

  Katelin’s lips parted and she sucked in breath. Was she really sitting in Prince Cale’s penthouse bathroom while he touched her tenderly? Things like this didn’t happen to her. Poor foster kid who never knew her biological parents. She was a nobody.

  The hand Cale had at her nape tightened and he leaned toward her, resting his forehead against her own. “You have no idea what you do to me, do you?”

  Katelin licked her lips. “What I do to you?”

  “Yeah, princess, you make me lose control. All I want to do is strip all your clothes off and make sure those assholes didn’t put any marks on you.”

  Katelin squeaked. Princess? Strip off all her clothes? She’d die of mortification. Before she could say anything, Cale leaned away from her and took both of his hands off her. He walked over to a long, thin door and pulled a towel off of a shelf. He walked toward the shower and hung it on a metal rack.

  Then he stalked back to where she was sitting, too flabbergasted to have moved a muscle.

  “I bet after everything that happened, you want to wash their tou
ches off. Take your time. There’s plenty of hot water. Cain is probably having your friend shower too. You’ll feel better afterwards. Swear. I’ll put something you can wear when you’re done on the counter. Okay?”

  Katelin curled her fingers and pressed them into the cold marble countertop next to her thighs. All she could do was nod.

  For a long moment they stared at each other, then Cale murmured, “Fuck it,” and took the two steps back to stand in front of her once more. Both his hands went to the sides of her neck and he held her still in front of him. “I’m going to kiss you, Katelin Kriss.”

  It wasn’t phrased as a question and he didn’t ask if it was okay. His head came down toward hers and all Katelin could do was reach up to his waist and hang on.

  Prince Cale Alexander was kissing her. Not a brief peck on the lips, but a full-out assault on her senses. His thumbs rubbed against the bottom of her jaw as his tongue ran along the seam of her lips and she immediately opened for him.

  The second she did, he tilted her head and devoured her. Taking control of the kiss as if it was his right.

  And it was. At that moment, Katelin would’ve done whatever he wanted. Her eyes closed and she inhaled his manly scent as he made love to her mouth. It was erotic and hot and made her want more.

  Her fingernails dug into his sides as their tongues dueled and they learned the taste of each other. Cale’s beard scratched against her sensitive skin, but Katelin barely felt it. She was more turned on than she’d ever been in her life, from only a kiss.

  After way too short of a time, he pulled back and stared into her eyes. Neither spoke for a long moment. Finally, Cale said softly, “Shower. Then we’ll talk.”

  Katelin could only nod.

  Her tongue came out and swiped over her lips, savoring the lingering taste of him on her skin.

  His eyes immediately went there. “Fuck,” he said softly. Then gave her a rueful grin. “If you don’t get in the shower right this second, you might not make it there.”

  Katelin looked up at him and bit her lip.

  He smiled. An easy, knowing smile. “Shower, princess. Wash their touches away.”

  “Okay,” she replied softly.

  Cale kissed her on the forehead, resting his lips on her skin for a long moment, before pulling away and walking out of the room without looking back.

  Katelin pushed off the counter and stood on shaky legs. Without worrying if Cale was going to come in while she was getting undressed—he’d never violate her privacy that way, she knew that down to her bones—she undid her skirt and let it fall to the ground at her feet. She pulled off her shirt and winced when she reached behind her to unhook her bra. Shaking off the discomfort, she walked toward the shower as if on autopilot. On her way, she ran her hand over the towel…the warm towel.

  Smiling, she entered the huge shower and tried to figure out how it worked.

  Chapter Four

  Cale went straight to his closet and grabbed a dress shirt off a hanger. He figured it would cover more of Katelin and she’d be more comfortable in it than putting her shirt and skirt back on. He then went to his dresser and pulled out a pair of his boxers. He thought they’d be too big, but he wanted to offer them just in case. The thought of Katelin in his shower, naked, was enough of a temptation. If she had on one of his shirts without any panties on, he’d lose it.

  He was already on his way back to the bathroom to drop off the clothes when he heard Katelin let out a small “ow.”

  Cale was inside the bathroom and rounding the curved wall of the shower before he thought about what he was doing.

  Katelin stood with the water cascading down her back from one of the showerheads, completely naked.

  They both stood there in shock for a split second before Katelin’s shoulders hunched and she turned her back to him in embarrassment.

  Thoughts of apologizing and backing away ran through Cale’s head but before he could move, he saw what had made Katelin cry out.

  A bruise was forming on her shoulder blade where a large cut oozed blood.

  Cale ripped his shirt open, buttons flying off the material and bouncing off the marble walls of the shower. He fumbled with the button and zipper of his pants for a second before they released and he tore them down his legs and off. His socks came next, followed by his boxers.

  Naked as Katelin was now, Cale stepped toward her.

  Her skin was pale and dotted with the occasional freckle. He stood behind her, his hands hovering over her wet skin, afraid to touch her, but knowing there was no way he was leaving this shower without touching her.

