Page 16 of To the Highest Bidder

“I prefer you naked,” he said, as she sat on a stool in the kitchen.

“Then you should turn the air conditioning off. It’s cold in here.”

He laughed. “Let me show you around. You’re going to be living here at night, so you should feel comfortable to change things to suit yourself.”

She looked at him with an expression of bemusement. “Living here?”

He frowned. “As we agreed.”

/> “No.” She shook her head. “We never agreed that.”

He came to stand in front of her, separating her legs so that he could fit within the triangle of her thighs. “Yes, we did. You were very secretive about what you do with your days, but you told me I could have your nights.”

She frowned. “Not every night.”

He put his hands on her hips and ran them upwards, so that he could slide his thumbs along the underside of her breasts. She moaned quietly as sensations began to once more lap at her resolution.

“We agreed to nights. At my discretion.” He kissed her lips lightly.

She was about to object when she realised that she was sticking to her guns for no real reason. “Okay. We can just… play it by ear.”

He ran a hand through his hair. “You are frustrating me, you know that?”

She grinned up at him cheekily. “I hope so. I like it when you’re impatient.”

“Do you?”

She blinked. “I’ve never met anyone like you before.” She ran her fingers over his naked chest, her eyes wide with wonderment.

“And what am I like?” He asked, pulling her forward on the chair.

“You’re determined. And confident. Confident in a way that borders on arrogant, except there’s something very charming about you too. Dangerously charming. Like a poisonous mushroom.”

He burst out laughing. “I have certainly never been called that before.”

She shrugged. “I’ve been used to being in charge for so long, it’s nice to have someone else call all the shots for a while.”

It was a strange thing to say, and in the coming weeks, he would bitterly regret that he hadn’t pushed her to elaborate on the comment. But in that moment, his arousal was straining against the fabric of her underwear, and he seemed to lose the ability to think of anything else. He slipped a finger under the elastic of her pants and slid them aside, so that he could take possession of her body again. His fingers needled the soft flesh of her backside as he pushed her forwards, holding her on the edge of the seat as he thrust into her hungrily and demandingly.

She was shocked when she felt herself come. Only minutes after having experienced the most intense orgasm of her life, she was again ascending that fever pitch of pleasure. She screamed into his dark apartment, throwing her head back. He grinned as he dipped his head lower and claimed her breasts, tracing her dark aureole with his tongue. She screamed with the pure white-hot pleasure she was feeling.

He moved again, and she fell apart, grabbing his shoulders and wrapping her legs around his waist to hold him tight. Her muscles contracted around his length, and he lost all hold of his own control. He held her to his chest, his breathing ragged, as his body shook from the power of the feelings she evoked in him.

“I may never let you go,” he said with a warning note in his voice. “How do you feel about being my permanent sex slave?”

Her heart turned over in her chest. That is what she was, essentially. It was not romance. It was not love. It was sex. That was why she’d come there in the Mac coat. To show him that she was okay with that. That she wouldn’t have expectations beyond the bedroom. Yet hearing him explain their relationship in such black and white terms left her with an aching gulf in her chest.

“I think even you couldn’t afford to keep me forever,” she parried, intentionally striking back at him in what she hoped was an equally painful way. Money. She wanted him to think it was a part of why she was there, even though it had nothing to do with it.

“You’d be surprised,” he drawled sardonically. “Speaking of which, I need you to leave me your bank details.”

Her quip had backfired spectacularly. Tears sparkled on her eyes and she had to dip her head to hide them. She shifted on the stool, breaking their connection. And as soon as he moved backwards, she took advantage of the space to stand herself, and turn her back on him. The damned tears weren’t contained to her eyes though. One slid down her cheek. She couldn’t let him see her cry. After all, she’d agreed to this. The best sex in her life, and he was basically paying her for it.

She’d never felt so cheap.

“I presume a direct transfer is acceptable?”

“Mm-hmm,” she mumbled, surreptitiously wiping at her eye’s moistness. Jane didn’t often curse the particular set of circumstances that had led to her present situation. But in that moment, she cursed them all. Her dead mother. Her drunken, runaway father. And the younger sister she was responsible for caring for. If she hadn’t had to cover Anita’s expensive school fees, she would have been free to attain a job that was less demeaning years earlier. Instead, she had found an incredibly lucrative temporary role that would probably end up breaking her heart.

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