Page 10 of Highest Bid

She blinked, then pressed a slender hand to her mouth. It only drew attention to what was left of the crimson stain on her full, sexy lips. Her hand dropped. “I have to go.”

“Whatever for?” he asked softly.

Lines creased her brow as a wary look crossed her face. “I have the midday shift today at the Garden Café.”

Jesus, she was thinking of work after the night they’d just shared?

Isn’t that all you want to get back to after sharing the night with a woman?

At his silence, she added, “I have a spare change of clothes in the staffroom locker.”

“And you were seriously going to walk through the club in my bathrobe?” he asked.

She shrugged. “It covers more skin than what the rest of the female staff wear in the nightclub.”

He exhaled roughly, oddly pissed at her for allowing anyone else to see her like...this. Sexy and angelic, and thoroughly fucked. Even more, he wanted to prolong their intimacy for as long as possible, without harsh reality intruding.

He took a step closer, and though she didn’t back away, her eyes turned wary. Like he was the big bad wolf stalking a runaway lamb.

He resisted grinding his teeth together. He’d thought she’d pulled out all the stops to get her hooks into him. But now it looked as though she couldn’t return to work fast enough.

Clearly, she knew the score. Imagined this was yet another one-night stand only. But it didn’t mean she couldn’t at least stay for breakfast and a coffee. It was unsettling to find the bed empty after a night of red-hot sex.

His dick kicked at the reminder, and he regretted the impulse to forgo clothes when her eyes slid to his groin, before she jerked her attention elsewhere.

So much for acting cool, calm, and collected.

“Don’t go yet,” he murmured.

*

Layla forced her stare above Galan’s collarbones. Did he seriously have to track her down while he was still naked? She couldn’t concentrate at the best of times around him. And now his hard cock waved to her like a red flag to a bull. Her hand fluttered to her chest. “You want me to stay?”

Galan blinked, as though he, too, was shocked by his request. But he recovered fast. “Of course. That is...if you want to stay?”

Hell, yes!

She reined back her triumph and thumbed a piece of her mussed bed-hair behind her ear. So much for looking sexy and wanton. She must look as if she’d been dragged through a prickly hedge backwards. “I’d like that,” she conceded softly. “It’s just—”

“Yes?” he prompted.

“I thought you were more a love ’em and leave ’em kind of guy?”

His whole body tensed. “True. But then I’ve never had to pay for a woman before.”

Her joy dissolved as something inside her broke, her face draining of all blood. She’d lived her entire life trying not to be like her mother, who used her body for gain. Had the auction reversed all that? “I’m not your whore.”

His breath whistled out, his narrowed stare sweeping over her face. “That’s not what I meant.”

She swallowed hard as all-too-familiar insecurities and doubts flooded through her. She needed some space to think and regroup. Then maybe afterwards she’d think of a plausible excuse to see him again. “I’d like to leave now.”

His lips thinned, a dozen emotions, too fleeting to name, shadowing his eyes. But he nodded as he stepped forward and thumbed the elevator button that opened the doors. “You don’t need a code to leave.”

Fuck. To think all this time she’d been keying in random numbers. Warmth swept up her face as the doors slid open and she stepped inside. The warmth turned into a burn as she bent and picked up her skirt and torn crimson thong, doing her best not to recall how they’d gotten there.

She scrunched the clothes in her hands, wondering if her heart looked just as crushed. Then, jabbing the button for the ground floor, she was careful not to glance at the man she’d had uninhibited, glorious sex with.

But she felt his stare on her as the doors slid shut. Only when the elevator glided soundlessly downward did she release the oxygen trapped in her lungs. She’d allow tears to come later, when she was alone in her apartment and not before. Right then, she could only be glad of the numbness stealing through her body.

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