“Not by giving in. That would be too easy.”
The caress of the brush sends strange arcs of energy through my body—my chest, my sex. Even my lips seem to tingle. Every careful stroke echoes across my skin as if I’m hollow. As if there’s nothing inside me but air. “So I should fight him?”
She bites her lip, concentrating. Then she stands back, examining her work. My nipple looks perfectly pink, perfectly circular. Definitely more plump than before.
One nod, then she moves to the other side. I force myself to stand still, not to demand answers, not to beg for them. “Not fight, either. I like to think of it as a dance. He steps forward, you step back. Then you step forward, and he must step back. There’s a symmetry to it, a rhythm.”
I blink, feeling out of my depth. “Do you mean sex?”
“That has a rhythm, but I’m talking about something more. Any woman can fuck him, any woman can spread her legs. There’s nothing special with that.”
“I’m a virgin.” My voice comes out flat. I’m not bragging. What I so carefully protected has actually come to mean more to me than I would have expected—saving my family home. Saving my father.
I would have preferred a safe marriage. A safe life.
If I could magically change fate, I’d never want to know this desperation.
“They aren’t paying for your hymen,” she says. “They’re paying to teach you things. They’re paying so much money because the push will be greater—but so will the pull.”
The rhythm. I hear what she’s saying, but I’m missing it too. She’s trying to explain something to me, something important. And I know that she understands it—I know because she has a very dangerous man wrapped around her finger. I know because of the age-old wisdom in her blue eyes.
“I’m afraid,” I whisper.
She gives a half smile. “That’s part of the pull.”
And the greater the pull, the greater the push. “The more afraid I am, the more money I’m worth?”
“It’s not just fear that pulls them. Innocence and fragility and grace.”
I picture the old men, smoking cigars and drinking whiskey. “Everything they’re not.”
Her expression turns sly. “Don’t fight him, oppose him. Make him desperate for more.”
I’m staring at her, wondering if she’s taking her own advice—because I’m the one desperate for more. I want something concrete, some trick I can do with my hand or my tongue to make this work. Some universal safe word that will make sure I don’t get hurt. Instead she’s giving me philosophy.
And I’m so focused on it, so deep in it, that I don’t hear footsteps in the hallway.
Don’t hear the turn of the doorknob.
Then Gabriel Miller is standing in the room, his golden gaze on me. On the eyes that Candy made large and doe-like. On my pink nipples in hard little nubs. On the sensitive place between my legs, stripped bare of any covering.
The low sound he makes, almost a growl, snaps me out of the trance.
I pull the silk fabric over me, feeling exposed, abraded. I wasn’t willing to examine the idea of Gabriel Miller at the auction, even though I knew he would come. He enjoys seeing me humiliated, the daughter of his enemy. It isn’t enough to watch my father’s fall.
He wants to see mine too.
“Damon is downstairs, holding court,” he says. “Is she ready?”
Candy glances back at him, looking amused. “Of course. I was just telling her how to control whoever buys her.”
His voice is bland. “Do you think he’ll swing that way?”
She laughs. “Control isn’t kink, darling. It’s a way of life.”
The way he looks at her isn’t sexual, though. There’s something like respect in his eyes. Maybe it’s only there because she’s with Ivan Tabakov, but I don’t think so. She has a way of earning it herself.
The way she leans close to me is almost regal. Her lips by my ear, she whispers, “All you have to give them is your body. Your mind, your soul—that’s your leverage.”
That’s my ball of string, I realize. A lifeline, so I can find my way out of the maze at the end. She was playful before but dead serious at the end. Because this is life or death, my ability to move on from this. It could devastate me. It could break me.
Then she’s sweeping out of the room with a little wave for Gabriel.
We’re alone.
I’m insanely focused on the fact that there’s only a piece of silk protecting my body from him. So thin, so vital. He doesn’t stare at my body. His gaze meets mine, but I feel more vulnerable this way. He sees every doubt, every fear. “Did you touch yourself?” he asks, almost mildly.
Heat rushes to my face, and I know I’ll be bright red. “That’s none of your business.”
He studies me, thoughtful. “I think you did, little virgin. I think you touched your hard little clit and made yourself come, your eyes squeezed shut in the dark.”