celebrotica

Harry and Lochte’s Vegas Weekend, Written Sexily

Photo: ?Indigo-Pool/Getty Images, Fred Duval/FilmMagic, Mindy Small/FilmMagic

Doesn’t Harry know not to stand so close to Ryan Lochte in water? Particularly after alcoholic beverages have been consumed? Anyway, the video also shows them racing each other in the crowded pool. — Ryan Lochte Might Have Peed on Prince Harry in a Vegas, The Cut

Doesn’t Harry know not to stand so close to Ryan Lochte in water? Particularly after alcoholic beverages have been consumed? Anyway, the video also shows them racing each other in the crowded pool. — Ryan Lochte Might Have Peed on Prince Harry in a Vegas, The Cut

She was just a regular Midwestern girl in Las Vegas to do her bridesmaid’s duties. She couldn’t have known that she would meet a prince of the blood and a man crowned with laurels. That they would woo her.

There had been a scramble of excitement by the pool, and as she turned to watch, she caught her first glimpse of Prince Harry, standing tall and square-shouldered, fiery hair illuminated by pool lights. Already he had stripped free of his T-shirt, bare-chested before a sea of admiring iPhones. The fine-cut muscles of his chest rippled with every gesture and elegant turn of wrist as he pointed to himself and announced, “This guy.” He wore dark jeans that clung to the outline of strong thighs. No insignia of rank marked his royal person save a circle of dark-suited guards several yards away.

Mary Sue was only in Vegas for the weekend, decked out in a gold bikini for Lauren’s bachelorette party. She was unused to such splendor, celebrities everywhere, J.Lo’s sequined derriere glittering like a disco’s mirror ball. The bachelorettes had been dancing under the stars when the yell had gone up, free drinks by the pool. Men in black with wires in their ears stood by the velvet rope, evaluating whether entrants were hot enough, and Mary Sue passed — into a tequila-soaked fairy tale.

There he was: The third in line to the British throne, doing body shots off a cadre of willing coeds. But such pedestrian entertainment could not occupy a man of his stature for long. He looked up, his mischievous gaze sweeping the crowd

Mary Sue swore Prince Harry’s piercing eyes lingered on her bikini-clad form a moment, before he addressed the masses with an impetuous toss of his head. His hairline was full, in open defiance of his family, and when he spoke he pushed a hand through the thick, unruly locks so unlike his brother’s.

“We must have sport,” Harry decreed. “Is there no one here who will stand on behalf of his country, and accept my challenge?” Five thousand faces watched him pace the pool’s edge. Mary Sue’s heart was in her throat. Who in his right mind would dare take on the rogue Prince of England?

“Jeah,” came the call, a strong hail from behind Mary Sue’s shoulder.

People gave way, parting before this man like waves of the Red Sea. Turning, she saw the Moses of XS Nightclub outlined in the silhouette: tall, muscular, shirtless, topped with tousled hair. He stepped into the light, and when Mary Sue saw those electric blue eyes, she knew him immediately. Ryan Lochte, her girlfriends squealed, pointing. His name rippled through the amassed party-goers just as the muscles rippled across massive shoulders as he flexed.

As Mary Sue watched Ryan stride toward the prince, she thought: Our champion has come.

Ryan Lochte wore close-fitting swim trunks patterned with stripes and stars, his haul of Olympic medals around the thick column of his neck. Hopeful women trailed him, waving the metallic green shoes he had designed for Speedo like talismans. But Ryan’s eyes were only for Harry. He held out his hand, and the prince roared with delight.

“Ready when you are, Red,” said Ryan. The crowd shouted their approval as Harry’s bodyguards sang a round of “God Save the Queen.”

“Well met,” said Harry. “But as gentlemen we must have proper stakes. What do we swim for?”

Lochte smirked. “Seems I have enough of your London gold already.” The force of his testosterone was such that a nearby man staggered. A woman clutching a bespoke shoe fainted.

The prince stood his ground. He looked at the spectators, and this time Mary Sue was not imagining his eyes fixing on her. He pointed and snapped his fingers, and a man in a dark suit fished her free and brought her poolside.

“A golden girl, then,” said Harry, and he dropped into a proper bow before Mary Sue, like she was Princess Grace Kelly. Then Ryan’s eyes were on her too, and as she blushed he nodded, as though he had seen in one glance all that he and Mary Sue could be. And so the stage was set for a battle royale.

Her champions dropped down, poised to dive; someone gave her a whistle and she blew it. Two long, hard bodies hit the water in unison. The surface churned and frothed with their motion as they stroked the pool’s length. Again, again, again. For a moment it seemed the prince was holding his own against the athlete. Harry was made of whipcord after years in the Army. From a young age, he had been groomed to rule an island nation. Yes, he was a strong swimmer.

But Ryan swam for pride and for country, and also because he was the featured guest at this hotel and everything was comped. And perhaps, Mary Sue dared let herself think, perhaps he swims for love. It was magnificent to watch him move. When he won, he split the night with a roar. “Jeah,” the crowd echoed back. “Jeah.” He climbed from the pool and swept Mary Sue into a breathless embrace.

Harry emerged a moment behind, the jeans he hadn’t bothered to remove dripping water and slung low at the hips, clinging to the crown jewels. Though Ryan’s gargantuan arms were close around her, Mary Sue’s eyes were for the prince as he approached. Sportsmanlike, the men hugged.

“Come,” Harry murmured. “I grow weary of commoners.”

His guards ushered them through a secret hotel entrance and up a hidden elevator to Harry’s palatial suite. There the prince ordered champagne and toasted his competitor. “You are extraordinary,” he told Ryan, manners impeccable even as his words slurred. “Few would dare best me. I drink to your courage and skill.”

“Cool,” said Ryan. “Can I be a knight?”

“Perhaps in time,” said Harry, circumspect.

“Sir Lochte,” said Ryan, showing how big he could make his bicep. “Way fucking better than ‘Michael Phelps.’”

Mary Sue kissed them both, her valiant gentlemen. First the prince, as was only proper, then the Olympian. They tasted of champagne and tequila. It was a short distance from the billiard room to the bedroom, where a huge bed of ancient carved oak stood. It could fit ten, Harry told them, and had the night before.

They tumbled into it, all limbs and mouths and motion. They did more bodyshots, Ryan drinking from the hollow along Mary Sue’s collarbone and Mary Sue licking at the vee of the prince’s hipbone. Harry lapped from Ryan’s navel, and when Ryan confessed he hadn’t done this with another dude before, “let alone a royal dude,” Harry sighed with good nature. “Clearly you never went to boarding school,” he said, drawing Ryan down.

Harry was masterful as befit a true rake, and Ryan had learned a lot in the Olympic village, his sexual athleticism nearly equal to his prowess in the pool. Mary Sue was caught between them, and they soon made it a new competition to see who could best make her gasp. All three became tangled in silken sheets.

They moved together on the bed until it was impossible to say where one body ended and the other began, and the other began. Flanked by European and American royalty, she mounted the podium of ecstasy. Her field of vision narrowed to a haze of red hair like a lion’s mane and muscles big as mountains.

In the morning Harry was courteous, lifting a hand to bid them goodbye before going back to sleep. Ryan winked at Mary Sue and followed her on Twitter. She left with her head in the clouds. There was still Cirque du Soleil to be enjoyed with her bachelorette brethren, and a strip club after that, but for one glorious night she had known what it was to be a princess. And she had the pictures to prove it. And would soon sell them to TMZ, for a royal fortune.

Amelia Casey is a romance novelist. Her most recent book, Taken by the Highwayman, makes Lady Anabel Mayward’s bosom heave.