  “Katelin,” he said softly. Reverently. “How did this happen?”

  She didn’t turn her head, but kept it bowed. The hot water hit her shoulder and ran down the unblemished side of her back, over her perfectly formed buttocks and beautiful legs. “I think when they pushed me against the wall. Is it bad?”

  Because she wasn’t screaming for him to leave, Cale ran his fingertips over the ugly mark on her back. “It’s on you. On your beautiful skin. Marking you. So yeah, it’s bad.”

  She turned her head and looked over her shoulder shyly. “I mean, does it need stitches or anything?”

  Cale shook his head. “No, princess. No stitches. But it does need to be cleaned. And if your exclamation earlier was any indication, it’s gonna hurt.”

  “I don’t think I can reach it. Will you help me?”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Cale told her, meaning more than just at the moment. Picking up a washcloth from a rack in the shower, he held it out, getting it wet under the water. Then he poured some of his soap onto it and worked it into a lather.

  “Tell me about yourself,” he ordered as he gently began to clean the ugly blemish on her skin. He wanted to distract her as much as he wanted to know more about her. Hell, he wanted to know everything.

  “I’m not that interesting,” Katelin said. “I’m twenty-eight, and have lived with Shayla since we left our last foster home together.”

  “Foster home?” Cale asked sharply.

  “Yeah. Never knew my parents.” She shrugged. “It wasn’t bad, but only because Shay was with me. We made sure to never be alone with the foster dad in our last house, and we stuck together like glue.” She gasped when the washcloth rubbed over a particularly sore spot, but continued on. “As soon as we turned eighteen, we moved out. Finished high school, got degrees at the local junior college, got lucky and were hired by the same company, and now here we are.”

  “Where do you work?” Cale asked, resisting the urge to lean down and kiss the sensitive skin at her shoulder. He forced himself to concentrate on making sure the cut on her back was clean.

  “I’m a data entry clerk at Washburn and Washburn.”

  “The accountants?”

  “Uh huh,” Katelin said, shifting under his ministrations.

  Without a word, Cale pushed against her shoulder lightly, getting her to turn so the water could wash away the soap on her back. When she flinched, he asked, trying to distract her, “Are you hoping to move up to be an accountant?”

  He looked at her face in time to see her wrinkle her nose. He wanted to kiss it.

  “No. My job doing data entry is boring enough. I can’t imagine having to do actual math.”

  He chuckled. “What do you want to do then?”

  Every muscle in her body stiffened at the question. Cale frowned. He didn’t like that. Not at all. He stroked the washcloth over the uninjured side of her back, trying to ease her. When her shoulders relaxed, he smiled.

  “It’s stupid.”

  “Nothing you want to do is stupid,” Cale reassured her. He took hold of her arm and held it out from her body, running the washcloth down to her fingers, then back up. She shivered in his arms. He shuffled forward until his chest touched her back. He rested his chin on her shoulder and asked again. “What do you want to do with your life? What’s your dream job?” Whatever it was, he’d make it happen, if he could.

>   “I want to be a mom,” Katelin said softly.

  All the blood in his body went straight to his dick at her words. He closed his eyes and had a vision of her standing right where she was, her belly protruding out in front of her, his child nestled within.

  “I know it’s not very women’s lib of me, but ever since I was a little girl, I’ve wanted someone to love. Someone who wouldn’t care what kind of clothes I wore, or that I didn’t have any parents of my own. I’d make sure my kids never doubted how much they were loved. A day wouldn’t go by without them hearing how much I loved them and wanted them.”

  What she wasn’t saying broke Cade’s heart.

  The king and queen might not’ve been the best parents, but he’d always had Cain. Having his twin by his side, not to mention the nannies and hired help, was enough for him to have never felt as if his life was somehow lacking. He’d known he was loved, and it killed him that Katelin obviously hadn’t had that in her life growing up.

  Turning her in his arms, he put his fingers under her chin and forced her to look up at him. His other arm anchored her wet, naked body to his own. His erect cock was pressed against her stomach, precome leaking out the tip in a constant stream. Her hands came up between them and flattened against his pecs. She wasn’t pushing him away, but she wasn’t grabbing on to him and pulling him into her either.

  “You haven’t asked my name.”

  She swallowed hard. “What’s your name?”

  His lips twitched. “Do you seriously not know?”

  Katelin hesitated and bit her lip. Her eyes dropped from his and she said, “I know who you are.”

  “Say my name,” he ordered, wanting to hear it fall from her lips more than he wanted his next breath.

  “Cale.”

  “Again.”

  Her eyes came up and met his once more. “Cale Alexander.”

  “That’s right. That’s who I am. That’s all I am. Just a man. Nothing more.”

  She nodded. It was only a slight dip of her chin, but it was agreement. “I’m just me,” she whispered. “I’m nobody special. What am I doing here?”