Page 12 of The Auction

Anya took out a tiny notebook from her jacket pocket and an even tinier pencil. She flipped to a fresh page, ignoring his eyes on her.

“Five brothers and sisters? Good Lord. Your poor mother.”

“Very poor mother.” She unfurled a yellow tape measure and slapped it across his back, shoulder to shoulder. “She died five years ago.”

Daniel winced in sympathy. While he was mourning his wife, she was mourning her mother. A loss just as painful. She showed no emotion as she stood in front of him to measure the width of his chest.

“And your father?”

Anya rolled her eyes behind her reading glasses. “My father? He sits in pubs all day with other old men, drinking himself to death and planning wars that will never happen to free Quebec from our Canadian overlords. He’s forgotten he even has children. Raise your arms.”

Daniel lifted both arms. He’d thought Anya had a chip on her shoulder, but no, she was carrying the weight of the world there.

He wanted to hold her. The idea popped into his head first, then the image of her in his arms. He imagined he’d get a pencil to the heart if he tried it. Might be worth it.

Still, the desire lingered, as did the embarrassment that he’d misjudged her so severely. When he’d seen her at Kingsley’s, he’d assumed she was nothing but another rich party girl, a socialite’s rebellious daughter. Kink was not a poor man’s game. Whips and floggers and steel spreader bars with leather cuffs didn’t come cheap. But no, she was a hard-working young woman with five siblings she was trying to support. If he’d been reluctant about being part of the auction before, now he was determined to see it through, if only to make sure Anya would be safe.

Just as he started to feel real sympathy for the girl, she nearly strangled him with the measuring tape while checking his neck size.

As she jotted down his numbers, Daniel studied her face. A shame she disliked him so much. He’d rarely seen a more beautiful girl in his life. A straight nose and soft, kissable skin. Long, lush eyelashes and an oval face. If he were an artist, he could spend his life sketching that face in every possible light. But preferably by candlelight. One candle right by the bed and her naked underneath him. Now that would make for a pretty picture.

“You’re staring at me.” Anya slammed her notebook and pencil onto the table as she picked up her measuring tape again.

“You’re beautiful. Of course, I’m staring.”

Anya released another disgusted sigh. “You rich dominants…you think women exist for your pleasure alone.”

Daniel started to protest, but Anya suddenly dropped to her knees in front of him. He swallowed as his stomach contracted hard. In the mirror, he could see her skirt ride up just enough to catch a flash of garter and pale thigh.

“Spread your legs,” she ordered. “And if you say, ‘That’s my line,’ I will shove my pencil into your testicles.”

“Never even occurred to me.” Daniel obediently spread his legs hip-width apart while Anya unfurled the measuring tape. “So, is this how you met Kingsley? Working for Vitale?”

“Yes.” Anya placed the end of the tape at the underside of his crotch. Daniel closed his eyes and thought of the festering bite wound of a Patagonian lancehead viper he’d seen on the leg of a tourist in Argentina. It helped. “He tried to make me measure his inseam twice. I told him I’d use his balls as a pincushion. He hired me on the spot.”

Daniel laughed. Typical. “Not many women can resist Kingsley. It must have impressed him that you did.”

Anya glared up at him from the floor. “I work sixty hours a week for the Signore. I don’t have time to date.” She made a note of his left leg measurement.

“Kingsley doesn’t date, either. He acquires.”

“He won’t acquire me. He said I could keep my full share at the auction. He won’t even deduct his fifteen percent. The last virgin made two-hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”

“Yes, but one of the other women he auctioned off a few years ago got bought by a psycho who choked her so hard she ended up in the hospital.” In a perfect world, kink was entirely consensual and nobody ever got hurt more than they wanted to get hurt. This was far from a perfect world.

“Kingsley promised that wouldn’t happen to me. And even if I got hurt, it would be worth it. That’s enough money to get my brothers and sisters our own place to live. Getting them away from my father is all I care about.”

Anya pulled the measuring tape away and stood. Looking down at her notes, she chuckled mischievously, almost flirtatiously.

“What?” Daniel asked.

She raised her eyebrow at him. “Kingsley’s inseam…it’s an inch longer than yours.”

Daniel glared at Anya. “You’re in trouble now, Celine.”

She giggled nervously. She sounded her age for once, like a young woman enjoying herself.

He stepped toward her using his superior size to corral her into the bend of the three-way mirror. God, he wanted to turn her around, raise the back of her skirt, and fuck that chip right off her shoulder. He’d watch her face in the mirror while inside her, and before he’d let her come, he’d make her say something nice about Canadians.

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