Page 16 of Auctioned

For one night, I can have that.

Her.

Sonnet.

That’s the name I gave her in my head as soon as I laid my eyes on her. Everything about her is pure poetry. Her full lips. The curve of her hips. Her soft voice.

Her screams.

Her tears.

I put my drink on the end table a little too hard. The glass clinks. The whiskey sloshes.

This possessiveness is dangerous. Unstoppable.

Fuck, would you look at her. She’s adorable. Defenseless, curled up into a ball beneath the duvets.

I should leave her. Should set my phone down.

Should follow my own goddamn advice and rest before the main event tomorrow.

I laugh wryly into the empty room.

Like I’ll ever be able to fall asleep with her down there.

I have to try. I log out of the CCTV app. Chug down the remainder of my whiskey then put it back on the table.

Then—because I’m definitelynotgoing to her cell—I call Oliver. I should’ve done that earlier, but fuck him. Fuck this tradition.

“James. Took you long enough.” Suspicion taints his voice. “I was expecting to hear from you hours ago.”

He’s smart to suspect me.

“Sorry, you’re right. We were done with her hours ago.”

“Then?”

My business partner tends to forget that I don’t answer to him or anybody. “Are you done with yours?”

His heavy footsteps echo in the background. Oliver is bulkier than I am. The man walks like a fucking bear.

“Baylor. Yes.” A door slams. More footsteps and a huff. I’m sure he’s dropped into the gray loveseat in his bedroom in South Hampton. In the house overlooking the ocean. “This little blonde, I swear. Tears and mascara never looked so hot on anyone. She wept, James. Fucking wept. Got on her knees in the middle of the living room and begged. Told Camden she loved him. That she’d thought they were going to get married. Afucking eighteen-year-old begged him to be her husband. I can only hope she repeats this performance tomorrow.”

Our buyers will eat that shit up.

Repulsive. All of them.

“She did?” I get up, strolling to the window. Looking outside at the howling rain.

“Yes.”

He goes on and on. How they locked her up in a room in their attic. How she banged on the floor while they clinked their champagne flutes.

Reminds me of the stories he told me about his virgin. Only his dad beat him up every time she screamed.

I let him talk while I think.

I was going to dump him. I don’t belong to him.

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