Total pages in book: 38
Estimated words: 36487 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 182(@200wpm)___ 146(@250wpm)___ 122(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 36487 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 182(@200wpm)___ 146(@250wpm)___ 122(@300wpm)
I can’t stop thinking about him and neither can my nipples, apparently.
The heat between us.
The way that he soaked my panties with just a glance.
The way that somehow, some way, he made me want to give myself to him. Like a gift.
No charge.
But I’m not here to be gifting myself to anybody. The auction is in full swing. The tension palpable.
I’m second-to-last in line. It’s almost go time.
On the stage right now is a lovely brunette, emerald-eyed, creamy-skinned. Blessed with just-right freckles. Her filmy white barely-there dress showing off her assets with a capital A.
The bidding is heating up quickly, starting at 150 and now to 185. $185,000. Dang.
She turns on her Prada stiletto, doing this twirl, then steps away from the crowd. I’m so close I see the goosebumps rising on her forearms, a fresh wave with every bid.
Her goosebumps are contagious. They prickle me all the way down the small of my back.
Neither he nor the rest of the men in the audience can see me. They remind me of hounds on a hunt.
I’m backstage, holding the thick velvet curtain between my trembling fingertips. I let the sound of the bids fall away to eavesdrop on the girls chittering like starlings behind me. They’ve all been bid on, except for a statuesque redhead who’s glancing nervously at her perfect French manicure. She’s last, after me.
“But, I mean, hypothetically, just theoretically, what if one of us isn’t a virgin?” the platinum blonde with a pixie cut asks. She went on the block early and has been pacing around backstage stirring up drama ever since.
Another girl says, “No cherry, no money. Simple.”
Pixie Cut groans.
For the first time, the reality of what I’m about to do starts to sink in. I dig my fingernails into my palms.
Have I gone completely bananas here? Am I really doing this?
Now from the stage another bid. “240,” barks a guy with a thick accent and forearms as big as my thighs. He already bought another girl earlier, a pretty and voluptuous thing with a lotus tattoo on her wrist, which sparks a brief and fuzzy vision of losing my virginity in a threesome. Which isn’t what I had in mind at all.
What exactly did I have in mind?
A broody, hulk of a man with dark hair and a crooked nose…
“Two-fifty,” bids another man.
There’s no way the bidding will get that high for me and I know it. The girl on the stage is a bombshell; I’m hardly more than a firecracker. But even if it were to get even half that high, it would be worth it.
The sexy guy from outside crosses his arms, watching, seething. Tapping his left foot on the floor, then his right, then back again. He’s got this scar through his eyebrow that makes me shudder and clench my inner muscles.
Bananas for sure. But it’ll be worth it…if it’s him.
The practical part of myself shuts down those frivolous, romantic thoughts. But my body doesn’t listen.
My nipples harden into diamond-hard peaks. Warm slickness pools between my legs as my heart rate reaches the stratosphere. I want him. Desperately. With a burning intensity that makes my clit pulse and quiver.
I shift my thighs slightly, making sure the skirt of my dress isn’t pinned between my legs. Though, on second thought, a wet spot would probably drive the bidding up.
I tilt my head to get a better view between the curtain and the wall of the stage. He’s got his jacket off with his sleeves rolled up. Massive veins crisscross his forearms, leading down into meaty, strong hands.
God. His fingers are probably as big as some guys’ dicks.
He’s bigger than the men around him. When we were face-to-face, he towered over me, his tux only accentuating his solid thickness.
He’s in the second row, off to the side. He hasn’t bid on any of the girls yet. I learned from the other girls that the name he gave is Daniel.
I know that isn’t his real name, and it doesn’t suit him anyway. Definitely not.
Whatever he’s really called, it’s stronger. More mysterious than that.
The bidding on the bombshell starts to slow at 250. She does another twirl on the stage, and a handful of guys catcall her in return. But “Daniel” just clenches his jaw, looking angrier, resting his forearms on his knees and leaning forward to stare at the floor.
So much fury and intensity that it makes me shiver while heat balls inside me. Desire, sure, but I can’t lie, not to myself, not right now. Fear flutters through me like dark butterflies and the room starts to spin.
The brunette goes for 255. Now it’s my turn.
Shit.
I will myself to be calm, force myself to remember poise and grace from my almost-forgotten ballet lessons. I take a deep breath and close my eyes before I step out into view. But it doesn’t work.